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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff Works dot Com, Guten Talk,

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Speaker 1: when Hair's List vote coming by Tectoic. My noma is

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Speaker 1: Chris Polette when Ish been redact to her by how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com, zits in Mary Gegan uber v

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Speaker 1: m R is senior text. Here in Jonathan Strickland at

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Speaker 1: vas Dance Zing is I'm lied fur dis vonn no

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Speaker 1: loft balogne. Yeah. The predominance of German today is probably

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Speaker 1: confusing some people. H The best part is see Jonathan

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Speaker 1: hear from Europe. Jonathan never tells me what quote he's

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Speaker 1: gonna do, and uh I didn't tell him. I was

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Speaker 1: going to do the introduction in German. This time I

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Speaker 1: actually switched my quote. Okay, so when you as I

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Speaker 1: heard you speaking Germans like, oh no change, Uh, he

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Speaker 1: changed the play on me. So anyway, today we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about um. Something that actually came to mind

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Speaker 1: when during the process of recording our episode on quantum computers,

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Speaker 1: which were led to a discussion of quantum cryptography and

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Speaker 1: cryptography is something that actually fascinates probably just about all

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Speaker 1: of how stuff works dot Com considering UM, and it

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Speaker 1: also comes to play it touches on another podcast topic

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Speaker 1: that we tackled months and months ago, Mr. Touring. Oh yes,

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Speaker 1: Alan Touring is gonna come up, and it's very important

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Speaker 1: in this discussion as well. We're talking about the specifically

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Speaker 1: the Enigma machine, which was a cipher machine used by

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Speaker 1: Germany during World War Two. Yeah. The funny thing is, UM,

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Speaker 1: if you've watched any history or read any history about

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Speaker 1: World War two and UH specifically the war between Germany

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Speaker 1: and the Allies, UM, you have a sense of what

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Speaker 1: this machine meant to the German war effort. But the

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Speaker 1: thing is, what I don't think comes across in a

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Speaker 1: lot of those UM discussions is that there's no one

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Speaker 1: Enigma machine, and it certainly wasn't unknown to the world

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Speaker 1: before that because the the Enigma goes back years before

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Speaker 1: the start of World War Two. It was actually a

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Speaker 1: commercial machine used to encrypt messages. And in fact, because

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Speaker 1: it was a commercial machine, it gave some people a

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Speaker 1: leg up on on figuring out how to crack the

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Speaker 1: code because it was generally considered to be a practically

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Speaker 1: uncrackable code if you were to follow the most careful

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Speaker 1: security procedures possible. And we'll get into why that is.

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Speaker 1: But before I think, before we jump into what the

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Speaker 1: machine did and what how it did it, we need

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Speaker 1: to talk a little bit just about cipher's in general. Please.

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Speaker 1: All right, So a cipher really, and in this case

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Speaker 1: we're talking about creating a coded message, and uh, there

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Speaker 1: are different ways of doing this, lots different ways. You

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Speaker 1: can create a new alphabet, you can try and hide

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Speaker 1: things and images. That's called agraphy, right where What you

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Speaker 1: can also do it is hide messages within a file,

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Speaker 1: like like the code for a file. So I could

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Speaker 1: send a seemingly harmless file to Chris, but if you

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Speaker 1: were to actually look into the code of that file,

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Speaker 1: hidden there, not displayed in any form of executable function,

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Speaker 1: might be a message. So there are lots of different

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Speaker 1: ways of getting secret messages across, but a very common

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Speaker 1: one is using a cipher where you replace one letter

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Speaker 1: of the alphabet with another. All right, So the very

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Speaker 1: basic version of that is a mono alphabetic substitution cipher.

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Speaker 1: It means you're using just the one alphabet and that

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Speaker 1: one letter is always going to represent another letter always

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Speaker 1: in that cipher. Oh yeah, my friends and I used

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Speaker 1: to do this back in you know, grade school. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know we we would say, okay, so every letter,

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Speaker 1: you know, the letter A is represented by the letter

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Speaker 1: D and it just goes down the alpha that like that.

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Speaker 1: You've just shifted the alphabet to the to the right

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Speaker 1: a couple of places, sure, like that, and then you

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Speaker 1: just go from there. And so in order to to

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Speaker 1: decode this, if you're not just trying to crack it,

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you're actually decoding it, like you're the

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Speaker 1: person who is supposed to receive this message, you would

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Speaker 1: need to know which letter you know, how far over

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Speaker 1: did the alphabet shift? Right, So if if A is

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Speaker 1: B and B s C and C is D, then

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Speaker 1: you know, all right, well it's a. It shifted one place,

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Speaker 1: and so I know to shift all these letters back

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Speaker 1: a spot so that I can decode this. All right.

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Speaker 1: That's your very basic mono alphabetic substitution. Now those are

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Speaker 1: easy to crack. It's easy for anyone to crack, yes,

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Speaker 1: all right, as long as you know some basic uh

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Speaker 1: rules and and tendencies in your native language, you can

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Speaker 1: crack these. For example, you can start looking for two

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Speaker 1: letters that are like letters that are are doubled up.

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Speaker 1: You start looking at those, and then you think, okay,

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Speaker 1: which letters in the English language are the most frequently

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Speaker 1: paired together? Like two ta s would be an example. H.

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Speaker 1: Two teas happen a lot, so that that letter there

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Speaker 1: could represent a T. Let me see if that starts

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Speaker 1: to fit other things. And you look for patterns, and

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Speaker 1: you find these patterns and you can decode things. You

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Speaker 1: can make this a little more difficult, actually a lot

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Speaker 1: more difficult, depending on how sophisticated you get using a

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Speaker 1: polyalphabetic substitution. All right, so there's this one kind of

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Speaker 1: cipher called a Vignier cipher. Uh, this is a little

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Speaker 1: more complex. Now. In a Vineer cipher, you've got a grid.

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Speaker 1: It's twenty six boxes across in twenty six boxes tall.

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Speaker 1: All right. On that top level of the grid, you

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Speaker 1: have the alphabet spelled out normally A, B, C, D

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Speaker 1: all the way to Z. And then on the next

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Speaker 1: one you shift that letter over once, so now it's

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Speaker 1: B through A. So the last the last one is

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Speaker 1: gonna be A. And then you go the next lay

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Speaker 1: up level down you shift it over against Now it's

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Speaker 1: C through B and do this all the way down

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Speaker 1: until you get to Z to A at the very bottom,

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Speaker 1: all right, or not zo a zero zero y Um.

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Speaker 1: I'm sitting here. I'm I'm mixing myself up now the

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Speaker 1: way Vin your cipher's worked as you would have a

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Speaker 1: key phrase or keyword, Okay, So it's something that you

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Speaker 1: and the person you're writing to have both agreed upon

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Speaker 1: in advance. So let's say that for for Chris and I,

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Speaker 1: we sit there and we decide text stuff is our

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Speaker 1: key phrase. You would look at your grid and you

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Speaker 1: would go down that first column. You go all the

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Speaker 1: way down to the T column, the column that starts

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Speaker 1: the alphabet begins with the letter T. And then let's

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Speaker 1: say that my first word is to Chris is going

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Speaker 1: to be how d I then look across the top

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Speaker 1: of that grid for the H on the very top row.

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Speaker 1: All right, So I've got my finger on the t

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Speaker 1: oh based on the first column, and I'm looking at

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Speaker 1: the H column in the top row, and I find

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Speaker 1: the intersection of those two so where the T row

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Speaker 1: and the H column meet, and then that letter represents H.

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Speaker 1: And then for oh, I go because my key phrases

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Speaker 1: tech stuff. I go to the E column or E

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Speaker 1: row on the first column. So I look at that

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Speaker 1: first column, which is again in alphabetical order, so it's

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Speaker 1: A B, C, D E. So I go to the

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Speaker 1: E row and then I look for the O in

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Speaker 1: the top row, and I find the intersection of those, uh,

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Speaker 1: the column of O and the row of E. But

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Speaker 1: that and that becomes my Oh so Chris, because he

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Speaker 1: knows that the key phrases tech stuff, he knows which

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Speaker 1: road to look at, and then he looks at the

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Speaker 1: encoded letter. He finds that in the in within that row,

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Speaker 1: looks up to see what column it is, and that's

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Speaker 1: the letter it it decodes into. Now this might sound

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Speaker 1: really complex. That's kind of the point. Well, you don't

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Speaker 1: want the enemy to decipher your code, because then it

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Speaker 1: will learn what you're up to and the element of

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Speaker 1: surprise is lost. So this um this method becomes less

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Speaker 1: useful if you are starting to encode longer and longer messages,

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Speaker 1: because that increases the chance that the enemy or someone

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Speaker 1: who is not meant to read the code can figure

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Speaker 1: out your key phrase or keyword. And if they figure

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Speaker 1: out that keyword, then they've unlocked everything. That's all they need.

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Speaker 1: They just need to create a Vinyer cipher graph or

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Speaker 1: chart and then use that key phrase to decode what

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Speaker 1: you've said. Now, the Enigma machine takes and a similar

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Speaker 1: approach to the Vignier cipher and complicates it on a

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Speaker 1: massive scale and also automates it. Yeah, because, um, you

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Speaker 1: know with any of these codes that the key uh

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Speaker 1: is probably the most important part. Um. If you intercept

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Speaker 1: a coded transmission and you have no idea how it

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Speaker 1: has been enciphered, it's going to take you much longer

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Speaker 1: to try to break that code. Um. Whereas if somebody

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Speaker 1: on the other end has the key to it, they'll

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Speaker 1: be able to decipher it in no time or a

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Speaker 1: little bit more than no time. UM. So that's that's

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Speaker 1: one of the tricky parts, is I mean you can

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Speaker 1: uh you know, during War two they were there were

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Speaker 1: all kinds of different ways to send messages, including things

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Speaker 1: like one time pads, which is a a pad used

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Speaker 1: of paper used with a particular code this is the

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Speaker 1: one for this message. And uh. This would be used

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Speaker 1: out in the field by agents who couldn't carry something

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Speaker 1: like a rotor machine like the Enigma with them. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know. And the thing is if the if you lose,

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Speaker 1: if the person on the other end loses the key

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Speaker 1: for that particular pad uh, um, it's just gonna take forever.

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Speaker 1: But the Enigma was a way to automate this UM

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Speaker 1: this process, and this machine, which was first patented nineteen nineteen,

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Speaker 1: ended up being pivotal UH in World War Two, both

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Speaker 1: for the Germans and well actually the the Axis because

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Speaker 1: they did have a Japanese version that they used UM,

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Speaker 1: but also for the Allies when they were able to

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Speaker 1: figure out how the machine worked, and because it does

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Speaker 1: have its own flaws. UM. So let's let's talk about

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Speaker 1: what was in an Enigma machine and what it looked

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Speaker 1: like and and how it encoded letters UM. Each of

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Speaker 1: the machines, going back to the very first one, the

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Speaker 1: Enigma A had rotor wheels UM and a keyboard. It

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Speaker 1: looks a little uh if you've never seen one of

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Speaker 1: these machines, and they all look a little different there,

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Speaker 1: Like I said, uh, several different types of machines that

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Speaker 1: evolved over time, but all of them had a keyboard

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Speaker 1: on it UM arranged in more of a well, at

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Speaker 1: first it was an alphabetic fashion and then turn into

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Speaker 1: more the German keyboard style, but so kind of like

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Speaker 1: a typewriter. Yeah. And the very first one looked a

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Speaker 1: little bit like one of the old timey cash registers.

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Speaker 1: It was so big, um but yeah, I mean these

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Speaker 1: had rotor wheels though, and so you would type a letter,

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Speaker 1: let's say A, and depending on the way the rotor

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Speaker 1: wheels were set, it would produce a completely different letter. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the way it would produce it as it had

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Speaker 1: lamps twenty six lamps, each one uh marked with a letter,

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Speaker 1: and the lamp that lit up would be the encoded

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Speaker 1: letter for that particular key press. Yeah. They use were

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Speaker 1: the ones used in World War Two. The earlier ones

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Speaker 1: did not have lamps. Um. But yeah, I mean the

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Speaker 1: ones that we're talking about specifically around World War Two.

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Speaker 1: That made it easier for the operator to identify which

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Speaker 1: letter was being used because these most of these machines

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Speaker 1: had no printer. Yeah. Usually you would have two people

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Speaker 1: working on both sides of this, both the encoding and

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Speaker 1: decoding side. You would have one person who would be

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Speaker 1: pressing the keys and another person who would either be

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Speaker 1: writing down the letter um, the encoded letter or writing

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Speaker 1: down the decoded letter. Because an important part of the

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Speaker 1: Enigma machine, and actually one of the reasons why it

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Speaker 1: was eventually broken was that it was a device that

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Speaker 1: if if you if you type the let's let's just

217
00:12:18,920 --> 00:12:21,760
Speaker 1: say for for argument's sake, that if I type the

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Speaker 1: letter A, the letter Q comes up on the lamp. Well,

219
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Speaker 1: if I were to take a second Enigma machine that

220
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Speaker 1: was that was configured the same way as the first one,

221
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Speaker 1: and that's really important. We'll talk more about why that

222
00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:36,000
Speaker 1: is in a minute, and I typed the letter Q,

223
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Speaker 1: the letter A would light up, and then all I

224
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Speaker 1: would have to do, essentially is take my coded message

225
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Speaker 1: that was sent to me, type it out on my

226
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Speaker 1: Enigma machine that is configured the same way that the

227
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Speaker 1: encoded message machines was configured, and then have someone else

228
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Speaker 1: write down which lamps let up, and I have the

229
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Speaker 1: decoded message, except that the people in England were saying, no,

230
00:12:58,760 --> 00:13:00,800
Speaker 1: this is gibberish. It's use and someone says, no, you

231
00:13:00,840 --> 00:13:05,440
Speaker 1: idiots in German. Anyway, the I thought I would make

232
00:13:05,440 --> 00:13:07,080
Speaker 1: you laughing. I thought about that last night and I

233
00:13:07,160 --> 00:13:11,960
Speaker 1: was just waiting to unleash it. Um. So the cool

234
00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:13,839
Speaker 1: thing here is that, all right, So imagine that each

235
00:13:13,880 --> 00:13:17,200
Speaker 1: of these roters. Think of it like a cylinder. Okay,

236
00:13:17,360 --> 00:13:22,480
Speaker 1: So imagine a cylinder and on the the on the

237
00:13:22,640 --> 00:13:26,080
Speaker 1: ends of the cylinder are rods and contact points. So

238
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Speaker 1: there's rods on one side and contact points on the other. Okay,

239
00:13:29,240 --> 00:13:32,400
Speaker 1: this is where an electrical current can flow through. Now

240
00:13:32,840 --> 00:13:36,160
Speaker 1: there are twenty six rods and twenty six contact points,

241
00:13:36,440 --> 00:13:39,880
Speaker 1: so there's one for each of the letters the alphabet. Now,

242
00:13:40,120 --> 00:13:44,560
Speaker 1: if you were silly, you would just wire these straight across,

243
00:13:44,880 --> 00:13:49,319
Speaker 1: so a would all position one would would also would

244
00:13:49,360 --> 00:13:52,280
Speaker 1: be a straight wire from the rod to the contact

245
00:13:52,559 --> 00:13:56,120
Speaker 1: and position one. Now, of course that's not the way

246
00:13:56,120 --> 00:13:58,720
Speaker 1: the Enigma machine works. What happened was they wired it

247
00:13:58,800 --> 00:14:01,959
Speaker 1: so that position one would go to a different contact

248
00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:05,319
Speaker 1: on the other side. So position one might go ton

249
00:14:05,640 --> 00:14:09,280
Speaker 1: like Rod one might go to contact twelve. Rod two

250
00:14:09,360 --> 00:14:12,400
Speaker 1: might go to contact twenty three. Rod three might go

251
00:14:12,480 --> 00:14:15,400
Speaker 1: to contact one. That kind of thing. And you had

252
00:14:15,400 --> 00:14:19,080
Speaker 1: this massive wires inside the rotor that determine which ones

253
00:14:19,120 --> 00:14:22,240
Speaker 1: went to what, And then the rotor would fit inside

254
00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:26,320
Speaker 1: the Enigma machine, which would uh electricity from a battery

255
00:14:26,360 --> 00:14:29,320
Speaker 1: would come through, and depending on what key you pressed,

256
00:14:29,600 --> 00:14:31,840
Speaker 1: that would allow the pathway to go through to a

257
00:14:31,880 --> 00:14:35,320
Speaker 1: certain rod. The the electricity would go through the wire

258
00:14:35,400 --> 00:14:37,920
Speaker 1: in the rotor come out the side of the contact

259
00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:41,200
Speaker 1: that again is not directly across from the position of

260
00:14:41,240 --> 00:14:44,760
Speaker 1: the rod. And that's the basic idea of how it

261
00:14:44,760 --> 00:14:48,680
Speaker 1: would substitute a letter. Now if it if the rotor

262
00:14:48,760 --> 00:14:51,160
Speaker 1: did not turn, or if there were not more rotors,

263
00:14:51,560 --> 00:14:55,280
Speaker 1: you would just have a mono alphabetic substitution, like every

264
00:14:55,320 --> 00:14:57,760
Speaker 1: time you type A, the letter Q would light up

265
00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:00,760
Speaker 1: if nothing else changed, if that all it did, in

266
00:15:00,800 --> 00:15:02,800
Speaker 1: which case it would have been a useless machine because

267
00:15:02,800 --> 00:15:04,680
Speaker 1: people would have been able to break that without ever

268
00:15:04,760 --> 00:15:07,200
Speaker 1: having to spend more than a couple of hours on

269
00:15:07,240 --> 00:15:10,240
Speaker 1: a on a on a message. Now, a lot of

270
00:15:10,240 --> 00:15:15,200
Speaker 1: the machines, UM, we're using three rotors. UM. Now here's

271
00:15:15,240 --> 00:15:19,240
Speaker 1: here's where this makes it more complex. Uh. These machines

272
00:15:19,320 --> 00:15:23,520
Speaker 1: came with five rotors uh named numbered with Roman numerals

273
00:15:24,080 --> 00:15:28,680
Speaker 1: UM and every here here again here's part of the key. UM.

274
00:15:28,800 --> 00:15:32,960
Speaker 1: The German command would send out the monthly use of wheels.

275
00:15:32,960 --> 00:15:36,280
Speaker 1: So you might put the wheels in for one two,

276
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Speaker 1: so four would be in the leftmost position, one would

277
00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:41,320
Speaker 1: be in the middle, two would be in the right

278
00:15:41,320 --> 00:15:45,640
Speaker 1: most position, and every time the operator presses a letter,

279
00:15:45,720 --> 00:15:49,840
Speaker 1: let's say J the third. Actually, think of this if

280
00:15:49,880 --> 00:15:53,320
Speaker 1: you've ever seen a car odometer that measures the distance.

281
00:15:53,920 --> 00:15:57,240
Speaker 1: The rotor on the right moves one notch every time

282
00:15:57,280 --> 00:16:00,840
Speaker 1: the operator presses a button. So the operator press is J,

283
00:16:01,800 --> 00:16:04,440
Speaker 1: the rotor on the right turns one notch. The operator

284
00:16:04,480 --> 00:16:07,160
Speaker 1: presses N, the rotor turns one notch, and then the

285
00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:12,920
Speaker 1: middle um. Every so often, the middle rotor moves one notch,

286
00:16:13,760 --> 00:16:18,720
Speaker 1: and then again with the leftmost it moves more slowly,

287
00:16:19,160 --> 00:16:23,280
Speaker 1: so as the operators typing the message out, the rotors

288
00:16:23,320 --> 00:16:28,040
Speaker 1: are turning to incipher the message more thoroughly. The idea

289
00:16:28,120 --> 00:16:31,960
Speaker 1: being that you're not repeating the same alphabet to frequently.

290
00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:34,120
Speaker 1: In fact, you it would take you, it would take

291
00:16:34,120 --> 00:16:36,800
Speaker 1: you an incredibly long message to be able to repeat

292
00:16:36,840 --> 00:16:39,400
Speaker 1: pete such an alphabet ah. And that's one of the tricks.

293
00:16:39,640 --> 00:16:42,520
Speaker 1: Eventually it could happen, which is why the Germans limited

294
00:16:42,560 --> 00:16:47,000
Speaker 1: their message length to two fifty characters. So to to

295
00:16:47,440 --> 00:16:50,680
Speaker 1: explain this even further, if I press let's say that

296
00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:53,560
Speaker 1: I just have the one rotor in there, just for

297
00:16:53,640 --> 00:16:56,160
Speaker 1: simplicity sakes, So I've got one rotor in there, and

298
00:16:56,200 --> 00:16:58,760
Speaker 1: if I press the letter A, the letter Q lights

299
00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:01,640
Speaker 1: up because that's just the way the wiring is in

300
00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:05,399
Speaker 1: that rotor. After I pressed the letter A, the rotor

301
00:17:05,560 --> 00:17:09,480
Speaker 1: turns one notch. I pressed the letter A. Well, Q

302
00:17:09,680 --> 00:17:12,000
Speaker 1: is not gonna light up because what's just happened is

303
00:17:12,040 --> 00:17:15,600
Speaker 1: that there's a new rod where the electricity makes contact

304
00:17:15,640 --> 00:17:18,880
Speaker 1: with that rod. It's in position A. The first rod

305
00:17:18,960 --> 00:17:21,720
Speaker 1: was in position one. Now that the rotor has turned

306
00:17:21,760 --> 00:17:24,560
Speaker 1: one notch the rotor, the rod that's in position for

307
00:17:24,600 --> 00:17:27,879
Speaker 1: the letter A is rod too. So instead of Q

308
00:17:28,200 --> 00:17:31,040
Speaker 1: lighting up, maybe J lights up. So you could just

309
00:17:31,119 --> 00:17:34,159
Speaker 1: keep pressing A and a different letter is going to

310
00:17:34,320 --> 00:17:37,000
Speaker 1: light up every time, except for one other exception we

311
00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:39,240
Speaker 1: should point out, which was again something that helped the

312
00:17:39,320 --> 00:17:45,080
Speaker 1: Allies break the Enigma code. They the Germans had decided foolishly,

313
00:17:45,119 --> 00:17:49,240
Speaker 1: as it turns out, that no letter would ever incipher

314
00:17:49,320 --> 00:17:53,359
Speaker 1: to itself. So B can never b B. Yes, so

315
00:17:53,400 --> 00:17:55,199
Speaker 1: if you saw the letter B in a message, you

316
00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:58,439
Speaker 1: automatically knew it wasn't B. So you've just you've just

317
00:17:58,600 --> 00:18:00,880
Speaker 1: and that sounds like it's menace fuel that you've only

318
00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:05,520
Speaker 1: eliminated one option, But that was huge. I mean, without that,

319
00:18:05,640 --> 00:18:08,600
Speaker 1: it would have been so much harder to to decode

320
00:18:08,640 --> 00:18:11,879
Speaker 1: these messages. Now when you add that second rotor in

321
00:18:12,720 --> 00:18:15,520
Speaker 1: uh so, let's say that again, we're gonna go with

322
00:18:15,560 --> 00:18:18,280
Speaker 1: the positions. So the so we have the rods in

323
00:18:18,320 --> 00:18:20,320
Speaker 1: the twenty six positions and the contacts on the other

324
00:18:20,359 --> 00:18:24,320
Speaker 1: side of the cylinder in twenty six positions. Electricity comes

325
00:18:24,320 --> 00:18:28,680
Speaker 1: in through rod one and it's going out through contact twelve.

326
00:18:29,640 --> 00:18:31,920
Speaker 1: Then you have your second rotors. So the second rotor,

327
00:18:32,040 --> 00:18:37,480
Speaker 1: Rod twelve is accepting the electricity, but it's contact that

328
00:18:37,560 --> 00:18:43,160
Speaker 1: the second rotors, Rod twelve is connected to contact UH seven.

329
00:18:43,640 --> 00:18:47,000
Speaker 1: So you've got now something that's going in through contact

330
00:18:47,359 --> 00:18:50,200
Speaker 1: rod one and coming out contact seven. Once it gets

331
00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:52,679
Speaker 1: through the second rotor, you had a third rotor in.

332
00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:55,000
Speaker 1: That makes it even more complicated. So it's like you've

333
00:18:55,040 --> 00:18:58,680
Speaker 1: just added a huge mass of wires to this device

334
00:18:59,359 --> 00:19:03,239
Speaker 1: and it gives it's even more complex. I'm sorry, did

335
00:19:03,240 --> 00:19:07,560
Speaker 1: you say huge massive wires like the scheker Brett. Yes,

336
00:19:08,080 --> 00:19:12,000
Speaker 1: So here's where the massive wires also comes in. There

337
00:19:12,119 --> 00:19:15,560
Speaker 1: was a plugboard that came with many of these Enigma machines,

338
00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:18,359
Speaker 1: not all, but many. Yeah, do you remember if you

339
00:19:18,480 --> 00:19:21,800
Speaker 1: think back to images you've seen of old telephone operators

340
00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:24,280
Speaker 1: when they had to connect a call, they would physically

341
00:19:24,280 --> 00:19:27,560
Speaker 1: take a wire and connect one person and plug it

342
00:19:27,560 --> 00:19:31,200
Speaker 1: into the slot for the other person to make the connection. Well,

343
00:19:32,040 --> 00:19:36,119
Speaker 1: on the Enigma machine, uh they had wires and plugs

344
00:19:36,160 --> 00:19:40,560
Speaker 1: that went from that basically connected the letters. Yeah. So

345
00:19:40,600 --> 00:19:42,760
Speaker 1: in other words, you might connect the letter A and

346
00:19:42,800 --> 00:19:45,480
Speaker 1: the letter J together with A with a wire, which

347
00:19:45,520 --> 00:19:48,760
Speaker 1: means every time you press the letter A, it's acting

348
00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:52,120
Speaker 1: as if you press the letter J. So that add

349
00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:56,600
Speaker 1: added yet another layer of encryption on top of this device.

350
00:19:57,280 --> 00:20:00,600
Speaker 1: Uh So, No, you're no longer send a message to

351
00:20:00,800 --> 00:20:04,199
Speaker 1: contact one, because that would be the one for A.

352
00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:07,120
Speaker 1: You're sending it to different or not contact but Rod,

353
00:20:07,320 --> 00:20:12,720
Speaker 1: you're seeing it to a different rod. Uh so maybe so.

354
00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:17,000
Speaker 1: By setting the alphabet position on each rotor, setting the

355
00:20:17,119 --> 00:20:20,080
Speaker 1: rotors in the particular order, choosing you know which rotor

356
00:20:20,119 --> 00:20:22,360
Speaker 1: you want. Because these rotors, by the way, we're not

357
00:20:22,800 --> 00:20:25,439
Speaker 1: um alf they if you were to look at a

358
00:20:25,520 --> 00:20:28,000
Speaker 1: rotor and turn it and it had the letters on it,

359
00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:30,960
Speaker 1: it would not be an alphabetical order. They mixed up

360
00:20:31,040 --> 00:20:33,240
Speaker 1: the order of the letters to They wanted to make

361
00:20:33,240 --> 00:20:36,399
Speaker 1: it as complex as possible. So depending upon the the

362
00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:38,840
Speaker 1: rotors you choose, the order you put them in, and

363
00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:41,879
Speaker 1: the plugs that you plug into the plug board, that

364
00:20:41,880 --> 00:20:45,200
Speaker 1: would determine what would happen if you pressed any particular

365
00:20:45,320 --> 00:20:49,199
Speaker 1: key at any particular time. Plus, it's in German and

366
00:20:49,280 --> 00:20:53,639
Speaker 1: you're probably transmitting it in morse code, so that's the

367
00:20:53,760 --> 00:20:56,000
Speaker 1: level that you have to get through in order to

368
00:20:56,040 --> 00:21:00,000
Speaker 1: get to that original message. In addition, UM, the German

369
00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:04,080
Speaker 1: Men's tended to break up messages into regular patterns of

370
00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:07,720
Speaker 1: UM five characters at a time, so you know, a

371
00:21:07,960 --> 00:21:12,000
Speaker 1: F B Q G space, you know, so the message

372
00:21:12,040 --> 00:21:14,679
Speaker 1: wasn't written out, and so you wouldn't say, okay, well

373
00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:18,720
Speaker 1: this this word has three letters and they're only you know, yeah,

374
00:21:18,720 --> 00:21:21,840
Speaker 1: there's only so many word that would have three letters,

375
00:21:21,840 --> 00:21:24,280
Speaker 1: and they broke it up so that once you know,

376
00:21:24,359 --> 00:21:26,320
Speaker 1: there was really no way to tell how long the

377
00:21:26,359 --> 00:21:29,800
Speaker 1: word was. So a single word, and remember this is German,

378
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:34,040
Speaker 1: so these words could be you know, seventy three characters long.

379
00:21:34,359 --> 00:21:38,480
Speaker 1: So a single word might might spend multiple five letters segments,

380
00:21:39,200 --> 00:21:42,000
Speaker 1: so you know, it might begin on letter four of

381
00:21:42,080 --> 00:21:46,320
Speaker 1: this five letter group and then finished three groups later

382
00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:48,879
Speaker 1: down the line, and that might have just been the

383
00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:54,399
Speaker 1: word for I don't know like car um. So uh yeah,

384
00:21:54,600 --> 00:21:57,480
Speaker 1: it just made it made it more difficult, obvious, skated

385
00:21:57,520 --> 00:21:59,960
Speaker 1: the meaning of the original phrase as much as possible.

386
00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:04,760
Speaker 1: So how would you ever decode such a message? Now?

387
00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:08,480
Speaker 1: If you've got it really set up so that everyone

388
00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:12,440
Speaker 1: knows how the how to set up their own particular

389
00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:15,480
Speaker 1: Enigma machine based upon a codebook, you would have to

390
00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:19,640
Speaker 1: have like a codebook that was um given out by leadership. Right,

391
00:22:19,680 --> 00:22:23,640
Speaker 1: you'd have to have someone in charge saying, on this day,

392
00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:26,199
Speaker 1: for all messages that we send out, this is the

393
00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:29,720
Speaker 1: configuration you have to use, because if you didn't have it,

394
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:33,080
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be able to decode it. Right. The German

395
00:22:33,119 --> 00:22:36,240
Speaker 1: command would specify the wheel order and the ring setting

396
00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:40,040
Speaker 1: and the the steckering the crossing Stecker means plug, so

397
00:22:40,119 --> 00:22:43,240
Speaker 1: they called it a plug board. It was Stecker bread UM.

398
00:22:43,280 --> 00:22:46,280
Speaker 1: But the thing is the cipher clerk would uh would

399
00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 1: basically turn the three wheels to a position at random

400
00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:53,240
Speaker 1: whatever he wanted it to be, and then they would

401
00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:57,119
Speaker 1: twice put in the own randomly random text setting or

402
00:22:57,160 --> 00:23:00,200
Speaker 1: message setting UM. And this was the indicator, which is

403
00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:03,680
Speaker 1: six letter character UM. And then you set your wheels

404
00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:08,159
Speaker 1: at that three letter text setting and it would give

405
00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:12,719
Speaker 1: you the UM, the the code that the person who

406
00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:14,639
Speaker 1: would on the other side is supposed to know to

407
00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:17,719
Speaker 1: get through it. UM. The thing is it would always

408
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:20,400
Speaker 1: have This is another thing that that boggles in mind

409
00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 1: to me, UM, with something with a device this capable. UM.

410
00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:26,879
Speaker 1: They would transmit some things in clear text, like the

411
00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:31,639
Speaker 1: preamble basically say the time of day, the number of

412
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:33,720
Speaker 1: letters in the text, and things like that that was

413
00:23:33,760 --> 00:23:36,800
Speaker 1: sent and clear. I guess it was necessary, but it

414
00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:40,360
Speaker 1: made it easier to figure out exactly what was going

415
00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:42,680
Speaker 1: on and when it was set. And that turned out

416
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:46,320
Speaker 1: to be important later. UM. And they would tell you, you

417
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:49,400
Speaker 1: you know, certain things, UM, you know, and everything came

418
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 1: out in five letter groups and the indicator, which was

419
00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:54,640
Speaker 1: in six letters. They changed that let later, which made

420
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 1: it more difficult for the Allies, but still at that

421
00:23:56,880 --> 00:23:59,720
Speaker 1: point it was too late. Yeah. And Uh. It also

422
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:03,040
Speaker 1: didn't help that, you know, the Allies new to look

423
00:24:03,119 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 1: for certain words that would be used over and over

424
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:09,320
Speaker 1: again in messages. They called them cribs. They would look

425
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:14,280
Speaker 1: for these cribs or possible cribs and uh, based upon

426
00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 1: just letter groupings and they could, you know, eliminate cribs

427
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:22,680
Speaker 1: from certain groups of letters. Again, because if a certain

428
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:25,000
Speaker 1: letter appeared at a certain part of a word and

429
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 1: it was the same letter that should have been, you

430
00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 1: knew it wasn't that word, right, because of course I

431
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:33,640
Speaker 1: letters never going encode as itself using an Enigma machine.

432
00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:38,560
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, using these basic rules, it sounds like

433
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:41,159
Speaker 1: it's astronomical, like the number of things you would have

434
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 1: to eliminate, and really it is pretty it's a pretty

435
00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:46,320
Speaker 1: big number. But that's where folks like Touring came in.

436
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 1: They they knew a bit about the Enigma machine already

437
00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:55,640
Speaker 1: because the Enigma, the whole rotor based cryptography device, as

438
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 1: Chris said, predated World War Two. Yeah, it's not that

439
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 1: the trick is not getting your hands on a machine.

440
00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:05,720
Speaker 1: It's figuring out how what settings the machine is being

441
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:08,160
Speaker 1: used to encode so that you can break the message.

442
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:10,200
Speaker 1: Although it did help because if you got your hands

443
00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 1: on the machine, you could at least find out what

444
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:14,280
Speaker 1: the wiring was, yes, and you could you could then

445
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:18,480
Speaker 1: start to eliminate various combinations because you're going to say, okay,

446
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 1: if it's if it's a Roman numeral one, rotor then

447
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:25,119
Speaker 1: this position is always going to map to this contact

448
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 1: and you could start to eliminate things that way. Uh.

449
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:33,160
Speaker 1: The the over in Poland, there were cryptographers who are

450
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:37,640
Speaker 1: breaking these codes before World War two broke out, Yes, unfortunate,

451
00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:39,159
Speaker 1: and they had a machine that they would use to

452
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 1: do that called the Bombay and uh and someone set

453
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 1: them up the bomba. Yeah. Actually they when war broke

454
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:52,760
Speaker 1: out and it became obvious that things were uh, that

455
00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:54,400
Speaker 1: it was going to be discovered that they were able

456
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:57,560
Speaker 1: to do this, the machine was destroyed, which is some

457
00:25:57,720 --> 00:25:59,640
Speaker 1: of the Some of the code breakers made their way

458
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:03,119
Speaker 1: over to England and helped the English code breakers by

459
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:05,720
Speaker 1: adding to the level of knowledge about what the Enigma

460
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:09,199
Speaker 1: machine was and how it worked. They also had some

461
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: breakthroughs that stemmed just from from luck and and uh

462
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 1: and bravery really because we're talking about uh times where

463
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 1: where Allies captured a German group that had an Enigma machine,

464
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:29,159
Speaker 1: often something like a submarine. Um they would capture that

465
00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:31,000
Speaker 1: and if they were able to, they could get the

466
00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 1: machine and the codebook, which would essentially tell them pretty

467
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 1: much everything they needed to know. But uh, meanwhile, Touring

468
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 1: was working on his own BOMBA. Yes, he was UM. Yeah.

469
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:45,040
Speaker 1: Before we go into UH into that, I want to

470
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:48,399
Speaker 1: point out that we left out there. There's more to

471
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:52,320
Speaker 1: the Enigma machines UM than we really went into, and

472
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:54,760
Speaker 1: I would recommend if you're interested in learning more UM,

473
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:59,239
Speaker 1: there's a website for UH, the Crypto Museum, which is

474
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:01,880
Speaker 1: in the Netherlands. It's a virtual museum, but crypto Museum

475
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 1: dot com UM will tell you probably everything you ever

476
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:09,119
Speaker 1: wanted to know about the Enigma machines and UH and

477
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 1: more UM. But we wanted to talk about the the

478
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:14,960
Speaker 1: attempts to break that the Navy, by the way, that

479
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:17,560
Speaker 1: was the three rotor machine was the one used by

480
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:21,360
Speaker 1: the Army Air Force. The Navy had a four wheel machine, yes,

481
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:26,600
Speaker 1: which was even more complex, and the the Secret Service UH,

482
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:29,919
Speaker 1: the people who were in the the high Intelligence groups

483
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 1: used a completely different machine. Were not completely different, but

484
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:36,480
Speaker 1: UH used even more difficult machine to crack UM than that,

485
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 1: and they all had different variations on that. And in general,

486
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: the Navy tended to practice better security measures and UH

487
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 1: made it. It made it much more challenging to break

488
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 1: that code. The Army and Air Force, by contrast, were

489
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:52,919
Speaker 1: not as as careful and so their codes were broken

490
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: faster than the Navy's UM. It's you know, part of

491
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:04,439
Speaker 1: part of decoding the the Enigma machine came into figuring

492
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:07,200
Speaker 1: out the wiring of the system, and part of it

493
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 1: came from, you know, more traditional cryptographic approaches where you're

494
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:13,680
Speaker 1: looking for patterns and you're looking for a key phrases,

495
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 1: and you're looking for uh things that could indicate that

496
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:21,199
Speaker 1: UM that you've stumbled onto something. So if you if

497
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 1: you receive several coded messages, I think a lot of

498
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:26,919
Speaker 1: problems is that we think of of decoding as you

499
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:28,919
Speaker 1: get one message and you're trying to figure it all

500
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:31,359
Speaker 1: out based on that one message. There were hundreds of

501
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:34,400
Speaker 1: messages sent. So if you have hundreds of messages sent

502
00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: and you're working under the assumption that everyone has is

503
00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: using the same basic layout for their Enigma machine, you

504
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:45,440
Speaker 1: start looking for patterns, and if you find enough patterns,

505
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 1: you might say, oh, all right, well, look these these

506
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 1: two messages here start with the same essentially the same

507
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: UH patterns. So that may suggest that they're both starting

508
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: with the same word. So let's start working back. And

509
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 1: it may even be when I'm talking about patterns, I'm

510
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:03,800
Speaker 1: not even necessarily talking about the same ciphered letters. Because

511
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 1: again if if if German A has set rotors to

512
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 1: a certain alphabet setting to start off, and German B

513
00:29:12,520 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 1: has chosen a totally different set, Uh, you're looking again

514
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 1: at the actual pattern of of letter occurrence, not which

515
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 1: letters they are. Yeah. It also helps to have a

516
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 1: thorough knowledge of German, much more than my one year

517
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 1: and in high school enabled me to UH fake my

518
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 1: way through that greeting. UM. No. They also look at

519
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: contact analysis, which is basically how frequently one letter will

520
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 1: be next to another in a language. So if you

521
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 1: know UH German, then you're able to know certain things

522
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 1: about the way UH certain words are more common than

523
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: other certain letter formations. So I think in a lot

524
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:59,480
Speaker 1: of ways, UM, until the Allies were able to get

525
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: ahold of UH, you know, more thorough UM code cracking materials.

526
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:11,840
Speaker 1: I think the traditional code breaking tools like cribs and

527
00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 1: UH and contact analysis were probably very helpful to them. UM.

528
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 1: But what's really funny to me is in in doing

529
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:23,480
Speaker 1: my research, I was reading about John Harrible UH, the

530
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: Cambridge mathematician. He was twenty one years old, UM, and

531
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 1: he was looking to UH to get into the cipher

532
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:33,719
Speaker 1: known as red UM that the Germans had used. And

533
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:37,520
Speaker 1: what's funny to me is he actually stumbled upon something

534
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 1: that we look at on that we've actually sort of

535
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 1: talked about on the show, and we've talked about passwords. UM.

536
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: He figured that at some point UH, they were going

537
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 1: to get lazy and stop changing things and stop changing

538
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: the keys that people would use for their u UM,

539
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: the codes that they would use at the beginning of

540
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:00,880
Speaker 1: the message to tell you which rotor settings. Basically, people

541
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:04,680
Speaker 1: would start using UH the name of their dog or

542
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 1: their girlfriend to start encoding the messages, and they were

543
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:11,520
Speaker 1: going to start leaving it there. Once the first message

544
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 1: of the day was sent. They're not going to change

545
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: it for every message anymore because they're in a hurry

546
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 1: or they're lazy and they're not going to change it.

547
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: And at first UM apparently this didn't They were abiding

548
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 1: by the rules, they were doing things the way they

549
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: were supposed to. But as soon as people became complacent

550
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:32,479
Speaker 1: and started leaving that setting throughout the day, once they

551
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:35,040
Speaker 1: had cracked the first message of the day, they were

552
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:37,920
Speaker 1: set and they were able to they could identify this

553
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 1: and they basically asked for all the messages sent across

554
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:43,920
Speaker 1: all of the machines for the first one of the day.

555
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: And once they were able to do that, um, they

556
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 1: were able to crack read and basically identify what was

557
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 1: going on for the entire days communications. And that happened

558
00:31:54,680 --> 00:32:00,080
Speaker 1: around or so um, which was fairly early four I

559
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,040
Speaker 1: mean it was before the Americans got involved, but of

560
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:04,200
Speaker 1: course Europe had been embroiled in war for a while

561
00:32:04,480 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 1: at that point. Um. But that's a pretty that's one

562
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 1: of those things where we tell you not to be

563
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 1: careless with your passwords, and you know, even back then,

564
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 1: it's just sort of ironic to me. Yeah, it's interesting. Um.

565
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 1: The you know, it's you're talking about a device that

566
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 1: once you start to encode the message, that's a very

567
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:31,280
Speaker 1: time consuming process, you know, setting your device the proper

568
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:34,240
Speaker 1: way and then starting to actually encode it and to

569
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: confirm that you know, you that the letters you are

570
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 1: writing down are indeed the correct ones based upon that configuration.

571
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 1: It's the longer the messages, the longer it is going

572
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 1: to take to encode. And that means that the greater

573
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 1: the span of time between when the message was written

574
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 1: and when the message is received becomes and that that

575
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 1: all of that I think leads to that sort of

576
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 1: lazy behavior because you don't want to uh uh, you know,

577
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: suffer problems because you were too slow. So yeah, I

578
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:06,600
Speaker 1: mean there were a lot of different reasons why this happened,

579
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:08,040
Speaker 1: and I think a part of those just because it's

580
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:09,800
Speaker 1: such a huge pain in the butt. But that's the point.

581
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 1: I mean, if cryptography wasn't a pain in the butt,

582
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 1: then there will be no secrecy there. You have to

583
00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 1: make it difficult enough so that the message remains safe.

584
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 1: So once we started getting tired of going to those pains,

585
00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: there's no more safety. Yep, yep um. But yeah, we

586
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 1: we talked about Alan turing Um and he invented a

587
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:37,080
Speaker 1: machine known as the the van Barismus Um, which I

588
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: don't know why I called it that um, but yeah,

589
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:43,480
Speaker 1: Basically it was able to identify patterns in the text

590
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 1: messages and that just made it faster for the Allies

591
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 1: to be able to track things down. Yeah. I think

592
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 1: his machine was capable of decoding a Enigma message within

593
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 1: something like fifteen hours, which sounds like it's a long time,

594
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:01,719
Speaker 1: but when you're talking about eliminating all those possibilities, it's

595
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 1: pretty incredible, especially you're talking you know this is this

596
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 1: these are the developments that led into computers, and that

597
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 1: this predates computers, but these devices sort of became the

598
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:16,320
Speaker 1: precursor to the computer. And you know, it's one of

599
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 1: the reasons why we talked about touring being a father

600
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: of of computing and computer science because it's this sort

601
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:28,799
Speaker 1: of stuff that that led to computers in the first place. Yeah,

602
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:31,439
Speaker 1: they I think. Also one of the misconceptions is said

603
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:35,840
Speaker 1: that the machine known as Colossus was used in breaking

604
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 1: the Enigma ciphers, and that actually is not true. UM.

605
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 1: Colossus is frequently were referred to as one of the

606
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:47,279
Speaker 1: first electronic computers UM, but it was actually used to

607
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 1: break the Lorenz cipher system, which is another a different

608
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:55,319
Speaker 1: machine UM that was used by the German Army High

609
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:58,560
Speaker 1: Command UM and Lorenz is the name of a company

610
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:02,800
Speaker 1: and they basically had been working on a completely different

611
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:07,799
Speaker 1: type of machine UM that did not use the Enigma codes. UM,

612
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 1: but yeah, they used UM. The British used Colossus to

613
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:15,520
Speaker 1: uh figure out the Lorenz system. UM. But yeah, that

614
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: that actually is the machine that we talked about back

615
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 1: in our UM chip Tunes podcast when pixel hate was

616
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:26,800
Speaker 1: had been allowed into the Bletchley Park Museum to record

617
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 1: the mechanical relays. And of course, uh, today's computers uh,

618
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:34,840
Speaker 1: in terms of processing power could do the work that

619
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:39,759
Speaker 1: these machines did in scant a fraction of what the

620
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 1: time needed to do that then, but um, and can

621
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:48,000
Speaker 1: more thoroughly encrypt messages. I mean, even the freeware tools

622
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:50,879
Speaker 1: that you can get now to encrypt email are more

623
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:55,760
Speaker 1: thorough than than these machines were. But still very fascinating stuff. Yeah, yeah,

624
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:58,880
Speaker 1: and um, yeah, it was really I would love to

625
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:01,760
Speaker 1: actually get a chance to to see one of these devices,

626
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:03,719
Speaker 1: and there aren't quite a few of them, many in

627
00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 1: museums and things like that. Um, but I've never actually,

628
00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:09,359
Speaker 1: I mean I've seen plenty of pictures, but I've never

629
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 1: actually seen one of these devices. Uh, you know, kind

630
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: of curious, want to play with one a little bit,

631
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 1: kinda kind of I don't want to lie, you can interesting.

632
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:21,640
Speaker 1: I don't know that I could write it in German,

633
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:26,440
Speaker 1: but anyway, the Yeah, it's a neat, neat device, and

634
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:29,880
Speaker 1: it really kind of speaks to human ingenuity on both sides,

635
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 1: both to try and keep messages secret and the determination

636
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:37,560
Speaker 1: to to find out what that secret message actually is.

637
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:41,360
Speaker 1: Really kind of interesting, So I guess that kind of

638
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:43,880
Speaker 1: wraps up this discussion about the Enigma machine. If you

639
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:46,840
Speaker 1: guys want to know more about either the the the

640
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:50,320
Speaker 1: Enigma machine, or perhaps some other topic of very specific

641
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 1: device that you just think needs its own episode, let

642
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:56,440
Speaker 1: us know. Send us a message on Facebook or Twitter.

643
00:36:56,520 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 1: You can find our handle there it's Text stuff HS

644
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 1: double you, or you can send us an email that

645
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:05,400
Speaker 1: addresses tech stuff at how stuff works dot com and

646
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Speaker 1: Chris and I will talk to you again for really soon.

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Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff

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Speaker 1: from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we

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Speaker 1: explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today

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Speaker 1: on iTunes, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand

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Speaker 1: twelve camera. It's ready, are you