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How long would it take an average computer to figure out the WWII Enigma machine

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CJay:

--- Quote from: alank2 on January 04, 2021, 01:12:01 am ---The bombe was not a put in the message and wait for the answer type of thing - there were hundreds of talented code breakers at Bletchley Park responsible for obtaining a daily key and the bombe was only a part of that process.

I think someone tried a distributed computer attack in 2008 to break some of the remaining unencrypted German messages from WWII, but it did not do well at it.

--- End quote ---

https://www.cnet.com/news/distributed-computing-cracks-enigma-code/

Simon:
The whole thing was relays at best and basically it was a guessing game. The codes were brute forced although this was after obtaining clues. For example there was a German station that every morning would transmit "nothing to report" once they guessed the message contents they could use it to try and find out the code. Some of the peculiarities of the coding system also gave away clues. I think the bombs were simply motor drive enigma replicas with multiple replicas in each bomb so that they could simultaneously run lots of possible options on the days code until one of them spat out an intelligible message (in German). So there were no actual code cracking machines, they were just a very large number of duplicates of one machine built into one machine and then they had several machines. The cracking was done by humans. It was not necessarily the breaking that was the problem but the speed required because every 24 hours the code was changed and different German forces used different codes so ideally on a good day by 1AM they had cracked it and knew the orders before those executing them did. on a bad day they did not crack the code until 23:00 so not much use as in 1 hour it would be changed and they would have to start again. So it was simply parallel execution of the same task on the same data until a result came out. Whittle it down with human calculation and intuition and then try out variants of the very good guesses.

Beamin:

--- Quote from: CJay on January 04, 2021, 07:37:49 am ---
--- Quote from: alank2 on January 04, 2021, 01:12:01 am ---The bombe was not a put in the message and wait for the answer type of thing - there were hundreds of talented code breakers at Bletchley Park responsible for obtaining a daily key and the bombe was only a part of that process.

I think someone tried a distributed computer attack in 2008 to break some of the remaining unencrypted German messages from WWII, but it did not do well at it.

--- End quote ---

https://www.cnet.com/news/distributed-computing-cracks-enigma-code/

--- End quote ---



--- Quote ---Radio signal 1851/19/252: "F T 1132/19 contents: Forced to submerge during attack. Depth charges. Last enemy position 0830h AJ 9863, (course]) 220 degrees, (speed) 8 knots. (I am) following (the enemy). (Barometer) falls 14 mb, (wind) nor-nor-east, (force) 4, visibility 10 (nautical miles)."
--- End quote ---

Quick someone get the navy on the phone and tell them this!!!! I'm surprised they put such sensitive info on the internet.


We still havent figured out if you could use an arduino to crack the code or how long it would take a PC, or how its done for that matter; that youtube video didnt explain how they did it.
 If I wasn't such a beginner it would be cool to build a arduno based enigma machine. I miss living in a house with a workshop/garage/tools. I would build it from an old type writter.

ledtester:
I found this paper to be a good survey of the various techniques involved in a ciphertext-only attack on Enigma:

https://cryptocellar.org/pubs/Enigma_ModernBreaking.pdf

Also check out the top-level of the website.

This github repo looks promising with regard to the hill climbing algorithm:

https://github.com/arvindpj007/Enigma-M4-Cryptanalysis

There are a lot of references to a 1995 paper by James Gillogly which introduced the "Index of Coincidence" statistic. I was able to find a copy here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20060720040135/http://members.fortunecity.com/jpeschel/gillog1.htm


Simon:

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