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For £70,000, You Might Be Able to Own an Enigma

Posted by timothy on from the buy-a-riddle-to-wrap-it-in dept.

In 2007, we mentioned the eBay sale of an Enigma machine; now, The Guardian reports that another one is to be auctioned off next week, with an expected selling price of about £70,000 (at this writing, that's about $108,000). According to the article, "The machine being offered for sale, which dates from 1943 and currently belongs to a European museum, will go under the hammer at Sotheby's in London on Tuesday." The new owner may have need of a restoration manual and some reproduction batteries.

65 comments

  1. How much by invictusvoyd · · Score: 2

    For the bombe ?

    1. Re: How much by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would prefer Collosus.

    2. Re: How much by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Someone set you up the bombe?

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  2. Free machines for third-world nations! by Black+Parrot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I read recently that the Allies made a policy of not telling about the decryption until long after the war, apparently so everyone would think we won by valor rather than by cheating. But what's (perversely) funny is that the UK rounded up as many machines as they could and "donated" them to third- world countries so that they, too, could enjoy the benefits of strong encryption.

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    1. Re:Free machines for third-world nations! by invictusvoyd · · Score: 4, Informative

      apparently so everyone would think we won by valor rather than by cheating.

      Not the case. They did not want the Germans to know that they had cracked it. That would trigger a German redesign and the Allies would lose a critical advantage ( i.e. many more lives ) .

    2. Re:Free machines for third-world nations! by ls671 · · Score: 1

      rather boring indeed,

      read this instead:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    3. Re:Free machines for third-world nations! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think he said after the war

    4. Re:Free machines for third-world nations! by invictusvoyd · · Score: 1

      Damn.. my massive hangover hath churned my brain

    5. Re:Free machines for third-world nations! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      "third-world"?

      In the late 40s and 50s, the term did not exist, such countries were colonial possessions and of course, the UK was in the process of first suppressing native uprisings and then transitioning the colony to full independence. It was at this point the country was gifted with Enigma machines to enable secure communications between the newly independent country and the UK. Of course, the fact that other encrypted communications could be read with relative ease was a mere bonus!

      Decryption of Enigma intercepts was an art initially known only to the UK and the US and, via sneaking little gobshites, the USSR. a state of play that probably continued until the late 50s. The "donated" machines probably went out of use as "advisors" from ideological opponents entered the affected countries.

    6. Re:Free machines for third-world nations! by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I read recently that the Allies made a policy of not telling about the decryption until long after the war, apparently so everyone would think we won by valor rather than by cheating. But what's (perversely) funny is that the UK rounded up as many machines as they could and "donated" them to third- world countries so that they, too, could enjoy the benefits of strong encryption.

      Or maybe they donated Enigma machines to other countries and kept the cracking of them a secret so they could spy on said countries.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    7. Re: Free machines for third-world nations! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      After the war they didn't want the Soviets to know. And for the part about the "valor"... Without soldiers on the ground, sailors in the seas and airmen in the air, the Bletchey folks would have either been bombed or gathered up and imprisoned after the war in realspace had been lost. They would be the first to admit it, unlike you shit geeks who hold in spite anyone with good physical skills because you can't match them. Actually, you couldn't match the Bletchey folks as well, you lack willpower and self-discipline, not to mention skills and talent.

    8. Re: Free machines for third-world nations! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      World war 2 ended 70 years ago and it's a well know fact there are still things today that have been kept from the public because they are still considered classified. I'm not talking tin foil hat time either. I'm guessing that most governments are waiting until the WW2 generation will have made their trip to afterlife. So that there wont be anyone to prosecute.

    9. Re:Free machines for third-world nations! by Peter+H.S. · · Score: 4, Informative

      I read recently that the Allies made a policy of not telling about the decryption until long after the war, apparently so everyone would think we won by valor rather than by cheating. But what's (perversely) funny is that the UK rounded up as many machines as they could and "donated" them to third- world countries so that they, too, could enjoy the benefits of strong encryption.

      No. The reason why the allies kept extremely mum about cracking the enigma was simply because they had learned the hard way that this was the right thing to do.

      It goes back to the first world war when the British "Room 40" cracked German naval codes. The German navy knew nothing of this until W. Churchill published a history of the war where he "spilled the beans" about it. The German Navy and army where shocked when they learned how their crypto had been compromised and decided to strengthen their crypto to previously unheard levels. That is the reason why they bought and deployed the Enigma machines.

      The Enigma was practically unbreakable at the time if used correctly, so it was by a thin margin that the Allies where able to decrypt Enigma messages. So they felt it was absolutely vital reveal nothing about their successes after the war, so future potential enemies didn't improved their crypto and crypto-procedures even more.

    10. Re:Free machines for third-world nations! by tomhath · · Score: 2

      apparently so everyone would think we won by valor rather than by cheating

      You have an odd definition of "cheating".

    11. Re:Free machines for third-world nations! by dejanc · · Score: 1

      I think he said after the war

      Even after the war they wanted to keep it a secret - just because the hostilities ended didn't mean they had no more use for the advantage decryption gave them. Even if occupied Germany wasn't a real threat anymore, why would the Allies (or at least UK and USA) want the world to know what their capabilities are in terms of decryption?

    12. Re: Free machines for third-world nations! by oobayly · · Score: 1

      Also, many countries continued to use enigma machines under licence after the war precisely because they were still believed to be unbreakable.

    13. Re:Free machines for third-world nations! by oobayly · · Score: 1

      I imagine he's referring to the idea that certain methods were seen as "ungentlemanly" and against the idea of chivalry and fair play. Previous examples were submarines and the rifle. The former because it was a weapon that hid from its enemies. The latter because it was one of the first times* that a weapon was used to aim at an individual from a distance - previously it was considered impractical, so mass volleys were used instead.

      * Yes, archers may have done this in the past, but they tended to use volleys too. The Rifle Brigade was one of the first regiments to do this specifically.

    14. Re:Free machines for third-world nations! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As opposed to American valor - ie, get Hollywood to rewrite history (exampl U-571. or all the wars you lose )

    15. Re:Free machines for third-world nations! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, how long will the world have to wait before we admit we gave Israel thermonuclear weapons?

    16. Re:Free machines for third-world nations! by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Who said that? I'm curious. Someone whose worldview would be advanced by the idea that the Allies cheated and beat the Nazis without playing fair? Lemme guess, the same folk who would say that the Japanese were the good guys and the Americans came after them because DATS WACIST? Guess what, it was your buddies the Communists who beat the Nazis, the Allies simply prevented them from overrunning all of Europe.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    17. Re: Free machines for third-world nations! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They actually were so long as you didn't end your message with "Hiel Hitler". That statement was at the end of every message they sent. It purely broke the German encryption because it drastically reduced the number of keys they needed to brute force until they knew the days key. Lesson to learn? Signatures will screw you over.

    18. Re: Free machines for third-world nations! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ooops, sorry, they ended the first message every day with the words "Hiel Hitler" which was basically a weather report. Which set the code for the day.

  3. Happy times by mjwx · · Score: 4, Funny

    Happy times, I will finally be able to send messages to the old submarine I bought on Ebay.

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    1. Re: Happy times by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Too bad. The German Navy used its own version of the Enigma. (there are several different incompatible version of the Enigma)

    2. Re: Happy times by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not only did the German navy have their own version but they used a 4 rotor model while the German army and air force used the 3 rotor model.

  4. OYJOE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    oyjoe evquc vthkg xukhd lnmiq xzjuq ssoui ombat rudso ymblf qaxto dzjw

    1. Re:OYJOE by ls671 · · Score: 1

      5f6c4bf029a26ca2ff29e25c303673bc56767d42dbc3369d310cee1af900110d

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    2. Re:OYJOE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ANtifilter , ignore . Your search - did not match any documents.

      Suggestions:

      Try different keywords.

      Fake internet alert /antifilter

      This:

      –––––– –– ––––– –––– –– –––––––––– –––––––

      ––––– ––––––– ––––––– ––– –– –––––– ––––– –– –––– ––––––––––– –––– ––––– ––––––– –––– –––––– –––––– ––––– ––––––––– –––––––––––– ––––– ––– ––

      30 lines cut short due to lame slashdot filters

      C'mon

    3. Re:OYJOE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2pi

    4. Re:OYJOE by behrooz0az · · Score: 1

      03e51e824013df89fb49ba73239bfc1b1180524acd31bf8768801689168456c6 FTFY
      You had a newline character at the end of your string.

      --
      Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion. -- Spazmania (174582)
    5. Re:OYJOE by TrimTabTim · · Score: 1

      hjgpx asmsz fwije qjxnf nvizs tkgzf lutmf dktja zbpdr

    6. Re:OYJOE by ls671 · · Score: 1

      You had a newline character at the end of your string.

      That is called strong encryption.

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  5. Cool. by o_ferguson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I know a guy who worked at Bletchley Park, and he said that they could never crack the luftwafe code because it was a true OTP implimentation. The pilots were literally issued a little one-time pad before flight, with letters on a grid of co-ordinates, and then instructions sent from ground ops would simply be pairs of x/y co-ordinates so the pilots could just look at the pad and see the message out. For each new message they would tear off one page and have a new arrangement of letters.

    --
    - In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
    1. Re:Cool. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That sounds less like a true OTP and more like just switching keys (=the coordinate grid used) between each message.

      According to my understanding of what you described... If the same characters would occur multiple times within a message, the ground ops would have to give the same x/y pair multiple times... Exposing the message to a frequency analysis and such. Of course it might be practically impossible (due to the content of very short messages with little repetition, etc.) but it sounds like at least attempting to crack those messages would be theoretically possible, unlike with true OTPs.

      (It could be a true OTP if they had multiple x/y pairs for each letter. e.g. if they know that they never need to send a message with more than 10 letter As, there could be 10 pairs that map to the letter A... But it sounds a bit unlikely. That would seem unnecessary for short messages - which are next to impossible to break even without it - and at the same time make it impossible to send long messages)

    2. Re:Cool. by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

      Historically accurate image.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    3. Re:Cool. by Comboman · · Score: 2

      It could be a true OTP if they had multiple x/y pairs for each letter.

      Not sure how big the grid is, but even a 10 X 10 grid would have space for at least 3 full alphabets, perhaps with extra sets of common letters like vowels.

      --
      Support Right To Repair Legislation.
  6. Don't buy it! by BitterOak · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't buy this. It's all part of a GCHQ conspiracy to foist weak encryption on the populace. The Enigma has been cracked. I repeat, the Enigma HAS been cracked! You have been warned.

    --
    If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
    1. Re:Don't buy it! by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 1

      Don't buy this. It's all part of a GCHQ conspiracy to foist weak encryption on the populace. The Enigma has been cracked. I repeat, the Enigma HAS been cracked! You have been warned.

      All joking aside, historically that's exactly what happened! The crack of the Enigma in particular and German/Axis crypto in general, was kept very secret just to foist broken encryption onto the world. Winston Churchill himself actually ordered the plans for the Colossus electronic computer (built to crack the Geheimschreiber) was to be destroyed and the machines (there were several at that time) to be broken up, no piece to be bigger than a man's fist.

      It was kept secret with the expressed intent of luring, in particular, South American countries to adopt German, esp. Enigma technology, so that all the work that had gone into the break could be reused. And it worked. Many countries adopted variations of the Enigma after the war and the break was kept a closely guarded secret. These machines were then used for diplomatic and other communication for years. It wasn't until 1967 that it was mentioned in one off hand sentence, and that was it. The full(er) story didn't come out until much later, with the publication of David Kahn's seminal "The Code Breakers" if memory serves, where it's all documented.

      Winston Churchill even kept up the farce when writing his master work on the history of the English speaking peoples. He "retconned" many important events and facts to look like they weren't informed of what the allies knew of German plans from actual intercepted communications, instead keeping up the faÃade that their decisions had been governed by other factors, and other information than the true one. Of course, one shouldn't exaggerate the impact of the breaks on higher level decision making, but it's of course a fabrication to discount it. After all it was considered so valuable that they allies went to great lengths to deceive the Germans as to where they allies got their information from. Sending out "fake" reconnaissance missions to "happen upon" German convoys to North Africa to take just one example.

      The secrecy of course, however relevant at the time, make problems for the historians. I remember when the curator of the Bletchely park museum held a talk about the reconstruction of the Colossus, and quipped, that "Well, of course all the plans weren't destroyed, engineers always squirrel away what they consider their best work. So bits and pieces ended up at the bottom of drawers and in attics everwhere." (Paraphrase). He then went around to all the old-timers and collected bits and bobs here and there, bread borded what he thought a particular piece would look like and came back and presented it to the original designers (the ones that were still alive). That was often sufficient to further jog their memory: "No, now that you mention it, that wasn't quite how it worked."

      --
      Stefan Axelsson
    2. Re:Don't buy it! by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      So? Is someone planning to set up an "Enigma café" where people can come in and encrypt their telegraph, heliograph, or wigwag messages before sending them? There may be more than one flaw to that plan . . .

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    3. Re:Don't buy it! by hackertourist · · Score: 1

      No. During the war, the fact they'd cracked Enigma was kept a secret to prevent the Germans from adopting better (potentially unbreakable) encryption.
      After the war, yes. The British saw Enigma being used by various governments and decided to keep the secret a bit longer.

      Colossus was never used to crack Enigma, it was designed for the Lorenz cipher machine which used a different principle.

    4. Re:Don't buy it! by Peter+H.S. · · Score: 1

      All joking aside, historically that's exactly what happened! The crack of the Enigma in particular and German/Axis crypto in general, was kept very secret just to foist broken encryption onto the world.

      The Enigma with Steckerbrett used with good operational procedures was actually practically unbreakable even in the decades after the war. While some aspects of the Enigma designed "leaked" info about its configuration, it was a sound design, and AFAIK, practically identically to what the allied used. That the allies could decrypt Enigma messages was almost entirely caused by bad German operational procedures and the capture of code books. Even today it is a massive computational effort to break historical Enigma messages.

      So the countries receiving Enigmas could have had practically unbreakable crypto with the right operational procedures.

    5. Re:Don't buy it! by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 1

      Yes, there is much truth in that. (Though you discount the rapid advances in computational power just after the war. Even though the computational effort is "massive" that only spurred the various signals intelligence organisations to buy more computers).

      However, as no-one thought the Enigma had been broken to the extent that it had, no-one put that much effort in to perfect crypto hygiene, not reusing or reordering rotors (the Germans famously got that completely wrong, thinking that the strength was increased by changing rotor order), etc.

      So while a properly configured and expanded Enigma could have been the basis of a sound and secure means of communication, that wasn't how it was typically used.

      I mean, even the Germans had somewhat proper cryptographic procedures, but since they didn't believe that their crypto could be broken, they developed a very lackadaisical attitude in practice. Not so the allies, where their own knowledge of the fallibility of such systems made them stress proper procedure at all times to a much greater degree.

      (There's a famous example from Beurlings Gehimschreiber break in Sweden. We can surmise that there was an order that all messages should start with a random word, to avoid stereotypical cribs at the start of a message. All good and well so far. But then the order probably continued "for example Sonnenschein".

      You guessed it. All of a sudden more than 95% or so of all messages started with the word "Sonnenschein". The odd bright young spark managed "Mondschein" and a jester put "Donaudampfschiffsfhartskapitaensmuetze". So, while the intention was good, in actual practice messages got easier to break after that...)

      --
      Stefan Axelsson
    6. Re:Don't buy it! by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 1

      All of which I said? ... Or didn't voice an opinion on. (Of course the war time secrecy was to prevent the enemy from knowing you're knowing. Anything else would have been daft beyond belief, and I didn't say anything else.)

      --
      Stefan Axelsson
    7. Re:Don't buy it! by mlts · · Score: 1

      The ironic thing is that before DES and PGP were common in the early 1990s, the most common encryption utility on UNIX was the crypt (1) command [1]. This is based on one, 256 element, rotor, rather than multiple rotors with just the alphabet on them.

      [1]: This is different from crypt (3), the password hashing algorithm.

    8. Re:Don't buy it! by PPH · · Score: 1

      Winston Churchill himself actually ordered the plans for the Colossus electronic computer (built to crack the Geheimschreiber) was to be destroyed and the machines (there were several at that time) to be broken up, no piece to be bigger than a man's fist.

      Yes. Oddly enough, the British shared their cryptanalysis work with the USA, including their design of the Colussus machines*. After the war, the Americans never destroyed their plans and based a lot of commercial computing development on these designs.

      *There was an interesting anecdote about a visit by American engineers to Bletchley Park. The original Colussus was based on relay logic and the US engineers had built their own copy to this design. When a newer version of the Colussus was built, the British had developed vacuum tube logic. When the Americans were shown the new machine, they asked if they could see it while it was running. The British engineers informed them that it was (the newer vacuum tube machines being very quiet compared to relay logic).

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    9. Re:Don't buy it! by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 1

      That goes beyond my knowledge of the subject, but it makes sense. That said, the British did have the know how, with Turing and company building computers just after the war, but Britain was just too deep in the hole financially and otherwise to devote much energy, effort, determination to the task. So that the Americans pulled ahead was probably due to a number of (other) factors as well.

      And those vacuum tubes ran hot as well as silent. Several kW:s total if if memory serves. At the aforementioned tour we told the story of having asking the "girls" that ran the computer how they managed cooling in the summer, when it was already very hot in the hut. "We just opened the window, silly!" was the answer. :-)

      --
      Stefan Axelsson
    10. Re:Don't buy it! by cavreader · · Score: 1

      England paid for it's continued survival by handing over just about every technological and engineering breakthrough they had mastered or were in the process of mastering to the US. In return the US supplied England with ships, planes, ammunition, food, trucks, clothing, fuel, and eventually US lives. And the folks at Bletchley Park would have had a much harder time breaking the Enigma code if not for the 2 Polish mathematicians who originally reverse engineered the pre-war business version model of the machine and forwarded all their research to England prior to Germany invading Poland.

    11. Re:Don't buy it! by MoaDweeb · · Score: 1

      If memory serves, Theatre commanders who received information via Enigma were required to 'confirm' the information.
      e.g. If a convoy was due from Italy to North Africa they sent a reconnaissance flight out.

      This was to provide plausibility in that the Germans could reason the attack was due to being found by conventional means by the Allies rather than code-breaking.

      --
      New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
    12. Re:Don't buy it! by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 1

      And the folks at Bletchley Park would have had a much harder time breaking the Enigma code if not for the 2 Polish mathematicians who originally reverse engineered the pre-war business version model of the machine and forwarded all their research to England prior to Germany invading Poland.

      I don't know about "much harder". It was a help that's certain and they provided a few insights, but if Turing's biography is anything to go by, it wasn't crucial. Turing and his ilk did most of the work esp. when it came to automating the process. And it's the automation that made the process quick enough to be of practical value.

      --
      Stefan Axelsson
  7. Just one? by davstok · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't you need two?

    1. Re: Just one? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      No, because I am an enigma, you insensitive clod!

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    2. Re:Just one? by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      Don't you need two?

      Not for the strongest form of encryption: write only.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    3. Re:Just one? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Surely that would be a the collected works of a politicians wisdom? Writtn once , never read!

    4. Re: Just one? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Does this mean we needed an Enigma to understand your comments all along?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  8. £70000? For an enema?!? Oh wait... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Never mind.

  9. The OPM Will be in attendance by Etherwalk · · Score: 3, Funny

    The OPM Will be an attendance at the auction in the hope of updating their encryption technology.

  10. Link by ebonum · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.sothebys.com/en/auc...

    I wish you good bidding!

  11. I can see it now..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No Reserve!
    $1 opening
    $99,999 S&H

  12. £0 (ok, some electricity cost...) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For £0, I use BOINC and run an Engima at home all day! http://www.enigmaathome.net/

  13. Avoid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It probably has an NSA backdoor installed. No thanks.

  14. Tetris? by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    Doesn't play Tetris. NO SALE!

    1. Re:Tetris? by Megane · · Score: 1

      I think you mean "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  15. enigma museum by lophophore · · Score: 1

    You can buy one today at http://enigmamuseum.com/

    The web site is pretty interesting. Dr. Tom Perera often shows some of his Enigma machines at ham radio shows in the North East, and sometimes lectures on them, too.

    --
    there are 3 kinds of people:
    * those who can count
    * those who can't
  16. That's crazy! by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    I found another Enigma for only USD$8.16 (as of this writing) here.

    --
    Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  17. 70K GBP for an incomplete Enigma by ModelerRick · · Score: 1

    I just checked Sotheby's web site and the description says that only Rotors I, II, and III are included, IV and V are missing. Not surprising that, I don't think many intact Enigma machines still exist. But if you have an iPad and a buck, have I got a deal for you. http://ricks-thoughts.denhaven... on an introductory sale price this week.