Enigma Machine

Discussion in 'Top Secret' started by chipm, May 27, 2020.

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  1. chipm

    chipm Well-Known Member

    Circa 2020.
    If they had the intercepted Morse and had or knew of the machine and ALL the possible rotors and all possible plug settings......... how long might it take for a computer to decrypt what a certain message said.?
     
  2. gmyles

    gmyles Senior Member

    Hi

    According to Cracking the Enigma code: How Turing’s Bombe turned the tide of WWII

    "At its peak the Turing Bombes decrypted 3000 messages every day" which works out to be one message every 28.8 seconds.

    Moores law states

    “that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles every two years, though the cost of computers is halved. Moore's Law states that we can expect the speed and capability of our computers to increase every couple of years, and we will pay less for them”

    So if we assume that the doubling of processing power also halves the time it takes to decrypt the message every two years, therefore we can assume that decrypting an identical enigma message in 2020 would take 10 billionths of a second (10 nanoseconds).

    upload_2020-5-27_10-4-52.png

    There are a lot of assumptions here, so I could be wildly off.

    Hope this helps

    Gus
     
  3. chipm

    chipm Well-Known Member

    With no Bletchley cheat sheets or any other tricks, just the knowledge of the machine, You think a modern computer would decipher a..... 20 word... message in Ten One Billionths of a second.?
     
  4. gmyles

    gmyles Senior Member

    Hi

    In 2007 to commemorate the rebuilding of the colossus computer they challenged anyone to beat it using a modern equivalent. A lorentz encrypted message was decrypted by colussus in 3.5 hours. The same message was cracked using a pc in 46 seconds.

    Lorenz was the next generation of German encryption machine.

    Colossus — The National Museum of Computing

    Gus
     
  5. chipm

    chipm Well-Known Member

    That is incredible.
    I guess the machines were not unbreakable after all. :)
     
  6. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    The Poles developed an encryption machine that was much more powerful than Enigma. The Polish Government in exile in London had one and apparently Bletchley were never able to crack it. That's not to say that modern technology would not be able to do so
     
  7. chipm

    chipm Well-Known Member

    I never knew that.... Thank You
    I guess this would be custom made for the... What Did You Learn... thread:)
     
  8. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    Churchill was under some pressure from within the coalition government to seize the Polish machine on the grounds that it was intolerable for an organisation that had been given refuge by Britain to be conducting communications kept secret from the British government. He resisted this on the grounds that he was demonstrating his trust in the Poles. However if Churchill trusted the Polish Government in Exile they didn't trust him (but then they didn't really trust anyone) and feared that he would pass on any messages to Stalin.
     
  9. chipm

    chipm Well-Known Member

    Poland "got screwed" by Everybody.
    They started the concern over Enigma and Germany, were then wiped out by German, and then (i suppose i understand the political why) "occupied" by Russia.
    What were they doing with the machine, was there another somewhere that they were communicating with.?
     
  10. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    Well there was a rather large Polish Home Army operating underground and as partisans in Poland.
     
  11. chipm

    chipm Well-Known Member

    .... and they also had these machines.?
     
  12. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    Well at least one - after all they were developed in Poland before the war. A single encryption machine is rather useless. The Poles had a formidable reputation in this field.
     
  13. chipm

    chipm Well-Known Member

    Oh...sorry.
    I had NO Idea.
    I thought they developed it in London.
    I always knew they were advanced at deciphering Enigma....was it a two rotor... while in Poland.
    I had (at the risk of repeating) NO Idea they had actually developed their own machine before they fled to London.

    I am not discounting anybody.
    They ALL had heroes.
    But as i progress with my Knowledge/History of WWII, i am often struck by the bravery and honest tenacity of The Canadians and The Polish.

    Polish pilots and Market Garden soldiers and these Polish Intellects.
    The Canadians seemed to be mentioned in any Thankless/Dangerous job in Normandy and beyond.

    Anyway...... thanks for this info.
    If it could be done outside of the "Hollywood Machine" this would make an Awesome movie.
    Thanks Again :cheers:
     
  14. IvanTony

    IvanTony New Member

  15. chipm

    chipm Well-Known Member

    I was looking for something to watch..... Thank You :)

    Wow... Sir Dermot Turing
    He has had an interesting life :cheers:
     
    IvanTony likes this.
  16. chipm

    chipm Well-Known Member

    Oh Yeah....i have been meaning to ask anyone who watched this.
    At the 19:00 mark, the video says to the effect..........After Germany invaded Poland, the Polish "Code Breakers" escaped to France. After FRANCE was invaded, they fled to Vichy and then to Algeria......and then BACK to Southern France where they worked in dangerous and primitive conditions.

    Why did they do that.?
    These are some of the smartest people in The World. They obviously had pressing need to return to a very risky place, but what was it."
    Thank You
     
  17. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

    That would very much depend on the set up of the Enigma, how attempting to break it, and computing power.

    A three rotor enigma using 10 wires on the plugboard, (ignoring notches), has a keyspace of around 2^67.

    To attempt to brute force that on a single desktop PC is going to take a very long time. A single 2GHz processor performing 2 billion instructions per second, if every instruction counted, would take well over a 1000 years on average.

    But, of course, no one would be stupid enough to attempt to brute force it.
     
  18. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

    Just to add, to put it perspective. The encryption standard DES has a key space of 2^56 and is now considered insecure, generally current encryption standards, like AES, use a key space of 2^128.
     
  19. chipm

    chipm Well-Known Member

    Great.....Thank You
    Really appreciate this.....and "Brute Force" was exactly what i was wondering about.
    It just goes to show....in strict math and numbers of possibilities....why The Wehrmacht thought Enigma was safe.
    80 years later, look how long it takes a computer to run through it all.
    Of course, that is not how "Code Breakers" approach it, but the straight math is daunting.
    Thanks Again
     
    PsyWar.Org likes this.
  20. JDKR

    JDKR Member

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