Re: gEDA-user: [OT] MIT Flea

[Dave McGuire <mcguire@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sep 22, 2008, at 1:03 AM, Dave N6NZ wrote:
> Enigmas are very interesting machines.  This summer I had a chance to
> take a tour of the NSA museum, and they have several, of different
> configurations.  A couple were out in the open for people to type  
> on, so
> of course I had to encode a few silly things.  Rather laborious.  They
> said the standard operating procedure was to have two operators, one
> typing, the other writing down the cipher text.  I can see why.
>
> The thing I enjoyed most was the BOMBE that they had on display (non
> working).  A friend of mine who just happens to be a PhD cryptographer
> tells me that in addition to the BOMBE, cracking was also helped  
> by: 1)
> A clear text letter never represents itself in cipher text, 2) All
> military messages were in a rigid format, 3) they usually started with
> the politically correct "Heil Hitler" after the fixed date/time/ 
> ship/etc
> preamble, and 4) the operators often chose their dog's name or their
> girlfriend's name as the code setting word.

   Was this the National Museum of Cryptology, in Maryland?  I love  
that place...I used to live just a few miles from there and have been  
there many times.

   While on a week-long business trip in that area about two years  
ago, I had a lot of hotel time to blow, so I wrote an Enigma  
simulator in C.  It was lots of fun because I was able to go to the  
Museum and verify my results against a real Enigma machine.

          -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL




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