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Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs

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"Jon Elson" wrote:

> Osmium wrote:
>
>
>> I have probably read as much as anyone on Enigma.  And I *still* don't
>> know just how breakable it is. There are a lot of people spouting off who
>> shouldn't be, and I have difficulty separating what those people said 
>> from
>> the trustworthy people.  In my mind, I guess, I think the Enigma is not
>> very
>> breakable at all.  To me, the most interesting question is: "Can the
>> Enigma
>> be broken without cribs"?
> Apparently, it can, but that slows down the process quite a bit.  You can
> have programs that look for typical character strings to guess which
> settings might be producing a clear text result.
>
>> My tentative answer is "no", in other words a
>> workable protocol for usage can be established and the Enigma is 
>> virtually
>> unbreakable. Today.
>>
> There are programs you can download on the web that do essentially what 
> the
> Bombes did, and scans the results for likely results.
>
> So, with a small farm of desktop computers, I think you can crack enigma
> messages in fairly short order.  See :
>
> http://www.enigma.hoerenberg.com/index.php?cat=Breaking%20the%20M4
> http://www.cnet.com/news/distributed-computing-cracks-enigma-code/
>
> I think a lot more interesting problem would be cracking the SZ26 cipher,
> which was a lot more sophisticated.  The Bletchely Park group had to 
> invent
> a digital device to crack that (Colossus), and needed cribs to make much
> progress.

Thanks, I found the second one especially helpful.  As you might know I am 
hung up on the cribs aspect of this, so I treed to harvest cribs from the 
message they extracted.  It was a goldmine (for submarine use): forced, 
submerge, attack, depth, charges, knots, following, visibility.  This 
afternoon it seems more crackable than it was this morning.  Perhaps it 
actually supports my belief that they *had* to use cribs; but something I 
wasn't sufficiently aware of, crib words are inevitable.

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Enigma rotor made of PCBs davidmylastname@acm.org (David Griffith) - 2015-10-17 01:47 +0000
  Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> - 2015-10-16 22:18 -0500
    Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-19 13:11 +0000
  Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2015-10-16 21:44 -0600
  Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2015-10-21 11:35 -0500
    Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Greymaus <mausg@mail.com> - 2015-10-22 11:38 +0000
      Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-22 16:18 +0100
        Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-10-22 18:22 +0000
          Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-10-22 17:32 -0700
        Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs "78lp" <78lp@nospam.com> - 2015-10-23 14:14 +1100
      Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2015-10-22 11:48 -0400
      Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-10-22 11:08 -0700
      Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs "78lp" <78lp@nospam.com> - 2015-10-23 14:21 +1100
        Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-10-23 10:43 +0200
          Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Greymaus <mausg@mail.com> - 2015-10-23 11:06 +0000
            Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2015-10-23 10:00 -0500
              Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-23 16:22 +0100
              Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Greymaus <mausg@mail.com> - 2015-10-23 17:27 +0000
              Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2015-10-23 13:40 -0400
                Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2015-10-24 06:54 +0000
                Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Greymaus <mausg@mail.com> - 2015-10-24 10:57 +0000
                Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2015-10-25 18:47 -0500
            Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs "78lp" <78lp@nospam.com> - 2015-10-24 12:36 +1100
          Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs "78lp" <78lp@nospam.com> - 2015-10-24 12:29 +1100
        Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2015-10-23 10:24 -0500
          Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-10-23 10:32 -0700
            Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2015-10-23 13:51 -0500
            Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Greymaus <mausg@mail.com> - 2015-10-24 10:36 +0000
          Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2015-10-23 13:36 -0400
            Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2015-10-23 15:13 -0500
              Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> - 2015-10-23 20:25 +0000
                Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2015-10-23 15:51 -0500
                Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2015-10-23 15:59 -0500
                Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs David Wade <dave.g4ugm@gmail.com> - 2015-10-24 18:51 +0100
                Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> - 2015-11-20 21:33 -0500
                Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2015-11-20 23:12 -0600
            Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2015-10-23 14:14 -0700
              Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-10-23 22:10 +0000
                Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-10-24 09:10 +0200
              Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2015-10-23 19:19 -0500
              Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> - 2015-10-23 20:13 -0500
                Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2015-10-24 09:13 -0400
            Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Greymaus <mausg@mail.com> - 2015-10-24 10:47 +0000
          Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2015-10-23 14:46 -0500
            Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2015-10-23 15:48 -0500
  Re: Enigma rotor made of PCBs barrym95838@yahoo.com - 2015-10-22 23:40 -0700

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