Without even watching the vids the key flaw in the system was simple, yet profound in the manner it allowed the Poles to break Enigma in the mid/late 1930s (yes, the Poles were there first). Simply put, a cleartext letter could not be output in ciphertext as the same letter, i.e. typing in “A” would never result in “A” appearing in the output.
Anonymous
Ah, the poor Poles. They indeed broke Enigma, for all the good it did them.
“Poor little Poland, so close to Germany, so close to Russia, so far from God.”
Captain Ned
Turing’s genius was in moving the intellectual work of breaking Enigma into the industrial world. The Poles could break it, but not in tactically or strategically important timeframes. Turing made it like popping off down to the corner to the chemist.
The late-night brain work credit belongs to Marian Rejewski and his team back in 1932.
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3 responses to “The Enigma Flaw”
Without even watching the vids the key flaw in the system was simple, yet profound in the manner it allowed the Poles to break Enigma in the mid/late 1930s (yes, the Poles were there first). Simply put, a cleartext letter could not be output in ciphertext as the same letter, i.e. typing in “A” would never result in “A” appearing in the output.
Ah, the poor Poles. They indeed broke Enigma, for all the good it did them.
“Poor little Poland, so close to Germany, so close to Russia, so far from God.”
Turing’s genius was in moving the intellectual work of breaking Enigma into the industrial world. The Poles could break it, but not in tactically or strategically important timeframes. Turing made it like popping off down to the corner to the chemist.
The late-night brain work credit belongs to Marian Rejewski and his team back in 1932.