By the way, the Russian had their own version of the Enigma, but far more sophisticated. Got into service in the Cold Ware and remained top secret until the late 90's. More to read here: http://www.rijmenants.blogspot.com/
There were several different systems, used by the Allies. For high level traffic, the US used the very secure SIGABA (never reported to be broken, back then). SIGABA was also a rotor machine, but with three different banks of rotors, each performing their special task. In the field, the US Amry used mostly the M-209 Convertor. This was the US version of the Hagelin C-38. It was a so called pin-and-lug machine. You can try out the M-209 on this website: http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/m209sim.ht m
If you examine the Enigma wiring diagram, you can see that we cannot speak about a simple substitution for the plugboard. De signal is swapped by cables through the plugboard, then passes the rotors and returns via the reflector back through the rotors. And NOW comes the clue: the signal goes via a DIFFERENT path, back through the plugboard. And it gets worse: if the rotors have advanced, the return path through the plugboard has changes. With each turn of the rotors, the result of the plugboard is different. This is all but a simple substitution!
Who says breaking Enigma doesn't take much time???? 4 out of 8 possible naval rotors, 26 positions, each have also 26 internal ringsetting, two different reflectors, you also need the startposition and the plugs, up to 10 pairs of 26 (only the plugboards gives us already 7,905,853,580,625 combinations). Even today, going through all possible keys is a mission impossible. That's why Stefan used the Hill Climbing Algorithm to break those messages. Pure Brute force would take far to much time. More on the Enigma key settings on NSA's http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00004.cfm. For more technical details on Enigma, read this one: http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/enigmatech .htm
I you would like to use an Enigma machine yourself, just go to this website:
http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/index.htm
There's an awardwinning Enigma simulation. This program is an exact simulation of the 3-rotor Wehrmacht and the famous 4-rotor Kriegmarine M4 model of the German Enigma cipher machine, used during World War II from 1939 until 1945. You can select between the two models, actually choose different rotors or 'Walzen', preset the rotor wiring positions or 'Ringstellung' and switch letters by using plugs or 'Stecker'. The internal wiring of all rotors is identical to those used by the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. Fully compatible with the real Enigma-machine, and you can decode original messages and make your own encoded text!
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By the way, the Russian had their own version of the Enigma, but far more sophisticated. Got into service in the Cold Ware and remained top secret until the late 90's. More to read here: http://www.rijmenants.blogspot.com/
There were several different systems, used by the Allies. For high level traffic, the US used the very secure SIGABA (never reported to be broken, back then). SIGABA was also a rotor machine, but with three different banks of rotors, each performing their special task. In the field, the US Amry used mostly the M-209 Convertor. This was the US version of the Hagelin C-38. It was a so called pin-and-lug machine. You can try out the M-209 on this website: http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/m209sim.ht m
Hi, for some detailled info on how they broke Enigma, you should visit Tony Sale's website http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/ Tony is walking computer and Wartime history! There a nice section on how to break enigma: http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/anoraks/index.ht m . You also get a crash course enigma and cryptology. more links related to Enigma can be foud here: http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/links.htm
If you examine the Enigma wiring diagram, you can see that we cannot speak about a simple substitution for the plugboard. De signal is swapped by cables through the plugboard, then passes the rotors and returns via the reflector back through the rotors. And NOW comes the clue: the signal goes via a DIFFERENT path, back through the plugboard. And it gets worse: if the rotors have advanced, the return path through the plugboard has changes. With each turn of the rotors, the result of the plugboard is different. This is all but a simple substitution!
Who says breaking Enigma doesn't take much time???? 4 out of 8 possible naval rotors, 26 positions, each have also 26 internal ringsetting, two different reflectors, you also need the startposition and the plugs, up to 10 pairs of 26 (only the plugboards gives us already 7,905,853,580,625 combinations). Even today, going through all possible keys is a mission impossible. That's why Stefan used the Hill Climbing Algorithm to break those messages. Pure Brute force would take far to much time. More on the Enigma key settings on NSA's http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00004.cfm. For more technical details on Enigma, read this one: http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/enigmatech .htm
Not mutch work??? There are 107,458,687,327,250,619,360,000 possible combinations! Better read first the technical details about the machine: http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/enigmatech .htm
check out the mathematical description of Enigma here:
http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00004.cfm
I you would like to use an Enigma machine yourself, just go to this website: http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/index.htm There's an awardwinning Enigma simulation. This program is an exact simulation of the 3-rotor Wehrmacht and the famous 4-rotor Kriegmarine M4 model of the German Enigma cipher machine, used during World War II from 1939 until 1945. You can select between the two models, actually choose different rotors or 'Walzen', preset the rotor wiring positions or 'Ringstellung' and switch letters by using plugs or 'Stecker'. The internal wiring of all rotors is identical to those used by the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. Fully compatible with the real Enigma-machine, and you can decode original messages and make your own encoded text!