Enigma Variations.
'A U-boat captain's secret messsage sent 60 years ago has finaly been decoded.'
reports Alan Hamilton. The Times.
'It was the introduction of a fourth wheel that foxed them at the time. Now the power of modern computing
has finaly cracked a 64 year-old wartime enigma.
By linking 2500 home computers, a group of amateur cryptographers has managed to decode
a secret message transmitted by a German U-boat in November 1942, which at the time baffled
British codebreakers
The discovery has a sweet irony, as ideas developed by Alan Turing and his assoscates in their efforts
to intercept German radio traffic were crucial to the development of the modern computer.
The message was among three unsolved Enigma intercepts that were published in a cryptography enthusiasts
magazine in 1995. Although of no great historical significance, they were among only a hand-full of German
naval ciphers still in existence, which had not been decoded
Stefan Krah, a German-born violinist with an interest in codes and computers, took up the challenge, wrote a
code-breaking program and publicised it on various websites. Other enthusiastss quickly joined in. ''The most amazing
thing about the project is the exponential growthg of participants. All I did was to announce it in two news groups
and on one mailing list,''he said.'
Many good books have been written about Enigma but 'The Battle for the code' by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
offers a balanced perspective of the contributions made by many sources. The role of the 'Enigma spy' Hans
Thilo Schmidt, who gave the key to the code to the French as early as 1931. The role of Polish Cipher bureau,
into whose hands a commercial enigma machine was delivered by mistake in 1929.The role of many very brave seamen
who 'went below' as U-boats were sinking and retreived vital material. Sebag-Montefiore does not seek to
minimise the superb work of Alan Turing and the BP teams, but to set it into a background as a vital section of an orchestra.
There are interesting descriptions of the mechanics of Enigma, of techniques like the 'Bombe', procedures
like the 'Banurismus and of the concept of an 'imaginary wheel.'
__________________
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
|