The message came out clear for me. I think that you didn`t set up your Enigma machine properly. Because of the nature of it just one plug not right or just one wheel not set up perfectly and the whole order of it is ruined.

Thinking about it and where it went garbled, either a plug isn`t done properly or the 2nd wheel from the right is wrong in some way.

I worked out what went wrong P funk - by the nature of how each rotor works, if I understand correctly, every time you press a letter it turns the relevant rotor one position forward. You can only hit each letter once from the starting order for the message to decipher properly. Here I was thinking in 21st century logic that you could repeatedly press a character as if it were electronic, and it would repeat the same encoding. I'm not sure if that made sense, but I've worked out what I did wrong :p

Basically you cant start trying to decode your message again (if you muck up half way through it) unless the "Walzenlage" are in the correct beginning position.


:lol:

Is it naughty to use the previous message reel code to encode another? :hmm:

RBFD VANC ZJGP BTKM KDME JSIS XQWO ZWSH GKU

What a handy device this machine would be in a military situation.... Had those brits never captured the code books allied intelligence units could have spent several life times trying to figure this thing out. Insane the amount of prep work that goes into a single message.

without the daily codes you would literally be reading gibberish

For the most part, the British *DIDN'T* have the code books. When they did have them, though, it allowed them to read traffic, either back traffic or current.

That gave them the advantage of knowing what to look for. Military messages tend to have strict formats, and they also tend to be stereotyped. If you have a good guess as to what the plaintext might be, you can take a stab at decoding it even if you don't know the key.

The British exploited this by decoding messages in less secure ciphers (such as the 'dockyard' cipher, used by units not important enough to have an Enigma machine) and searching for the plaintext in Enigma messages. Often, they used a technique called 'gardening', where they would sow a minefield of a port on purpose, just to generate warning traffic in both Dockyard and Enigma. They could then search for the text of the Dockyard message in the Enigma messages.

Since in an Engima type machine with a reflector no letter can ever be enciphered as itself, that can help you by making certain combinations of possible rotors and positions impossible for a given plaintext. What you do is take your probably plaintext and slide it past the message, and everywhere there is a match between a plaintext letter and an enciphered one, that is an incorrect orientation. That cuts the 'key space' you have to search considerably.

If you have the wiring of the rotors, you can work out the solution. Even the four rotor Enigma was reasonably easy to defeat given the technology of the day, if you threw enough resources at the problem. There was a blackout of naval Enigma for most of 1942, after the Kriegsmarine switched to the 4 rotor Enigma, but from 1943 onward the Allies were pretty much reading it on a current basis right up until the end of the War.

Now, on the other hand, the US SIGABA and British TYPEX machines weren't broken. They didn't use a reflector, so a letter could be enciphered as itself. In the case of the SIGABA they had more encipering rotors than any Enigma, and they also had a set of rotors that controlled the movement of the enciphering rotors, making it more random instead of the regular movement of the Enigma (which is also a major weakness).

So, while the Enigma has a certain mystique that is undeniable, it was only a mediocre enciphering machine.

Now, there is a technology that was invented around 1921 that could have given the Kriegsmarine complete protection for their communications: The One Time Pad. The OTP consists of a set of random numbers or letters used to encipher a message. Each particular page is used once, then destroyed. If the U-Bootwaffe had used the OTP for it's communications, all the British would have had left is traffic analysis and direction finding. Traffic analysis can develop good intel, but it is tenuous at best, and can't really give you specifics. DF is also good, but it only tells you where a unit is right then, not where they will be in the future so that you can intercept them.

I've often wondered how the Battle of the Atlantic would have turned out if the Germans had decided to implement the OTP instead of Enigma.

you make some good points there, but even WITH the code book its quite a chore to decipher a message... one typo and the rest of the message will not make sense. You could set the rotors to any one of thousands of likely positions and toy with it all day and by the time you managed to break one message the war could be long sence over.

i think for the period the enigma machine was fantastic.

of course one has to consider that the little orphah annie radio show decoder rings of the 1950s like from the movie "Christmas Story" were pretty much just 1 rotor enigma machines :rotfl:basically you would set the rotor to correspond to a specific letter in the master (fixed) rotor. and you would get messages like THIS

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z master reel
W XY Z A B C D EF G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V secondary reel

Message "Z N E G J U T Q N S R W H P E R A"
OR
decoded "D R I N K Y O U R O V A L T I N E"

I have no idea what that means.:o

I don't think I'm decoding it properly.

hmmm, I redid it about 5 times to make sure I got it to work.

Using the 27th setup for the enigma, did you start with RBFD as the starting point, then decode VANC to get the new starting position of the rotors to decipher the message from ZJGP onwards?

I copied the same method you used for "GOCANUCKSGO"

I'll try it again this morning when I have time to set up the Enigma again.
I am a noob at this, its possible I did it wrong.

Nono. I did it wrong, somehow.

I rechecked all my settings, they were right. I guess I set the starting point wrong.:damn:

Anyway.

SCUP JYEH ENUX VJCZ TSJX QRRS DHHZ HEDR WMGS RSBY E

Tag 27:


OFJC HSZW GDQT BWFQ TWSQ ZUZL VEKH SMAQ IVKJ NXAV YNCU SWIT QIPP FMZV HVHF XKEY POTB DYVX DUJQ CBJL IJUK LYZF IMDJ TRLE ZSWV KRGL JZPB CPWG IZAI JIUG CZYM DNBK APLB T

Lets say for the moment that we state the date before the message. Later we can determine if we want to set a universal time like the international date line or some other way of standardizing it.

.- .--. .-. .. .-.. / ..--- --... / --.. - --. .--. / .-- -... --- ..-. / .... --.. .- ...- / --.- .. . .-.. / -.. -- -.-- -. / -.-- ...- --.- --- / --.. --.. . -.- / -.-- -- - -.- / .-.. . -.-. .... / ..-. -- -.-. --.. / - --.- ...- .- / -.-. .. -... -- / -.-- -.- .... -.. / . . --. -.. / .--- . -.. -.-- / ..- .- -.- --- / .. .--- .-.. --. / .... -..- ...- .-- / .-- .-. -.. ..- / ..- --. --.. . / --. --.- -.-. .--. / -. ..-. -. ...- / -.- --- --. .... / - .--. -- .-- / --. ..-. .--- .-. / ...- --. -... .... / --- ... -. -.-- / .. .-. --.. .--- / .-- --. - ..-. / .- --.- .-- --. / -... .. -... --.. / ...- .-- -... -.-. / -.. --. -.. ...- / - -... ..-. .- / -.-. ..- .... -.-- / -.- -..- .-.. --. / -... -.. -. -..- / ..- --. -- -.- / --- ..-. .-- . / ..- -... .-.. ..-. / .--- -.-.



Another curve ball for you gentlemen.:cool:
http://morsecode.scphillips.com/cgi-bin/morse.cgi

Wow, I've created a craze...GO ME!:rock:

Edit: Now for my message

Tag:28th (naturlich)
WDHZ NKUE
CLA VTFE TBDH EWXY GXVE VQJO KSDO IOJV UQFT IKOA HGUV YWEF USKP EMIU DXJN YVCY EYBF RBYP WMKQ SZSR ROUP ZHPB WQOU HNJY QRWV KWIX EUCT EYPW JICZ NROV WQPL CZSW FYNT DGVV FTRR QRFL WVVN OCPH FVFE OXHQ GZUZ RVHN FHAY NZUU CEZJ ROTV YJWL LVKU ZVAJ DCLJ YULS YYNB ABPA CAQR OEWG UNXP WECW OOHP JHJI GMGK TEWG HKZK XLRR WJVV KBA

Medico, your message doesn't translate. I triple checked my set up.

At a glance though the first letter set at the beginning of the actual message, 'CLA', is only a 3 letter group. The only group that can be fewer than 4 letters is the last one.

I think you might have missed pasting one letter.:p

Righto then, fixing...

GFYR LZNN

VAXT RCNQ FSKG UJJA IPGW UPHC RMDI MBGY PQPZ JONJ TVTV EDEG ATDX JZKC EWAE CANC PORB PBPZ JNVN NRCW RKGX ACYD MCCI SLUA TUMZ SGVG VFNU UAWS ADWE GDTN JOUX HLOY OYPI AIBF FKYV OWSC XOVN XLKW GIWH OIGJ WUBX MEYF WNNM XSUV HWRF HVXS OQMC LFLB WTHZ QYVS WDAF ATPD PJNS UFGN NFES DWZP ZSVB CPKR PSIK GTWO EMHC BGVN LLCK AFFU NEFN LVJI IGMC QTBA UARQ VORX HHSM MOPN FWDP KGNA EZLY YZB

It should end up with reels GGLM
That oughta do it :D

I don't want to be a party pooper but I still get garbled letters. I can't even decode the 2nd reel group. I get SLEH.

I've gone over the Tag:28 set up a few times. I'm certain I got it all set up properly. Even when I enter your starting reel 'GGLM' it doesn't give me clear language.

I think you need to go over the codebook again.:hmm: One plug not right or one reflector off by a single digit and you're boned.:p

EDIT.

- .- --. / ..--- ---.. / .... --. .--. .-. / .-.. -.-. -... ... / -.-- .-- -.. .... / --.. .. --.. -.-. / - -.-- ..- . / --- --.. -.-- -.. / -.. ..-. -.- -.-- / -.. ...- --.- .. / - -.. ..-. -- / - -... .-- .-.. / --.- -.. .--- .... / .- .-.. .- --- / .-- ..-. .--. .-- / .--. .... -.-- --. / -..- --.. --.- ...- / ..-

I too have set up Tag 28, and using starting reel GFYR and as P Funk has said, this gives the starting reel of SLEH to decode the message. Decoding from SLEH gives garble. Can you specify your exact settings? I think we should keep following P Funk's code sheet and reel / message encoding method.