From msuinfo!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!xlink.net!zib-berlin.de!netmbx.de!Germany.EU.net!EU.net!dxcern!frode Fri Jan 28 19:33:21 1994 Newsgroups: sci.crypt Path: msuinfo!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!xlink.net!zib-berlin.de!netmbx.de!Germany.EU.net!EU.net!dxcern!frode From: frode@dxcern.cern.ch (Frode Weierud) Subject: Re: French cowards (was Re: what tourist crime ) Message-ID: <1994Jan27.112705.27691@dxcern.cern.ch> Reply-To: frode@dxcern.cern.ch Organization: CERN European Lab for Particle Physics References: <2hisag$f61@uk-usenet.uk.sun.com> <2hmaav$385@lister-10.cs.strath.ac.uk> <2i3gui$hdu@paperboy.osf.org> <2i3shu$6d@convex.convex.com> <2i4bui$gli@rc1.vub.ac.be> Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 11:27:05 GMT Lines: 29 In <2i4bui$gli@rc1.vub.ac.be> evthien@vub.ac.be (Van Thienen Erik) writes: >Yes and no. The Polish intelligence reconstructed the first version of >Enigma (Geheimschreiber) and constructed electro-mechanical devices to >crack the early Enigma messages ("bombes"). But when the coding became >more difficult (by adding rotors), those "bombes" became to slow, and >the team at Bletchley Park with Alan Turing constructed the first >electronic computer, the "Collossus". This is completely wrong! You are mixing two completely different cipher machines. The Geheimschreiber is an on-line teleprinter cipher machine. If we are using Geheimscreiber as the generic term for these machines there existed at least two different types, the Siemens T52 A/B, C, D, and E (Schlusselfernschreibmachine) machines and the Lorenz SZ40 and SZ42 (Schlusselzusatz) machines. The Bombes were key finding machines used to find the keys used with the Enigma machine. Colossus was used to find the wheel settings of the Lorenz SZ40/SZ42 machines. It was not used for Enigma. Frode ************************************************************************** * Frode Weierud Phone : 41 22 7674794 * * CERN, SL Fax : 41 22 7823676 * * CH-1211 Geneva 23 E-mail : frode@dxcern.cern.ch * * Switzerland or weierud@cernvm.cern.ch * ************************************************************************** From msuinfo!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uknet!demon!dis.demon.co.uk!ubik.demon.co.uk!amn Fri Jan 28 19:33:45 1994 Newsgroups: sci.crypt From: amn@ubik.demon.co.uk (Anthony Naggs) Path: msuinfo!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uknet!demon!dis.demon.co.uk!ubik.demon.co.uk!amn Subject: Re: French cowards (was Re: what tourist crime ) References: <2hisag$f61@uk-usenet.uk.sun.com> <2hmaav$385@lister-10.cs.strath.ac.uk> <2i3gui$hdu@paperboy.osf.org> <2i3shu$6d@convex.convex.com> <2i4bui$gli@rc1.vub.ac.be> Organization: UBIK (we are everywhere!) X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.27 Lines: 77 Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 11:15:00 +0000 Message-ID: <759669300snz@ubik.demon.co.uk> Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk In article <2i4bui$gli@rc1.vub.ac.be> evthien@vub.ac.be "Van Thienen Erik" writes: > > Mike Tighe (tighe@convex.COM) wrote: > : fabre@osf.org (Christian Fabre) writes: > > : The British did NOT crack Enigma. It was Poland. BTW, How can you remember > : something that never happened? The Poles originally cracked an Enigma in the early 1930s. However, shortly before the war the Germans made significant changes that the Poles could not cope with. The British were able to crack Enigma, but only after recieving one vital piece of information - the wiring between the keyboard/lamps (via the Steckerbrett on the Army/Air Force Enigma) to the entry wheel (where the contacts were made with the rotating wheels). The Polish method essentially was to program an electro-mechanical 'bomba' with information about a crib and some ciphertext - and let it exhaustively search for a matching Enigma configuration. The British versions were called 'bombe'. As the Germans developed new variants the British cryptographers were kept very busy. > Yes and no. The Polish intelligence reconstructed the first version of > Enigma (Geheimschreiber) and constructed electro-mechanical devices to > crack the early Enigma messages ("bombes"). But when the coding became > more difficult (by adding rotors), those "bombes" became to slow, and > the team at Bletchley Park with Alan Turing constructed the first > electronic computer, the "Collossus". Sorry, you have several errors here - I hope this is not too long, and that it helps distinguish Enigma, Geheimschreiber, etc ... 'Ultra' consisted of two parts: Enigma This was used to manually encipher/decipher messages - typing a key and noteing the lamp that lit. Then transmitting the message in morse, (intercepted communications being mostly those sent by radio). Enigma was used in the field, eg within armies. There were different versions used by Army/Air Force, Navy, Abwehr, German Railways, ... using different equipment configurations, some with extra wheel positions, some with further wheels to select from, ... Cracking was facilitated by lax German misuse of Enigma, eg sending standard format weather reports, common message openings, ... Teleprinter transmissions (British codename 'Fish') Two systems were cracked by Ultra, they were important because they were used for conveying strategic information between Berlin and the Generals in the field. The first was the German Army's use of Lorenz SZ 40, and SZ 42 (Schlusselzusatz), which was placed between the teleprinter and the radio/telegraph-line. This was introduced in mid-1941, and understood and targeted by Bletchley in January 1942, (code named 'Tunny'). The other was the Siemens T 52, (Geheimschreiber - 'secret writer') - a teleprinter which incorporated the encryption/decryption, introduced by the Air Force later in 1941. Although this was understood by the summer of 1942 (codenamed 'Sturgeon') it was not targetted. Partly because this would deflect resources from cracking Tunny, and also because Enigma was already providing information about the Air Force whilst the Army's Enigma was much more resistant. Tunny used a Vernam cipher, and early analysis was performed with the 'Heath Robinson'. When this demonstrated a possibility of cracking Tunny, the Collossus machines were built and used to automate cryptanalysis. I hope I that I have not mangled the facts too much. For more details I suggest the book of essays I'm reading, and found all this in: "Codebreakers - The Inside Story of Bletchley Park", Edited by H.F. Hinsley & Alan Stripp, Oxford University Press 1993, ISBN 0-19-820327-6 Regards, Anthony Naggs Paper mail: Hat 1: Software/Electronics Engineer PO Box 1080, Peacehaven, Hat 2: Computer Anti-Virus Researcher East Sussex BN10 8PZ PGP: public key available from keyservers Great Britain Email: amn@ubik.demon.co.uk Phone: +44 273 589701 From msuinfo!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!convex!tighe Fri Jan 28 19:35:10 1994 Path: msuinfo!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!convex!tighe From: Mike Tighe Newsgroups: sci.crypt,talk.politics.guns Subject: Re: French cowards (was Re: what tourist crime ) Date: 28 Jan 1994 05:36:31 GMT Organization: CONVEX Computer Corp, Richardson, TX USA Lines: 33 Message-ID: <2ia88v$5bo@convex.convex.com> References: <2hisag$f61@uk-usenet.uk.sun.com> <2i3gui$hdu@paperboy.osf.org> <2i3shu$6d@convex.convex.com> <1994Jan25.182026.1832@hemlock.cray.com> Reply-To: tighe@convex.com NNTP-Posting-Host: hydra.convex.com Keywords: Cambuslang, Pig, Fly Originator: tighe@hydra.convex.com Xref: msuinfo sci.crypt:23237 talk.politics.guns:97763 n4758@fig14.cray.com (Mitchell Berg) writes: > >In article <2i3shu$6d@convex.convex.com>, Mike Tighe writes: >> The British did NOT crack Enigma. It was Poland. BTW, How can you remember >> something that never happened? >Brief note - although the Polish began work on the breaking of Enigma, and >made significant headway, it *was* the British "Ultra" project which both >broke Enigma, and, more importantly, managed to keep up with German updates >to the code in almost real-time. That was the trick. Well, if that is true, then I think you should cite a source. But until then, or until there is further declassification of historical documents, the official version seems to be from Kahn in 'Siezing the Enigma': Under the direction of Maksymillian Ciezki, Marian Rejewski began work on solving the Enigma in October 1932. By February of 1933, the Poles were regularly reading Enigma traffic. In 1936, Rejewski, along with his colleagues Jerzy Rozycki and Henryk Zygalski, developed the predecessor to the bomby, called a cyclometer. By 1938, the first actual bomby went into operation, in Poland. The British and the Americans, didn't play a significant role in solving Enigma until after Germany invaded Poland (1939). And while the solutions the British and Americans contributed had greater intelligence value than anything the Poles contributed, it does not change to whom credit should be given for solving Enigma. -- Mike Tighe, (214) 497-4206 tighe@convex.com From msuinfo!uchinews!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uknet!EU.net!dxcern!frode Fri Jan 28 19:36:22 1994 Newsgroups: sci.crypt Path: msuinfo!uchinews!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uknet!EU.net!dxcern!frode From: frode@dxcern.cern.ch (Frode Weierud) Subject: Re: French cowards (was Re: what tourist crime ) Message-ID: <1994Jan28.133145.22338@dxcern.cern.ch> Reply-To: frode@dxcern.cern.ch Organization: CERN European Lab for Particle Physics References: <2hisag$f61@uk-usenet.uk.sun.com> <2hmaav$385@lister-10.cs.strath.ac.uk> <2i3gui$hdu@paperboy.osf.org><2i3shu$6d@convex.convex.com> <119@techshop.win.net> Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 13:31:45 GMT Lines: 53 In <119@techshop.win.net> dsmith@techshop.win.net (Douglas E. Smith) writes: >Nope, sorry. The Poles stole the plans(sort of, it is complicated, >like most intelligence stories) and got them to the British. The >British worked out the methods of decryption. No, the Poles stole no planes. The Poles had a access a commercial Enigma (without Stecker board) so they knew the principle of the Enigma. With the help of key lists for several months and with the Instruction Manual for the German Army Enigma (which had no plans or other information about the internal working or circuitry) they managed to recover the wiring of the Enigma and all the rotors that were then in use. Already before they received the key lists and the manual from the French, they had recovered the wiring of some of the rotors. There is a lot of confusion about this part of the Enigma history, due to the fact that most of the earlier authors that wrote books about Enigma were completely wrong. Unfortunately all the later work on Enigma has been published in some rather obscure specialist publications that are not often recited. Even Sir Hinsley got the Polish story wrong in Vol.1 of in "British Intelligence in the Second World War". A correction appeared as an appendix in Vol.2 or Vol.3. One good account of the early Enigma history has been written by Gilbert Bloch. Gilbert Bloch, ENIGMA Before ULTRA: Polish Work and the French Connection, Cryptologia, Part 1 : Vol. XI, No.3, July 1987, pp.142-155 Part 2 : Vol. XI, No.4, Oct. 1987, pp.227-234 Part 3 : Vol. XII, No.3, July 1988, pp.178-184 Another relatively good book on the Polish work is: Wladyslaw Kozaczuk, Enigma, How the German Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War Two, Arms and Armour Press, London, 1984, ISBN : 0-85368-640-8 Frode ************************************************************************** * Frode Weierud Phone : 41 22 7674794 * * CERN, SL Fax : 41 22 7823676 * * CH-1211 Geneva 23 E-mail : frode@dxcern.cern.ch * * Switzerland or weierud@cernvm.cern.ch * **************************************************************************