Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Encryption Security

Enigma Machine Stolen 126

Posted by timothy from the no-match-for-distributed.net dept.
bullgod writes "The BBC is reporting this story about the theft of one of the remaining three Enigma machines. Bummer! Presumably stolen to order -- I doubt you could fence one of these. Lets hope it's found & returned soon." You might also want to check out the Enigma displayed at the National Cryptologic Museum, run by the same folks who deny bringing you Echelon.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Enigma Machine Stolen More

Enigma Machine Stolen

Comments Filter:

  • More important than we think ? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Nearly all the WW2 german crypto was broken a bletchly, I read a few pages on the NSA site with contradicted this, it's somewhat disheartening, GCHQ even alerted american forces to a batch of uboats which were heading for the east coasts (US), the warnings fell of dear eyes though, and about 160 ships were lost and many lives lost.

    Whatever national propaganda portrays I don't think we can turn a blind eye to such minds as Alan Turner who worked at bletchley.

    A lesser known fact; Public Key Cryto was also developed at GCHQ too, years before Duffie published his research papers, you can read about it at Wired [wired.com]

  • A contradictory "geek" stance... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is sorta off topic, but I was always wondering how /.'ers overcame this seeming contradiction. I don't know exactly how important the code-breakers from wwII were to the effort to win the war, but from the special I saw on the history channel and the stuff I've read over the net they seem to have played a major role. Almost to the point where the allies may have lost if these code-breakers did not exist. Now, fast-forward to today, every geek (who is aware of the above) advocates unmitigated access to powerful encryption. If some malginant power like the nazis came to rise today, would we still win w/o the code-breakers? From what I've seen, it seems no. The nazis came to power relatively quickly, psychological studies have already shown that basically everybody is suseptiable to following in similiar footsteps, and now we are giving away one of the critical peices that helped us win the war. Personally, I'm not so sure, at least not as I use to be, whether unfettered access to powerful encryption should be a 'right' especially considering consequences as drastic as the one mentioned. I rather be one step closer to 1984 than living in the a nazi utopia. I know that the technology is already wide spread and it really wouldn't matter what is done now, but I was wondering how other slashdotters resolve this conflict....

  • Geeks and DoubleClick (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I would just like to know once and for all - from the Commander Himself - what the hell DoubleClick is doing on a site supposedly devoted to geeks. To me, this is the ultimate opportunism and hypocrisy. Must be the Commander is happy - and of course rolling in the dough - while DoubleClick continues to track everyone who visits this site.
  • Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Brits should've returned the enigma machine over to Germany long ago along with any other stolen booty.

  • Is this the ransom note from the thiefs? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Xlation: It says, "G1v3 uz w4r3z, 0r th3 m@ch1n3 d13z!"
  • Hey, don't blame us Europeans for the Americans!
  • Or for a good nonfictional account, try the Alan Turing Biography, Alan Turing : the Enigma.

  • Ironic that arguably thousands of lives were lost in WW2 to preserve the ULTRA secret, and then 60 years later someone can just steal one.

  • Sigh (Score:1)

    by Mawbid ( 3993 )
    From the article:
    It is feared the thieves may try to sell the machine on the internet.
    I... I... I am at a loss for words.
    --
  • Hrm,

    I saw what the merchant claimed was an "Austrian" enigma machine. It looked nearly identical to the pictures with 3 rotors and something like ciphermachine written on it (in German).

    It was in excellent condition but the man wanted $7,000 for it. After searching my pockets, I decided to buy a 1938 austrian "zippo-style" lighter with an iron cross instead.

    Anyway, this was probably six months ago but I have the guy's card still if anyone's interested.

    Synaptic
  • Yeah, it was funny 20 or 25 years ago when it got published.
  • Do you mean Alan Turing by any chance?
    There was no NSA or CIA during WWII, by the way, but there was the OSS (Office of Strategic Services).
    Recommended reading, if you can find them "The Black Chamber" and "Piercing the Reich". Don't remember author or publisher names of either at the moment, sorry.
  • I dunno, if there's fixers out there that are like the ones I usedta encounter in Shadowrun with my first GM, anything's possible.

    Why, you could just saunter down an alley, find some random wacky elf fixer with a few troll bodyguards, and fence anything imaginable, usually on the spot. Restricted VTOL military fighter craft? No problem. The president's daughter? No hitch. Random NASA space shuttle? Oh come on now, who doesn't have one of those? ;)

    ---------------------
  • Nah, just scan ebay, I say ;-)
  • Oh, and here [slashdot.org] is Jon Katz's review of The Code Book by Simon Singh.

    I've read the book & it's well worth it.
  • If Echelon's existance were admited... They would end up loosing it to any robber that is smart enough to pronounce the word.
  • > F 4 K J F E A K L C 7 K L 8 R C E A K C...

    A buddy ran his "Bible Codes" program on your post, hoping to find a link to a new porn site, but he discovered the following surprising message instead:
    "A Man Named Hister Shall Become The Captain Of Greater Germany"

    "That Ain't No Way To Win A War, Security by Obscurity"

    --
  • Clearly, it was stolen for one of the two following reasons -
    • Someone wanted one so they could port Linux to it, or
    • Someone is collecting them to build a Beowulf cluster out of them. (To be used for code breaking, no doubt!)

    --
  • > nostradamus eh? badass.

    Come to think of it... N probably does deserve some kind of prize for "Best Security by Obscurity".

    Also known as, "If It Ain't There, You Can't Crack It".

    --
  • I think you mean Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon [cryptonomicon.com]?
  • Come on guys. It doesn't take a a detective to figure out who took it. Havn't you seen any movies? The Nazis took it! Change all codes now!

  • First of all, being one step closer to 1984 is like living in a "nazi utopia". Do you honestly believe that making encryption illegal would stop anyone from using it? Also, consider that this was during war time for war. Assuming encryption was illegal, I am sure every government would still encrypt their own data.

    It is vitally important that we continue to come up with better and better encryption algorithms. Don't forget, the allies encrypted data too. Apparently we had better encryption! Either that or the nazi's screwed up and didn't even think about cracking it, or didn't have the resources to crack it.

    Remember that one way to crack RSA is to factor the numbers. RSA relies on the fact that factoring is a tough algorithm for a normal computer. However, there are already algorithms for quantum computers to factor in a reasonable amount of time. Just a few weeks ago there was a story about the US Gov't (or someone, I think it was Gov't related) building a quantum computer.... hmmmm.... wonder what they'll be using that for!

    Incidently, I think one of the flaws of the enigma machine was that revealing the algorithm to the opposition really weakened the encryption. That is another reason why we should be using public algorithms that people have hammered on and are known to be safe.

    -Dave

  • One of the two remaining is in the reception of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Whitehall. Not the most easy to see, but I do enjoy staring at it on the rare occasions I'm called there to tweak one of our systems.
  • Better check David Bowie's house for the missing one, then...
  • If Bletchley Park had been less successful at promoting their exhibits, they might still have their machine...
  • Yeah, I think they did learn about Pearl Harbour at Bletchley. At least, from what I can remember from The Code Book by Simon Singh. Apparently the British warned the Americans, but the Americans refused to act on it, thinking it was a British plot to get them to come into the war.

    However, one of the most surprising things I learnt from the book was that one of the scientists from Bletchley invented private-key-public-key years before the Americans did.

  • LOL, I meant it as a joke - it's a work of fiction :). Although, it does bring up an interesting hypothesis - maybe Stephenson had it stolen - I know he would enjoy owning one... Of course, by that logic, I would be a suspect as well... If I were rich enough. BTW, Cap'n Crunch really is good with whole milk, eaten out of a huge spoon - it just doesn't chew itself.
  • If you don't know how these machines were cracked, you've obviously never read the Cryptonomicon. I highly recommend it for a factual approach to code-breaking. Incidentally, it is not possible to eat Cap'n Crunch in the way described - it does not chew itself. (Moderators, it's funny, not flamebait)
  • Damn, and I thought I was cynical :>! Really, I can't imagine it being a publicity stunt--someone would swing if it turned out to be. Wonder if the theft can still be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act :>?
  • I admit it. I needed it to decipher my tax forms.
  • Check out NOVA Online for the precedures for decrypting the message. Pre-1940 method.
    Wheels: 213
    Ring Setting 20,24,23
    Stecker: AM,ET,BX,QT,RF

    RXBXXJEUIKAPGI
    KSMIV
    XMLQT
    LAGGS
    JUFBL
    PIONT
    ZCHXD
    TTCWG
    IHTLC
    XNQCK
    V

    :)

    FunOne
  • I Quote:
    The machine was already stolen property when it was taken. Depending on who stole it, then your logic might even justify this theft as merely taking it back from the real thieves.

    Now I don't know about the other two Enigma's but the one they used to crack the code first was not stolen. As everyone seems to think.
    I watched a U-boat program on the History channel today. The first one was 'taken' from a German U-boat in the North Atlantic. As in captured or dead. In war times when you capture the enemy you do not return there tanks to them.
    So if you still consider that theft then the U-boat people (Deutsche) better return the millions of tonnes of supplies they torpedoed.
    Does the Brits having the Enigma machine after the war violate the legal rules of war? I doubt it. So unless you want to argue the 10 commandments as legal....
    There is an old rusty U-boat sitting on a pier in England. I believe they fixed it up and put it in a museum now. Should they return that??
    Foolish arguement.......
  • Ha ha, April Fools?

    Oh, nevermind, 3 days late.

    I was shocked too... not all the ads are coming from them though. Time to get out the ad-blocking tools. For ip-masqed networks, you can use:

    ipchains -A output -d 199.95.206.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 199.95.207.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 199.95.208.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 199.95.207.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 63.160.54.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 208.211.225.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 208.10.202.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 216.94.59.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 208.228.78.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 208.228.86.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 209.167.73.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 208.229.75.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 208.203.243.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 204.178.112.160/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 204.253.104.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 216.230.65.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 63.77.79.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 128.11.60.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 128.11.92.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 199.95.210.0/24 -j REJECT
    ipchains -A output -d 199.95.206.0/24 -j REJECT

    --

  • See another post in this discussion (not by me) for more info on the movie "U-571" or whatever the movie is that dramatizes this. Trailer looks interesting, maybe.

    Too bad the timeline isn't contemporary w/"Titanic"...

  • All you BeOS junkies with nice systems: What's a great system to run BeOS on? what kind of processor/vid card/sound card/do you use? I've been wanting to set up a box in my room for quite a while now. Im just now getting around to it. I think....but if you could help me on where to buy from, that'd be much appreciated.

  • I think there are more than three Enigma machines in existance. I think the BBC story has it wrong, as I personally saw two of the Enigma machines in just the last month. One of them at the Danish Resistance Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark (got pictures of it too, send me requests by running my e-mail backwards, of course). I saw a second of them at the Deutsches Museum in Munich And then here according to the NSA page, they've got one at the National Crypto Museum, AND there's the BBC article about Station X having one as well. Perhaps there are more of these things floating around than the BBC thinks. Anyone else seen one elsewhere?

    BTW, the Deutsches Museus is a great museum for geeks. If you happen to find yourself in the Munich area of Germany, I definately recommend stopping in. It's very hands-on and instead of using models of planes, train, and cars, they actually have the full sized ones there. Pretty impressive. Over 10km walk if you make it around the whole thing (which I bet you couldn#t do in a day)

    -----

  • Netscape could not locate the server "www.nsa.gov"

    Nobody knows where they're hiding...

    Where is my mind?
    mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0
  • Maybe the Enigma was serving the website.

    I wish I'd though of that before!

    Where is my mind?
    mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0

  • Cryptonomicon was the lead-up, the theft makes the press, and the movie with Harvey Keitel, Bill Paxton ("game over man!"), and Jon Bon Jovi caps it off:

    http://us.imdb.com/Title?0141926 [imdb.com]

    U-571 (2000)
    Plot Outline: World War II action drama about a U.S. Navy submarine captain on a risky mission to swipe a decoding device from a stranded German ship.

  • you all might think that I am smokeing crack, but what if there is a little time travel involved here. think about this one, The US goverment could have sent people in the future to get the machine and then bring it back to the past and crack the code. this is just a story that me and my roommate thought of at 1am. let me know what ya'll think.
  • Buddy I think that you got the wrong topic, unless you are trying to compare BeOS to the Enigma.
  • The Enigma machine. I think this is the coolest and most fitting name for a computer yet. When does the E-Machines version come out? All for a limited time offer of $499.99.
  • Our children will gaze on them in some distant time, years from now, and perhaps it will make them think a little - It is sad that an Enigma box was taken...i certainly hope they find the purps...but not for the same reasons you do.

    They won't be doing much gazing at all if the only ones in existance are stolen for private collectors.
  • If you don't know how these machines were cracked, you've obviously never read the Cryptonomicon. I highly recommend it for a factual approach to code-breaking.

    Kahn's The Codebreakers is actually going to be much more indepth and thorough. It's basically has history of cryptography (as known publicly) from earliest human history into the mid 60s. Presumably Stephenson got his material from Kahn, since it's the standard reference for cryptological history.
  • This type of encryption is a mechanical version of pgp but the key combinations are limited to a very low number, thus it was broken.

    Are you some weird troll, or just drunk and/or high? You're talking about 3 completely unrelated things: SSL, PGP, and Enigma. If the Germans had the technology behind PGP in the 40s, Bletchly Park et al would have been screwed.

    SSL and PGP were both created in the 90s, by Netscape and Phil Zimmerman (respectively). Rather late for use by the Germans in the 40s. And considering SSL and PGP both use public key cryptography (which was not invented until the 70s), it would have been a very spectacular achievement indeed.

  • LOL, I meant it as a joke - it's a work of fiction :)

    Yes, I know. I love Snow Crash. :) I haven't had a chance to read Cryptonomicon yet tho.

    Although, it does bring up an interesting hypothesis - maybe Stephenson had it stolen - I know he would enjoy owning one... Of course, by that logic, I would be a suspect as well...

    LOL, same here! It would be very cool to have one sitting on my desk or something.
  • They're looking for a better encryption algorithm for CSS.
    --
  • Could the whole thing be an elaborate(and twisted) April Fool's joke? Steal the Enigma, then send coded messages back to the authorities regarding its whereabouts?

    David Andre
  • Through ULTRA, the US knew about the planned attack on Pearl Harbour.

    I think you are mistaken on this point. I'm fairly certain that the US information on Japanese war plans came from the US Navy's breaking of the Japanese diplomatic code machine, "Purple."

  • Actually I took it from Monster Magnet :)

    And as has been stated I disagree with the conclusion in the article. Either the whole thing is a prank, it was stolen by somebody for his own personal use, stolen without a buyer in mind, or stolen to order.

    One can not rule out a prank, especially because of the date, but I doubt it.

    Stolen for personal use: Maybe. Certainly I cool thing to own, but if you had the where-with-all to have pulled this off perhaps you'd have targetted somewhere else.

    The article suggested that the thieves may try to sell it over the net. I can't see it. With all the eyes watching, you'd be mad to try to post it on E-Bay.

    Stolen to order must be favourite. It's the kind of thing that interests the 'private collector'.

    It must be murder to try and shift, just think of the attention this theft is getting.

  • Best as I recall (I've got a book on Bletchley Park round here somewhere....) the std Enigma used 5 wheels, while the Naval one used 6. IIRC, the value of getting the submarine wasn't so much getting the Enigma, but getting a set of setting books. (The hassles of decrypting the Engima included: 1) figuring out which code wheels were used, in which slots. 2) determining the original position, 3) figuring out the plugboard arrangement. IIRC, this added a final set of substitution to the mess.)

    One of the reasons the Enigma was cracked is that the Luftwaffe had terrible signals security. (This also got the Japanese, especially in the RED cipher.) The Luftwaffe used a set of weather ships in the Atlantic and sent the data encrypted. However, they used a common preamble to the messages, and if you had an idea of the weather in the area, you could guess the plaintext quickly. Knowing the plaintext makes getting the setting fairly easy, and that meant the Luftwaffe signals for the day were owned....

    OTOH, the Navy was a lot more secure (paranoid) about security and didn't lapse into common preambles.

    With respect to the Purple machine, I've got a book written by one of the guys who broke Purple. It's a bit short on technical detail, but the essense of how it was done is covered. It's
    _The Story of Magic_ by Frank B. Rowlett, ISBN 0-89412-273-8. It was released in 1998, and a bunch of the stuff in the book had been recently released by the NSA just prior to publication.

    FWIW, they got a lot of use out of IBM Accounting machines. Takes me back a few (3, precisely) decades when we had one of those dinosaurs in my high school.
  • I'm fairly certain that the US information on Japanese war plans

    In Gordon Prange's At Dawn We Slept he skewers the notion that we knew PH was going to be attacked and when. The most crucial part is that fact that the Japanese PURPLE code messages for the period had no information on the attack. Actually, the Japanese ambassador learned of the attack from the US secretary of state as he was delivering Japan's declaration of war.

    The plans for the Pearl Harbor attack were developed in secret, and the Japanese Navy executed them extremely well, with complete radio silence.

    Note that Admiral Kimmel (former CINCPAC) was trying to develop the "Roosevelt knew" theory to cover his own sorry tail. The US knew we were going to be attacked--somewhere. There was no solid evidence that Pearl was the target.

    And yes, we did read the PURPLE declaration of war before the Ambassador delivered it, but there was no indication of the target. Japan had opened the Russian-Japan war in 190? with a surprise attack, and if the embassy had been able to decrypt and type up the message quickly enough, Pearl would have been attacked slightly after the message was delivered. As it was, the message was late, and it was a sneak attack. There's a moral to that story somewhere....

  • culturaltheftreallyblowsstop
    currentpositionisusaandienjoyusaculturestop
    executethiefatoncestop
    locatemissingenigmamachinesoicanencodethismessag estop
    endoftransmissionstop
  • It seems you know alot about their "april fools plot". Maybee you are one of them ya? Get him boys, he know where the enigma is. Or not. :)

  • AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRG!

    Mesa [whois.net] HATING that joke!!!!!




    /-//|/
  • Hmm. A worthy rant. However, consider how England obtained their Enigma machines in the first place.

    Maybe the Germans stole it back. :)
  • I can crash a DOS machine with 3 lines of BASIC!!!!!

    I can crash a Linux machine, given enough time (with the system RAM these days, it'll take a while, but it happens!), with about as much.

    void main () { while (1) { fork(); } }

    And if you have max processes set, it'll at least DoS it. Beat that, fucker.

    Btw, I can crash a DOS machine with three keys. Guess which three.

    It takes a whole hand to fuck yer mom, though! Damn, that bitch is loose!

    Why the hell should I use such a system??

    You shouldn't, of course. All the l337 ha><0rz use Perl on Amiga [geocities.com].

  • The Polish Bombes are long gone... But you can see one of the American ones at the National Cryptologic Museum, a stone's throw from NSA at Fort Meade. And of course, there's the Colossus rebuild at Bletchley Park, well worth the trip.

  • Re:Theft (Score:2)

    by troc ( 3606 )
    For an interesting fictional account of the Enigma etc, try Bruce Sterling's Cryptonomicon (or however it's spelled) - was reviewed on here a while back.

    Bloody good read

    Troc

  • Re:Theft (Score:2)

    by troc ( 3606 )
    Yeah, that'll be it. Ooops :)

    troc
  • You know - I've love one of these....

    I live in Armagh where there have been a couple of 'cultural' thefts recently - an Original Copy of 'Gullivers Travels' with handwritten notes by the author is probably the most famous. We're worried about this at the observatory where we have some really unique items - like the first anemometer, Earnshaw's first clock, and even the first copy fo the NGC catalogue.....

    Still it's a shame that the really important historical artifacts related to the enigma were all destroyed in the name of secrecy. The Mechanical 'bombs' used for cracking and the collossus computers.... It's tragic that the UK had secretly built 10 electronic computers before the ENIAC grabbed headlines across the world, but they were all destroyed....

    So... who are the real cultural thieves?
  • What I found most interesting about the article is the tidbit near the end about Mick Jagger owning an Enigma machine (of a different type than the one stolen). He may gather no moss, but antique crypto equipment is another matter.

    --Jim
  • A lot of people have failed to recognize that this was a German Enigma, not one of the machines used by Turing and Friends at Bletchley Park to crack the codes.

    I know who took them.The flying robots with the "Powered by Windows 2000" REALLY gave it away. Bill and friends took it over the weekend and paid the (foolish) thieves in MSFT shares, which stand to loose much of their value right away on Monday (thanks Judge Jackson!).

    " Not only was that goal achieved, but the story of Station X is being turned into a £90m Hollywood blockbuster starring Harvey Keitel and Jon Bon Jovi. " - Who is playing Turing? Anyone have a link to more info?
  • 2 April 2000 ENIGMA MACHINE STOLEN FROM BLETCHLEY PARK Yesterday afternoon, an Enigma three rotor cypher machine was stolen from the mansion at Bletchley Park, home of the world war 2 codebreakers and birthplace of the communications revolution. The machine, whose value is difficult to assess, appears to have been taken from a display case while the Park was open to visitors. It was used during the war to protect German secret messages. Enigma machines exchange hands for cash values starting at several thousand pounds. Trust Director Christine Large said, "This is a selfish act, calculated to deprive the visitors and students at Bletchley Park of the chance to enjoy and appreciate a unique piece of history. The Trust will be deeply grateful for any information that may lead to the return of the machine." Meanwhile, leading national security firm Polaris Telemetry, which has agreed to sponsor the installation and management of a comprehensive, high tech security system at Bletchley Park, is speeding up its plans to complete the work. Within the week, the first phase of the 'MicroLan' network on the Park will be in operation. All sensitive information and equipment will be asset-tagged. There will be infra red labelling and television monitoring both on the site and at the Polaris Telemetry control centre. For information: Christine Large - 07971 193546 / 020 7737 7220
  • As for America's involvement, it managed to get half the ships sunk on the east coast because the US government was too big headed to acknowledge intelligence from Bletchley about a fleet of u-boats heading across the Atlanic.

    It was more complicated than that. Adm. King was slow to institute a convoy system and he didn't like the Brits. The Royal Navy also had to relearn the lessons of World War I u-boat warfare the hard way. There have been several good books written on Operation Drumbeat/Paukenschlag that cover this in detail.

  • Oy Vey!

    I hate it when people cite this book without even getting the name of the main character right!

    The author of the book is William SteVenson
    The main character is William StePHenson

    It always makes me worry about how carefully they read the book. When I read it (as a teenager, back in the 70's), the coincidence in names struck me immediately -- it's kind of hard to miss, no?

    __________

  • I know it's bad form to reply to your own post, but I wanted to make two posts, one based on facts I verified before posting (with my +1, since the error could lead people to believe 'Intrepid' was an autobiography, and needed to be corrected) and one based on opinions and slightly faded which don't warrant a (+1) Alas, this is the only way /. will let me post the second part.

    When I read the book, I was amazed by the ease and success with which this man moved between widely disparate fields. While this was common for the great polymaths of past centuries and was probably still possible in England in the mid 20th century (when social contacts were everything -- though they're still pretty bloody important today, in almost any nation) I felt a surge of envy at the 'good old days' for polymaths

    But it really did strain credulity that this man knocked Baron von Richthoven out of the sky (Sir Stephenson was an ace, but with, I'm told, 8 kills not 26), helped develop a television system at Bell Labs, was key in developing an Allied jet engine (which didn't fit my recollection of jet engine history), pushed critical military technologies through (like the Spitfire), and kept a full plate of intelligence credits, any one of which would hav earned him a place in history on both sides of the Atlantic.

    Clearly he was a major player in Anglo-US intelligence, but a lot of historians dismissed the book as 'historical fiction', and cited very specific objections.

    In fairness, I have been told by a friend who keeps up on such things that records declassified in the 80's and 90's offer some justification for some (but not all) of the book's claims. I say "some justification" because the facts still don't quite jibe, but many of the new revelations were surprising enough that they are strong points in the book's favor.

    It's fascinating reading, and gets many obscure details exactly right, but it's far from a history text (biographies seldom lack 'spin') and can still be accused of getting significant events quite seriously wrong.

    I loved the book, but I was disturbed to hear the original poster claim that reading it mean he probably had his facts straight. The history of debate on this book makes it an unlikely contender for *that* comment


    __________

  • Here's [att.co.uk] a java implementation of an enigma machine. I believe it emulates the deficiencies of the machine as well (sometimes a rotor will increment twice in a certain position). Also contains some information about it.

  • The "Hollywood Blockbuster" mentioned at the article is U-571 [u-571.com], which looks like it's gonna be pretty cool. Doesn't it seem awfully coincidental that an enigma machine is stolen a mere 3 weeks before a movie about stealing an enigma machine opens? Hmmmm..... (play X-Files music here)
  • I can only assume that this machine was stolen to order. They are of limited usefulness for cryptographic purposes these days.

    I think it's very sad. This is one of only three Enigma machines left. It was used by the Abwehr (SS), so it a particularly well-engineered machine. It's hard to imagine who would want one. The Bletchley museum was opened recently after a huge amount of work, largely by volunteers.

    If any good can come from this, it may draw attention once again to the astonishing work done at Bletchley Park. As part of their efforts to break the Enigma cipher, they built some of the earliest electronic computers (some would say *the* first electronic computer)

    Check here [bletchleypark.org.uk] for more information.
  • According to the Deutsches Museum Enigma Page [deutsches-museum.de] (in English), between 100,000 and 200,000 Enigma machines were built during World War II.
    The Polish were breaking Enigma ciphers as early as December 1932 and January 1933, as mentioned in passing here [af.mil] - in fact it was Polish dissidents that delivered an Enigma to Bletchley Park.
    This page [eclipse.net] has some recent Enigma selling prices in case you want to start saving up for one (prices start around $15000).
    I wonder what's so special about the stolen one, and why there's only three of that type remaining...
  • Given the fact that there are only three of these things in the world, it probably won't be sold over the internet. Gee...there's an Enigma machine on Ebay, it wonder if it is the stolen one?

    My guess it that it was meant to be a prank, or someone who on a whim thought, "That will look cool in my flat!" and grabbed it. My fear now would be that since such a big deal was made about the theft, the thief will try to destroy the evidence, rather than return it.

    Dana
  • Gee, what part of "whole or partial" didn't you understand?
  • This is among the worst types of theft: cultural theft. This is so because it is not theft from one or a few people, but from much of the world, similar to the American habit of destroying foreign culture and replacing it with our own (yes, I come from the USA and I say this). I hope that not only they find the thief, but that the punishment is quite severe. After all, there can be no serious attempt to justify a light sentence based on thieving to live or being unaware of committing a crime.

    -----------------------

  • The standard international crypto FTP sites have them:

    http://www.funet.fi/ftp/pub/crypt/ [funet.fi]

    ftp://ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/misc/ [ox.ac.uk]

  • It is feared the thieves may try to sell the machine on the internet.

    The author of the book Station X, Michael Smith, called it a "devastating blow", but said he did not believe the machine had been stolen to order.
    Hmm - wonder if they're gonna start looking at eBay?
  • Best as I recall (I've got a book on Bletchley Park round here somewhere....) the std Enigma used 5 wheels, while the Naval one used 6

    The standard Enigma machine used 3 rotors, but came with a selection of 5 to choose from.

    Naval enigma used 4 rotors with 8 (IIRC) to choose from.

  • I've had the chance to try an Enigma machine; a speaker for EE380 at Stanford brought one by last year. It's the keyboard machine from Hell; key travel is about an inch and takes over a pound of pressure. The pressure on the keys advances the wheels, and since the wheels have 52 wiper contacts each, they're hard to rotate.

    I used a 3-rotor machine at the NSA's crypto museum in VA and didn't find it difficult. Perhaps the NSA's machine is better maintained.

  • So, there you are, the real history of the ENIGMA

    Why is it, that whenever you see that sort of phrase, you just know it's going to be wrong ?

    The Colossii weren't for solving Enigma, nor did Stevenson solve it single-handed (neither did Welchman either, despite his book). Bletchley Park didn't touch Purple and certainly didn't know about Pearl Harbour. The Polish Enigma work and the invention of the Bombe pre-dated Heydrich.

    If you're going to claim accuracy in a posting like this, then at least get the facts right. After all, there's enough authorative information out on the Net to do it easily (and Bletchley's own site is a good start).

    I was one of BTS '82 at Horwood House / Bletchley Park - any other BTS out there ?

  • This is rather bizarre. With only three machines, this will have no value to any legitamet collector. I question the purpose of this crime. Conceivably, someone just walked off with it, but you would think that robbing a guarded museum would be difficult and require SOME sort of planning.

    This is obviosly the work of a mobster. Some bigwig in organized crime with a private museum. Law abiding wealthy people wouldn't take the risk, so it is obviously a crime lord who wants it.

    It probably wasn't really guarded. Either the guard swiped it, or somebody took it while a guard was asleep. They probably figured it was valuable, and didn't realize that there were only three. Assuming that hundreds were made, they probably figured that it would net a small fortune on the black market to people that would sell it to collectors... Start checking nearby pawn shops.

    The part that bothers me about this crime is the mention of the Internet. With absolutely no evidence to back this up, they blame technology for creating a market for stolen items. As a result, they will motivate technophobes to blame technology and increase regulations... despite technology playing no role in this...

    Alex
  • Prized Abacus Stolen
    from the bead-it-just-bead-it dept.

    A break-in at the Museum of Old and Useless Stuff at Cambridge last night resulted in the theft of a priceless Intel Abacus, dating from the fiteenth century. This particular abacus belonged to Intel's first line of 64-bead Abacuses, which changed the mathematics world forever, by providing unparalleled performance gains in both adding and subtracting. Until the University is able to buy the abacus back on E-bay, the professors will have to research their physics theories using the even more ancient Fingers'N'Toes technology.

    Professor Hawking, unable to move his fingers or toes, will have his nurse jack him off into a paper cup until the abacus is returned.

    In related news...

    Enigma Machine Stolen
    from the man-timothy-must be bored-dept.

    The BBC is reporting the theft of one of the remaining three Enigma machines. A CIA spokesman is quoted as saying, "We could break the cyphertext with a $5.99 pocket calculator. Britain may have lost a priceless museum piece, but the theif has gained a handy footrest. Oh, and this press release doesn't exist."

    • There's an out of print book, "Modern Machine Cryptography", which contains BASIC programs for cracking Enigma and Purple. Early '80s.
    • The submarine-capture story is real. The sub was the U-505, it was captured by a task group commanded by Adm. Daniel F. Gallery (who wrote a great story about it) and the sub itself is parked on land alongside the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where it can be toured.
  • I have _The Story of Magic_ and the information is not nearly enough to implement a realistic attack on PURPLE. An appropiate analogy would be Feynman's "Six Easy Pieces" versus something like "The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time" by Ellis, Hawking or Misner, Thorne, Wheeler's "Gravitation." You would be able to handwave a description of gtr with the first one, but you wouldn't be able to anything quantitative. Likewise, _The Story of Magic_ leaves out the all-critical details about the reconstruction of the V->V and C->C tables.
  • IIRC the Enigma was invented in the Netherlands for use by corperations in 1919. Then a German bought the rights and improved the disign and called it the Enigma.
    Before the War, Some the Poles got a hold of 3 stolen machines from the German army and started their own codebreaking in 1938. Before Poland was invaded, the Crypto team from Poland smuggled all the stuff out to England and helped the British at Bleachly Park. (Sp?)
    There are manyt good books about the History of the Enigma. Also NOVA and the History channel both have good programs on it if you live in the US.
  • Well, 20 partial machines won't do much good. Like having the all, but the one key McDonald's game piece for the $1,000,000 prize.

  • I found it strange the article mentions that "ever more complicated" versions of the Enigma were cracked - including the "naval" version.

    My understanding of the Enigma, was that the Naval version was so incredibly hard to crack, a German U-Boat had to be disabled and boarded so the Naval version could be stolen and reverse engineered.

  • ACHTUNG! (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 02, 2000 @03:25PM (#1155808)
    VAS IST DAS?!? EIN ENIGMA MACHINE HAST FALLEN INTO THE HANDS OF DER ALLIES!!! Schweinhunden!!! VE MUSHT GET IT BACK AT ONCE! IF HIMMLER HEARS OF ZIS VE ARE ALL DEAD MEN!!!!

    Hang on...what year is it again?
    Never mind. I just get these spells.

    Obergruppenfuhrer Jones

  • Re:Theft (Score:3)

    by Millennium ( 2451 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @03:53PM (#1155809)
    This is among the worst types of theft: cultural theft.

    Perhaps, but then the question becomes: whose culture? The machine was stolen from Britain, but the machine is German in origin. The machine was already stolen property when it was taken. Depending on who stole it, then your logic might even justify this theft as merely taking it back from the real thieves.

    This is so because it is not theft from one or a few people, but from much of the world...

    Point here. But that machine is still, I sumbit, more of a historical artifact than a cultural one.

    similar to the American habit of destroying foreign culture and replacing it with our own (yes, I come from the USA and I say this).

    OK, I want to hear a defense of this point. Are you traing to say that American culture has no right to exist? Or that it is somehow inferior to others? The way I see it, American culture has exactly as much a right to exist as any other culture; no more, true, but certainly no less either. If you're going to try and say which culture is superior and which isn't (and you certainly sound as though you are doing this), then I wonder where the hell you get off thinking you're in any position to do that. I know I'm not, and I very much doubt anyone here on Slashdot is, because guess what: no one is in that position. Least of all those who are so egotistical they actually think they are.

    After all, there can be no serious attempt to justify a light sentence based on thieving to live or being unaware of committing a crime.

    Strange; last I checked ignorance of the law is generally considered an extremely weak defense, and certainly wouldn't work in this case.

  • I know where it is! (Score:3)

    by Vic ( 6867 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @01:03PM (#1155810) Homepage
    It's hooked up to one of the Distributed.net [distributed.net] projects!

  • Re:Enigma cracked? (Score:3)

    by craw ( 6958 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @05:45PM (#1155811) Homepage
    FWIW, there may be some new info about JN-25 coming out (the Naval code is not to be confused with the diplomatic code). This is based on a recently published article that appeared in Proceedings of the US Naval Institute. JN-25 was based on substituting a word with a five digit number based on some code book. For instance, Yankee=35493, scumbag=12345, hacker=31335. The operator then sequentially "added" a random number that was looked up in another additive code book. It was not a true addition as the number were not carried over (6+9=5, not 15). Each code book consisted of about 30K entries.

    The code was broken because of two main reasons. First the coders tended to use the similar portions of the available additive numbers. Additionally, several words were repeated; for instance, numbers. Given enough intercept message traffic, patterns would then appear. For instance, hey look, the same number.

    Eventually, some repeating key words (actually five digit numbers) were identified, as well as some of the additive sequence numbers. These numbers were relative values. For instance, all the code words could start at zero, while all the additive numbers started at 1000. Or all the code words started at 1000, while all the additive numbers started at zero.

    The major breakthrough came when someone remembered that the Japanese had used an old four digit code that represented numbers in a know sequence. For instance, 0=0000, 1=0102, 2=0204 etc... Someone then realized that one deciphered code word was 13343, another was 13445, 13547, etc... Woops. As the article states, within a day, all numbers from 0-999 was known. Given this info, it made it easier to decipher the additive code.

    The second important item that you may have noticed is that the coded numbers are all divisible by three. Checksum error. After that, all applicable additive sequence had to yield a series of code words (5 digit numbers) that were divisible by three.
    BTW, the author of this article also found out (from the recently release classified docs) that JN-25 was not broken on Dec 7, 1941. Not even close. There was some indication that 10-15% of JN-25 transmissions were decoded. The problem was that this meant:

    xx dude xx xx xx xx xx xx first xx xx xx xx xx xx xx post xx xx xx petrified xx xx xx xx xx xx Hemos.

    Of course, the non-numerical coded number still had to be converted to their equivalent Japanese words.

  • Not jsut the first computer (Score:3)

    by szyzyg ( 7313 ) on Monday April 03, 2000 @12:21AM (#1155812)
    From what I heard there were up to 10 electropnic computers operating at Bletchly park.... plus of course all the mechanical crckers.

    So the eniac wasn't even in the first 10 computers....

    Even better - it makes IBM's assertion that there was a worldwide market for at most 5 computers even more ludicrous since twice that many had already been built.

  • Re:There are a LOT more than three Enigmas... (Score:3)

    by philj ( 13777 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @01:25PM (#1155813)
    There are only three enigmas of the same type as the one that was stolen.

  • Java Enigma Machine (Score:3)

    by philj ( 13777 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @01:07PM (#1155814)
    Here [att.co.uk] is a cool applet that simulates an enigma machine.

    ... and this [pbs.org] is how it works.

  • The *real* story of the Enigma (Score:3)

    by GwaiJai ( 50059 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @05:18PM (#1155815) Homepage
    I used to get into arguments with self-professed experts about this all the time, and seeing as i've read the biography of the man that put the whole project together, almost singlehandedly, i was inclined to believe i had my facts straight.

    I haven't read the book for a long time, but A Man Called Intrepid is what it is, written by William Stevenson, about Sir William Stevenson, the master spy code-named Intrepid. Stevenson was a canadian, and served as Churchill's liason to the US during the US's neutrality and helped Bill Donovon, Roosevelt's main inteligence man, create the OSS (precursor to the CIA). Stevenson was behind everything the british did in the Secret War, trained all the spies, helped design most of their equipment. From Russia With Love actually gives some really good examples of this gear, and guess where Ian Flemming got all his inspiration? He was one of Intrepid's men.

    But, back to the Enigma. The British built Collosus, the 1st computer (yes, it predates ENIAC) at Bletchley to crack the Enigma, but very few people know that in august, 1939 an Enigma was smuggled out of Poland. The Czechs attacked a convoy that was being escorted by Heydrich. Intrepid had his agents blow up a typewriter and scatter the parts so the germans thought that the machine was destroyed. The allies paid dearly for that however, since Heydrich went on a killing spree untill he was assasinated by Intrepid's ppl.

    All transmissions that were intercepted by the Bletchly people were codename ULTRA. One of these ULTRA interceptions allowed the British to organize the evacuation at Dunkirk. Tonnes of equipment was lost on the beaches, but without that pre-warning, there's no way the British could have mobilized enough transport to get those men out. As it was, only the rear guard that were swarmed by the Germans were captured.

    Through ULTRA, the US knew about the planned attack on Pearl Harbour. This is a sorely contentious issue, and many contend that the Japanese attacked sooner than expected. However, the official reasons for tho coverup were to not reveal the source (PURPLE was the code that the Japanese used, basically similare to ENIGMA), and to serve as a match to stir the US to war.

    So, there you are, the real history of the ENIGMA. They remained secret until 1972, 10 years after the defection of Philby, a top BSC exec, and a deeply planted Russian spy. Philby was, ironically, in charge of anti-Soviet operations.
    A naval Enigma was found as well. A U-boat got torpedoed, and the crew thought it was sinking, and the crew hopped ship, figuring it went down. but the british (or americans, don't remember which) got a crew of 3 on, found it wasn't sinking that fast, so they sent a prize crew on and got the Enigma, charts etc, while the German crew were shipped off to a POW camp.

    I only take a drink on two occasions - when I'm thirsty and when I'm not.

  • mm enigma.... (Score:3)

    by cdlu ( 65838 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @12:58PM (#1155816) Homepage
    F 4 K J F E A K L C 7 K L 8 R C E A K C
    8 1 K 4 M B L F E 8 D F 4 C G A F 4 6 Z
    I F Y O U S T O L E T H E E N I G M A 0
    P L E A S E R E T U R N I T T O T H E G
    O V E R N M E N T A S S O O N A S P O S
    S I B B L E 0 E V E R W O N D E R W H Y
    I T T O O K T H E M S O L O N G T O B R
    E A K T H E E N I G M A C O D E 0 1 F G
    6 F C L D F R C S G E A C G C J X Z C 9
    H A C E K Z K 8 4 C S A K V C 4 9 0 0 0

  • Cultural theft or destruction? (Score:3)

    by sumana ( 66640 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @05:28PM (#1155817) Homepage
    In the past, the cultures of indigenous peoples in Africa, Asia, Australia, South and North America -- maybe Europe, I don't know -- have been destroyed because of the actions of more technologically advanced groups. Some of the horror comes when, say, the rich white man keeps little tchotchkes from his trips that are actually the sacred relics of the culture that used to exist, before they became just like us. (And sometimes we forced them to assimilate, and sometimes economic/social/political forces made them, and maybe sometimes it was no one's fault.) I imagine that's what the person meant by "cultural theft."

    But it's also sad, to me, when a culture is gone. Just disappears, killed or murdered or died. Like the passenger pigeon, extinct. There goes a bit of wisdom, as somebody wrote in "Ishmael," that we'll never have again. A system of knowing, a chunk of wisdom about how to live in this world. We can never get that particular wisdom back.

    I'm Indian-American, and I KNOW that there is value in American culture and that there is value in Indian culture. I don't think Mohandas Gandhi was literal when he responded to the newspaperman --
    "What do you think of Western civilization?"
    Gandhi: "I think it would be a good idea."
    No, both have value -- more or less, I don't want to judge. But the Westerners have, as my ex-PoliSci TA says of the British, "that nasty little conquering habit." There are drives in certain cultures that make it difficult for them to coexist peacefully with other cultures. Might that destructiveness lower that culture's value? Maybe.

    Anyway, I think you misread the person's comment on the Western habit of destroying and replacing other cultures. Visit Bangalore, visit Paris, visit any city that has a proud history of its own. More people speak English, more people have "Western values" and dress and watch and listen and all that -- looking to the US. Or, at least, a global monoculture will be / is more influenced by Protestant individualism than by Hinduism. Maybe that's not so optimal for wisdom and balance.

    That's all.

  • There are a LOT more than three Enigmas... (Score:3)

    by Mr. Protocol ( 73424 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @01:12PM (#1155818)
    This is just nuts. I saw at least three Enigmas when I was at the Bletchley Park museum of cryptography, and I read not too long ago of a cryptologist/collector here in California who has over twenty whole or partial Enigman machines. Who says there are only three???

  • enigma warez (Score:3)

    by Netsnipe ( 112692 ) <netsnipe&gmail,com> on Sunday April 02, 2000 @01:15PM (#1155819) Homepage
    Where can I download this Enigma thing?

  • But it has the keyboard from Hell (Score:3)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @05:26PM (#1155820) Homepage
    I've had the chance to try an Enigma machine; a speaker for EE380 at Stanford brought one by last year. It's the keyboard machine from Hell; key travel is about an inch and takes over a pound of pressure. The pressure on the keys advances the wheels, and since the wheels have 52 wiper contacts each, they're hard to rotate. And the lamps (one for each letter of the alphabet) only light up when the keys are fully depressed, so you have to push, hold, and read a lamp before advancing. It usually took two people to operate, one to push the keys, and one to copy the output from the illuminated lamps.

    It's suprising the Germans fielded such a mechanical turkey, especially since they also used the minature Hagelin C-52 [magi.com], a pocket-sized all-mechanical crypto machine with a printer. Due to a dumb advancing mechanism, that little machine had weak cypher strength, but it could have been smartened up.

  • Re:Enigma cracked? (Score:5)

    by Signail11 ( 123143 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @01:44PM (#1155821)
    The Enigma was only used for short-term tactical communications. The Army and Air Force version used 3 wheels, while the later naval versions used 4 wheels. All of the Enigma cryptosystems shared certain traits that made them especially amenable to a type of cryptanalysis known as the Index of Coincidence method (a letter could never be encrypted to its plaintext equivalent). There was never any real need to capture a naval Enigma, although if this occured, it would certainly have been a great help. Later German innovations, such as the plugboard and better keying techniques, made it more difficult for British cryptanalysts to break Enigma messages in useful durations of time. While there are indeed more than 3 extant Enigma machines, I believe that the article refers to 3 of a specific type and manufacture.

    The details of the high-level encryption systems (such as the Lorentz cipher machines between German operational command and the leadership) have not ever been declassified yet, although it is known that they too were broken by the Allies. To this day, the details of how the Japanese PURPLE machine was broken are not known either. Rotor machines were used by the Allies as well during WWII, and by most nations until probably the late 1950s. It has additionally been rumored that codebreaking agencies had discovered astonishingly general techniques for breaking messages encrypted with rotor machines.

Slashdot Top Deals

It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. - Voltaire

Close