1 00:00:00,560 --> 00:00:03,760 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how 2 00:00:03,800 --> 00:00:13,760 Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 3 00:00:13,840 --> 00:00:17,040 Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Dowdy and today I am joined by a 4 00:00:17,160 --> 00:00:21,560 Speaker 1: very special guest, Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, So you guys 5 00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:25,000 Speaker 1: probably remember Jonathan Strickland. He joined um. He joined both 6 00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:27,520 Speaker 1: of us a few months ago as the Admiral for 7 00:00:27,720 --> 00:00:31,560 Speaker 1: our Renaissance Festival episode. But this time he is here 8 00:00:31,760 --> 00:00:37,479 Speaker 1: in his real life version, presenting on technology, which is 9 00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:41,559 Speaker 1: your your specialty, my forte. As they say, there will 10 00:00:41,600 --> 00:00:45,040 Speaker 1: be no hazas this particular episode. Maybe we could squeeze 11 00:00:45,080 --> 00:00:48,199 Speaker 1: one and at the end or something. But Jonathan is 12 00:00:48,280 --> 00:00:50,320 Speaker 1: the co host of tech Stuff is probably a lot 13 00:00:50,360 --> 00:00:53,200 Speaker 1: of y'all know, and he also is a staff writer 14 00:00:53,240 --> 00:00:58,200 Speaker 1: who specializes in technology articles and Deplina and I often 15 00:00:58,240 --> 00:01:02,280 Speaker 1: talk about how you would like somebody like Jonathan and 16 00:01:02,400 --> 00:01:06,760 Speaker 1: Chris to join us for technology related episodes sometimes when 17 00:01:06,760 --> 00:01:10,399 Speaker 1: we really want something better explained than we're able to do. 18 00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:13,280 Speaker 1: And we've actually covered a lot of the same topics 19 00:01:13,319 --> 00:01:15,920 Speaker 1: as you and Chris too, Yes, that's true. We've We've 20 00:01:15,959 --> 00:01:20,080 Speaker 1: covered several things, including Ada Lovelace, who I think got 21 00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:23,000 Speaker 1: an enormous amount of praise on both of our podcast 22 00:01:23,640 --> 00:01:27,640 Speaker 1: she was phenomenal, absolutely holomonal to be able to reach 23 00:01:27,680 --> 00:01:29,440 Speaker 1: a point where not only was she able to write 24 00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:32,160 Speaker 1: programs for a machine that did not yet exist, but 25 00:01:32,360 --> 00:01:35,760 Speaker 1: recognize that numbers can substitute in for things and actually 26 00:01:35,760 --> 00:01:40,680 Speaker 1: represent other forms of media like music or pictures at 27 00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:43,040 Speaker 1: a time where there was no device to do that. 28 00:01:43,160 --> 00:01:47,280 Speaker 1: On is beyond my imagination to do all that while 29 00:01:47,360 --> 00:01:50,480 Speaker 1: being the daughter of Lord Byron. Of course, well you know, 30 00:01:50,560 --> 00:01:53,560 Speaker 1: I would say that helps probably had a little dose 31 00:01:53,560 --> 00:01:56,800 Speaker 1: of the crazy in there too, but no, absolutely phenomenal 32 00:01:57,120 --> 00:01:59,360 Speaker 1: and other topics as well, But yes, and this is 33 00:01:59,400 --> 00:02:02,080 Speaker 1: one that that I know that stuff you missed in 34 00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:05,920 Speaker 1: history classes touched on related topics, and we at Tech 35 00:02:05,960 --> 00:02:08,519 Speaker 1: Stuff have talked about some related topics, but we wanted 36 00:02:08,560 --> 00:02:11,280 Speaker 1: to sort of look at the overall picture of what 37 00:02:11,360 --> 00:02:15,079 Speaker 1: cryptography was like during World War Two. And this will 38 00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:17,680 Speaker 1: be sort of the kickoff of a little series that 39 00:02:17,680 --> 00:02:19,760 Speaker 1: I'm going to do with a few other How Stuff 40 00:02:19,760 --> 00:02:23,639 Speaker 1: Works podcast co host who all focusing on something that's 41 00:02:23,720 --> 00:02:27,600 Speaker 1: history related but also focused on their specialty. So that's 42 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:32,000 Speaker 1: why Jonathan has picked Codes Today, something that is tech 43 00:02:32,080 --> 00:02:36,119 Speaker 1: related but has a really fascinating history behind it too, Yes, 44 00:02:36,120 --> 00:02:39,560 Speaker 1: and that history stretches way back before World War two, 45 00:02:39,600 --> 00:02:42,359 Speaker 1: of course. Uh. And I even had a little crash 46 00:02:42,440 --> 00:02:44,959 Speaker 1: course in cryptography I wrote up so that we could 47 00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:48,080 Speaker 1: kind of have a common language to work from. And 48 00:02:48,240 --> 00:02:51,120 Speaker 1: it does come from a pair of Greek words. Essentially 49 00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:55,000 Speaker 1: means hidden writing is what cryptography really boils down to, 50 00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:58,760 Speaker 1: and it is the idea of hiding a message by 51 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:02,520 Speaker 1: encoding it and so way, and very common way is 52 00:03:02,600 --> 00:03:05,520 Speaker 1: using a cipher where you are replacing letters within a 53 00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:09,600 Speaker 1: message with some other letter or symbol or number, and 54 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:13,519 Speaker 1: you're using a very specific key so that someone who 55 00:03:13,520 --> 00:03:18,080 Speaker 1: receives that message, the intended recipient, can take the encoded message, 56 00:03:18,120 --> 00:03:20,799 Speaker 1: they take the key, and then using the key, they 57 00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:25,160 Speaker 1: decode the message. But ideally anyone else who intercepts said 58 00:03:25,160 --> 00:03:27,440 Speaker 1: message would just have a bunch of gibberish that they 59 00:03:27,560 --> 00:03:31,200 Speaker 1: could not understand. Now, in reality, a lot of these 60 00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:35,880 Speaker 1: ciphers don't remain secure forever, and we will see, right 61 00:03:36,240 --> 00:03:38,320 Speaker 1: and there we have some very good examples of that. 62 00:03:38,600 --> 00:03:40,760 Speaker 1: But there are a lot of different types of ciphers, 63 00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:44,440 Speaker 1: and one of those, the most basic is the mono 64 00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:49,080 Speaker 1: alphabetic cipher. That's where you use one symbol to replace 65 00:03:49,720 --> 00:03:52,600 Speaker 1: each letter, and probably everybody is familiar with that one. 66 00:03:52,640 --> 00:03:55,880 Speaker 1: It's what I used in my spy club as a kid. 67 00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:59,200 Speaker 1: It's pretty straightforward. Maybe when you're eight it seems like 68 00:03:59,240 --> 00:04:02,480 Speaker 1: it would be a breakable, but in reality it's pretty 69 00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:04,640 Speaker 1: easy to crack right right. This would be when you 70 00:04:04,880 --> 00:04:07,120 Speaker 1: might say, all right, let's shift all the letters over 71 00:04:07,240 --> 00:04:10,560 Speaker 1: four letters, and no one will ever figure it out, right, 72 00:04:10,920 --> 00:04:14,119 Speaker 1: So A becomes D and B becomes E and uh. 73 00:04:14,320 --> 00:04:17,880 Speaker 1: It seems at first, when you are unaware of how 74 00:04:17,920 --> 00:04:21,640 Speaker 1: to analyze cryptography that that would be be fairly secure. 75 00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:25,479 Speaker 1: But just using something simple as a frequency analysis, which 76 00:04:25,520 --> 00:04:30,240 Speaker 1: is typically the frequency that certain letter combinations appear in 77 00:04:30,279 --> 00:04:32,760 Speaker 1: any given language. So if you know that the message 78 00:04:32,800 --> 00:04:35,120 Speaker 1: was written in English, you know it's ciphered, but it's 79 00:04:35,120 --> 00:04:38,279 Speaker 1: an English based language, you could start looking for letter 80 00:04:38,320 --> 00:04:41,680 Speaker 1: combinations that would give away what the coded letters are. 81 00:04:41,760 --> 00:04:44,640 Speaker 1: So look for double letters for example. Those could be 82 00:04:44,680 --> 00:04:48,000 Speaker 1: ta s or l's, things like that, things word very 83 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:50,479 Speaker 1: short words exactly if you haven't. If you if you 84 00:04:50,520 --> 00:04:53,520 Speaker 1: have your text actually broken up in the same grouping 85 00:04:53,680 --> 00:04:57,479 Speaker 1: of of letters as your plain text, words are that's 86 00:04:57,480 --> 00:04:59,880 Speaker 1: a dead giveaway, which is why a lot of ciphers 87 00:04:59,880 --> 00:05:03,240 Speaker 1: are written in five letter blocks, so that you might 88 00:05:03,279 --> 00:05:06,120 Speaker 1: even have two short words combined together or a very 89 00:05:06,160 --> 00:05:09,640 Speaker 1: long word broken across a couple of blocks, and it 90 00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:12,120 Speaker 1: makes it harder to detect, but even then pretty easy 91 00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:15,640 Speaker 1: to figure out exactly the analysis. So another version of 92 00:05:15,640 --> 00:05:18,000 Speaker 1: this one that's a little bit more complicated, is the 93 00:05:18,080 --> 00:05:22,719 Speaker 1: polyalphabetic ciphers, and those substitute each letter with a different 94 00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:26,400 Speaker 1: symbol based upon where the letter appeared in the message. 95 00:05:26,800 --> 00:05:31,080 Speaker 1: So instead of a direct substitution, just it's the first letter, 96 00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:33,040 Speaker 1: it's the second letter, and so on, it can be 97 00:05:33,080 --> 00:05:35,360 Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, and there's there's a couple different methods 98 00:05:35,360 --> 00:05:37,719 Speaker 1: of doing this where, for example, the first time the 99 00:05:37,800 --> 00:05:40,560 Speaker 1: letter if the letter A appears in your message, it 100 00:05:40,640 --> 00:05:44,279 Speaker 1: maybe in ciphered. I'm just grabbing the letter at random 101 00:05:44,279 --> 00:05:47,120 Speaker 1: with L. And the second time the letter A appears, 102 00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:51,560 Speaker 1: it may be the letter D. And it all depends 103 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:55,440 Speaker 1: upon the specific set of rules you have set down 104 00:05:55,480 --> 00:05:58,240 Speaker 1: for that key the algorithm, if you like, that's the 105 00:05:58,520 --> 00:06:02,080 Speaker 1: specific protocol the you follow, and that does make it 106 00:06:02,160 --> 00:06:05,240 Speaker 1: much more difficult to break because you can't guarantee that 107 00:06:05,279 --> 00:06:07,760 Speaker 1: every time you see a certain cipher that it's going 108 00:06:07,800 --> 00:06:10,280 Speaker 1: to translate to the same letter. Moving on from there, 109 00:06:10,279 --> 00:06:14,240 Speaker 1: we get a little bit more complicated and have polygraphic ciphers. 110 00:06:14,320 --> 00:06:18,680 Speaker 1: Those use a combination of letters, numbers, or symbols for 111 00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:24,359 Speaker 1: each quoted letters, so we don't have this direct translation anymore. 112 00:06:24,440 --> 00:06:26,599 Speaker 1: It's not going to be something that you can just 113 00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:30,039 Speaker 1: break out into the original words in the plane text 114 00:06:30,120 --> 00:06:33,520 Speaker 1: to the cipher text. That's right. You. It's very confusing 115 00:06:33,520 --> 00:06:35,520 Speaker 1: when you first get one of these messages because you 116 00:06:35,560 --> 00:06:39,119 Speaker 1: can't be sure how many characters represent one single letter, 117 00:06:39,680 --> 00:06:42,240 Speaker 1: and by doing that you really make it more difficult 118 00:06:42,279 --> 00:06:44,480 Speaker 1: to break the code. And then I think the last 119 00:06:44,480 --> 00:06:47,320 Speaker 1: one we have here is the transposition ciphers, which it's 120 00:06:47,400 --> 00:06:50,280 Speaker 1: kind of like a word jumble, where you've taken the 121 00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:53,719 Speaker 1: letters of the of the message, the plane text message, 122 00:06:53,760 --> 00:06:55,640 Speaker 1: and you just mixed up the letters. So you're not 123 00:06:55,720 --> 00:06:59,680 Speaker 1: replacing any letters here, you're mixing them up according to 124 00:06:59,800 --> 00:07:04,560 Speaker 1: a in a prearranged code. So you might say, all, right, 125 00:07:05,360 --> 00:07:08,000 Speaker 1: letter of this message should appear first, then the fifth 126 00:07:08,040 --> 00:07:10,960 Speaker 1: letter of the message apers second, and you just follow 127 00:07:11,040 --> 00:07:12,880 Speaker 1: that key and as long as the other person has 128 00:07:12,920 --> 00:07:15,360 Speaker 1: the same key, they can unscramble it, but of course 129 00:07:15,400 --> 00:07:18,640 Speaker 1: that's not terribly safe either. People with a lot of 130 00:07:18,680 --> 00:07:21,800 Speaker 1: imagination can piece us together, sort of like Sunday Morning. 131 00:07:21,880 --> 00:07:25,000 Speaker 1: Not for your top secret message. Yeah, a hobbyist could 132 00:07:25,080 --> 00:07:28,520 Speaker 1: could crack that with enough ingenuity and time. So another 133 00:07:28,600 --> 00:07:30,480 Speaker 1: element in here, and one that we're going to be 134 00:07:30,520 --> 00:07:33,680 Speaker 1: talking about quite a bit in our second episode on 135 00:07:33,720 --> 00:07:37,200 Speaker 1: this uh this subject is codebook. So code books, of 136 00:07:37,200 --> 00:07:40,960 Speaker 1: course contain a list of phrases that linked to specific 137 00:07:40,960 --> 00:07:42,920 Speaker 1: code words. So if you were just reading them, they 138 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:45,440 Speaker 1: might be familiar words, but they don't have any meaning 139 00:07:45,520 --> 00:07:48,640 Speaker 1: to you. You can't you can't decipher it. You can't 140 00:07:48,640 --> 00:07:51,520 Speaker 1: into it what the word might represent in any way 141 00:07:51,640 --> 00:07:54,520 Speaker 1: unless you have the book right. So you could possibly 142 00:07:54,600 --> 00:07:57,880 Speaker 1: break a cipher and you know that this next word 143 00:07:58,240 --> 00:08:01,920 Speaker 1: is hawk, but you don't know what hawk means. It 144 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:04,520 Speaker 1: could it could mean a bird, but it might actually 145 00:08:04,640 --> 00:08:07,200 Speaker 1: stand for something else, probably does in the case of wartime, 146 00:08:07,760 --> 00:08:10,120 Speaker 1: And you know, you might be able to make some guesses, 147 00:08:10,200 --> 00:08:13,200 Speaker 1: but you're not necessarily going to know. So codebooks were 148 00:08:13,200 --> 00:08:17,440 Speaker 1: also very very important on both sides during the World 149 00:08:17,440 --> 00:08:20,040 Speaker 1: War Two, And if you combine that with ciphers, you 150 00:08:20,040 --> 00:08:23,280 Speaker 1: are getting a pretty tough code. Finally, and then a 151 00:08:23,360 --> 00:08:28,760 Speaker 1: related technique to cryptography is called steganography, which is hiding 152 00:08:28,880 --> 00:08:32,840 Speaker 1: a message within an image or some other kind of medium. Right, 153 00:08:32,920 --> 00:08:36,440 Speaker 1: this is really super cool stuff. This is where let's say, 154 00:08:36,440 --> 00:08:38,240 Speaker 1: Sarah that I met you on the street and I 155 00:08:38,280 --> 00:08:40,760 Speaker 1: handed you a postcard and the postcard just said hey, 156 00:08:40,760 --> 00:08:43,040 Speaker 1: how are you doing? And it has nothing else on 157 00:08:43,120 --> 00:08:44,920 Speaker 1: there's no other message there, and you think, oh, well, 158 00:08:44,920 --> 00:08:47,400 Speaker 1: that's just completely innocent. But on the flip side of 159 00:08:47,400 --> 00:08:50,720 Speaker 1: the the postcard, where the picture is, which looks like 160 00:08:50,760 --> 00:08:54,800 Speaker 1: this nice little landscape, you could maybe actually noticed that 161 00:08:54,840 --> 00:08:57,720 Speaker 1: along the edge of a lake, there's really a message 162 00:08:57,760 --> 00:09:00,080 Speaker 1: that's in there. And you look more carefully and you 163 00:09:00,120 --> 00:09:03,480 Speaker 1: see that there's something hidden and it's hidden from plain 164 00:09:03,559 --> 00:09:05,880 Speaker 1: sighte uh. And it can get a lot more complicated, 165 00:09:05,960 --> 00:09:08,280 Speaker 1: especially with today's technology, where you can hide things in 166 00:09:09,360 --> 00:09:12,840 Speaker 1: u R L, you can hide things within a QR code. 167 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:15,520 Speaker 1: It's it's lots of different ways of hiding a message, 168 00:09:15,800 --> 00:09:17,760 Speaker 1: but it's done in such a way that from the 169 00:09:17,840 --> 00:09:22,400 Speaker 1: casual observer's perspective, no message even existed. I like this one, 170 00:09:22,440 --> 00:09:25,280 Speaker 1: although it doesn't sound quite as practical as the others, 171 00:09:25,400 --> 00:09:30,160 Speaker 1: especially for wartime communications. You're not really thinking romantic spy 172 00:09:30,280 --> 00:09:34,520 Speaker 1: sort of stuff. Yes, exactly, all right, So now that 173 00:09:34,559 --> 00:09:39,320 Speaker 1: we've gotten a background on cryptography, we can start talking 174 00:09:39,360 --> 00:09:43,360 Speaker 1: about how it was used in World War Two, which 175 00:09:43,440 --> 00:09:46,720 Speaker 1: is sort of the heyday almost it seems, of cryptography. 176 00:09:46,840 --> 00:09:49,000 Speaker 1: It's it's really I would say World War Two is 177 00:09:49,040 --> 00:09:53,800 Speaker 1: probably the foundation for modern cryptography. The developments that were 178 00:09:53,840 --> 00:09:56,760 Speaker 1: made during that era leading up to World War Two, 179 00:09:56,800 --> 00:10:01,680 Speaker 1: but really uh intensely built upon during the years of 180 00:10:01,720 --> 00:10:04,880 Speaker 1: World War Two that has led to to the way 181 00:10:04,920 --> 00:10:09,600 Speaker 1: we use cryptography today. So it's it's an important time 182 00:10:09,640 --> 00:10:12,280 Speaker 1: in history as far as this whole development of science 183 00:10:12,360 --> 00:10:14,200 Speaker 1: is concerned. It is. And we're going to start by 184 00:10:14,200 --> 00:10:18,480 Speaker 1: talking about the axis powers use of cryptography, partly because 185 00:10:18,520 --> 00:10:20,439 Speaker 1: we want to start this whole thing off by talking 186 00:10:20,440 --> 00:10:24,679 Speaker 1: about the Enigma machine. It's probably the most famous example 187 00:10:24,880 --> 00:10:27,360 Speaker 1: of cryptography in World War Two, I would say, and 188 00:10:27,480 --> 00:10:30,520 Speaker 1: something that we have both talked about on our podcast. 189 00:10:30,720 --> 00:10:33,600 Speaker 1: Deplena and I talked about it in our Alan Touring episode. 190 00:10:33,640 --> 00:10:37,120 Speaker 1: You and Chris talked about it in your Alan Touring episode. 191 00:10:36,640 --> 00:10:40,079 Speaker 1: It's something that I think most people out there are 192 00:10:40,600 --> 00:10:43,079 Speaker 1: they've at least heard of it. Yes, And if you 193 00:10:43,120 --> 00:10:44,800 Speaker 1: were to look at one of these things, it would 194 00:10:44,800 --> 00:10:47,160 Speaker 1: look like it was a typewriter and a whole bunch 195 00:10:47,160 --> 00:10:50,760 Speaker 1: of lightbulbs and some plugs going every which way, and 196 00:10:50,920 --> 00:10:53,120 Speaker 1: you might wonder what was the purpose. Looks like a 197 00:10:53,120 --> 00:10:56,240 Speaker 1: mad inventor thought. It really doesn't. And the person who 198 00:10:56,320 --> 00:10:58,400 Speaker 1: actually thought it up was not a mad inventor. He 199 00:10:58,520 --> 00:11:01,319 Speaker 1: was he was quite He was ingenious in his own way, 200 00:11:01,360 --> 00:11:04,920 Speaker 1: as Dr Arthur Sherbius, And that was in nineteen twenty three, 201 00:11:04,960 --> 00:11:07,640 Speaker 1: and he was inventing this not as a means for 202 00:11:07,800 --> 00:11:10,840 Speaker 1: the government to pass along secret messages to various branches 203 00:11:10,840 --> 00:11:14,480 Speaker 1: of the military or intermilitary messages. It wasn't meant for 204 00:11:14,480 --> 00:11:16,800 Speaker 1: that at all. It was meant for corporations to try 205 00:11:16,840 --> 00:11:19,960 Speaker 1: and send secret messages so they could keep corporate secrets, 206 00:11:20,320 --> 00:11:26,079 Speaker 1: so that other competitors wouldn't steal corporate information, private information private. 207 00:11:26,120 --> 00:11:29,600 Speaker 1: But of course the German government quickly realized that this 208 00:11:29,679 --> 00:11:34,320 Speaker 1: could be a useful tool for very secret communications, and 209 00:11:34,360 --> 00:11:38,960 Speaker 1: so in nineteen the German Navy started using a modified 210 00:11:39,120 --> 00:11:42,120 Speaker 1: version of the Enigma machine and and from there it 211 00:11:42,200 --> 00:11:44,600 Speaker 1: sort of picked out the German Army followed in nineteen 212 00:11:45,320 --> 00:11:48,480 Speaker 1: The Air Force started using one in nineteen thirty three. 213 00:11:48,520 --> 00:11:50,720 Speaker 1: We should say, though they were all modified, they were 214 00:11:50,760 --> 00:11:54,440 Speaker 1: all a complicated version of this commercial machine, right, and 215 00:11:54,440 --> 00:11:58,400 Speaker 1: they even evolved during the course of World War Two somewhat. Now, 216 00:11:58,600 --> 00:12:00,440 Speaker 1: if you want to know what the basic sheen is, 217 00:12:00,440 --> 00:12:05,040 Speaker 1: you have to imagine imagine a disk around wheel, all right, 218 00:12:05,120 --> 00:12:07,520 Speaker 1: and it's thick, It's about maybe half an inch thick, 219 00:12:08,160 --> 00:12:12,720 Speaker 1: and on either side of the wheel are contacts electrical 220 00:12:12,800 --> 00:12:17,160 Speaker 1: context that an electrical UH current can pass through. Along 221 00:12:17,200 --> 00:12:20,240 Speaker 1: the outer edge of the wheel, where if it were 222 00:12:20,280 --> 00:12:22,199 Speaker 1: a tire, this is the part that we make contact 223 00:12:22,240 --> 00:12:25,600 Speaker 1: with the ground. Along that outer edge are letters that 224 00:12:25,640 --> 00:12:29,000 Speaker 1: represent positions. Now you have three of these in a 225 00:12:29,080 --> 00:12:32,640 Speaker 1: basic Enigma machine, all right, and you the way you 226 00:12:32,679 --> 00:12:36,280 Speaker 1: set these, how you set them determines the pathway the 227 00:12:36,320 --> 00:12:39,640 Speaker 1: electricity takes when it comes in on one side and 228 00:12:39,720 --> 00:12:44,319 Speaker 1: goes out the other. Now, uh, you can change the 229 00:12:44,800 --> 00:12:48,080 Speaker 1: orientation of these reels in multiple ways, so that makes 230 00:12:48,120 --> 00:12:51,559 Speaker 1: it very complex. So this pathway could take lots of 231 00:12:51,559 --> 00:12:55,400 Speaker 1: little criss cross the ways. And what it boils down 232 00:12:55,400 --> 00:12:58,839 Speaker 1: to is the typewriter part with all the keys. When 233 00:12:58,880 --> 00:13:02,200 Speaker 1: you press a letter, it sends an electric signal into 234 00:13:02,360 --> 00:13:06,000 Speaker 1: the rotors. It goes through this complicated pathway that's determined 235 00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:08,880 Speaker 1: by the orientation of those rotors. When it comes out 236 00:13:08,920 --> 00:13:11,719 Speaker 1: the other side, it lights up a light bulb representing 237 00:13:11,800 --> 00:13:14,719 Speaker 1: a different letter when you So when you press the 238 00:13:14,800 --> 00:13:19,000 Speaker 1: letter A, perhaps the letter Q yes. And so it 239 00:13:19,040 --> 00:13:22,440 Speaker 1: takes two people to do this. Someone has the normal message, 240 00:13:22,480 --> 00:13:24,719 Speaker 1: the message that is supposed to be encoded, and they 241 00:13:24,760 --> 00:13:27,440 Speaker 1: press a key. There's a second person who watches the 242 00:13:27,520 --> 00:13:31,240 Speaker 1: light bulbs and writes down which letter lights up. And 243 00:13:31,480 --> 00:13:34,600 Speaker 1: after you press that A, the rotor, the first rotor 244 00:13:34,679 --> 00:13:37,920 Speaker 1: on the left rotates one position. So that means the 245 00:13:37,960 --> 00:13:41,640 Speaker 1: pathways for the that electric current to follow through have 246 00:13:41,880 --> 00:13:44,160 Speaker 1: changed from the first letter to the second. That's right. 247 00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:46,600 Speaker 1: So if the first two letters were A A for 248 00:13:46,640 --> 00:13:49,719 Speaker 1: some reason, and you pressed A and the Q lit up, 249 00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:53,600 Speaker 1: the second time you press A, perhaps the M lights up, 250 00:13:54,080 --> 00:13:56,360 Speaker 1: and every time after that's gonna light up differently. So 251 00:13:56,400 --> 00:13:59,640 Speaker 1: you already have so many possibilities just from that simple 252 00:13:59,720 --> 00:14:01,600 Speaker 1: disc option. But there's a way to make it even 253 00:14:01,600 --> 00:14:04,160 Speaker 1: more complicated, right there. There are two things that make 254 00:14:04,240 --> 00:14:06,679 Speaker 1: this even more complex. One is that once you go 255 00:14:06,760 --> 00:14:10,840 Speaker 1: through a certain number of of moves with that first rotor, 256 00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:14,079 Speaker 1: the second rotor can rotate, which means you've just added 257 00:14:14,080 --> 00:14:17,760 Speaker 1: a whole new set of variables. And with the German 258 00:14:17,840 --> 00:14:20,600 Speaker 1: Navy they had four rotors in their Enigma machines, which 259 00:14:20,640 --> 00:14:23,080 Speaker 1: means that once the third one would rotate, it just 260 00:14:23,120 --> 00:14:26,040 Speaker 1: made it even more complex. And this allows you to 261 00:14:26,080 --> 00:14:29,240 Speaker 1: have a key that does not repeat. It does mean 262 00:14:29,280 --> 00:14:31,880 Speaker 1: that whoever has the recipient, whoever the recipient is, they 263 00:14:31,880 --> 00:14:33,960 Speaker 1: have to have a machine set up the exact same 264 00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:36,640 Speaker 1: way that your machine was set up. Now, the other 265 00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:41,200 Speaker 1: thing that made this complicated was they had plug boards, 266 00:14:41,240 --> 00:14:44,280 Speaker 1: so unfair really, the plug boards, and what the plug 267 00:14:44,320 --> 00:14:46,800 Speaker 1: boards did was you were you would attach a cable 268 00:14:47,720 --> 00:14:52,440 Speaker 1: that would swap the input of a certain key with 269 00:14:52,480 --> 00:14:55,920 Speaker 1: another key. So let's stick with A. Let's say that 270 00:14:55,960 --> 00:14:58,240 Speaker 1: you have a plug in the A and a plug 271 00:14:58,280 --> 00:15:00,560 Speaker 1: in the H, which means every time you press A, 272 00:15:01,040 --> 00:15:05,320 Speaker 1: it's as if you had pressed H on an unaltered machine. 273 00:15:06,040 --> 00:15:09,160 Speaker 1: So that makes it even more complex. And the plugboards 274 00:15:09,160 --> 00:15:11,440 Speaker 1: were added a little later. That was an evolution of 275 00:15:11,480 --> 00:15:15,480 Speaker 1: the Enigma machine. And the Germans were so confident that 276 00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:19,560 Speaker 1: this machine was uncrackable that they never ever worried about 277 00:15:19,560 --> 00:15:24,760 Speaker 1: anyone intercepting their messages because those ciphered messages would be 278 00:15:24,960 --> 00:15:27,840 Speaker 1: impossible to decipher. They were a little too confident, though, 279 00:15:27,880 --> 00:15:30,760 Speaker 1: because there were a few problems with the whole thing, 280 00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:35,080 Speaker 1: one being that the machine couldn't encode a letter as itself. 281 00:15:35,120 --> 00:15:38,160 Speaker 1: So you've been using the example A A could never 282 00:15:38,240 --> 00:15:41,680 Speaker 1: be A no matter what combination of rotors you were using, 283 00:15:41,680 --> 00:15:44,840 Speaker 1: no matter how many cables were involved, A just couldn't 284 00:15:44,840 --> 00:15:46,520 Speaker 1: be A. That's a pretty big clue. I mean, it 285 00:15:46,560 --> 00:15:50,800 Speaker 1: doesn't sound like it reduces your your options that much, 286 00:15:50,880 --> 00:15:52,720 Speaker 1: but it really does if you're thinking about it in 287 00:15:52,800 --> 00:15:55,360 Speaker 1: terms of probability. Right, Yes, that's that was one of 288 00:15:55,360 --> 00:15:58,280 Speaker 1: the things Touring jumped on right away was he said, well, 289 00:15:58,440 --> 00:16:02,200 Speaker 1: if this machine cannot in code a letter as itself, 290 00:16:02,440 --> 00:16:05,640 Speaker 1: that removes one option out, and by removing one option 291 00:16:05,640 --> 00:16:09,280 Speaker 1: you have given us a foothold. That was definitely a weakness. 292 00:16:09,440 --> 00:16:12,240 Speaker 1: Another was that in order to make this work again, 293 00:16:12,280 --> 00:16:14,760 Speaker 1: you had to have two machines and you had to 294 00:16:14,760 --> 00:16:17,440 Speaker 1: have them both set up the same way, which meant 295 00:16:17,440 --> 00:16:19,960 Speaker 1: if someone were able to get hold of a machine 296 00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:24,040 Speaker 1: and the codebook so they you could see which which 297 00:16:24,080 --> 00:16:26,720 Speaker 1: set up was needed for any particular day. You know, 298 00:16:26,840 --> 00:16:29,600 Speaker 1: everyone had to know how to set their machine up 299 00:16:29,600 --> 00:16:33,800 Speaker 1: once they received the message, then they could intercept a 300 00:16:33,880 --> 00:16:37,720 Speaker 1: message and then interpret how to decipher it. Um, you 301 00:16:37,840 --> 00:16:40,000 Speaker 1: just had to know the day the message had been sent. 302 00:16:40,120 --> 00:16:41,680 Speaker 1: You had to know the day the message was sent, 303 00:16:41,760 --> 00:16:43,880 Speaker 1: so and you had to have a corresponding codebook that 304 00:16:43,920 --> 00:16:46,080 Speaker 1: would tell you the right setting for that day. But 305 00:16:46,160 --> 00:16:49,560 Speaker 1: even without that, once they started learning how the actual 306 00:16:49,760 --> 00:16:53,200 Speaker 1: machine worked, they were able to start thinking, how can 307 00:16:53,240 --> 00:16:57,400 Speaker 1: we simulate this by building something of our own that 308 00:16:57,520 --> 00:17:00,360 Speaker 1: can take this information and perhaps decide of it. So 309 00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:03,480 Speaker 1: if we intercept a message, we can if if even 310 00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:06,200 Speaker 1: if we don't know what the original settings were, perhaps 311 00:17:06,240 --> 00:17:09,960 Speaker 1: we'll be able to create something that can run enough 312 00:17:10,040 --> 00:17:13,400 Speaker 1: simulations through where we can crack the code. And Polish 313 00:17:13,400 --> 00:17:17,919 Speaker 1: mathematicians got a toe hold in this by intercepting an 314 00:17:18,080 --> 00:17:20,840 Speaker 1: Enigma machine, so they could see a little bit what 315 00:17:20,840 --> 00:17:22,960 Speaker 1: what they were dealing with and what kind of machine 316 00:17:22,960 --> 00:17:26,680 Speaker 1: would need to be created to possibly break this code. Yes, 317 00:17:26,760 --> 00:17:29,840 Speaker 1: and they ended up sharing that information with Bletchley Park, 318 00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:33,680 Speaker 1: which a famous famous institution there during World War Two. 319 00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:37,679 Speaker 1: That was that was codebreaker central for the British a 320 00:17:37,760 --> 00:17:40,320 Speaker 1: manor house, and I should take this opportunity to I 321 00:17:40,320 --> 00:17:42,520 Speaker 1: think one time we said it was in London. It's 322 00:17:42,520 --> 00:17:44,800 Speaker 1: outside of London. That was the whole point, because it 323 00:17:44,920 --> 00:17:48,160 Speaker 1: was more secure being away from the city. But yeah, 324 00:17:48,160 --> 00:17:51,560 Speaker 1: with this information that the Polish mathematicians had with their 325 00:17:51,600 --> 00:17:55,920 Speaker 1: intercepted Enigma, the teams at Bletchley Park started working on 326 00:17:56,880 --> 00:18:01,840 Speaker 1: building these early computers called bombs to a eventually simulate 327 00:18:02,119 --> 00:18:04,960 Speaker 1: the Enigma machine and figure out how it worked and 328 00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:06,680 Speaker 1: figure out how to break it. But what I think 329 00:18:06,800 --> 00:18:09,159 Speaker 1: is interesting is that this was I was talking to 330 00:18:09,200 --> 00:18:10,800 Speaker 1: you about this earlier, and it's kind of hard for 331 00:18:10,840 --> 00:18:13,199 Speaker 1: me to wrap my mind around. But they're working by 332 00:18:13,240 --> 00:18:16,679 Speaker 1: process of elimination. Rather than like, Okay, what was it 333 00:18:16,800 --> 00:18:18,800 Speaker 1: set on? It's more what was it? How was it 334 00:18:18,880 --> 00:18:23,639 Speaker 1: not set? Yes? Yeah, By eliminating all the potential factors, 335 00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:28,040 Speaker 1: they narrow it down to the one that it actually was. Uh. 336 00:18:28,240 --> 00:18:30,800 Speaker 1: It really reminds me of quantum computing. Actually, I'm not 337 00:18:30,840 --> 00:18:32,800 Speaker 1: going to go into it, don't get there. But but 338 00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:36,200 Speaker 1: I'm just saying a similar thing. You're eliminating all the 339 00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:40,280 Speaker 1: all of the possibilities to get down to the one reality. 340 00:18:40,359 --> 00:18:45,440 Speaker 1: And it is pretty amazing. The bombas that the Polish 341 00:18:45,480 --> 00:18:48,879 Speaker 1: mathematicians had created ended up informing the British when they 342 00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:52,440 Speaker 1: started creating the the bumba b O m b E. 343 00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:55,600 Speaker 1: I always like to say the bum and uh and 344 00:18:55,720 --> 00:18:59,760 Speaker 1: yeah that was that was a huge, huge jump in 345 00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:04,640 Speaker 1: of crypto cryptanalysis and just the British war effort in general. 346 00:19:05,080 --> 00:19:08,040 Speaker 1: And one thing about all of these these codes and 347 00:19:08,080 --> 00:19:10,840 Speaker 1: decoding them is there's so many different names. There's the 348 00:19:10,920 --> 00:19:14,159 Speaker 1: name of the machine, there's the name that the opposing 349 00:19:14,200 --> 00:19:17,280 Speaker 1: force usually calls the code, and then the name of 350 00:19:17,359 --> 00:19:21,359 Speaker 1: the machine that is able to decode it. But in 351 00:19:21,359 --> 00:19:25,480 Speaker 1: this case, the Allied efforts to decode the German messages 352 00:19:25,640 --> 00:19:28,840 Speaker 1: was known as Ultra. Yeah, it was known as Ultra, 353 00:19:28,960 --> 00:19:32,200 Speaker 1: but you never said it ever, Ultra. I just didn't 354 00:19:32,200 --> 00:19:35,560 Speaker 1: say anything at Fletchley Park, like it's all done through 355 00:19:35,600 --> 00:19:40,640 Speaker 1: semaphoreign mime. Uh No. Ultra was such a secret term 356 00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:43,480 Speaker 1: that you were not supposed to utter it to other people. 357 00:19:43,920 --> 00:19:47,080 Speaker 1: Ultra was just a general term that referred to intercepted 358 00:19:47,080 --> 00:19:52,119 Speaker 1: and deciphered messages. And because it was such secret information, 359 00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:55,920 Speaker 1: you could not you could not reveal that to anyone 360 00:19:56,000 --> 00:19:58,880 Speaker 1: who was not already classified to know it so much 361 00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:02,280 Speaker 1: so that there were people who lost their jobs, who 362 00:20:02,280 --> 00:20:06,919 Speaker 1: were court martialed because they refused to deliver sources of 363 00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:09,840 Speaker 1: information because it fell under the umbrella of ultra. And 364 00:20:09,920 --> 00:20:12,320 Speaker 1: so there are people who are discredited during the war 365 00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:15,520 Speaker 1: because they were maintaining this level of secrecy, which is 366 00:20:15,520 --> 00:20:20,720 Speaker 1: pretty phenomenal, and they had a huge burden, which is 367 00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:25,760 Speaker 1: the flip side to cryptography. If you've intercepted a message 368 00:20:25,760 --> 00:20:28,359 Speaker 1: and you've successfully deciphered it, and you now know what 369 00:20:28,520 --> 00:20:31,879 Speaker 1: that information is, how do you act on that? Because 370 00:20:31,920 --> 00:20:34,040 Speaker 1: if you act on it in a way that reveals 371 00:20:34,040 --> 00:20:37,520 Speaker 1: to the enemy that you have understood what their messages are, 372 00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:41,000 Speaker 1: they are going to take efforts to change the way 373 00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:43,359 Speaker 1: that they are encoding things, thus putting you back to 374 00:20:43,480 --> 00:20:46,040 Speaker 1: square one. As long as your enemy feels that their 375 00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:50,280 Speaker 1: code is unbreakable, you're in a great position because they're 376 00:20:50,320 --> 00:20:53,320 Speaker 1: not going to take any more precautions with it. Otherwise 377 00:20:53,359 --> 00:20:56,000 Speaker 1: they can just develop a new machine, developed a more 378 00:20:56,040 --> 00:20:58,600 Speaker 1: difficult code. And yeah, like you said, you're back at 379 00:20:58,600 --> 00:21:02,920 Speaker 1: square one, then yes, and it is. I mean, it's 380 00:21:02,960 --> 00:21:05,199 Speaker 1: just it's it's hard to think about because you know 381 00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:08,160 Speaker 1: that a lot of these messages had life or death 382 00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:12,480 Speaker 1: consequences exactly, and they had to take very careful consideration 383 00:21:12,520 --> 00:21:15,080 Speaker 1: of how to act on it so that they could 384 00:21:15,520 --> 00:21:19,240 Speaker 1: preserve as many lives as possible without tipping their hand. 385 00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:21,840 Speaker 1: Was it information that could have been procured from some 386 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:25,000 Speaker 1: other sources aside from breaking the code or how important 387 00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:31,240 Speaker 1: was it? Fortunately for the Allies, the Germans were extremely 388 00:21:31,320 --> 00:21:35,000 Speaker 1: confident that the Enigma code was unbreakable. And I think 389 00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:37,879 Speaker 1: the only way that they would have I think, I 390 00:21:37,920 --> 00:21:41,439 Speaker 1: think what their normal routine was the Germans this is 391 00:21:42,119 --> 00:21:44,840 Speaker 1: would be that if they felt that the code was endangered, 392 00:21:44,840 --> 00:21:47,280 Speaker 1: they would issue new codebooks and they would have a 393 00:21:47,280 --> 00:21:51,440 Speaker 1: new set of codebooks go out to the field rather 394 00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:54,639 Speaker 1: than scrap the system and start with something new, so 395 00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:56,880 Speaker 1: they'd stick with the system. They would just say, oh, well, 396 00:21:56,880 --> 00:22:00,600 Speaker 1: what's what is at risk? Here are the physical codebooks 397 00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:03,320 Speaker 1: that tell people what settings they need to have the 398 00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:05,760 Speaker 1: Enigma machine on. And I didn't really talk about but 399 00:22:05,760 --> 00:22:09,000 Speaker 1: the recipient of the message. To to de cipher a 400 00:22:09,040 --> 00:22:13,680 Speaker 1: message from the the coded one, you would give the 401 00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:16,600 Speaker 1: the ciphered message to a typist who would have their 402 00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:18,680 Speaker 1: own Enigma machines set up just like the first one, 403 00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:22,320 Speaker 1: they pressed the first letter, so if that A was 404 00:22:22,359 --> 00:22:24,560 Speaker 1: a QUE, they would press Q and the the A 405 00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:26,960 Speaker 1: light bulb lights up and so then you would have 406 00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:30,879 Speaker 1: a second person taking down the flat text message exactly. UM. 407 00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:34,320 Speaker 1: And I kind of was interested that the secrecy for 408 00:22:34,359 --> 00:22:37,520 Speaker 1: all of this really extended beyond the war to the 409 00:22:37,520 --> 00:22:41,359 Speaker 1: the BOMBA machines were all destroyed on Churchill's orders. After 410 00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:43,600 Speaker 1: the war. I read one account of one of the 411 00:22:43,640 --> 00:22:47,080 Speaker 1: women who had worked on the machines at Bletchley Park 412 00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:49,879 Speaker 1: and talking about how her crew just happily destroyed them 413 00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:53,959 Speaker 1: because they were so temperamental. They were just glad to 414 00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:57,800 Speaker 1: see them go. That's an unusual story either. There are 415 00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:02,840 Speaker 1: a lot of stories about destroy void cryptography machines because 416 00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:05,960 Speaker 1: it was just considered to be too dangerous to let 417 00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:10,160 Speaker 1: that information out further technology that could still be useful. 418 00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:13,679 Speaker 1: Although today, of course, most of these machines have been rebuilt. 419 00:23:13,800 --> 00:23:15,640 Speaker 1: You can see a lot of them if you visit 420 00:23:15,680 --> 00:23:18,080 Speaker 1: Bletchley Park, which I think is cool that they've They've 421 00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:20,200 Speaker 1: gone to the trouble of illustrating these because if you 422 00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:22,320 Speaker 1: watch a video of one, it's a little easier too 423 00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:26,399 Speaker 1: to comprehend than if you're just trying to read about 424 00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:29,480 Speaker 1: it or hearing about it too, to see exactly how 425 00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:32,240 Speaker 1: they were right. And there's some software out there as 426 00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:35,960 Speaker 1: well that simulates a lot of these different machines so 427 00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:39,280 Speaker 1: that you could type in a message and it would 428 00:23:39,280 --> 00:23:41,919 Speaker 1: come out as a ciphered message. And again you have 429 00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:44,480 Speaker 1: a friend who has that same software running, and you 430 00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:47,120 Speaker 1: tell them, all right, set your software to this setting 431 00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:49,200 Speaker 1: and run this message through and see what you get. 432 00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:52,520 Speaker 1: And it might say, you know, you are a poopy head. 433 00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:56,639 Speaker 1: It's all the messages I get from Chris all the time. 434 00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:00,199 Speaker 1: It's really worth worth coding. Yeah, it takes a lot 435 00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:04,240 Speaker 1: of effort to get that across. Another thing, though, is 436 00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:07,000 Speaker 1: Enigma kind of gets all the glory. I'd say, you know, 437 00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:10,080 Speaker 1: it's the only with if we were saying earlier that 438 00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:12,440 Speaker 1: it's probably when most people are familiar with, and it 439 00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:15,560 Speaker 1: might also be the only German code that people are 440 00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:18,600 Speaker 1: familiar with. Sure, and it's not the only German code 441 00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:22,159 Speaker 1: by a long shot. You wanted to speak specifically to 442 00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:26,560 Speaker 1: the Lawrenz machines, which the Lawrence machine was interesting. It 443 00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:29,359 Speaker 1: was a steam powered machine, so a little bit different 444 00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:32,119 Speaker 1: and also the kind of old school little steam punky, 445 00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:35,159 Speaker 1: little steam punky. Uh. It actually would send a message 446 00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:39,960 Speaker 1: over telephone wire, over a telegraph wire, um, and you 447 00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:43,399 Speaker 1: would have two machines set up where you would type 448 00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,959 Speaker 1: in a message onto one machine. It encodes it using 449 00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:51,919 Speaker 1: an ex or algorithm. And I to to explain that 450 00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:54,359 Speaker 1: would probably take an entire podcast on its own, but 451 00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:56,919 Speaker 1: just just to say that each letter is a symbol 452 00:24:57,320 --> 00:25:03,399 Speaker 1: assigned a certain binary value, and then there's a key 453 00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:06,520 Speaker 1: that also has a binary value. You add those two 454 00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:09,919 Speaker 1: values together, it creates a third value that becomes the 455 00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:13,119 Speaker 1: ciphered text. So as long as the other machine again 456 00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,320 Speaker 1: has the right key, uh, then you can decipher it. 457 00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:20,119 Speaker 1: And again the Germans were very confident about this. They thought, well, 458 00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:23,400 Speaker 1: we've got this. The key is is this this role 459 00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:27,359 Speaker 1: of tape. Essentially that both sides, both the sender and 460 00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:31,159 Speaker 1: the recipient, they have identical strips of tape that have 461 00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:35,040 Speaker 1: these values in it. The h the coded message gets 462 00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:37,679 Speaker 1: sent across the wire, they run the tape through the 463 00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:40,520 Speaker 1: receiving machine and then they get the plain text information. 464 00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:44,480 Speaker 1: Thinking that no one in between would ever be able 465 00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:47,760 Speaker 1: to crack that code, so there wasn't a whole lot 466 00:25:47,800 --> 00:25:51,240 Speaker 1: of fear about intercepting those messages either on the side 467 00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:53,760 Speaker 1: of the Germans, but there should have been. There should 468 00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:56,119 Speaker 1: have been, I mean Lorenz who have used for just 469 00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:59,159 Speaker 1: the most important information. It was reserved for high command 470 00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:02,280 Speaker 1: for Hitler. Kind of ironic if you think about how 471 00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:05,520 Speaker 1: they were so confident with Enigma that they wanted this 472 00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:10,160 Speaker 1: extra code, but it was eventually broken by the machine. 473 00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:13,200 Speaker 1: Colossus and um Letzley Park had a quote, and I 474 00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:14,960 Speaker 1: kind of wanted to get your opinion on this. They 475 00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:20,120 Speaker 1: called it the world's first practical electronic digital information processing machine, 476 00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:25,040 Speaker 1: a forerunner of today's computers. Yes, it was the first 477 00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:28,080 Speaker 1: of that nature. Uh, you can look at any act 478 00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:30,640 Speaker 1: which was not yet built. It was not finished until 479 00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:36,879 Speaker 1: um and all the other preceding computers were electro mechanical, 480 00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:40,240 Speaker 1: meaning that there were actually gears in parts that moved, 481 00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:44,959 Speaker 1: not just electronic circuits created by either wires you know 482 00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:47,280 Speaker 1: today we think of microchips. Back in the day, we're 483 00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:51,320 Speaker 1: talking about actual physical wires running to and fro and everywhere. 484 00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:53,800 Speaker 1: That's why these machines tended to be the size of 485 00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:58,199 Speaker 1: fairly sized room. Colossus is an apt term. Yeah, there 486 00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:01,639 Speaker 1: were there were ten of them and they were huge. Um, yeah, 487 00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:06,320 Speaker 1: that's perfectly accurate. It is definitely a predecessor to today's computer. 488 00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:09,320 Speaker 1: And of course, just as you would imagine today's computer, 489 00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:11,960 Speaker 1: the computer that's on your desktop, perhaps the computer that 490 00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,240 Speaker 1: you have in a pocket or in a bag near 491 00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:19,119 Speaker 1: you right now, far more powerful than Colossus. And I 492 00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:21,560 Speaker 1: watched the video of Colossus, you know, recommending these two 493 00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:23,440 Speaker 1: folks to to check them out and kind of get 494 00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:25,640 Speaker 1: a better feel for how these things look and how 495 00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:28,480 Speaker 1: they work. It reminded me almost of a workout machine, 496 00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:33,040 Speaker 1: partly because of the tapes all wrapped around the little reels, 497 00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:35,800 Speaker 1: and that combined with a wall of electronics, it really 498 00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:39,840 Speaker 1: does take up an entire room. So that's amazing to 499 00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:43,840 Speaker 1: to think that that is a computer predecessor. Yep, yep. 500 00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:48,080 Speaker 1: And again it was there to simulate these Lorenz machines 501 00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:51,840 Speaker 1: and try and crack what those codes were, and it 502 00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:57,119 Speaker 1: was a phenomenal achievement as far as technology is concerned. Okay, 503 00:27:57,119 --> 00:28:00,640 Speaker 1: so we've probably discussed Germany pretty thorough lead by now, 504 00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:06,160 Speaker 1: so we're gonna move over to Japan. And one thing 505 00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:10,520 Speaker 1: that I found really fascinating was that Japanese communications had 506 00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:14,439 Speaker 1: been monitored by the United States long long before World 507 00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:17,240 Speaker 1: War Two began, right, more than a decade before, and 508 00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:20,040 Speaker 1: Japan was not aware of that for quite a long 509 00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:22,800 Speaker 1: time too, But that that tends to be the best way. 510 00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:26,800 Speaker 1: That's usually how it happens, if you're doing everything correctly, 511 00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:29,040 Speaker 1: if you're doing things how you should. So, yeah, the 512 00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:34,399 Speaker 1: American said started screening Japanese telegrams between diplomats in November 513 00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:38,640 Speaker 1: nineteen one. And these were really simple messages, so nothing 514 00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:40,560 Speaker 1: like what we've been talking about with the Enigma. They 515 00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:44,360 Speaker 1: were easy to break, and they gave the Cipher Bureau, 516 00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:48,200 Speaker 1: which was the name of this UM code breaking organization 517 00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:52,080 Speaker 1: in the US at the time and its director, Herbert Yardley, 518 00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:56,520 Speaker 1: access to a lot of useful information. So it's diplomatic information, 519 00:28:56,640 --> 00:29:00,680 Speaker 1: it's not military, but still gives you some helpful stuff 520 00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:04,400 Speaker 1: if you're negotiating treaties, you know, that sort of thing. 521 00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:10,240 Speaker 1: Definitely a little inside peak, some insider trading on a 522 00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:13,960 Speaker 1: grand scale, that's what this is. But by the late 523 00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:18,360 Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, this uh to do this, they relied on 524 00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:22,239 Speaker 1: domestic cable companies in information, which is something kind of 525 00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:25,760 Speaker 1: relevant to this. But by the late nineteen twenties, use 526 00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:29,600 Speaker 1: of that information and plus monitoring of airwaves started to 527 00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:34,360 Speaker 1: become kind of distasteful, frowned upon, and so eventually the 528 00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:39,720 Speaker 1: cipher Bureau dissolved and Yardley, out of work trying to 529 00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:42,680 Speaker 1: make some money during the Great Depression, decided to write 530 00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:46,040 Speaker 1: a book and write a series of articles for the 531 00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:50,960 Speaker 1: Saturday Evening Post on codes and code breaking. His experiences 532 00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:56,560 Speaker 1: experience monitoring the information coming out of Japan, and it 533 00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,800 Speaker 1: sets some shock waves going through the world that this 534 00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:04,640 Speaker 1: information was so easily available. This this kind of proves 535 00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:07,960 Speaker 1: why it's important to keep that secret parts secret because 536 00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:10,960 Speaker 1: once once it got out that this was very easy 537 00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:14,200 Speaker 1: for them to break the codes. The message that sends 538 00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:17,520 Speaker 1: is we need to look at how we are ciphering 539 00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:21,480 Speaker 1: our messages, how we're encoding things, and try to introduce 540 00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:26,520 Speaker 1: as much randomness as possible. And randomness is what makes 541 00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:29,160 Speaker 1: codes so difficult to break. You know, once you start 542 00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:32,680 Speaker 1: being able to detect patterns, it's game over because it's 543 00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:35,000 Speaker 1: just a matter of time before you can start, before 544 00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:37,680 Speaker 1: you have to before that code gets cracked. So you 545 00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:40,320 Speaker 1: want to avoid patterns as much as possible and have 546 00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:43,280 Speaker 1: as much randomness in there as possible. But here's the trick. 547 00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:49,680 Speaker 1: Random is hard. Computers are not truly good at producing 548 00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:53,840 Speaker 1: random numbers. They are pseudo random because they're still following 549 00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:58,120 Speaker 1: a set of rules in order to create random numbers. 550 00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:02,360 Speaker 1: And on top of that, there needs to be someone 551 00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:04,760 Speaker 1: else out there who has the same set of random 552 00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:07,120 Speaker 1: data so they can decode the message you send them. 553 00:31:07,440 --> 00:31:09,520 Speaker 1: So there's going to be at least one copy of 554 00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:13,600 Speaker 1: whatever random, quote unquote random message you create or random 555 00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:16,760 Speaker 1: key you create in order to cipher a message. But 556 00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:20,880 Speaker 1: that was what really got countries around the world thinking, 557 00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:24,880 Speaker 1: how can we create more of a random feel for 558 00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:29,920 Speaker 1: our encoding technology, the random Yeah, if we don't, then 559 00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:31,960 Speaker 1: our messages get cracked. We might as well just be 560 00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,480 Speaker 1: sending plain text. It would be a lot easier and 561 00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:37,160 Speaker 1: a lot faster. And so that did sort of lead 562 00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:42,280 Speaker 1: to a shift in adopting these more complex mechanical machines, 563 00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:44,400 Speaker 1: like we've talked about already with the Enigma, which was 564 00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:47,800 Speaker 1: from the twenties, adopting machines more like that rather than 565 00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:52,720 Speaker 1: these old style codes right right, And the Japanese chose 566 00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:57,120 Speaker 1: a slightly different approach. Their machines did not look like 567 00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:00,480 Speaker 1: the Enigma and did not. While they were able to 568 00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:03,800 Speaker 1: generate randomness in a very similar way that the Enigma 569 00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:07,560 Speaker 1: machine did, so the outcome was very similar, the actual 570 00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:13,200 Speaker 1: mechanics were different. To explain, you want to know how Okay, 571 00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:17,080 Speaker 1: So it's an electro magnetic device and it's called it's 572 00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:21,120 Speaker 1: a step switching device as opposed to rotors, but very 573 00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:25,320 Speaker 1: similar in that if you encode a character, there is 574 00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:30,040 Speaker 1: a step switch that moves the encoder one step further 575 00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:33,360 Speaker 1: so that the next key you press gets coded to 576 00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:34,880 Speaker 1: a different one than it would be if it had 577 00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:38,640 Speaker 1: been the first key. That sounds really complicated, but really again, well, 578 00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:41,440 Speaker 1: we'll stick with the a's and the a's right that 579 00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:43,880 Speaker 1: that you're coding two a's in a row. Obviously this 580 00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:46,600 Speaker 1: would not be the case with the Japanese typewriter. But 581 00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:50,120 Speaker 1: if you press the letter A, then the first step 582 00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:53,760 Speaker 1: would be to encode that to whatever the setting has it. 583 00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:56,680 Speaker 1: So we'll go with H and then the second that 584 00:32:56,680 --> 00:33:01,520 Speaker 1: that would then step up the code a step. You 585 00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:04,400 Speaker 1: press A again, it would then code to a different 586 00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:09,600 Speaker 1: letter so z and very much the same way as 587 00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:13,720 Speaker 1: the Enigma machine, but the actual parts didn't move the 588 00:33:13,760 --> 00:33:18,160 Speaker 1: same way. Whereas the Enigma had these rotors. The Japanese 589 00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:23,600 Speaker 1: typewriters used this this electromantic step system, and and they 590 00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:26,520 Speaker 1: had interesting code names they did. So. The first of 591 00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:30,920 Speaker 1: these electromagnetic code machines created by the Japanese was called 592 00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:34,480 Speaker 1: the cipher Machine Type A. It was known as red 593 00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:36,560 Speaker 1: to the U s, and the code it produced was 594 00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:39,840 Speaker 1: known as red um. That code was fully broken though 595 00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:43,719 Speaker 1: in nineteen seven, with a clue from one word the 596 00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:47,400 Speaker 1: Japanese word for and essentially was enough of a enough 597 00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:50,480 Speaker 1: of a hint for them to break code red. Yeah. Again, 598 00:33:50,520 --> 00:33:52,719 Speaker 1: it's one of those things where they're looking for repetition 599 00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:55,280 Speaker 1: and patterns, and if it's a word that's used a lot, 600 00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:59,040 Speaker 1: and if you're if you don't have enough steps there, 601 00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:03,920 Speaker 1: if you're key repeats fairly frequently, then you run the 602 00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:07,560 Speaker 1: danger of someone using frequency analysis on your message and 603 00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:09,480 Speaker 1: figuring out what it means. That was one of the 604 00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:11,400 Speaker 1: things that the Enigma was so good about was that 605 00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:16,160 Speaker 1: because there were so many possible combinations, that unless your 606 00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:21,919 Speaker 1: message was incredibly long and i'm talking novel length, then 607 00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:24,520 Speaker 1: you're not going to have to worry about the pattern 608 00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:27,399 Speaker 1: forming because you are not going to run out of 609 00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:31,239 Speaker 1: those variations. Well, and another problem too is that the 610 00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:36,000 Speaker 1: Japanese were sending several standard messages with their messages, so 611 00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:38,719 Speaker 1: well we should go back to So they did decipher 612 00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:42,439 Speaker 1: the code sent out by RED, and by that point, 613 00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:46,800 Speaker 1: though by night messages through RED announced that there was 614 00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:49,160 Speaker 1: another machine. That's probably a mistake too, to announce your 615 00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:53,960 Speaker 1: new machine through your old one that has been compromised. 616 00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:59,040 Speaker 1: And that new announcement was for the alphabetical typewriter, which 617 00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:02,000 Speaker 1: was codenamed Purple. That's probably the more famous of the two. Yes, 618 00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:05,799 Speaker 1: Purple is definitely more famous. And I read although from 619 00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:10,360 Speaker 1: a source that I consider questionable, so this could be apocryphal. 620 00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:14,040 Speaker 1: I want to proceed my my message with that that 621 00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:17,000 Speaker 1: the reason why I was called purple is because that was, 622 00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:20,160 Speaker 1: in fact the color of the binders that the United 623 00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:23,160 Speaker 1: States used to hold all the intercepted and deciphered messages. 624 00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:27,600 Speaker 1: A good story, yeah, I mean it seems legit. As 625 00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,399 Speaker 1: they say on the interwebs. I do have to say, well, 626 00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,919 Speaker 1: researching this though code read code Purple, I just kept 627 00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:38,319 Speaker 1: on getting a lot of information on air quality. Yeah, 628 00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:42,680 Speaker 1: but also very fitting for Atlanta. It is uh and 629 00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:47,000 Speaker 1: they the the United States was able to crack these 630 00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:51,520 Speaker 1: codes too. Um. The purple codes were not as sophisticated 631 00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:55,240 Speaker 1: as the Enigma machines were. Uh. And the United States 632 00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:59,399 Speaker 1: cracked them. And again, these are mostly diplomatic messages, they're 633 00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:02,880 Speaker 1: not military messages. But the United States is keeping tabs 634 00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:05,439 Speaker 1: on what's going on in the in the Pacific, and 635 00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:12,359 Speaker 1: they called their interception and deciphered messages. Uh. Magic, because 636 00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:14,960 Speaker 1: that's what it seems like when you're able to decode something. 637 00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:18,879 Speaker 1: I guess very tinker tailor soldier spy. Yes it is. Yes, 638 00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:21,680 Speaker 1: Gary Oldman would have had a lot of work during 639 00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:24,719 Speaker 1: this time, and it took him a while to decode it. 640 00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:26,640 Speaker 1: That we shouldn't make it sound like it was just 641 00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:30,239 Speaker 1: an easy tak No, it took quite some time. It 642 00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:32,240 Speaker 1: took more than a year a year and a half 643 00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:35,839 Speaker 1: of hard work to crack the code. But they were 644 00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:40,840 Speaker 1: able to figure that out. Um. And Uh, it's interesting 645 00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:45,960 Speaker 1: the person who discovered the correlation was someone that you 646 00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:49,560 Speaker 1: might not consider it first considering the time period. Right, 647 00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:52,920 Speaker 1: so we're in the middle of it was in September 648 00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:55,759 Speaker 1: n So World War two is is going on. The 649 00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:59,480 Speaker 1: Americans are not really they're just really monitoring at the moment. 650 00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:04,080 Speaker 1: The person who who discovered the correlation in a in 651 00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:06,279 Speaker 1: a couple of messages which was enough to allow us 652 00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:11,680 Speaker 1: to break the code, was Genevieve Grossian. So a woman 653 00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:15,359 Speaker 1: was the one who discovered the correlation. And again, it's 654 00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:18,480 Speaker 1: one of those things where we often overlook the people 655 00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:22,239 Speaker 1: who first make these these uh discoveries, because you know, 656 00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:25,200 Speaker 1: the big story about breaking the code is interesting, but 657 00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:27,879 Speaker 1: sometimes we lose sight of the people. And I thought, well, 658 00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:31,799 Speaker 1: that's someone that we should know about clearly, because this 659 00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:34,520 Speaker 1: is someone who was able to find the first stepping 660 00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:36,920 Speaker 1: stone that allowed us to crack the code. Alan Turing's 661 00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:41,080 Speaker 1: getting his moment. There's plenty to go around. Um, so 662 00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:44,000 Speaker 1: you know the timeline. By this point, you're probably thinking, well, 663 00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:50,640 Speaker 1: if Purple was cracked in ninety, um, what about Pearl Harbor? 664 00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:53,959 Speaker 1: How much was known? They were diplomatic messages, so there's 665 00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:58,760 Speaker 1: no evidence that they were receiving information about Pearl Harbor. 666 00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:02,359 Speaker 1: That doesn't mean though, there wasn't some pretty important information 667 00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:07,040 Speaker 1: that was gained from understanding Purple. Yeah, there was. There's 668 00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:11,320 Speaker 1: still some confusion and there are plenty of conspiracy theories 669 00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:14,560 Speaker 1: about how much information was gleaned from Purple that could 670 00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:18,600 Speaker 1: have prevented, could have at least prevented or at least 671 00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:23,640 Speaker 1: prepared everyone in Hawaii for this attack. And uh, there 672 00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:28,239 Speaker 1: was no specific message ever intercepted and decipher that had 673 00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:31,880 Speaker 1: anything to do with a specific attack on Pearl Harbor, 674 00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:36,080 Speaker 1: according to all official records. And again, conspiracy theorists might 675 00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:38,759 Speaker 1: disagree with that ben In here, maybe we have to 676 00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:41,360 Speaker 1: go with what history gives us, right, and what history 677 00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:45,360 Speaker 1: says is that there was no way of knowing directly 678 00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:48,600 Speaker 1: through the intercepted messages about the attack on Pearl Harbor. 679 00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:51,800 Speaker 1: History would have unfolded a very different way. I'm sure 680 00:38:52,200 --> 00:38:55,000 Speaker 1: had there been. What's ironic is that some of the 681 00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:58,719 Speaker 1: most important information that was gleaned from these messages was 682 00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:03,600 Speaker 1: about Germany rather than Japan. Ironic because of how how 683 00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:06,600 Speaker 1: proud they were of the Enigma. All this information was 684 00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:10,000 Speaker 1: really getting out through Purple anyway, that probably would have 685 00:39:10,040 --> 00:39:12,319 Speaker 1: made the Germans a little kind of upset. Yeah. The 686 00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:17,160 Speaker 1: Japanese ambassador to Berlin, a man named hiroshi Oshima. He 687 00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:21,040 Speaker 1: was pretty descriptive while talking about what was going on 688 00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:24,680 Speaker 1: in Germany and what the Nazi defenses were like and 689 00:39:24,719 --> 00:39:29,360 Speaker 1: all that information was being picked up through through magic um, 690 00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:32,920 Speaker 1: so a lot of information that ultimately helped prepare for 691 00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:35,760 Speaker 1: the D Day invasion. So Pearl Harbor is off the table, 692 00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:38,520 Speaker 1: possibly unless we're going to go conspiracy theory on it. 693 00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:43,840 Speaker 1: But d JA so still an important code to have broken. Yeah, 694 00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:47,319 Speaker 1: it's uh, it's amazing to me when you look at 695 00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:51,719 Speaker 1: some of the mistakes that were made, because often mistakes 696 00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:54,560 Speaker 1: are the only reason why certain codes were ever broken 697 00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:57,280 Speaker 1: in the first place. Either there were mistakes and procedure 698 00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:01,360 Speaker 1: where someone has set up a really secure system, but 699 00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:04,360 Speaker 1: the people part of the system isn't so secure. My 700 00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:08,080 Speaker 1: favorite example of that is somebody making a mistake in 701 00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:12,640 Speaker 1: the typing of the message and instead of resetting everything 702 00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:15,960 Speaker 1: so that the code is secure again, just typing out 703 00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:19,640 Speaker 1: a corrected message on the same setting, right, which makes 704 00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:23,040 Speaker 1: for just very slight differences between the two messages, right, 705 00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:25,960 Speaker 1: And that that was huge. That was an enormous help. 706 00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:29,239 Speaker 1: I mean, the protocol for that was if you were 707 00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:31,560 Speaker 1: to send a message and you made a mistake while 708 00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:34,680 Speaker 1: in ciphering it, that you were supposed to set it 709 00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:37,640 Speaker 1: to a new whatever machine was involved, you were supposed 710 00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:40,160 Speaker 1: to set to the next start over, start from scratch, 711 00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:42,600 Speaker 1: Start from scratch with a new setting, so that all 712 00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:45,120 Speaker 1: the message is going to be completely different because that 713 00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:48,560 Speaker 1: way the Allies don't know that it's the same message. 714 00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:51,880 Speaker 1: But by setting it back to the setting that was 715 00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:54,400 Speaker 1: for the first time you try to transmit it, that 716 00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:57,799 Speaker 1: means two copies of this message go out and that's 717 00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:01,239 Speaker 1: enough for the Allies to say, wait a minute, this 718 00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:04,560 Speaker 1: was in coomat. We can figure this out and we 719 00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:07,919 Speaker 1: can start working on what has gone wrong for them 720 00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:10,480 Speaker 1: and right for us. So human error is a is 721 00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:13,480 Speaker 1: a big part of these codes ultimately being cracked. It 722 00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:17,400 Speaker 1: seems ultimately yes, I would say that things everything from 723 00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:22,520 Speaker 1: using common salutations or a common prefix to whatever the 724 00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:28,200 Speaker 1: message is, that would often give the the analysts enough 725 00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:31,279 Speaker 1: information to work on to start cracking a code. Even 726 00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:34,600 Speaker 1: a weather report. The standards between a weather report the 727 00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:38,080 Speaker 1: numbers or directions of wind might be different, but it's 728 00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:40,239 Speaker 1: going to have a lot of the same vocabulary and 729 00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:43,840 Speaker 1: that weather report information. That's also a good point because 730 00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:47,040 Speaker 1: one thing that the British thought of while they were 731 00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:50,840 Speaker 1: trying to capture Enigma machines so they could get Enigma 732 00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:53,360 Speaker 1: machines and codebooks so that they be you know, the 733 00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:57,680 Speaker 1: Enigma machine was was fairly portable, fairly in the sense 734 00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:00,239 Speaker 1: that you could put one on a ship with much 735 00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:05,480 Speaker 1: The Lorens not portable. Uh, And the Purple machines were 736 00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:08,880 Speaker 1: not terribly portable either. In fact, uh, they just it 737 00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:11,200 Speaker 1: was once you once you built one, that's pretty much 738 00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:13,560 Speaker 1: where it stayed. But the Enigma machine was different. You 739 00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:16,960 Speaker 1: could actually move those around with effort. They were not 740 00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:22,200 Speaker 1: It wasn't a laptop, but it The British figured out 741 00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:25,560 Speaker 1: that the Germans were probably using Enigma codes not just 742 00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:30,040 Speaker 1: on official military craft, but also on things like ships 743 00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:34,480 Speaker 1: that were taking weather measurements, so weather research ships that 744 00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:38,120 Speaker 1: are not military ships. And they thought, well, why are 745 00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:42,279 Speaker 1: we focusing on capturing a German navy vessel when we 746 00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:44,839 Speaker 1: could capture one of these weather ships and get hold 747 00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:47,239 Speaker 1: of the code books that way. And in fact, that's 748 00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:49,080 Speaker 1: what a lot that's how a lot of the codes 749 00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:52,200 Speaker 1: were broken. They found code books that were accurate for 750 00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:56,880 Speaker 1: that that time period and we're able to start cracking codes. 751 00:42:57,360 --> 00:43:02,080 Speaker 1: So that's another instance of a mistake where you know, 752 00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:05,960 Speaker 1: you have to balance out who gets access to your 753 00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:09,640 Speaker 1: secret message at different levels of codes. Yeah, yeah, it 754 00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:14,000 Speaker 1: was because, again, if the machines had worked exactly correctly, 755 00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:15,839 Speaker 1: and that all the people had done what they were 756 00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:19,200 Speaker 1: supposed to do perfectly, and if the codebooks had remained 757 00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:23,600 Speaker 1: perfectly secure, the Enigma code was uncrackable. Next time, though, 758 00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:27,240 Speaker 1: we are going to be talking about some truly uncrackable codes. 759 00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:32,359 Speaker 1: We'll be talking about the Allies use of cryptography during 760 00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:35,760 Speaker 1: World War Two, So it'll it'll take us full circle 761 00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:40,080 Speaker 1: from this discussion of Enigma and Purple and Lawrens and 762 00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:44,000 Speaker 1: get into some codes that aren't based on machines, which 763 00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:48,359 Speaker 1: is a pretty huge difference. Indeed more portable for sure, 764 00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:52,400 Speaker 1: So that'll be next time. I don't know, do you 765 00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:56,000 Speaker 1: have any other comments were for the use of codes 766 00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:58,920 Speaker 1: by the Axis. I think I think we've really covered 767 00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:00,959 Speaker 1: it pretty well. What central thing to me is something 768 00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:03,280 Speaker 1: that I'll talk about more in our next episode about 769 00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:07,759 Speaker 1: how this sort of technology has evolved in how we 770 00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:10,000 Speaker 1: use it today. But that will be a good bookend. 771 00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:12,440 Speaker 1: I think that it will be how we wrap things up. 772 00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:15,160 Speaker 1: So if you want to let us know your ideas 773 00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:19,200 Speaker 1: about the access use of codes or just codes and 774 00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:22,359 Speaker 1: spies and all sorts of things during World War two. 775 00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:24,920 Speaker 1: You can email us. We're at history podcast at how 776 00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:28,480 Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. We're also on Twitter at Misston History, 777 00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:31,360 Speaker 1: and we are on Facebook and gosh, I'm sure we 778 00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:35,000 Speaker 1: have articles on codes, don't we. Oh yeah, I wrote one. 779 00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:36,640 Speaker 1: Did you write one? Well, then you go ahead and 780 00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:38,759 Speaker 1: find us off. Oh yeah. So go to how stuff 781 00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:42,560 Speaker 1: works dot com and look up code breaking because that 782 00:44:42,719 --> 00:44:44,879 Speaker 1: was one of my earliest articles. And I've been here 783 00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:48,280 Speaker 1: for nearly six years and started the same week. Yeah 784 00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:50,799 Speaker 1: and uh, And to this day it remains one of 785 00:44:50,840 --> 00:44:54,160 Speaker 1: my favorites because it was just such a fascinating world. 786 00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:57,560 Speaker 1: And I even include in that article a code that 787 00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:01,560 Speaker 1: you can break, so fun, get out your your um 788 00:45:01,600 --> 00:45:05,000 Speaker 1: cereal box sort of decoders and go for it. All right, 789 00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:08,160 Speaker 1: pretty much all you need. So How Code Breaking Works 790 00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:19,400 Speaker 1: by Jonathan Strickland at www dot how stuff works dot com. 791 00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:21,520 Speaker 1: M for more on this and thousands of other topics. 792 00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:47,040 Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com.