![]() Simplified, but not so far in fact from a model used by Rejewski. The setup for each period was circulated to an entire network ahead of time (also secretly, of course).īut I am only interested in a single mathematical idea, and I shall work with a drastically simplified machine. At the end of some fixed period, which was originally 24 hours in length, the rotors and the plugboard were changed, as was also a ring on each rotor that determined how the rotors advanced with input, and a starting state. ![]() The signal passed through a plug board, an entry wheel, and three movable rotors before reversing itself in a reflector and passing out again through the same group of enciphering devices. ![]() The one who was sending a message typed it into a keyboard of 26 letters, and the encrypted message appeared on a lamp display, one letter at a time. The real Enigma machines were rather complicated to start with, and got more and more complicated as the intelligence war went on. I hope to explain here the mathematics behind Rejewski's accomplishment. One of the very first steps, and one of the most intriguing, was made by Marian Rejewski, who applied the theory of permutations in an interesting way to figure out `message keys' used by German operators as well as the structure of the German Enigma machines. They made the first breaks into the Germans' code by relatively simple techniques that were fortunately able to deal with the relatively simple German encoding techniques of those early days. As the war developed and the German networks became larger and more complicated, the methods used by the British became correspondingly more and more sophisticated, depending on a huge effort with thousands of people involved in interception, decipherment, and interpretation of the German signals.īut the process started long before the war, in 1932, with a tiny group of Polish mathematicians. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canadaĭuring World War II the British read German military communications regularly, because they were able to decipher messages encoded on the Enigma machines used by the Germans. It also simplified the task of the Allies enormously. The settings of an Enigma machine were exactly the same for writing and reading messages, which simplified its practical use enormously. Marian Rejewski and the First Break into Enigma Posted November 2009.
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