Doug
Justin Schwartz wrote:
>Thanks, my recollections of this stuff are years old and rather dim
>(obviously). jks
>
>
>>From: "John K. Taber" <jktaber at tacni.net>
>>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>>To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>>Subject: Re: Enigma vs Tractatus (was Re:Left wing blogs
>>Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2002 17:27:17 -0500
>>
>>Carrol Cox asked:
>>>
>>> >Was Enigma a complex polyalphabetic cipher or a scrambler?
>>
>>and Justin replied:
>>
>>> It was a scrambler.
>>
>>I'm sorry I was slow in replying, maybe some confusion could
>>have been avoided. I also don't know how much detail is tolerable
>>on a list like this.
>>
>>But no, Justin, the Enigma is a complex polyalphabetic substitution
>>cipher. This is easy to demonstrate if anybody insists.
>>
>>I'm not sure, but I suspect that Carrol means "transposition cipher"
>>when he says "scrambler." The Enigma does not transpose letters.
>>
>>AFAIK, the Enigma did not use the German alphabet. It used the
>>standard 26 letter alphabet, which was the standard in international
>>telegraphy, and international telegraphy did not support umlauts
>>or the Cyrillic alphabets, or anything but 26 latin letters.
>>German was spelled out: The most frequent message was
>>LAGEUNVERAENDERT, umlauts spelled out ("situation unchanged").
>>
>>Some corrections on its breaking. It was the Poles who first
>>broke the Enigma before the War began. Marion Rajewski is the
>>only name I recall today, but there were three of them. They
>>escaped to the British bringing their work with them. In the
>>meantime the Germans complicated the Enigma beyond the resources
>>that Poland could muster. I'm not sure, but I seem to remember
>>that with the strengthened Enigma, the captured machine was
>>important in providing the order of letters on the rotors. There
>>was no reason to assume that the order was the standard
>>alphabet, but so it was, which greatly aided solution.
>>
>>Justin must mean Andrew Hodges biography of Turing, _Alan
>>Turing: The Enigma_. This is a marvelous book which I highly
>>recommend. Turing was a very lonely homosexual, in math and
>>the hard sciences, as well as in super secret work, not the
>>arts or literature where he might have found more support.
>>Hodges handles that with sensitivity, or at least so I think.
>>The biography isn't anything about economics or lefty bashing,
>>but despite that list readers might give it a try.
>>
>>Andrew Hodges maintains a web site devoted to Turing at
>>http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/
>>I recommend browsing it.
>>
>>There are pictures of Enigmas at the NSA web site
>>http://www.nsa.gov/ at their web Cryptologic Museum,
>>and I believe that Bletchley Park also has some pictures
>>at http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/. It also has
>>an explanation of how the contraption worked.
>>
>>But enough. On to Marx and politics.
>>
>>--
>>John K. Taber
>>
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