Okla-homey
7/9/2006, 08:25 AM
July 9 1941 Enigma key broken
65 years ago on this day in 1941, crackerjack British cryptologists break the secret code used by the German army to direct ground-to-air operations on the Eastern front.
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/113/nmansionaa0480168zt.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Bletchley Park, north of London. It was "geek central" for codebreaking efforts. The place was officially called "Station X"
It was really one of the most fascinating stories of WWII. The British Ministry of Defense understood codebreaking was vitally important, so they recruited people like leading theoretical math and physics folks, understanding their brains were wired in such a way as to make them uniquely suitable to find order in seemingly random number/letter sets. They set them up in a palatial country estate in rural England between the great universities of Cambridge and Oxford, gave them everything they asked for (you know, snacks, pron and Yoo-hoo, etc.) and turned 'em loose to do their worst.
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/9062/nazicode12ok.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Each letter typed into the Enigma machine's keyboard was converted to some other letter of the alphabet and displayed in a lighted window. Since the entire mechanism rotated each time a letter was entered, pressing the same letter three times could produce three different encodings. The encodings were produced by hard-wired code wheels and patch panels. The three code wheels could be mounted in a variety of positions and each one could be set to any letter of the alphabet. In addition, a patch panel on the front of the machine could be set up in many ways, making a vast number of combinations of cipher keys possible.
These British experts had already broken many of the Enigma codes for the Western front. "Enigma" was the Germans' most sophisticated coding machine, necessary to secretly transmitting information. The Enigma machine, invented in 1919 by Hugo Koch, a Dutchman, looked like a typewriter and was originally employed for business purposes.
The Germany army adapted the machine for wartime use and considered its encoding system unbreakable. They were wrong. The Brits had broken their first Enigma code as early as the German invasion of Poland and had intercepted virtually every message sent through the occupation of Holland and France. Britain nicknamed the intercepted messages "Ultra."
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/7017/nbl143at.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The Enigma machine was essentially an analog computer. The Bletchley park cryptologists developed their own massive mostly analog computer to help them decode Enigma messgaes. This is part of it.
The ability to read German code set-up a very complicated problem for the British government. There were often situations in which Brits knew about specific coming German operations in which Allied lives would be lost, but they usually opted to keep it secret because the stakes were'nt high enough. See often, warning the potential victims would give away the fact the code had been broken. Therefore, it was deemed more expedient to let some people die rather than give away the fact the code had been cracked.
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/85/nbl175dx.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
A codebreaker workstation. Bletchley Park (aka "Station X") is now a museum. They've cleaned up the pizza boxes and empty cheesy poofs bags
Now, with the German invasion of Russia, the Allies needed to be able to intercept coded messages transmitted on this second, Eastern, front. The first breakthrough occurred on July 9, regarding German ground-air operations, but various keys would continue to be broken by the Brits over the next year, each conveying information of higher secrecy and priority than the next. A series of decoded messages nicknamed "Weasel" proved extremely important in anticipating German anti-aircraft and antitank strategies against the Allies.
These decoded messages were regularly passed to the Soviet High Command regarding German troop movements and planned offensives, and back to London regarding the mass murder of Russian prisoners and Jewish concentration camp victims.
65 years ago on this day in 1941, crackerjack British cryptologists break the secret code used by the German army to direct ground-to-air operations on the Eastern front.
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/113/nmansionaa0480168zt.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Bletchley Park, north of London. It was "geek central" for codebreaking efforts. The place was officially called "Station X"
It was really one of the most fascinating stories of WWII. The British Ministry of Defense understood codebreaking was vitally important, so they recruited people like leading theoretical math and physics folks, understanding their brains were wired in such a way as to make them uniquely suitable to find order in seemingly random number/letter sets. They set them up in a palatial country estate in rural England between the great universities of Cambridge and Oxford, gave them everything they asked for (you know, snacks, pron and Yoo-hoo, etc.) and turned 'em loose to do their worst.
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/9062/nazicode12ok.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Each letter typed into the Enigma machine's keyboard was converted to some other letter of the alphabet and displayed in a lighted window. Since the entire mechanism rotated each time a letter was entered, pressing the same letter three times could produce three different encodings. The encodings were produced by hard-wired code wheels and patch panels. The three code wheels could be mounted in a variety of positions and each one could be set to any letter of the alphabet. In addition, a patch panel on the front of the machine could be set up in many ways, making a vast number of combinations of cipher keys possible.
These British experts had already broken many of the Enigma codes for the Western front. "Enigma" was the Germans' most sophisticated coding machine, necessary to secretly transmitting information. The Enigma machine, invented in 1919 by Hugo Koch, a Dutchman, looked like a typewriter and was originally employed for business purposes.
The Germany army adapted the machine for wartime use and considered its encoding system unbreakable. They were wrong. The Brits had broken their first Enigma code as early as the German invasion of Poland and had intercepted virtually every message sent through the occupation of Holland and France. Britain nicknamed the intercepted messages "Ultra."
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/7017/nbl143at.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The Enigma machine was essentially an analog computer. The Bletchley park cryptologists developed their own massive mostly analog computer to help them decode Enigma messgaes. This is part of it.
The ability to read German code set-up a very complicated problem for the British government. There were often situations in which Brits knew about specific coming German operations in which Allied lives would be lost, but they usually opted to keep it secret because the stakes were'nt high enough. See often, warning the potential victims would give away the fact the code had been broken. Therefore, it was deemed more expedient to let some people die rather than give away the fact the code had been cracked.
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/85/nbl175dx.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
A codebreaker workstation. Bletchley Park (aka "Station X") is now a museum. They've cleaned up the pizza boxes and empty cheesy poofs bags
Now, with the German invasion of Russia, the Allies needed to be able to intercept coded messages transmitted on this second, Eastern, front. The first breakthrough occurred on July 9, regarding German ground-air operations, but various keys would continue to be broken by the Brits over the next year, each conveying information of higher secrecy and priority than the next. A series of decoded messages nicknamed "Weasel" proved extremely important in anticipating German anti-aircraft and antitank strategies against the Allies.
These decoded messages were regularly passed to the Soviet High Command regarding German troop movements and planned offensives, and back to London regarding the mass murder of Russian prisoners and Jewish concentration camp victims.