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158,962,555,217,826,360,000 (Enigma Machine) & Flaw in the Enigma Code

tags:: #source #cryptography #information-transfer #computing projects:

Reference

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2_Q9FoD-oQ
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4V2bpZlqx8

Summary & Key Take Aways

A two part series discussing the enigma machine, how it worked, why it was hard to decrypt including doing some math to show the number of possible starting positions the enigma machine could be set to. The second part discusses the flaw the enigma machine had, and how Alan Turing exploited it and created Bombe in order to do the math fast enough to exploit it (under 20 minutes to decrypt). Additionally it discussed how the Naval codes where different from the Army's codes and how they had to decrypt them seperately and design the Bombe so that it could still decrypt enigma messages even with these variations in useage.

Overall I think these episodes are an informative series to get a sense of the inner workings of enigma and why a computer like the Bombe was needed and roughly how it worked.