h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A604964

A fairly complex piece on the inside workings of Germanys cipher machine, I hope its not too soul destroyingly complex, but it does give a good impression of what the poor cryptanalysts were up to during WWII and why they had to invent the computer.

Hiya

A nice piece, I never understood the dam' thing before

One quick (completely nitpicky) point:

"(Note, one fault with the Enigma system which would later be exploited by allied cryptographers was the fact that an would never return an A, B would never be B etc.)"

You missed out the A!

But yeah I think this is cool!

Whoops, thanks, I've now corrected that one (Don't you just hate spell checkers!)

I think the entry could do with some indication of why the Germans thought Enigma was such a good system, e.g. the 3 rotor version had around 15 quintillion permutations, if memory serves, which should have made it unbreakable if the math was sound.

A link to an Enigma simulator might be a good addition too. I've added a (relatively) pretty one to the links on my page if you want to include it.

Thanks, I've written a quick note asking the owner of the website if he minds me using his simulator, and I'll see if I can dig up any mind numbing statistics if that's what you want lol (any one who survives reading this article without a headache is going to be lucky)

You could add that 'enigma' means 'riddle' in greek.

And... how about making this entry part of the h2g2 University Project 'Cryptology' at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A580745 ?

The entry about Electro-Mechanical Cypher Machines (http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A583959 ) already has a chapter about the Enigma!

Bossel

No problem, I've left my message after yours on the project page, if someone would like to use this, I'd be glad to help.

Whisky

While there is no doubt that a computer was developed to crack the Enigma code, this did not lead to the development of modern computers. Because security was tight around the cracking of the code, details of the computer used were not released until 30 years later. As a result, the computer revolution had already taken place elsewhere and the research done in Bletchley Park was never used as part of the modern computer revolution.

Erm.......

A computer was not used to break Enigma, sorry

The research on Colossus was subsequently used to further the creation of the modern computer, however. One of the consultants on Colossus was also consulted on the Manchester Mark I, the first 'public' computer. It is unknown how much this affected the design but it can't have hurt

All the best,

Cestus

OK folks, now i'm lost, I don't think this article should be hear anymore as it looks like it's going to be covered by the Project mentionned above. What do I do now?

I forgot to say that it's a great entry!

You might think of any further bits and pieces to put into the entry, or write another one In the meantime I'm going to have the thread moved back to the entry.

Oh, BTW: There's no need to use the , , and tags around the tag

Bossel

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Peer Review' to 'THE ENIGMA CIPHER MACHINE'.

Hi Whisky

Cestus seems to be AWOL -- how about putting this one back into PR?

Thanks Bossel, I'd almost forgotten about this one, and was desperate to get something back into PR.... I've got 3 or 4 half finished articles that I get the feeling I'll never get round to completing, and it doesn't seem right not having an entry in PR... Here goes.


whisky