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The Spanish Link In Cracking the Enigma Code
peetm sends this quote from the BBC:
"When the Spanish Civil War began in 1936, both Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy sent troops to help the nationalists under Franco. But with the conflict dispersed across the country, some means of secure communication was needed for the German Condor Legion, the Italians and the Spanish forces under Franco. As a result, a set of modified commercial Enigma machines were delivered by Germany. ... A key figure in trying to understand it was Dilly Knox, a classicist who had been working on breaking ciphers since World War I. He was fascinated by the machine and began studying ways in which an intercepted message might in theory be broken, even writing his own messages, encrypting them and then trying to break them himself. But there was no opportunity to actually intercept a real message since German military signals were inaudible in Britain. However, the signals produced by the machines sent to Spain in 1936 were audible enough to be intercepted and Knox began work. ... Within six or seven months of having his first real code to crack, Knox had succeeded, producing the first decryption of an Enigma message in April 1937."
Maybe the first Brit to read the code, but not the first person. The Poles began to read Enigma messages back in 1932-33 according to the excellently-researched "Enigma: Battle For the Code" by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore. The article is a little clearer, but still can lead one to assume that Dilly Knox was the first to break Enigma messages. He was not. Not to diminish his part in the Enigma saga, but the Poles were reading it long before any other nation.
Someone accomplishes some groundbreaking work in cryptography and of course /. doesn't have an article on untill its old news.
According to Wikipedia, the Polish cracked the code in 1932.
I'm always suspicious of "one person" doing anything; usually, it takes a whole group of people to accomplish these things.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
The breakthrough was when he figured out that the encryption key was "Be sure to drink your Rioja"
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
What the summary doesn't detail is that link is Poland. Germany gave Spain modified Enigma machines that did not have plugboards. Also non-military versions lacked the plugboard. Plugboards increased the complexity of the encryption. Poland working with Knox and the British was able to reverse engineer the workings of these early machines as the Poles could intercept the early signals but Britain could not. This early work led to the decoding of the German military versions later
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
>... since German military signals were inaudible in Britain.
What? This is ridiculous, the ionosphere might not be cooperative some of the time, but most of the time if a signal could bounce from Germany to its destinations, it could also go a similar distance to the UK, or Gibraltar, or the many other places the Brits had listening posts.
The story behind the Enigma and how the codes were cracked are fascinating. I fell in love with the machine and the concept of rotors, symmetric encode/decode, and how the circuit and mechanical systems worked.
I was so into it that I wrote a simple free simulator for the iPhone that faithfully simulated a set of rotors and include quirks in behavior. It is old and not full featured (one set of rotors, no plug board, etc) but was a labor of love! Someone also has a full featured one for sale in the store now and there are numerous simulators on the net.
There is a paper based Enigma that is an excellent tool for teaching students about this historical device. If you are a WW2 buff, the Enigma is a must on your research list.
I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
No one has yet to crack rot13, or it's successor rot26. The legacy lives on!
Enigma had at least one fatal flaw, that being that a ciphered letter != its plain text letter. That, at least, made it quick to eliminate incorrect solutions, which can be a difficult problem to solve when cipher breaking.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
How little attention the Spanish civil war(and Franco) get. Once the foreign involvement kicked up, the place was practically a beta test for WWII, and Franco was far longer-lasting than some of his more dramatic colleagues in fascism. And yet, crickets...
The main photo in TFA shows a pair of Enigmas with 4 rotors rather than the customary 3. Interesting, since the only 4-rotor Enigmas I know of are the German Navy ones.
Actually, a different Spaniard may have had more to do with breaking the German codes.
Joan Pujol Garcia was a Catalan double agent known to the Germans as Arabel and to the British as Garbo. He became so trusted by the Germans that they gave him their current codes (though not an Enigma machine). He would encrypt his reports, transmit them by radio to Madrid, where they would be re-encrypted and sent on to Berlin. Thus he was able to supply Bletchley with both a current code and the plaintext.
For his services to the Allies, he was awarded an MBE by King George VI.
For his services to the Third Reich, he was awarded the Iron Cross by Hitler.
He was a vital part of Operation Fortitude and convinced the Nazis that the Normandy invasion was a dirversion. He may well have been the greatest bullshit artist who ever lived.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
Enigma Systems Services. This is Hans, how may I help you?
Hello Günther!
Oh yes, I understand. Not to worry though, I think we can find a solution.
First, would you be so kind as to look underneath your Enigma device for your serial number..
Yes.
Should be like a swastika circle with the Eagle above.
'Nazi Inside', right, that's the one!
Now, there's a number right next to it after S/N, could you read it up to me, Günther?
Thanks, let me just look you up in the filing cabinet here... Ah!I can see you're a premium member. Still under Third Reich warranty!
Okay. Now. Did you spill any beverage on the Enigma?
No? No coffee or tea?
Happens a lot on our U-boats.
Alright. If you can turn it so the eagle looks away from you.
No no, don't you look away, Günther. IT must look away from you.
Yeah?.. No..?
Alright. If you hold it using the left hand on the handle marked LINKS and the right hand on the handle marked RIGHT.
Okay? Great!
Now tilt the little Nazi bird away from you. Yes, away.
You should hear a sound like a pin drop on a marble floor.
No, just imagine a pin-
Forget the floor, Günther, just let me know if you hear anything.
Oh, you did? Like two pins clicking together? Sounds about right.
Now I want you to enter a new PIN into the device.
No, not an actual pin, but a PIN code, four digits.
Yeah, typical "Allied Forces"
Could be anything. Eins, zwei, drei, vier, not really that important.
Then try typing your secret message into the machine again.
You don't have to read it out to me, Günther. Remember it's a secret haha
No? No green flag?
Okay.. But no red flag either?
Alright. It just means that it has to be rebooted. We have solved the problem, you heard the pin click, but we need to reboot the Enigma so that the firmware changes can come into effect. Yes, yes, exactly.
You know how to reboot, it Günther?
Yes, just strap on your best pair of boots and kick it a few times. Then it should work like before.
Thanks, and the same to you. Remember, only the best for our favourite war criminals, haha.
Yeah. Thanks!
Have a nice war! Auf wiedersehen!
Defining Statistics and Social Research