[inforoots] ENIGMA MACHINE TO BE REACTIVATED AFTER 60 YEARSu

[Mike Albaugh]

Not to nit-pick _too_ much, but in the spirit of the list:

> Subject: Re: [inforoots] ENIGMA MACHINE TO BE REACTIVATED AFTER 60
> From: Texx <texx at delong.org>

> The rest of the stuff in between .... well only Collossus knows for sure.

Actually, As far as I know, Colossus was built to aid in the
cryptanalysis of traffic in the Lorentz (sp?) cipher, a very
different German Cipher. The Enigma traffic was deciphered
by a combination of "Bombe"s and skull-sweat.

Again, vaguely recalling a talk that I believe was sponsored by
the Museum, the Lorentz code was a "Vernam cipher" keyed
by a pseudo-random number generator. Some of the features
that were put in to "make it look more random" in fact left
"beacons" that aided the cryptanalysis. Think of this in terms
of John Von Neumann's comment about a state of sin, and
whenever you see modern crypto-snake-oil sold as a
"virtual one-time pad".

  Mike