what is enigma in ww2

Who really broke the Enigma code?

How Alan Turing Cracked The Enigma Code

• Mathematician. Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician. ...
• Enigma and the Bombe. The main focus of Turing’s work at Bletchley was in cracking the ‘Enigma’ code. ...
• Hut 8, Bletchley Park. ...
• Turingery and Delilah. ...
• The Universal Turing Machine. ...
• Legacy. ...

Who cracked the Enigma?

In fact, he’s considered one of its most important pioneers. Alan Turing played a crucial role in cracking the famous Enigma Code, a secret communication system used by the Nazis during World War II. It’s believed that thanks to the work of Turing, the war was shortened by about two years.

What are facts about World War II?

World War II Fast Facts

• Causes of World War II. The Peace of Paris - The treaties worked out in Paris at the end of World War I satisfied few. ...
• Axis Powers. Germany, Japan and Italy formed a coalition called the Axis Powers. ...
• Allied Powers. ...
• US Troop Statistics
• US Deaths
• Other Military Casualties by Country 1939-1945 (selected)
• Other Facts. ...
• Timeline. ...

Who broke the Enigma machine?

Turing and his colleagues were also able to break the more complicated Naval ENIGMA system, which from 1941-1943 helped the Allies avoid German U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic. Poland was actually the first to realize that the solution to breaking ENIGMA would most likely be discovered by a mathematician.

What was Enigma used for in ww2?

Enigma was a cipher device used by Nazi Germany's military command to encode strategic messages before and during World War II.

Who really broke the Enigma code?

Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician. Born in London in 1912, he studied at both Cambridge and Princeton universities. He was already working part-time for the British Government's Code and Cypher School before the Second World War broke out.

How did Enigma get broken?

While there, Turing built a device known as the Bombe. This machine was able to use logic to decipher the encrypted messages produced by the Enigma. However, it was human understanding that enabled the real breakthroughs. The Bletchley Park team made educated guesses at certain words the message would contain.

How did the Enigma work?

The Enigma has an electromechanical rotor mechanism that scrambles the 26 letters of the alphabet. In typical use, one person enters text on the Enigma's keyboard and another person writes down which of the 26 lights above the keyboard illuminated at each key press.

How long would it take to crack Enigma today?

How long would it have taken a modern computer to crack the Enigma code? In 1943 it took Turing's computer about 15 minutes to crack each message, so today probably under a second.

How long did it take to crack Enigma?

What might take a mathematician years to complete by hand, took the Bombe just 15 hours. (Modern computers would be able to crack the code in several minutes). Many of the weaknesses in the Enigma system came not from the apparatus itself, but from the people involved in using the code-generating machine.

Did the Germans know Enigma was broken?

During WWII, the Germans did not know the British had cracked Enigma. Hitler's suspicions were directed at leaks among his officers, especially after the assassination attempt at the Hitler Bunker.

What if the Enigma code was never cracked?

If U-boat Enigma had not been broken, and the war had continued for another two to three years, a further 14 to 21 million people might have been killed.

How many Enigma machines are left?

There are known to be about 300 Enigma machines left in museums and private collections around the world, although the exact number of surviving Enigma machines is unknown, and it's suspected that there are a few more 'hiding'.

When did Germany find out Enigma was broken?

The Third Reich's intelligence and armed service officers never did figure out Enigma was compromised during the war. And it would not be until the 1970s after the Allies admitted they broke the machine that German veterans would acknowledge this intelligence coup.

What was a huge weakness of the Enigma machine?

A major flaw with the Enigma code was that a letter could never be encoded as itself. In other words, an “M” would never be encoded as an “M.” This was a huge flaw in the Enigma code because it gave codebreakers a piece of information they could use to decrypt messages.

Who captured the Enigma machine?

British sailorsBritish sailors from HMS Bulldog captured the first naval Enigma machine from U-110 in the North Atlantic in May 1941, months before the United States entered the war and three years before the US Navy captured U-505 and its Enigma machine.

Did the Germans know that Enigma was broken?

The Third Reich's intelligence and armed service officers never did figure out Enigma was compromised during the war. And it would not be until the 1970s after the Allies admitted they broke the machine that German veterans would acknowledge this intelligence coup.

Did Poland break the Enigma code?

In 1932 the office was moved to Warsaw, where on the last day of the year, three Polish cryptologists — Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Rozycki — cracked the Enigma cipher machine.

Did cracking the Enigma code win the war?

During World War II, Germany believed that its secret codes for radio messages were indecipherable to the Allies. However, the meticulous work of code breakers based at Britain's Bletchley Park cracked the secrets of German wartime communication, and played a crucial role in the final defeat of Germany.

Is U 571 based on a true story?

The Movie U-571 is not based on the actual circumstances of the naval career of the German Submarine named U-571. Rather, it is a fictional narrative, loosely based on events involving several different German submarines during World War II, including U-110, U-570, U-559, and U-505.

Why did the Germans use the Enigma machine?

The Germans believed, erroneously, that use of the Enigma machine enabled them to communicate securely and thus enjoy a huge advantage in World War II. The Enigma machine was considered to be so secure that even the most top-secret messages were enciphered on its electrical circuits.

What is the enigma machine?

v. t. e. The Enigma machine is a cipher device developed and used in the early- to mid-20th century to protect commercial, diplomatic, and military communication. It was employed extensively by Nazi Germany during World War II, in all branches of the German military.

What were the Germans doing to improve the Enigma machine?

Over time the German cryptographic procedures improved, and the Cipher Bureau developed techniques and designed mechanical devices to continue reading Enigma traffic. As part of that effort, the Poles exploited quirks of the rotors, compiled catalogues, built a cyclometer to help make a catalogue with 100,000 entries, invented and produced Zygalski sheets, and built the electro-mechanical cryptologic bomba to search for rotor settings. In 1938 the Germans added complexity to the Enigma machines, leading to a situation that became too expensive for the Poles to counter. The Poles had six bomby (plural of bomba ), but when the Germans added two more rotors, ten times as many bomby were then needed, and the Poles did not have the resources.

How to do the Enigma stepping motion?

The Enigma stepping motion seen from the side away from the operator. All three ratchet pawls (green) push in unison as a key is depressed. For the first rotor (1), which to the operator is the right-hand rotor, the ratchet (red) is always engaged, and steps with each keypress. Here, the middle rotor (2) is engaged, because the notch in the first rotor is aligned with the pawl; it will step ( turn over) with the first rotor. The third rotor (3) is not engaged, because the notch in the second rotor is not aligned to the pawl, so it will not engage with the rachet.

How many letters does Enigma have?

Enigma has an electromechanical rotor mechanism that scrambles the 26 letters of the alphabet. In typical use, one person enters text on the Enigma's keyboard and another person writes down which of 26 lights above the keyboard lights up at each key press.

What happened to the Enigma machines in 1938?

In 1938 the Germans added complexity to the Enigma machines, leading to a situation that became too expensive for the Poles to counter. The Poles had six bomby (plural of bomba ), but when the Germans added two more rotors, ten times as many bomby were then needed, and the Poles did not have the resources.

When did Enigma come out?

The Enigma family included multiple designs. The earliest were commercial models dating from the early 1920s. Starting in the mid-1920s, the German military began to use Enigma, making a number of security-related changes. Various nations either adopted or adapted the design for their own cipher machines.

What is an enigma?

Enigma was the German encipherment machine used to encrypt messages. While not the first machine of its kind, it was a revolution in cryptography. Cryptography has a long history going back well before the advent of computing machines. In short, cryptography is the practice of securing communication through encoding techniques. Early methods, like the Caesar Cipher usually substituted one letter for another. In a Caesar Cipher characters are substituted by shifting letters in the alphabet. A shift of one would substitute A with B, B with C, and so on. (“HELLO” becomes “IFMMP.”) If the recipient knows the key (how far to shift), they can decode the message.

How did Enigma work?

It used a series of rotating cylinders that would substitute one character for another. Every time a key was pressed, the signal would travel across the three cylinders, then travel back across them on a different path. The signal would light up a corresponding letter indicating the enciphered character. Once the entire message was converted to code it would be transmitted to the recipient, usually by radio. The recipient would type the encoded message into their own machine, and it would be translated back into readable text. The key in this case would be the starting position and order of the rotating cylinders.

Why was breaking Enigma so easy?

Breaking Enigma was made even easier as German officers failed to follow their own security protocols. There were several instances where Enigma technicians would recycle keys, sometimes multiple times. Even though there were nearly countless Enigma keys, it was very unlikely that all the keys being used were unique. Every time the Allies decoded a message and got a key, the likelihood of them decoding a future message with the same key was substantially higher. By August 1942, the cryptanalysts at Bletchley were decoding nearly 400 German airforce keys every day.

What were the Germans' assumptions about Enigma?

They believed that undermining Enigma was simply outside the capacity of all other nations. The notion that their encoding could be cracked was never even considered. Even as Allied forces consistently and inexplicably struck hidden encampments, responded to secret troop movements, and avoided stealth attack submarines, the possibility that their messages were being decoded was simply out of the question.

What was the name of the German spy that was a traitor?

This delusion was fed by a ruse on the Allies’ part. They concocted a fictional spy within the German high command codenamed “Boniface.” Much of the intelligence derived from decoded Enigma messages, classified as “Ultra” intelligence, would be attributed to the mysterious Boniface. This engendered significant distrust among the German high command, who were constantly on the lookout for this non-existent traitor. Indeed, until the British government declassified the work at Bletchley Park in 1974, the Germans assumed for decades after World War II that Enigma remained secure.

Where was the Allied cryptography effort located?

The Allied cryptography effort was centralized at an English mansion in Bletchley Park codenamed Station X. There were over 7,000 personnel staffed at this location, both civilian and military. In partnership with American and Soviet intelligence efforts, the Bletchley Park operation used stolen cipher keys and exploited flaws in Enigma. By the end of the war, virtually every enciphered German message was decoded.

What was the need to know policy in Enigma?

The Allies adopted a “need-to-know” policy when it came to Enigma, meaning personnel would only be told the bare minimum amount of information required to complete a task. Roles and responsibilities were segregated in such a way that no single person knew the totality of the project. This prevented the unnecessary spreading of secret information and reduced the possibility of a leak. But this also permitted operational flexibility. A low-level officer (or even a civilian) could be given “privileged” information if the situation called for it. It also prevented information from leaking to higher-ranked individuals. In one amusing instance, King George VI asked a woman working on the decoder machine what she was doing to help the war. She replied, “I can’t tell you, sir.” This form of segregation was so effective that many of the participants in Enigma did not even realize the role they had played until long after the war had ended.

What was the Enigma machine used for?

An Enigma machine is a famous encryption machine used by the Germans during WWII to transmit coded messages. An Enigma machine allows for billions and billions of ways to encode a message, making it incredibly difficult for other nations to crack German codes during the war — for a time the code seemed unbreakable. Alan Turing and other researchers exploited a few weaknesses in the implementation of the Enigma code and gained access to German codebooks, and this allowed them to design a machine called a Bombe machine, which helped to crack the most challenging versions of Enigma. Some historians believe that the cracking of Enigma was the single most important victory by the Allied powers during WWII. Using information that they decoded from the Germans, the Allies were able to prevent many attacks. However, to avoid Nazi suspicion that they had insight to German communications, the Allies had to allow some attacks to be carried out despite the fact that they had the knowledge to stop them.

How does an enigma work?

How an Enigma Machine Works. An Enigma machine is made up of several parts including a keyboard, a lamp board, rotors, and internal electronic circuitry. Some machines, such as the ones used by the military, have additional features such as a plugboard. Enigma Machine at the Imperial War Museum, London.

What happens when you press the P key on an Enigma keyboard?

When a key on the keyboard is pressed, one or more rotors move to form a new rotor configuration which will encode one letter as another. Current flows through the machine and lights up one display lamp on the lamp board, which shows the output letter. So if the "K" key is pressed, and the Enigma machine encodes that letter as a "P," the "P" would light up on the lamp board.

How were Bombe's drums color coded?

The Bombe's drums were color coded to correspond with which rotor they were simulating. While an 3-rotor Enigma machine only used three rotors at a time, there are more to choose from. The drums were arranged so that the top one of the three simulated the left-hand rotor of the Enigma scrambler, the middle one simulated the middle rotor, and the bottom one simulated the right-hand rotor. The drums would turn to try out a new configuration. For each full rotation of the top drums, the middle drums were incremented by one position, and likewise for the middle and bottom drums, giving the total of 26 × 26 × 26 = 17,576 positions of the 3-rotor Enigma scrambler. [10]

How many slots does an Enigma have?

Note: most military Enigma machines had three rotor slots though some had more. To accomplish the configuration above, place rotor #2 in the 1st slot of the enigma, rotor #3 in the 2nd slot, and rotor #1 in the 3rd slot. 3. 3. 3.

What was Alan Turing's machine called?

Alan Turing and other researchers exploited a few weaknesses in the implementation of the Enigma code and gained access to German codebooks, and this allowed them to design a machine called a Bombe machine , which helped to crack the most challenging versions of Enigma.

What is enigma encryption?

Enigma Encryption. As mentioned in above sections, Enigma uses a form of substitution ciphers. Each of the three rotors will display a number or letter (the rotors in the image above have letters), and when the rotors turn, a new set of three numbers/letters appears.

What was the Enigma machine?

The Enigma machine was an advanced electro-mechanical cipher machine developed in Germany after World War 1. The Enigma machine was used by all branches of the German military as their main device for secure wireless communications until the end of World War 2. Several types of the Enigma machine were developed before and during World War 2, ...

Why was the Enigma machine so complex?

In addition to the complexity of the Enigma machine itself, its operating procedures became increasingly complex, as the German military wanted to make Enigma communications harder to code break. Various intelligence evidence during World War 2 led the German military to make several investigations about the possibility ...

How long did it take for the Enigma machine to read?

By mid 1940, thanks to the Polish knowledge and the first type of the British "Bombe" machine designed by Alan Turing, the British code breakers at Bletchley Park could read some German army Enigma messages within 24 hours, but the most important German Enigma messages, those of the German U-boat submarines, could not be deciphered.

What machine did the Polish code breakers use to decipher Enigma messages?

The Polish code breakers realized that even with the available documentation of the German Enigma machine, the only way to ever decipher Enigma messages is to build an Enigma-like machine, which would help them decipher it, and unlike the British and French code breakers, they do so in 1932.

How long did the Polish code breakers decipher German enigma messages?

With their Enigma-like machine, built thanks to the German documents they received from the French, and later with a more advanced machine they nicknamed "Bombe", the Polish code breakers successfully deciphered German Enigma messages for over six years until 1938, and they did not tell the French anything about it...

How to send encrypted messages on Enigma?

To send an encrypted message, the operator set the Enigma's electric and mechanical settings (the plug wirings and the rotor wheels) to a predefined initial combination known to him and to the receiving operator. Then he typed the free text message on the Enigma's keyboard. For each typed letter, a different letter was lit in the upper board. The operator wrote down each lit letter, so that when he finished typing the original message on the Enigma, he had a meaningless stream of letters, which was the Enigma-encrypted message. He then transmitted the encrypted message with a standard Morse code radio transmitter. The receiving operator wrote the received encrypted message, set his Enigma machine to the same pre-defined combination, and then typed the message at the machine's keyboard. Typing the en crypted message on his Enigma machine with the same combination of settings deciphered it, so that the operator read the original free text message by the letters lit in the upper board as he typed.

What was the first step in the Enigma machine?

The first step, which started the effort to code break the German Enigma machine, was the result of treason in the German side. Hans Schmidt, a clerk in the German government codes department who got his job thanks to his brother which was a senior military commander, lived complicated personal life which led him to contact the French intelligence in 1931 and offer to sell them top secret documents for money. Schmidt gave the French intelligence not just the Enigma machine's operating manual, but also settings lists. The French and British code breakers at those early pre-war years, which received this intelligence treasure, could not decipher the Enigma even with it, so they shared it with the Polish code breakers. The Polish code breakers realized that even with the available documentation of the German Enigma machine, the only way to ever decipher Enigma messages is to build an Enigma-like machine, which would help them decipher it, and unlike the British and French code breakers, they do so in 1932.

How did the Enigma work?

The mechanism of the Enigma consisted of a keyboard connected to a battery and a current entry plate or wheel (German: Eintrittswalze ), at the right hand end of the scrambler (usually via a plugboard in the military versions). This contained a set of 26 contacts that made electrical connection with the set of 26 spring-loaded pins on the right hand rotor. The internal wiring of the core of each rotor provided an electrical pathway from the pins on one side to different connection points on the other. The left hand side of each rotor made electrical connection with the rotor to its left. The leftmost rotor then made contact with the reflector (German: Umkehrwalze ). The reflector provided a set of thirteen paired connections to return the current back through the scrambler rotors, and eventually to the lampboard where a lamp under a letter was illuminated.

What is the Enigma machine?

The Enigma machines produced a polyalphabetic substitution cipher. During World War I, inventors in several countries realized that a purely random key sequence, containing no repetitive pattern, would, in principle, make a polyalphabetic substitution cipher unbreakable. This led to the development of rotor cipher machines which alter each character in the plaintext to produce the ciphertext, by means of a scrambler comprising a set of rotors that alter the electrical path from character to character, between the input device and the output device. This constant altering of the electrical pathway produces a very long period before the pattern—the key sequence or substitution alphabet —repeats.

What was the Enigma ciphering system used for?

Cryptanalysis of the Enigma ciphering system enabled the western Allies in World War II to read substantial amounts of Morse-coded radio communications of the Axis powers that had been enciphered using Enigma machines. This yielded military intelligence which, along with that from other decrypted Axis radio and teleprinter transmissions, ...

How did the bombe help?

The bombe helped to identify the wheel order, the initial positions of the rotor cores, and the stecker partner of a specified letter. This was achieved by examining all 17,576 possible scrambler positions for a set of wheel orders on a comparison between a crib and the ciphertext, so as to eliminate possibilities that contradicted the Enigma's known characteristics. In the words of Gordon Welchman "the task of the bombe was simply to reduce the assumptions of wheel order and scrambler positions that required 'further analysis' to a manageable number."

What were the poor procedures used in Enigma?

However, most of the German military forces, secret services, and civilian agencies that used Enigma employed poor operating procedures, and it was these poor procedures that allowed the Enigma machines to be reverse-engineered and the ciphers to be read.

Why was the German Navy concerned about Enigma?

The German navy was concerned that Enigma could be compromised. Key schedules were printed in water-soluble inks so they could not be salvaged. The navy policed what its operators did and disciplined them when errors that could compromise the cipher were made. The navy minimized its exposure. For example, Enigma machines were not carried by ships that might be captured or run aground. When ships were lost in circumstances where they might be salvaged, the Germans investigated. After investigating some losses in 1940, Germany changed some message indicators.

When did Rejewski work on the Enigma?

Near the end of 1932 Rejewski was asked to work a couple of hours a day on breaking the Enigma.

What was the Enigma machine?

The Enigma machine was an advanced electro-mechanical cipher machine developed in Germany after World War 1. The Enigma machine was used by all branches of the German military as their main device for secure wireless communications until the end of World War 2. Several types of the Enigma machine were developed before and during World War 2, ...

Why was the Enigma machine so complex?

In addition to the complexity of the Enigma machine itself, its operating procedures became increasingly complex, as the German military wanted to make Enigma communications harder to code break. Various intelligence evidence during World War 2 led the German military to make several investigations about the possibility ...

How long did it take for the Enigma machine to read?

By mid 1940, thanks to the Polish knowledge and the first type of the British "Bombe" machine designed by Alan Turing, the British code breakers at Bletchley Park could read some German army Enigma messages within 24 hours, but the most important German Enigma messages, those of the German U-boat submarines, could not be deciphered.

What machine did the Polish code breakers use to decipher Enigma messages?

The Polish code breakers realized that even with the available documentation of the German Enigma machine, the only way to ever decipher Enigma messages is to build an Enigma-like machine, which would help them decipher it, and unlike the British and French code breakers, they do so in 1932.

How long did the Polish code breakers decipher German enigma messages?

With their Enigma-like machine, built thanks to the German documents they received from the French, and later with a more advanced machine they nicknamed "Bombe", the Polish code breakers successfully deciphered German Enigma messages for over six years until 1938, and they did not tell the French anything about it...

How to send encrypted messages on Enigma?

To send an encrypted message, the operator set the Enigma's electric and mechanical settings (the plug wirings and the rotor wheels) to a predefined initial combination known to him and to the receiving operator. Then he typed the free text message on the Enigma's keyboard. For each typed letter, a different letter was lit in the upper board. The operator wrote down each lit letter, so that when he finished typing the original message on the Enigma, he had a meaningless stream of letters, which was the Enigma-encrypted message. He then transmitted the encrypted message with a standard Morse code radio transmitter. The receiving operator wrote the received encrypted message, set his Enigma machine to the same pre-defined combination, and then typed the message at the machine's keyboard. Typing the en crypted message on his Enigma machine with the same combination of settings deciphered it, so that the operator read the original free text message by the letters lit in the upper board as he typed.

What was the first step in the Enigma machine?

The first step, which started the effort to code break the German Enigma machine, was the result of treason in the German side. Hans Schmidt, a clerk in the German government codes department who got his job thanks to his brother which was a senior military commander, lived complicated personal life which led him to contact the French intelligence in 1931 and offer to sell them top secret documents for money. Schmidt gave the French intelligence not just the Enigma machine's operating manual, but also settings lists. The French and British code breakers at those early pre-war years, which received this intelligence treasure, could not decipher the Enigma even with it, so they shared it with the Polish code breakers. The Polish code breakers realized that even with the available documentation of the German Enigma machine, the only way to ever decipher Enigma messages is to build an Enigma-like machine, which would help them decipher it, and unlike the British and French code breakers, they do so in 1932.

Overview

The Enigma machine is a cipher device developed and used in the early- to mid-20th century to protect commercial, diplomatic, and military communication. It was employed extensively by Nazi Germany during World War II, in all branches of the German military. The Enigma machine was considered so secure that it was used to encipher the most top-secret messages.
The Enigma has an electromechanical rotor mechanism that scrambles the 26 letters of the alph…

History

Design

Operation

Models

Surviving machines

Derivatives

See also