Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 30585
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2025/07/12 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/12    

2004/6/3-4 [Computer/SW/Security] UID:30585 Activity:high
6/3     What kind of encryption scheme is used in the German Enigma Machine?
        Is it symmetrical encryption? Why was it so hard to crack in the 40s?
        \_ I believe it was a poly-alphabetic cypher that changed on each
           letter (therefore, yes it was symmetric).  So, the first
           letter in a mesage would use one cypher, the next would use
           another. The standard machine used 3 wheels, so the opertator
           would set the 3 wheels to that day's setting, and type in
           either the message or the cypher-text.  Each would produce the
           other.  This kind of message is easy to break with a computer,
           and lots of example messages, but I wouldn't want to work it
           out on a sheet of paper.  Of course the setting changed
           (daily?) frequently, and when the settings changed, you got
           almost a whole new encryption problem.  There are LOTS of pages
           on this, and example java applets.  Google.
           \_ And if you like novelisations, Neal Stephenson's _Cryptonomicon_
              and Robert Harris' _Enigma_ cover both the math and the history
              quite nicely.
           \_ Actually, the German field soldiers tended to set them (there
              were more wheels later on) to swear words, so there was
              actually a decent message depth. -chialea
           \_ They had plenty of sample messages when nearly every unit that
              had one all sent happy birthday messages to hitler.
           \_ interesting weakness- the rotors were hard-wired- so for a given
              position the mapping of one letter was reversible.  Say the code
              key was XXX and you typed A and got a Z... if you had typed a Z
              you would also get a A.  For the rotors in that position.  Ask
             chialea for how useful that actually would be.     -brain
        \_ Applet http://www.ugrad.cs.jhu.edu/~russell/classes/enigma
2025/07/12 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/12    

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2009/12/29-2010/1/19 [Computer/SW/Security] UID:53607 Activity:nil
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2008/8/5-10 [Computer/HW/Laptop] UID:50783 Activity:nil
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2008/8/5-10 [Computer/HW/Laptop] UID:50787 Activity:nil
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2008/4/21-5/2 [Computer/SW/Security] UID:49787 Activity:nil
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2008/2/21-25 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/SW/Security] UID:49208 Activity:nil
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2006/10/27-30 [Computer/SW/Security] UID:45013 Activity:low
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Cache (81 bytes)
www.ugrad.cs.jhu.edu/~russell/classes/enigma -> www.ugrad.cs.jhu.edu/~russell/classes/enigma/
The Germans used the Enigma machine in World War II to encrypt military messages.