ENIGMA Machines

[Lauren Child]

Hi,

Just a quick post as I've not got around to an intro yet, but the Bombe was the device that found the possible keys to decode with (once the code had been part broken by the code-breakers themselves).

To decode the messages, a number of British Typex cryptos were modified to operate like Enigma machines. This allowed them to decode the messages even though they only had a small number of actual Enigma machines, using the keys that had been found using the Bombe.

There's a photo of a modified Typex on this site - http://www.jharper.demon.co.uk/typex1.htm

TTFN
Lauren

[alamotex]

It has been revealed in a recent BBC TV documentary...Bletchley Codebreakers, The Forgotten Heroes that the most important German High Command strategic orders were encripted on a far more complex machine than the ENIGMA... called LORENZ. The breaking of codes encripted on LORENZ was a truly amazing feat, intitially accomplished by a young British mathmatician named William Tutte. He later became a professor in the Maths Dept of the University of Waterloo,Ontario , Canada. Only now can his story be told and along with that of Tommy Flowers who engineered the Collosus. It is claimed that William Tutte taught the young fellows who later devised the encription coding system used for RIM's Blackberry.

[John McGillivray]

One would have thought that with all of the British work on breaking the German codes they would have being more careful with their own codes. Throughout the war the Royal Navy was using an antiquated book code which the Germans had easily broken. The British were broadcasting all the details of their Atlantic convoys which the Germans were using to intercept them with their wolf packs. The Royal Navy’s stupidly came very close to losing the war!