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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.

9 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. 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 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.

  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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?
  5. Just one? by davstok · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't you need two?

  6. 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.

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

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

    I wish you good bidding!