Colossus wasn't used on Enigma, Colossus was used on the 'Fish' codes, the allied name for German teletype codes using the Lorenz Schlusselzusatz 40 and 42, and the Siemens T52 Geheimscreiber. The cracking of these codes was even more incredible than the cracking of Enigma, as the allies never even saw a 'Fish' machine until very late in the war; the entire workings of the Lorenz were derived by Brigadier John Tiltman and W. T. Tutte based on a single retransmitted message. Turing had nothing to do with 'Fish', Colossus being a development of the electromechanical Robinson (after Heath Robinson), largely made by Tommy Flowers at Dollis Hill.
Turing also had very little to do with the overall security of Ultra, and was not involved with disseminating the information. The Germans investigated the security of Enigma several times, most notably when nearly all their supply ships in the Atlantic were sunk, but were so confidant in the machine that other sources (usually traitors) were always blamed instead. The fact that the cracking of Enigma remained secret until the mid seventies is a testament to the integrity of all those who worked at Bletchey (which, by the end of the war, was a considerable number of people). Churchill referred to Bletchey as "the goose which laid the golden egg, but never cackles" (possibly slightly paraphrased).
As for all Russian victories being achieved without Ultra, although the Russians distrusted Ultra information passed on without the source being revealed, they had a spy in Bletchley (Carnicross, IIRC) who, amongst other things, gave warning of the German plans for Kursk, part of the reason the Russians were able to construct such strong defences.
The conclusion that German actions appeared foolish because the allies knew their intentions is also flawed. German actions appeared foolish and illogical because they frequently were (Stalingrad and Wacht am Rhine being prime examples).
I'd been holding off on Linux for a while; COL 2.2 looked tempting (easy install from Windows!), but the version of Partition Magic that came with it couldn't cope with large hard drives. When I saw new, improved COL 2.3, I couldn't resist any longer, and grabbed it as soon as it appeared in the UK.
OK, call me naive, I should have checked around a bit more first, but I believed the blurb; just bear in mind I'm a complete Linux newbie (the main reason I'd gone for COL 2.3). So, first things first, ran Partition Magic, set up a 1.6Gb partition. Popped in the install CD, pointed it at the new partition... no. Partition went past the 1024th cylinder of the HD. Install wouldn't go any further. Poked around a bit in a bunch of docs, went to the 'expert' option, managed to get a partition entirely under 1024 cylinders just big enough for a minimal install.
Still, at least it'll autodetect the graphics and sound card... won't it? I'd had a quick peek at the compatibility list for XFree 3.3.4, seen a huge list of ATI cards, figured mine (ATI Rage Magnum), or something compatible, was in there. Stupid mistake, should've made sure, I know, but the Rage Magnum isn't supported at all, so I get KDE in 640 x 480. My soundcard's a Soundblaster Live Value, fairly common, that should be OK (couldn't find a "Sound" section on the Caldera hardware compatibility list to check)... no. Bit more poking round reveals Creative aren't playing ball, you'll have to use beta drivers from their site if you want sound.
So there I am with KDE in 640 x 480 (almost completely unusable) on a tiny partition with hardly anything but the kernel installed. Wooo! To cut a long story short, I grabbed every doc I could get my hands on, and managed to set up a small boot partition under the 1024th cylinder, a 256Mb swap partition, and 3Gb for everything else, letting me do a decent install from scratch. I got the ATI Rage Magnum drivers for XFree from the SuSE site, and got KDE up in 1024x768 at a decent colour depth. Still haven't got the Soundblaster Live going, but hey, got to leave something exciting for the future (and Creative say they're working on a lovely full-featured easy to install driver...) I'll leave the modem and KPPP for a particularly dull weekend...
I probably got unlucky, with a nightmare hardware combo. If I had a smaller, dedicated Linux HD and a different video and sound card, I probably would have been up and running in 15 minutes. On the plus side, had everything gone smoothly, I wouldn't have learned a fraction of what I have about partitioning, mounting, linking etc etc (clouds and silver linings, I guess).
My point (if indeed there is one) is that it might be a tad early to start trumpeting COL 2.3 as "a winner, no matter where your needle rests on the Linux experience-o-meter." Maybe COL 2.3 supports 90% of PC hardware, but until it gets to 99% (or, in a utopian dreamworld, 100%) I wouldn't recommend it for Average Joe to install on his home desktop (whether this is a good or a bad thing, I leave to a lengthy Katzian thesis from someone else...)
Gets under your skin? Oversimplified nonsense like "Brits out", suggestions that "Brits" have been mortaring their own police stations and bombing pubs to garner sympathy and "Irish-American" contributions to NORAID get under _my_ skin.
Big difference between the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine. The Difference Engine was possible (and, IIRC, a small scale one was produced in Babbages lifetime). The Analytical Engine was vastly more complex; Babbage kept having to design the tools to produce the parts he wanted. Babbage didn't help himself by periodically coming up with new ideas which rendered all his previous work obsolete, and effectively bankrupted himself.
Just to be pedantic (well, you've got to have a hobby).
Enigma was a code machine, "Fish" was a generic name assigned by the British to German teletype based codes (the actualy machines being the Lorenz Schlusselzusatz SZ40 and 42 used by the army, codenamed "Tunny", and the Siemens T52 Geheimscreiber used by the Luftwaffe, codenamed "Sturgeon"). Colossus was used on the Lorenz machine, as Bletchley already had considerable success against Luftwaffe Engima keys.
After the war, all the Colossi were destroyed, which makes postwar Fish cracking somewhat unlikely. I suppose machines similar to Colossus could have been constructed after the war in even greater secrecy, but the Fish machines would have been seriously dated by the 60s, let alone the 80s, making them somewhat curious choices for a government (though a better choice than Enigmas).
The Allies used various codes; many of them were still based on fairly traditional codebooks, and the Germans (B-dienst?) had considerable success against them.
The Allies also had a machine code very similar to Enigma called TypeX (so similar that TypeX machines could be converted to be used as Enigma analogues). One of the main differences between the machines was that the TypeX printed decoded messages on strips of paper, whereas the Enigma only had an alphabet on which each letter would light up as it decoded.
One of the main points of the Enigma was that it didn't matter if the enemy had the exact machine if they didn't have the settings (which was fortunate for them, what with the British having working Enigma analogues from the Poles before the war).
As for the codebooks (or lists of settings), if the Germans were aware they'd been captured, then they would have changed them. As it was, settings were recovered from a number of sources, a favourite being weather ships. As long as the Germans believed the ships were sunk rather than captured, the codes wouldn't change.
There were a few incidents which dropped really heavy hints that Enigma had been cracked. The most notable was when all the supply ships for the Bismarck were sunk (accidentally; knowing that to sink all of them would look suspicious the Admiralty didn't target two of the ships, but they were coincidentally found and sunk anyway). Then, and every other time, the Germans refused to believe that Enigma could be cracked, and came up with other explanations.
True, a more Bond-esque plot would have been to parachute an agent into Berlin to get captured and left to be killed in a particularly imaginative way, only to be rescued at the last minute by Eva Braun who'd fallen hopelessly in love with him. Maybe Fleming was just working up to that...
Fleming was indeed there; he came up with a plan to grab Enigma codebooks that would have done Bond proud.
The idea was to use a captured German bomber, crewed by German speaking British special forces, which would crash into the channel after sending a distress call. When a rescue boat (which had an Enigma and codebooks on board) arrived, the 'bomber crew' would overpower the crew, and sail back to Blighty.
I believe it even got so far as having a crew ready to go, but unsatisfactory weather conditions prevented the plan being used.
Apart from the fact that the secret was out by the 1970's (of Enigma at least; Colossus lasted until about '91), why on earth would the Irish Embassy be using Enigma in 1985? It was useful as a tactical military code, as the machines were portable, but even in WWII there were better alternatives (like the Lorenz and Siemens teletype machines used by the German high command, which were broken by Colossus).
I can believe the British were cracking whatever code the Irish were using, but I'd be stunned if it was Enigma.
Yep, a German sub, U-110. Forthcoming film is called U-110, and changes the ship from Bulldog to some American frigate.
I'll put money on the film making a really big deal of the machine itself, which was largely irrelevant by that time, and entirely ignoring the codebooks, which were the real prize for the cryptographers.
Slashdot Mirror
Colossus wasn't used on Enigma, Colossus was used on the 'Fish' codes, the allied name for German teletype codes using the Lorenz Schlusselzusatz 40 and 42, and the Siemens T52 Geheimscreiber. The cracking of these codes was even more incredible than the cracking of Enigma, as the allies never even saw a 'Fish' machine until very late in the war; the entire workings of the Lorenz were derived by Brigadier John Tiltman and W. T. Tutte based on a single retransmitted message. Turing had nothing to do with 'Fish', Colossus being a development of the electromechanical Robinson (after Heath Robinson), largely made by Tommy Flowers at Dollis Hill.
Turing also had very little to do with the overall security of Ultra, and was not involved with disseminating the information. The Germans investigated the security of Enigma several times, most notably when nearly all their supply ships in the Atlantic were sunk, but were so confidant in the machine that other sources (usually traitors) were always blamed instead. The fact that the cracking of Enigma remained secret until the mid seventies is a testament to the integrity of all those who worked at Bletchey (which, by the end of the war, was a considerable number of people). Churchill referred to Bletchey as "the goose which laid the golden egg, but never cackles" (possibly slightly paraphrased).
As for all Russian victories being achieved without Ultra, although the Russians distrusted Ultra information passed on without the source being revealed, they had a spy in Bletchley (Carnicross, IIRC) who, amongst other things, gave warning of the German plans for Kursk, part of the reason the Russians were able to construct such strong defences.
The conclusion that German actions appeared foolish because the allies knew their intentions is also flawed. German actions appeared foolish and illogical because they frequently were (Stalingrad and Wacht am Rhine being prime examples).
I'd been holding off on Linux for a while; COL 2.2 looked tempting (easy install from Windows!), but the version of Partition Magic that came with it couldn't cope with large hard drives. When I saw new, improved COL 2.3, I couldn't resist any longer, and grabbed it as soon as it appeared in the UK.
OK, call me naive, I should have checked around a bit more first, but I believed the blurb; just bear in mind I'm a complete Linux newbie (the main reason I'd gone for COL 2.3). So, first things first, ran Partition Magic, set up a 1.6Gb partition. Popped in the install CD, pointed it at the new partition... no. Partition went past the 1024th cylinder of the HD. Install wouldn't go any further. Poked around a bit in a bunch of docs, went to the 'expert' option, managed to get a partition entirely under 1024 cylinders just big enough for a minimal install.
Still, at least it'll autodetect the graphics and sound card... won't it? I'd had a quick peek at the compatibility list for XFree 3.3.4, seen a huge list of ATI cards, figured mine (ATI Rage Magnum), or something compatible, was in there. Stupid mistake, should've made sure, I know, but the Rage Magnum isn't supported at all, so I get KDE in 640 x 480. My soundcard's a Soundblaster Live Value, fairly common, that should be OK (couldn't find a "Sound" section on the Caldera hardware compatibility list to check)... no. Bit more poking round reveals Creative aren't playing ball, you'll have to use beta drivers from their site if you want sound.
So there I am with KDE in 640 x 480 (almost completely unusable) on a tiny partition with hardly anything but the kernel installed. Wooo! To cut a long story short, I grabbed every doc I could get my hands on, and managed to set up a small boot partition under the 1024th cylinder, a 256Mb swap partition, and 3Gb for everything else, letting me do a decent install from scratch. I got the ATI Rage Magnum drivers for XFree from the SuSE site, and got KDE up in 1024x768 at a decent colour depth. Still haven't got the Soundblaster Live going, but hey, got to leave something exciting for the future (and Creative say they're working on a lovely full-featured easy to install driver...) I'll leave the modem and KPPP for a particularly dull weekend...
I probably got unlucky, with a nightmare hardware combo. If I had a smaller, dedicated Linux HD and a different video and sound card, I probably would have been up and running in 15 minutes. On the plus side, had everything gone smoothly, I wouldn't have learned a fraction of what I have about partitioning, mounting, linking etc etc (clouds and silver linings, I guess).
My point (if indeed there is one) is that it might be a tad early to start trumpeting COL 2.3 as "a winner, no matter where your needle rests on the Linux experience-o-meter." Maybe COL 2.3 supports 90% of PC hardware, but until it gets to 99% (or, in a utopian dreamworld, 100%) I wouldn't recommend it for Average Joe to install on his home desktop (whether this is a good or a bad thing, I leave to a lengthy Katzian thesis from someone else...)
Gets under your skin? Oversimplified nonsense like "Brits out", suggestions that "Brits" have been mortaring their own police stations and bombing pubs to garner sympathy and "Irish-American" contributions to NORAID get under _my_ skin.
Big difference between the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine. The Difference Engine was possible (and, IIRC, a small scale one was produced in Babbages lifetime). The Analytical Engine was vastly more complex; Babbage kept having to design the tools to produce the parts he wanted. Babbage didn't help himself by periodically coming up with new ideas which rendered all his previous work obsolete, and effectively bankrupted himself.
--
Just to be pedantic (well, you've got to have a hobby).
Enigma was a code machine, "Fish" was a generic name assigned by the British to German teletype based codes (the actualy machines being the Lorenz Schlusselzusatz SZ40 and 42 used by the army, codenamed "Tunny", and the Siemens T52 Geheimscreiber used by the Luftwaffe, codenamed "Sturgeon"). Colossus was used on the Lorenz machine, as Bletchley already had considerable success against Luftwaffe Engima keys.
After the war, all the Colossi were destroyed, which makes postwar Fish cracking somewhat unlikely. I suppose machines similar to Colossus could have been constructed after the war in even greater secrecy, but the Fish machines would have been seriously dated by the 60s, let alone the 80s, making them somewhat curious choices for a government (though a better choice than Enigmas).
--
The Allies used various codes; many of them were still based on fairly traditional codebooks, and the Germans (B-dienst?) had considerable success against them.
The Allies also had a machine code very similar to Enigma called TypeX (so similar that TypeX machines could be converted to be used as Enigma analogues). One of the main differences between the machines was that the TypeX printed decoded messages on strips of paper, whereas the Enigma only had an alphabet on which each letter would light up as it decoded.
--
One of the main points of the Enigma was that it didn't matter if the enemy had the exact machine if they didn't have the settings (which was fortunate for them, what with the British having working Enigma analogues from the Poles before the war).
As for the codebooks (or lists of settings), if the Germans were aware they'd been captured, then they would have changed them. As it was, settings were recovered from a number of sources, a favourite being weather ships. As long as the Germans believed the ships were sunk rather than captured, the codes wouldn't change.
There were a few incidents which dropped really heavy hints that Enigma had been cracked. The most notable was when all the supply ships for the Bismarck were sunk (accidentally; knowing that to sink all of them would look suspicious the Admiralty didn't target two of the ships, but they were coincidentally found and sunk anyway). Then, and every other time, the Germans refused to believe that Enigma could be cracked, and came up with other explanations.
True, a more Bond-esque plot would have been to parachute an agent into Berlin to get captured and left to be killed in a particularly imaginative way, only to be rescued at the last minute by Eva Braun who'd fallen hopelessly in love with him. Maybe Fleming was just working up to that...
--
Fleming was indeed there; he came up with a plan to grab Enigma codebooks that would have done Bond proud.
The idea was to use a captured German bomber, crewed by German speaking British special forces, which would crash into the channel after sending a distress call. When a rescue boat (which had an Enigma and codebooks on board) arrived, the 'bomber crew' would overpower the crew, and sail back to Blighty.
I believe it even got so far as having a crew ready to go, but unsatisfactory weather conditions prevented the plan being used.
--
Apart from the fact that the secret was out by the 1970's (of Enigma at least; Colossus lasted until about '91), why on earth would the Irish Embassy be using Enigma in 1985? It was useful as a tactical military code, as the machines were portable, but even in WWII there were better alternatives (like the Lorenz and Siemens teletype machines used by the German high command, which were broken by Colossus).
I can believe the British were cracking whatever code the Irish were using, but I'd be stunned if it was Enigma.
--
Yep, a German sub, U-110. Forthcoming film is called U-110, and changes the ship from Bulldog to some American frigate.
I'll put money on the film making a really big deal of the machine itself, which was largely irrelevant by that time, and entirely ignoring the codebooks, which were the real prize for the cryptographers.