![]() In late 1932, Rejewski made the team’s first significant breakthrough when he successfully deduced the complex internal wiring that the Enigma machines used and thus was able to devise rudimentary handwritten code-breaking algorithms. Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki, and Henryk Zygalski got to work, using little more than pencils, paper, a handful of intercepted German military messages, and a vague description of an outdated commercial model of the Enigma machine. In the following year, the Polish Cipher Bureau-now acutely aware of the growing likelihood of a second World War-tasked three brilliant mathematicians from the University of Poznan with breaking the Enigma code. Several European countries-particularly Poland-had been monitoring Enigma transmissions since they had first detected them, but as late as 1929, Poland had made no serious attempts to decode them. In 1926, the German military began field-testing multiple updated versions of the Enigma machine. 2Īn Enigma machine, photographed at Bletchley Park. Later, more sophisticated models would employ additional wheels and more complicated mechanical processes to make the code even more formidable. ![]() Decoding Enigma messages required another machine set with the same key cipher, whereby the encoded message could be typed in and converted back to its original text. Once the wheel had rotated through all twenty-six letters, the adjacent wheel would be advanced one position and the cycle would begin anew. Each time a key was pressed on the machine, the rightmost wheel would rotate one position and print a letter other than the one pressed. Each wheel would be set to a specific position, determined by a master code that would be changed daily. ![]() The first versions of the Enigma machine were mechanical devices similar in appearance to an old cash register, with twenty-six keys (for the letters A–Z) and three internal wheels, with the same twenty-six letters printed on each. These machines were quite sophisticated, but the German military command wanted even stronger cryptography at their disposal, so they committed enormous resources to the development of a military-only version of the Enigma. At first, only commercial models-those ostensibly intended for nonmilitary use-were available. In 1918, German scientist Arthur Scherbius developed a code-generating machine, called the Enigma, that would prove to be incredibly resistant to code-breaking efforts-and likely would have handed victory in WWII to the Axis powers, if not for the intervention of a team of Allied heroes.Īlthough the Enigma was developed in 1918, it wasn’t thoroughly tested and ready for use until 1923. ![]()
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