The Enigma Machine: The Totally, Definitely, Absolutely Unbreakable Sequence of German War Codes

[@megaprojects9649]

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[@TeeTee-05]

how is this comment 2 days old

[@bhuvaneshs.k638]

Please do a Video on ITER Tokamak

[@NK-lh6ws]

Finally

[@redstonewisard]

THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH FOR DOING THIS ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@casfacto]

That transition to the ad was amazing.

[@martijnb5887]

I highly appreciate your emphasis on the Polish contribution. It is often overlooked, and not only in the breaking of the Enigma code. This is partly because Poland ended up at the wrong side of the iron curtain, which was the reason the Dutch government advised against granting the Military Willemsorder to the Polish parachute army for their role during the battle for Arnhem. Only in 2006 this honour was granted by queen Beatrix.

[@justinsullivan5063]

Before watching this, I was totally unaware of the Polish contribution and thank you. In hindisght.. Not surprised. But I didn't know and yes, it is way overlooked (and undersung).

[@CYCLONE4499]

It truly is a lesser known fact but thankfully in recent times most military historians recognize this as a crucial part to cracking the enigma

[@PaulTheFox1988]

I didn't learn about the polish code breakers and mathematicians and spies who risked so much to get that information to the allies until long after I left school. I didn't even learn it from The History Channel when that was still a good channel which is disappointing to say the least. I'm forever grateful for their contributions and I only hope that they are held to the same regards as the staff of Bletchley Park in the future and that schools tell their stories alongside that of our own code breakers and mathematicians.

[@johngreninger4071]

I was shocked that more information wasn't added about Welchman. On KZbin you can find BBC video about him stately that his contribution was as great as Turing. In fact, without Welchman, the BOMBE would not have worked fast enough to decode Enigma in time to be useful. He designed the electronic "diagonal board" that sped up the BOMBE to decrypt in almost real-time. He also invented "traffic analysis" as the BBC video points out. His contributions are still top secret today which is why we've rarely heard of him. Just like Turning, Welchman was ruined by the intelligence community because as the NSA told him, "secrecy is more important than liberty". See this link for the BBC video about him kzbin.info/www/bejne/rp_VZaODYtOnmsU

[@PaulTheFox1988]

@@johngreninger4071 Great bit of additional info, thanks for sharing. :) There's so many people who died before their contributions were recognised and were abused by their governments both at the time and after and it's absolutely heartbreaking, these people all worked incredibly hard to secure a better future for everyone that they themselves weren't able to experience and they deserve better even if they're no longer here to receive that recognition. I guess that's the lot of most who fought in the war or contributed to ending it sooner, sacrifice everything and give every last ounce of strength both physically and mentally only to be cast aside like a used tissue during peace time. :'(

[@renrutmat]

Don't forget Tommy Flowers who designed and built Colossus at Bletchley Park. The world's first programmable, electronic, digital computer Colossus would be used to decipher Enigma messages as well as the more complex Lorenz cipher used by German High Command. Tommy Flowers didn't get much recognition after the war. Worth while looking him up. Also what happened to Colossus after the war.

[@michaelsommers2356]

Colossus was not used on Enigma; it was used on the Lorenz on-line teleprinter cipher.

[@pauldriscoll5010]

Definitely is worth covering though

[@Schnittertm1]

Well, the Zuse Z3 computer was built, finished and in use before the Colossus and was used by the Germans, among other things, to design the V2. It, too was a programmable digital computer.

[@andyfawcett4666]

To keep Colossus secret most of them were destroyed along with all documentation. Of course being an engineer myself I have to believe a few parts went home with people in spite of the Official Secrets Act.

[@pauldriscoll5010]

@@andyfawcett4666 things always go home with engineers whether they are meant to or not. Eventually to sit in the junk bin or on the shelf somewhere in someone's shed

[@dangermouse9348]

Churchill's response to the request from Bletchly was said to have been a very simple "Give them whatever they want"

[@thatrealba]

I've had two times when going straight to the top ended just as swimmingly for me. Neither were during war, but I did go a few rungs up now and then during OIF I, with good results. 😁

[@W92Baj]

Turing was a genius but few mention Flowers. Flowers was a telecom engineer who built the computers, often using his own money. He struggled after the war and due to Secrets Act could not discuss the great work he did and use it to get work

[@sanderbenning1182]

Huh... Didn't expect to see Baj here... Interesting you point out Flowers though! As a history student I'd briefly heard about him, but I didn't know his contributions went that far!

[@aliceosako792]

@@sanderbenning1182 Flowers worked on a related project at Bletchley Park, breaking a less widely used but more difficult series of encryption machines, the Lorenz ciphers (code-named 'Tunny' by the British). He realized that they would need a more powerful device than the Bombes for the job, which led to the development of the Colossus machines, which were some of the first general-purpose mostly-electronic computers (though they were not fully software programmable, as with later computers). However, these were not declassified until well after the Bombes were, and also played a smaller overall role in the war, which is part of why Flowers is less well-known than Turing (though Turing's other contributions to computation both before and after the war were more than enough to earn his place in history).

[@JoshSweetvale]

It's not England if they don't quietly torture the excellent.

[@bobdobalina2931]

I didn't know about Mr Flowers but I'm ever so glad that I've just found out. It is so often the unsung and forgotten heroes are never discussed but now I know of him I will try to find out more, thank you.

[@LoFIJak]

Yeah he figured out the valves for them and helped built Colossus. Truely an unsung hero

[@pamelamays4186]

Suggestion: The Navajo Wind/Code Talkers of WW2. They developed a code based on their native language which was unbreakable.

[@anaetadesireechandler4122]

Agreed. It was so effective that it was classified until the late sixties (68 I think)

[@WiskinWaffles]

Even if Simon doesn't cover it, you sparked my interest to research this, thank you

[@michaelsommers2356]

The code was not really unbreakable, but since only a few dozen non-Navajos knew the Navajo language, and since the language is very hard for adults to learn (there is no such thing as a regular verb, for example), the code was practically unbreakable. If the Japanese had had a sufficient number of Navajo speakers, the code could have been broken. I have read that the Irish contingent of the UN forces in the Congo in the 1960s used the Irish language in a similar way. While the Irish language was more widely known than Navajo, it was little-enough known that the technique was effective.

[@rosevelvet4357]

I didn’t think this was an actual thing, they mention it often in xfiles story lines but thought it was just xfiles imaginary stuff. This is really cool

[@Hollylivengood]

@@michaelsommers2356 It was unbreakable. The Japanese did not "have a sufficient number of Navajo speakers" because there were no Navajos in Japan. Yes, it was really unbreakable.

[@Darren-vh5lk]

One of the best Megaprojects I've ever watched. I cried at the end of The Imitation Game the first time I watched it. The way Mr. Turing was treated by his own country was criminal.

[@eurokid83]

The imitation game is a fantastic movie, the ending got me in the feels as well. Thousands if not tens of thousands of people owe their lives to Alan Turing.

[@andrewmorton9327]

Don’t forget that The Imitation Game is semi fiction. A lot of the stuff in the movie never happened. People who knew Turing at Bletchley knew he was gay, it wasn’t a big secret. It’s also not necessarily the case that his suicide was connected to his conviction or his subsequent treatment. Try reading a decent biography of him.

[@Crrisssssssssssssssy]

Me too

[@Wustenfuchs109]

I mean, while we look at it from today's point of view, the actions of the government of the time were not really criminal or somehow monstrous. It was a well known thing that USSR was using gay agents and just before his case, two Soviet agents defected, one was gay. They used gay men as well when they were stealing nuclear project secrets. In short, Turing got a very lenient sentence, one year of hormonal therapy and the revoke of security clearance. But he kept his academic job. The problem was not strictly that he way gay. While it WAS against the law in UK at the time, it was also a well known fact that he was gay. They could have snatched him up and convicted him at any time they wanted, and there were 6-7 years between the government needing him for Enigma and his actual case. The reason he was sentenced at all was basically - security. And, as I said, while the sentence can be considered "criminal" by today's standards, it was one year of hormonal meds... which is not as terrible as the film would make you believe. He did his sentence, and then lived another year of his life before he killed himself. He had deeper mental issues - which the sentence definitely didn't help, but it didn't cause it either as the film and some subsequent re-tellings of his story would make a person believe. Some modern re-tellings of the story, especially from the LGBT activists, portray him like someone who always had to hide from the government and people around him and that the government created a situation that would cause his death. That is a gross oversimplification and not strictly true. People knew he was gay, it wasn't really an issue - until he started dating a 19 year old man and days later the house of the most prominent code breaker in the world gets ransacked, when it was a well known fact that Soviet Union was using gay men as agents, especially in the scientific and diplomatic community. To say that it looked suspicious would be an understatement. Hence one year of hormonal treatment and revocation of security clearance. That's all that his country did. Too much? Well, easy for us today to judge.

[@ignitionfrn2223]

1:35 - Chapter 1 - The enigma machine 3:45 - Chapter 2 - Background 4:45 - Chapter 3 - The unbreakable enigma machine 5:35 - Mid roll ads 6:55 - Chapter 4 - The 1st bombes 8:55 - Chapter 5 - Lucky breaks 11:30 - Chapter 6 - The expanding bombes 14:00 - Chapter 7 - Impact on the war 15:55 - Chapter 8 - The human touch

[@bryandavies6074]

So glad you gave the Poles and Welchman their due credit.

[@jordanrajewski6372]

I was hoping he would give me great great uncle credit

[@tomx641]

Absolutely! 300,000 Poles also fought for the Nazis, many also guarded concentration camps with the Waffen-SS.

[@gowdsake7103]

The poles gave the methods for sure

[@Reinforce_Zwei]

@@tomx641 Ah but they(the poles) always excuse that by stating that their "Government" didn't "officially" support the nazis.

[@bryandavies6074]

@@tomx641 NOT the majority of Poles and explicitly not the three cryptographers whose reputations you are pathetically slurring.

[@SteveMHN]

It always makes my blood boil when I think about how Turing was treated after the war.

[@khaccanhle1930]

It's a 1940s version of cancel culture.

[@dascherofficial]

@@khaccanhle1930 cancel culture is consequence culture. Turing was guilty of nothing but love and brilliance.

[@LaureleiMarie]

@@khaccanhle1930 Nah, cancel culture is a term the GOP throw out as distraction when faced with repercussions for their bad behavior or when they're fishing for a wedge issue. Alan Turing was the victim of institutionalized discrimination.

[@KaraZiasapiens]

SAME

[@fvckyoutubescensorshipandt2718]

It was his own dumbass fault. If a cop asks if you're doing something illegal you deny it, not admit it and think nothing will happen, particularly if it's sexual in nature. Duh, he may have been an OG computer nerd but had the street smarts of an OG idiot. It's like if the cops asked John Wayne Gacy if he had corpses hidden in his crawlspace and he simply replied, "Yes, what of it?". Or asked Michael Jackson if he had sex with the kid with cancer and he replied "Yes, I couldn't resist".

[@theangelbelow88]

R.I.P Alan Turing, you were born at the right and the wrong time, you helped save thousands of lives, but would ultimately be condemned by the people you helped.

[@ABrit-bt6ce]

Take a drink for that chap.

[@aled721]

He was an amazing person and a hero.

[@diablerietandino1941]

It's truly damn tragic. You contribute your blood and sweat to a task that proved invaluable in defeating a very real evil in the world only to be condemned because of who you're attracted to. The Nazis executed homosexuals, the british castrated them and forced them to live in shame, I honestly don't know which is worse.

[@brianperry]

@@diablerietandino1941 We must be careful of going the way of collective national guilt...the people who destroyed this mans life are all dead by now....Not unlike the present BLM movement trying to make me feel guilty about my heritage...

[@adder3597]

@@brianperry I'd have to disagree, Britain as a nation deserves to feel collective guilt over the way the likes of Turing were treated right up until the decriminalisation of homosexuality. It's unforgiveable that we treated people, human beings, like we did.

[@alanhindmarch657]

Alan Turing is one of my Heroes. I know he didn’t fight as such, but through his Intellect and his great mind, he did save thousands of lives without praise or recognition. Only to be victimised for his sexual orientation.

[@john-paulsilke893]

He deserved recognition during his time. Such brilliance wasted by the people he helped. Deplorable. 😢

[@JosePineda-cy6om]

His being autistic, and thus not particularly good at handling social situations, didn't exactly helped him either

[@Kellethorn]

One of my cat's names is Turing. Absolute legend of a man.

[@MrSTSIRO]

I love all of Simon’s (And his crew) channels. It always astounds me the thoroughness of the topic being presented. They always give credit to the lesser known individuals that play a critical part in whatever topic they instruct on. My children love the videos. Keep up the good work. Simon and his crew deserve a Netflix show.

[@Flameboar]

Thank you! The contributions of the Polish code breakers is barely mentioned in other stories of the Enigma machine.

[@ABrit-bt6ce]

Didn't the Americans discover all that codey stuff on a submarine ;)

[@quackquack2878]

@@kamilszadkowski8864 16:20

[@quackquack2878]

@@kamilszadkowski8864 watch the whole video :)

[@wor53lg50]

HMS Broadway is as close to merican sounding as it gets...

[@andljoy]

No letter could encrypt as itself ..... that was the most important thing. That bug , changed everything.

[@john-paulsilke893]

Plus they started off every transmission with Heil Hitler. They also put skulls on their uniforms like some stupid movie character bad guy! 😳 BTW my family were all German so I’m intimately aware of how incredibly smart/stupid, empathetic/psychopathic and family oriented/nationalist. Weird peoples. 🙃

[@JonMartinYXD]

And the Germans thought that the "reflector", which caused that bug, actually increased the strength of Enigma. There is a lesson there: be very, very suspicious of any proposed change to make a crypto algorithm "easier to use".

[@michaelsommers2356]

@@john-paulsilke893 I'm pretty sure the "Heil Hitler" thing is not true, although there were plenty of other cribs that were used. This page ( www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-48530228 ) contains some sample messages, and none of them contains the phrase "Heil Hitler". The Americans (and maybe the British, too) greatly reduced the utility of cribs by adding nonsense text before and after their messages, and then splitting the messages in two, and sending them in reverse order.

[@calum5975]

@@john-paulsilke893 to be fair many units throughout history put skulls on their uniforms. The skull was only worn on SS-Totenkopf Units (Death's Heads) in Nazi Germany. This skull had nothing to do with being evil, it was actually used by several cavalry units in Prussia from as early as the 1700s. The SS simply used the symbol as it had German heritage.

[@thatzootsuit8007]

"It wasn't a bug. It was a feature." -Enigma engineers

[@redstonewisard]

There is a book called "The Code Book" by Simon Singh, that has some really informational pictures about how the dials work.

[@denvan3143]

There’s an app for the iPhone called Mininigma that emulates the enigma machine, complete with interchangeable rotors and the plugboard. It really lets you see how the machine works.

[@ANonymous-mo6xp]

It's a great book.

[@redstonewisard]

@@denvan3143 Thanks! I'll have to give it a look!

[@dantreadwell7421]

@@ANonymous-mo6xp was going to say the same. Great read on the history of codes and codebreaking.

[@derkeksinator17]

@@denvan3143 there's also a implementation in cryptool, so you can play around with it and try to break the code yourself!

[@a.8874]

To Allen Turing, the inventor of the modern day computer and quite possibly the world's first hacker. RIP and thank you.

[@aussietaipan8700]

Alan, Not Allen

[@lillyanneserrelio2187]

Even Blade runner movie gave him a nod. The way they tested for Replicants vs humans used a "Turing" test. Poor turtle upside down baking in the hot sun 🐢🌞

[@ibeatyoutubecircumventingy6344]

like most hackers snuck in through a security breach by some imbecile! Password123................ Enigma had a specific set of instructions and if the entire Communications team at NAZI land had of followed orders there wouldn't of been jackshit in return :) its like calling your brother a hacker when he knows your birthdate is your password but hasnt told you yet.

[@keithstudly6071]

Nice to see someone using the proper meaning of "hacker" and not the popular corruption of it. ie- criminal

[@mikek9297]

@@lillyanneserrelio2187 Except in BladeRunner the test is called "Void-Kampf"

[@bradhobbs6196]

Only alluded to, the longer lasting important impact of Turing and Co. at Bletchley was the development of what is known as 'Network Analyis' - which was the basis for the determination of, among other things, the 'weather messages', and several other obscure, but vitally important pieces to the understanding of German communications, with applications long afterwards, to this very day.

[@AprehamLincoln]

My father taught me about this when I was a kid and I've always found it to be one of the most fascinating yet underappreciated stories from the war.

[@hakanl2585]

Allan Turing will be on the new £50 note that will be released 23 June 2021.

[@rainbowtheythemshe1115]

Ironic that they made him a criminal and will put him on the bill used only by criminals.

[@Angelalynx999]

Still doesn't make up for the hell they put him through for the crime of being himself. The conservatives of this world have a long history of doing that.

[@fvckyoutubescensorshipandt2718]

@@Angelalynx999 Well, should murderers and soped be allowed to be themselves? FUCK NO. I know, let's legalize ytilaitsaeb and ailihpodep while we are at it just because weirdo progressives want to. /sarcasm. Nothing put on TV or the internet can convince me that fucked up shit is normal.

[@owenshebbeare2999]

@@Angelalynx999 Ahhh, but the ones who put him through that were Labour, that abominablr pillock, Atlee and his Lefty cronies. Remember, Communists killed gays just as eagerly and in vastly greater numbers than any "conservatives."

[@ddpeak1]

No one will ever see those as we don’t use them. Stupid notes.

[@grantjohnson5785]

15:07 "The formidable Bismarck was *finally* sunk..." Simon, I don't think that's the best choice of words for sinking a ship on its first combat patrol.

[@BasementEngineer]

But look a the effort it took! As compared to a "lucky" single shell for the HMS Hood. Luck indeed.

[@JohnDoe-pv2iu]

Codes and code breakers of WW2 were and are absolutely amazing. As stated, while the enigma machine and the code breakers were pretty amazing the human factor was the real key. Methodically thinking through material and the casual losses of material by the Germans really was the true reason for success at Bletchley park. The code breakers of the Pacific theater provided enough material to give Admiral Nimitz a slight advantage over the Japanese. The intelligence of Nimitz and the skill of the US Navy personnel is what really sank 4 Japanese aircraft carriers in the battle of Midway. The greatest naval victory of all time, was a victory for all of the Americans involved, not just the people who cracked the Japanese messages.The victory at Midway provided the critical element needed to defeat the Japanese, time. The time needed for the ships, that were under construction, to make it into the war in the Pacific. One of the most important contributions to the Allied success in WW2 was the contributions of the Navajo people. The Navajo gave America the unprecedented power of coded messaging that was never decoded. Great video! Yall take care and be safe, John

[@stevenclarke5606]

I went to Bletchley Park for a visit, it’s a very interesting day out . I would like to thank all the volunteers especially the tour guides, they make the visit much more enjoyable.

[@morteASH]

Lets skirt around the contribution that a British General Post Office engineer made to the effort, Tommy Flowers was instrumental in building the colossus machine. An engineering genius that took in the ideas of Alan Turin and made them reality. As we all know Scientists think of an idea, Engineers make them come true.

[@RevolutionibusOrbiumCoelestium]

Tommy Flowers also designed and built the optical tape reader for Colossus which ran at 10,000 characters per minute. It was capable of more but the tape began self destructing at nearly 60 mph! For comparison optical character readers in the civilian world ran at 5 characters per minute in the late 1970’s. He could have advanced the telephone exchanges by decades if he was allowed to. His bosses didn’t believe he could! *facepalm*

[@trj1442]

Although Alan Turing is most closely associated with the Enigma Machine, a significant detail left out of this episode was that the machine was designed by the brilliant German engineer Arthur Scherbius. An amazing dude.

[@nicolaswolff1664]

One small thing. The German Railways the Reichsbahn also had an enigma network to encrypt the timetables of supply trains to the front and the trains to the concentration camps. Altough easily decoded, the Allies always thought that they were off, since the messages didn't make sense to them. In reality the Reichsbahn had a different vocabulary for internal use and used that in Enigma aswell.

[@wor53lg50]

That would've been given away the goose that laid the goldern eggs? , just has rommel did in the desert! .. War is war and morality has to be curbed for the lesser of two evils and leaving only sane level headedness to judge in the future...

[@MaxPulse1]

About 6 years ago I was doing a job in a house in Seaford Rise in South Australia. The owner was a lovely older lady who was nice to talk to. All going well, and then I saw a few photos in a frame, obviously from the war. A cup of tea later I found out she was one of the de-coders at Bletchley! She was saying that all of the (mostly) women never knew what went on in the next room, but all did their job and in fact only later in the war did they truly understand what their work had done. She was 19 when she started. Such an amazing experience to meet her.

[@bassett_green]

"Surfshark: better than the Nazis" is a hell of a sales pitch Simon

[@emmata98]

I am waiting for their rockets reaching space, having military technology ahead of any other country ...

[@ChineseKiwi]

Modern encryption used on the Internet are thousands of times more complex than Enigma so yes, technically true ;)

[@emmata98]

@@ChineseKiwi but when compared to its time...

[@Calebgoblin]

Well I mean I can't argue with him

[@aceman67]

@@emmata98 In terms of bit encryption, the enigma was only 76-bit. Most civilian encryption methods start at 128-bit, military encryption starts at 256 to 512-bit. To break military level encryption with today's technology you'd need a super-computer and a couple of days or weeks, practically impossible (by the time its broken, the information is useless). In the 1940s, it would be virtually impossible, it would take years to break one message.

[@marklaing4646]

Thanks!

[@cjb110]

Would definitely recommend visiting Bletchley Park and the Computing Museum next door.

[@leviervin197]

Simon has this way of almost apologizing on behalf of others. It's like he's the voice for the unsung heroes such as Alan Turing. He makes you feel almost guilty and proud at the same time. It's incredible his gift. My favorite one is when he did the video on the challenge. That one hit me hard. Thank you Simon and your team for all the wonderful content and happiness you bring to me and everyone who watches.

[@TheLukaszpg]

Thank you so much for mentioning Polish contribution.

[@stevepodleski]

The Poles actually got a hold of a german commercial version of the enigma when one machine was mailed to a Polish post office by mistake. The Poles soon found out and quickly made a copy and sent the original to its intended destination thus not arousing suspicion by the germans of their mistake. Then a small group of Polish mathematicians, cipher breakers and technicians went about to break the code.

[@elroyfudbucker6806]

Many years ago, I read a book about Bletchley Park & the Enigma codebreakers. In it, the author said that they received a full set of drawings & diagrams of a diplomatic Enigma. Unbelievably, the German embassy in Warsaw, on a Friday, posted their machine back to Berlin just before the invasion. Over the weekend, the Poles disassembled the machine, made detailed drawings of it & sent them to the British, knowing they didn't have time to figure out exactly how it worked; the Germans were expecting their machine to arrive in Berlin after all. .

[@BasementEngineer]

Can you explain, or point to an explanation, on how this helped to break the code?

[@roadster241]

@@BasementEngineer The code was already broken, the technology was known, the coding machine was known. Adding another encryption ring and changing the way the key was created meant that new, advanced decoding devices were needed and this was a huge contribution of the English to this project. Fortunately they had the ability, specialists and financial resources to develop their capabilities.

[@BasementEngineer]

@@roadster241 Sorry, but you did not answer my question.

[@wor53lg50]

Already broken?? so they decided to source lots of man power, funds and diverting much needed attention from war stuff to crack it again?????🙄 Whatta plonker.

[@andyj2106]

@@BasementEngineerActually, the German embassy in Warsaw accidentally posted the rotors for Enigma, they were intercepted, copied and re-packaged in time for the Germans to retrieve them from the postal system. This was early 1930s. In order to break Enigma you most know the wiring of all rotors used, including the Reflector and the Input Wheel (turns out the Input Wheel was straight-through wired though). Enigma was originally a commercial machine, the German military appropriated it and made some modifications to make it more secure, e.g. the addition of the Plug Board. Once the Poles had the rotor wiring they were able to devise a means of decoding traffic. Knowing that Enigma cannot code a clear text letter to itself in the encrypted text and that it is a one-to-one cypher, I.e. clear text and encrypted text are the same length, it is possible to “guess” at a crib (a possible clear text word or phrase) that might be in the message and look to see where it would fit in the encrypted text. Further mathematical work can then be employed to determine Enigma settings of the day. I want to further add that the Poles did break Enigma and their work was passed on to the British once Poland succumbed; at that time, in any case, the Polish approach to breaking messages no longer worked because of further changes made to operating procedures and the machine. It’s fair to say the British were astonished at the work the Poles had done.

[@oldenweery7510]

*Revised at 2:30PM CDT 4/17/21* Great video, guys. Even condensed due to time factors, you told this extraordinary tale in a very interesting and informative fashion. If anyone hungers for more of the same, I recommend a documentary, "Breaking the Codes." I had the good fortune to discover both disks of this marvelous title in the discount listings of a paper video catalog (I was unable to afford internet access for five years, due to moving to a more expensive apartment). Originally as two separate videos, they've been reintroduced as a single video, "Breaking the Codes: The Rise of Enigma/The Triumph of the Codebreakers." They cover codebreaking from ancient times through the end of WWII, telling of the colossal mulishness of "Old Boy" politicians and military officers, and the hard work and ingenuity of people in all the Ally Nations. Fascinating. Stay safe, everyone.

[@jaybolcik7383]

Thank you for treating Mr. Turing so respectfully. A sadly lost genius.

[@dascherofficial]

Alan Turing was a war hero who the British Government chemically castrated and he eventually took his own life as a result of the poor treatment he received after being outed as a gay man.

[@lillyanneserrelio2187]

Yes. He would have been better received having sex with one of his decoding machines. There was no anti computer/ machine sex laws on the books yet. They used his genius to help win the war but it bought him no leeway, no special treatment. Their behavior was despicable. Turing, you're the man! 👍 To Turing. Cheers mate 🥂

[@timtheskeptic1147]

From what I've read about Turing it's unclear whether it was suicide or not. He was a notoriously careless experimenter that happened to be working with arsenic at the time. It's perfectly possible he didn't intend to eat a poisoned apple. The man ate an apple before bed every night and it may have been contaminated. I'm not ruling out suicide, I'm only saying it's unclear.

[@stevev9885]

@@timtheskeptic1147 yes I’ve heard this too. He did a lot more than just break code, and theorised digital calculations before such machines existed. According to a professor of forensics, he also ran his own biology based experiments and there was the use of arsenic in those experiments as well. It is possible he accidentally polluted his apple in this way. Regardless, he was a great man, and society could of treated him better.

[@timtheskeptic1147]

@@stevev9885 if it weren't for him the British would've been auctioning off pier mollusks in 1941.

[@theclandestinewitness]

It's extremely regrettable that we didn't accept those who helped us win the war. Not only Mr. Turing but also African American units and the Native American units that contributed, only to come back to segregation and life on reservations. We can only hope that the following generations appreciate the sacrifices that these men and women made to defeat the Nazis.

[@wor53lg50]

Whats that got to do with some brits cracking codes and inventing first computers??. Last time i checked they was no segregation of natives, the aboriginals untill the recent invasive colonialisation of GB was mainly all whtye...

[@chriskeiser5809]

My grandmother worked as a code breaker for the Waves in the US Navy.

[@kitsune9726]

There is a story about a young man and woman working at Bletchley Park but in different departments. They met in the village, married, and it was not until after the war's end did they find out their spouse also worked there.

[@paulfarace9595]

Nicely done... especially for inclusion of the groundbreaking work of the Poles. Two things missing: Enigma was a civilian code machine built for businesses who had to transmit sensitive information via public telegraph systems. The German Army purchased and modified them for military and government use. The second and more important omission is the parallel and later collaborative work provided by the Americans. In contrast to the Enigma with its four rotors, the American military used a slightly larger machine (Army called it SIGABA) that used 15 rotors and was never broken. In contrast to Enigma's capability to produce 17,000 potential alphabets the Sigaba unit was capable of generating 27 Million alphabets.

[@5alm0n]

This was a really well put together video, I had no idea of the polish starting off the work! Thank you for teaching us all

[@hifinsword]

There was a very good documentary movie about Gordon Welchman called "The Codebreaker Who Hacked Hitler" on the Smithsonian Channel. Welchman also wrote a book in his last years "Bletchley Park: Code Breakings Forgotten Genius". Welchman was a contemporary and fellow co-worker with Alan Turing. Both were misaligned by their bosses after the war.

[@YoutubeBorkedMyOldHandle_why]

I've been hearing about British code breaking for decades. Kudos to Alan Turing and his team for doing what they did. What has always been absent from the story however, is any discussion of what the nazis were doing to break allied codes. I saw an interview some years ago, by a former nazi code breaker, who claimed to have done exactly this. Turns out, the nazis were reading a lot of British communications too. See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_code_breaking_in_World_War_II Probably on both sides, people felt so superior at cracking the other guy's code, that they failed to seriously consider it was happening to them. Perhaps we mostly hear about British successes, not failures ... because Germany lost the war.

[@jaybarnick4700]

This is something that's always interested me about WW2, but it's often overlooked. I think that a good follow-up to this video would be something about the Navajo Code Talkers.

[@americanpaisareturns9051]

I saw a documentary movie on this. It still trips me out that Lord Grantham had both of his son in laws working on the enigma machine with a Doctor that was a bit Strange and who’s girlfriend was a pirate.

[@Mitjitsu]

3:30 - High ranking officials did not use the Enigma machine to send messages. They used a Lorenz Cipher which is even harder to crack.

[@ernestbywater411]

one has to wonder how much computer science may have advanced if Turing had lived a lot longer.

[@lillyanneserrelio2187]

How many others geniuses like him have been lost, persecuted for stupid reasons. How much more they could have contributed to society. Those Short sighted fools. That Mob mentality. Too easy to hate. Disgusting. I hate all those haters.

[@ernestbywater411]

@@lillyanneserrelio2187 agreed.

[@ioannispasaloukos4885]

Just like galileo galileo who tragically died because of the church who was not agreeing with the cardinals not with the bible because the bible was never taught by cardinals or preachers they had taught only the convenient thing out of context just for their goals much like British government with Alan touring and they remain in comparison with other allied countries after second World War that even today they can't keep up because so many countries surpass Britain in all kinds of fields

[@DLWELD]

Super series!! Keep it up. If reference to Rommel I think an important under reported aspect is Rommel having detailed access to Allied plans. For reference here you might want to look at the book "The Code Breakers" by David Kahn. He details on page 250 (in chapter "Duel in the Ether") how an American military attache in Cairo had had his private code he insisted in using, broken by the Germans, and Rommel had very detailed reports on all the Allied dispositions and intentions - leading to a series of good victories for Rommel and the Germans. Once the attache - Colonel Bonner Frank Fellers - was recalled to Washington to be rewarded for his detailed reports, Rommel started losing. The analysis in the book is detailed and interesting. I beleive the Brits (using Ultra) realized the leak and had the attache recalled.

[@Dreju78]

Drachinifel has a good, more in depth video on the Enigma if anyone's interested.

[@IvanBaturaChannel]

Video title is "Breaking Enigma - Exploiting a Pole Position" for anyone interested.

[@tedsmith6137]

There is a certain irony in the tale of the select group of Polish mathematicians who went to Berlin university to learn the skills to break the Enigma code. There is also a story that Churchill, after visiting Bletchley Park and meeting some of the 'interesting' and 'unique' individuals working there, commented to the Chief that "when I said to leave no stone unturned to get the right people, I didn't expect to be taken literally."

[@greenfox8418]

British Commandos: invested effort into breaking the Enigma and solved the headache *70 years later in America Hollywood: Let’s disguise a bunch of American troops as Germans onto a German ship, then let them approach the German sub carrying the Enigma and bag them and get outta there

[@jur4x]

Holywood does have weird logic sometimes

[@arnoldvangastel8506]

I would like to see you do a video on Thomas (Tommy) Harold Flowers the man that designed and built Colossus, the first programmable computer that was used to break the Lorenz cipher. Tommy was an unsung hero of Bletchley Park.

[@matthewwoolhouse3829]

What about Z3?

[@Clarkyboy1979]

With hindsight it is remarkable that the germans ended every message with 'that' phrase, giving away 2 vowels and 4 consonants. Coupled with weather report (wetterbericht), a further 3 consonants, that's a lot of information to feed into the cracking machine. (9/26 letters in the alphabet). Of course it still wasn't simple but once they had the machine able to do the patterns, those letters made it 'relatively' easy to quickly decode the german messages.

[@jliller]

The Germans were probably a bit arrogant about the unbreakability of Engima. Donitz was sure transmissions from his U-boats were safe because he didn't think the Allies had technology capable of high-frequency direction finding, only low- and medium-frequency.

[@GuntherRommel]

Megaprojects was my first WhistlerTube channel. But it was the OGBB that made me fall in love.

[@Zaprozhan]

The tragedy of Turing has been repeated thousands of times through homophobia, racism, xenophobia, transphobia, and so on. How many contributions to society have been sidelined because of the shortsighted fear of the different? How many contributions to society have been LOST? We need the best from everyone.

[@COYOTE_N8]

Agreed, more then ever at a time like this. It's sad, I mean I don't agree homosexuals or the lgbtq but I also don't discriminate against them. Nobody should push there life choices or beliefs onto anyone else but we should all respect each other

[@martyzielinski2469]

@@COYOTE_N8 AGREED! wrong to discriminate.......equally wrong to be strong armed by the minorities.

[@19RaxR91]

@@martyzielinski2469 have my like.

[@barneypaws4883]

he has been recognized in the UK by having him on the new £50 note

[@ignitionfrn2223]

It also happens to independent creators : how many inventions, artworks have failed to stand the test of time ? How many Henri Rousseau, Ferdinand Cheval , Seraphine louis and other "ordinary people" have created amazing things and have almost been forgotten because they weren't "marketable" or "popular" ? Thank god for the internet, we can see the sidelined contributions because of the shortsighted money-making industries...

[@ericpz]

Megaprojects topic suggestion. US NATO installations in Europe. The spending to build the facilities, both mission focused and support, especially during the 80s was massive.

[@aaron2709]

We should create a monument to Alan Turing somewhere in the world. He got shafted and the Allies owe him this. I'm writing this and you're reading this on a computer... thanks to him.

[@ikocheratcr]

At least people that study computer sciences, do have an idea about Turing, via the Turing test, Turing machine and other names that have "Turing" in it. Sadly, CS people are very small percentage in the world. More people should know.

[@MConland]

I believe there is one in Manchester.

[@aaron2709]

@@MConland Excellent.

[@RevolutionibusOrbiumCoelestium]

There is one at Bletchley Park.

[@Davethreshold]

From years ago, this has been one of the most FASCINATING things that I have ever heard of.

[@seanbrazell6147]

A single man can't stop a war, but he can certainly START one. What that says about us as a species I do not know.

[@gigrant9194]

A single man can also stop a war, my favourite person in history stopped WWII by killing Hitler.

[@itarry4]

@@gigrant9194 only because he waited to kill him once the war was as good as over. German's biggest enemy throughout the whole war was Hitler himself. His ego, paranoia and total inability to understand strategy were by far the Allies biggest help. The amount of his soldiers he threw away by not letting them retreat when it was the only sane option, the incredible knack of green lighting totally the wrong experiments and technology at exactly the wrong time and then his all time master stroke, invading Russia and totally failing to ensure America stayed totally out of it. The man was a total genius at smacking himself in the head, right until the day he used a bullet instead of his hand....

[@ibeatyoutubecircumventingy6344]

@@itarry4 Russia was a preemptive strike at existing soviet Build up. the evidence was uncovered for this in the last few years.

[@ibeatyoutubecircumventingy6344]

the single man wasnt Turing but the lazy prick who didnt change his settings when operating the Enigma would be interesting too know who it was exactly as the Germans had pretty detailed info on postings and was a specific amount of trust etc for the operators so we could probably isolate and find out the actual German Communications guy who Bungled the Enigma secret :) getting the Machine was the easy part lol the True unsung hero is that Mystery German incompetent!

[@mike_outdoors4918]

As a Bletchley resident, these stories always catch my interest. There was also Colossus, the first proper electronic computer.

[@mattmcc72]

@1:00 a place called Bletchley Park, a place that is about as far away from the sea as you can get. In fact, the actual furthest place from the sea is only a few miles away. So... Why the picture of someone sitting by the sea when you start talking about it?

[@chazzyb8660]

It's called mis-direction, just in case one of those pesky nazis is watching?

[@mattmcc72]

@@chazzyb8660 Funnily enough, that's true. I spent most of my childhood (from the late 70's) living just outside Bletchley and even then road signs naming the town were limited. During the war, they were all removed. Bletchley didn't exist. :D

[@iowa_don]

I recently saw a KZbin video ("Cracking Enigma in 2021 - Computerphile") about code breaking the Enigma machine and even today we do not have enough computing power to "brute force" a solution to an Enigma coded message. It was a truly awesome device.

[@mr.marketoriginal3808]

Thank you for this type of education, as important as financial education!

[@patricks_music]

Mathematics is truly fascinating in the world of computers. We have crazy amounts of computing powers today.

[@harshadbrown2312]

You just know somewhere out there Hitler was cursing his generals and admirals over this machine

[@harshadbrown2312]

@Stellvia Hoenheim did you watch the video and/or did some research

[@adder3597]

@Stellvia Hoenheim No, they did not. If they knew we'd broken it, we'd have been back to square one as they'd have changed their cryptographic methods. Some information was used wherever we deemed the probability of the Wehrmacht suspecting a breach was low enough.

[@aquilarossa5191]

Bletchley Park is quite famous now. But growing up in Milton Keynes during the early 1980s I had never heard of it, even though I was not bad at history, geography and general knowledge. Was it still a secret? Overshadowed by our famous concrete cows I guess. I play guitar, so the most famous thing out of Bletchley for me is the 100 watt Marshall stack. The quintessential sound of rock and classic heavy metal.

[@DanteTheAbyssalBeing]

Truly incredible that this was all achieved with pure, boundless human intelligence and problem solving ability. The treatment of Turing by my government was an abomination; the man was a hero through and through.

[@SennaAugustus]

A missing piece was the capture of the codebooks and settings of the new 4-wheel Enigma from U-559 (the machine itself sunk with the boat) by HMS Petard (G56) on 30 October 1942.

[@mattbass4807]

YES SIMON more technologically videos please fact boi:)

[@daves1412]

Absolutely superb condensed narrative of a very complex story. Thank you

[@BenRollinsActor]

I'd like to see you do a video on the ONLY unbroken code from WWII - the Navajo code talkers of the US Marines.

[@hillaryclinton2415]

Upvoted..but this is not a code.. no transformation was done (example: with enigma ..they they might be ytwd lpos. But in Navajothey they is 'bi bi' )

[@MsJubjubbird]

The UK had the Type X machine that was similar. It's advantages were a letter could be itself, needed and the machine did the encoding, transmitting and printing- meaning less human resources to use it- and also had more rotors. The Germans had little luck with it it, though lack of resources, including time, was an issue

[@verberaunt]

It's interesting that today all of us carry an Enigma Machine in their pockets.

[@garryturgiss8551]

You should watch the movie " The Imitation Game "

[@SteveMHN]

Take a look at a channel called 'Computerphile', they have some great video's on it.

[@sth.777]

@@garryturgiss8551 The film "Enigma" with Kate Winslet & Dougary Scott is also excellent.

[@ifga16]

In the intro photos there is one of sailors with several old US destroyers, aka four pipers, behind them. One with the hull number 131 was USS Buchanan which became the ship, HMS Campbeltown, the British loaded with explosives and blew up the drydock at St Nazaire, France to deny German use to repair large ships like Tirpitz.

[@AlexWhittles]

Need a follow up on Lorenz and Colossus please!

[@raheslop]

Cracking the less known Lorenz cypher was in another league all together

[@davidgiles4681]

During WWI, - I think Building 10 - held the code breaking machines. They knew of every Uboat on the Irish Coast. They knew the numbers, names of Captains, etc... In fact, the Lusitania was sunk by a UBoat (that this unit knew the exact location of said uboat). But, they could not tell the Lusitania (by radio) that they knew. If they had done so, the Germans would have changed their codes and that would have cost the British many long hours of breaking the codes and more shipping -- if not the war. So, this unit (and the British Govt) allowed the Uboat to sink the Lusitania [for the morality of the loss of 200 plus individuals over the loss of the total war went to the loss of the total war]. This is called "wartime morality". The loss of 200 individuals pales in the loss of thousands and or millions. The book I read on this stated that the code breakers languished with this "morality". But, the govt did transmit a general warning, "Attention all shipping in (said area) Uboats are known to patrol this area and sink any shipping.". The Govt had to be very vague and still warn shipping. A German torpedo sunk the Lusitania, and she went down in 15 minutes or less. The Germans claimed that she held munitions for England. Of course, Britain denied it. An expedition may years later proved some 100k rnds of 303 and other munitions laying on the sea floor (in the wreckage of the Lusitania - proving the Germans correct - she did have munitions in her holds and thus was no longer a Civilian Ship [but a wartime relief ship -- thus she was Military and a perfectly valid target]) www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/01/lusitania-salvage-warning-munitions-1982 www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/lusitania archive.archaeology.org/0901/trenches/lusitania.html www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1098904/Secret-Lusitania-Arms-challenges-Allied-claims-solely-passenger-ship.html

[@jonathanmatthews4774]

The British Radar installation of WW2 would be a great MegaProject as well.

[@grahamf57]

Simon, I enjoy watching all your channels, thank you for the excellent presentation of interesting history and projects from around the world. You have asked for suggestions for megaprojects. I still think it amazing that launch complex 39 at Kennedy Space Centre was constructed in about 2 years, from the VAB to pads 39A and B, the 3 miles of roadway between the two, and the crawler transport machine and mobile launch pads. The launch pads themselves were much more than compacted sand covered with concrete, mazes of plumbing, electronics and communication equipment. And the mobile launchers were more than a box and tower for the Saturn V to sit upon until launch. Perhaps this might make a Megaproject documentary. Best wishes for all your future work.

[@billy4072]

I take it, that’s the door you walked into?😂😂😂

[@BossPenguin]

Alan Turing is one of my personal heroes. Just received a Conway Stewart Turing-Welchman Pen. Thanks for this video!

[@krzysztofpl5871]

Oringinal breakers of the enigma Code... 3 Polish mathematicians!! NOT UK, but in fact Poland! 🇵🇱 All just to get backstabbed by the allies 🤦🏼‍♂️.. I have heated debates with English citizens who insists Alan Turing is the end all be all when it comes to the enigma machine... I just laugh and try to set the record straight, but then Brits are a stubborn bunch! Wanting to take credit for every single thing!! Dziękuje Polska! 🇵🇱

[@victormontes7007]

Marie Skłodowska I do not know if I got her last name right funny how when she got an international award the french would call her one of their own but if she got a french award she wasnt french what was up with that? Also I like her name Skłodowska better then the Curie name

[@Reinforce_Zwei]

That's like saying that because you taught someone basic multiplication, you must have taught them calculus. After all, It's all "Just" maths right? The poles gave the allies a very limited headstart on breaking the much more up-to-date enigma machines being used during the war. The real breakthroughs often came when British armed forces managed to capture intact machines, or would you like to claim those actions as polish victories as well. I get it, I really do. It must be tough knowing that many poles in the war wanted to side with nazi germany and that this fact brings great shame to the feckless poles of today.

[@krzysztofpl5871]

@@Reinforce_Zweidude.... the amount of false slander you posting is equal to spreading misinformation! the English govenremt came out years later to finally acknowledge the CRUCIAL ROLE POLES PLAYED! Without them, UK would not even have an actual Enigma machine to work with!! It was broken time and time again in the 1930's up to the invasion of Poland.. what nore could you ask for? The broke the code, only to have the germans re do it, just to be broken again by the Poles... until the Poles were foced to flee! and Poland was the only government to officially NEVER COLLABORATE with the Nazis... Not look at France, look at Ukraine, RUssia... How many Poles are on the Yad Vashem? What country had the only Underground resistance to aide Jews? Google Zegota and educate yourself... igonarant as hell, dayum!

[@Reinforce_Zwei]

@@krzysztofpl5871 "without them, UK would not even have an actual Enigma machine to work with". Exactly as I suggested, you would try to claim British armed forces victories as "polish". So, are you suggesting that it was a polish ship that captured a German Uboat with it's machine and codebook intact? Surely you wouldn't be so stupid to claim such a thing, but who knows with modern day poles(small p, because you're not worth the effort). When it really mattered, it was the British codebreakers who did the work. Screaming and stamping that your pathetic country did it 15 years beforehand on a code system that was phased out long before the war even began does nothing to alter the substance of reality. Reality is that polish politicians and leaders collaborated with the nazis under a cover of "not collaborating lol". Now get back to work, that kitchen isn't going to build itself, pole boy.

[@krzysztofpl5871]

@@Reinforce_Zwei lol, So, fact is, the Poles broke the enigma code first, and without their help, the war would have been drawn out longer.... The Poles smuggled 2 enigma machines out of Poland... i'll wait for you to re-read my post... you missed ALOT! Churchill was so spinless, he did not allow Polish Troops in the Victory of Europe day parade, as he did not want to offend Stalin.

[@CoolAsFreya]

I already know too many nerdy details about enigma cipher and the enigma machine, but of course I'm going to watch Simon talk about it!

[@DangerAngelous]

Almost forgot Simon as a refined, collected, mature human being was a thing

[@boomerix]

allegedly

[@tinaharnish]

Yes. If you stick with Business Blaze, say watching one on one day and another the next, it does come as a bit of a shock, doesn't it?🤣🤣🤣

[@DangerAngelous]

@@tinaharnish dear lord I've binged Business Blaze to the moon

[@tinaharnish]

@@DangerAngelous 🤣🤣🤣

[@GrrMeister]

6:05 *Alan Turing - now recognised on the current UK £50 note [which no one uses] as Crucial and vital to this codebreaking !*

[@manifestman132]

Great video as always. Numberphile also has a great video on the enigma machine.

[@joshuabrigden4820]

Here early I think I'm starting to get these upload times subconsciously 😂

[@justindunlap1235]

I can't believe the beauty of that brass oiler manifold at 12:30. That was crafted by a true artisan.

[@KeydaFynx]

One can only imagine how much more he could have contributed to math and cryptography if people weren’t so damn homophobic.

[@JimKJeffries]

Michaelangelo

[@ddpeak1]

And maths.

[@dx1450]

The ironic thing is that now people use computers to spread homophobic hate all over the internet.

[@skjjha7509]

It's not wrong of people being for homophobic but government shouldn't have intervened

[@joeelliott2157]

The German equivalent of Bletchley Park was B-Dienst. Not nearly as large as the Bletchley Park effort, it had a much easier code to break, Naval Cypher 3, used to direct convoys. There was a time, in 1942, when the Germans had the advantage in the U-boat war, adding a fourth rotor for U-boat messages mean Enigma could not be broken, while Naval Cypher 3 could be easily broken. I think it would be a great project for someone to produce a chart over time, 1939 through 1945, showing the percentage of U-boat messages that were broken within X hours and the percentage of convoy messages that were broken within X hours, showing the swing of advantages that each side held throughout the war.

[@michal.laskowski.]

Polish matematicians broke the code of enigma 💪

[@orwellboy1958]

The Polish nation has a lot to be proud of.

[@highpath4776]

Mostly because they had gotten hold of one of the machines.

[@michaelpipkin9942]

I heard they were the first to change a light bulb with a ladder... Jk. It was a great task to accomplish.

[@SimonZerafa]

Indeed. If you visit the Bletchley Park Museum then you find out about Henryk Zygalski , Jerzy Różycki and Marian Rejewski and the work they did to break the early Enigma machines. One interesting discovery was that the input rotor was arranged alphabetically 😀🤷‍♂️

[@seanbrazell6147]

Then got sold down the river to Stalin for their brilliance and dedication.

[@adamwu4565]

It seems ironically hubristic that some people at the time assumed that Enigma would be unbreakable because it used a machine to generate an apparently huge number of potential variations, and never seriously considered the possibility that someone could design another machine that could test all those variations with equal speed. Particularly when the enigma machines themselves had to be limited in size and thus complexity due to the need for being portable in the field, while a hypothetical decoding machine could be stationary and be made much bigger.

[@bondgabebond4907]

@@yt45204 What do you think of something called a pattern. As in the way the Germans communicated, they established a pattern, such as 'Heil Hitler.' They also sent in weather reports and that pattern was eventually picked up. Things like this helped in decoding the Enigma messages. Once that was established, breaking the code had to be much easier.

[@bondgabebond4907]

Patterns or repetition. Looking at the format of the message was finally noticed. Look at how the letter ended with something like "Heil Hiller." Over and over again, the format repeated and soon people realized it was the ID of the submarine. And by triangulation, it became easier to determine the location of the sub. That's only a small part of cracking the code, but alert people came to the rescue. The computer was basically worthless and Turin didn't do much overall in contrast to the other people. Think of this as noticing a person's spelling a word wrong all the time. Going through papers from many people, you begin to notice this mistake over and over again. Soon you realize it is from the same person. Even one who uses a phrase over and over again, like "you know the thing," or "I really mean it." It's the tell. Once you are on that tell, you now have a good advantage in cracking future messages.

[@adamwu4565]

@@bondgabebond4907 This speaks to the OTHER vulnerability of the Enigma, and indeed any encryption mechanism that those same people also hubristically ignored. Namely that the humans at both ends were the weak link producing repetitive idiosyncrasies that would allow code breakers to get into the meat of the system.

[@bondgabebond4907]

@@adamwu4565 You explained it best. These Nazis never figured their signatures eventually gave them away. I guess they never played poker.

[@willstokes7266]

I highly recommend "the imitation game" an amazing movie based on this !

[@lennert8530]

Unfortunately, the movie is highly inaccurate. I recommend reading up on the true story.

[@Belgarathe]

I think the movie is a nice intro that not just show about how difficult it was breaking enigma but also how tragic it was for the hero. I really didn't know the whole story until I watched this movie. Then it perked my interest to read more accurate material and go down the CS career. Let be honest if this movie was very accurate it would take a long time to watch with a lot of details that for the general audience wouldn't have mattered. If you were building a enigma cracking machine then no the movie isn't it. If you want to tell a simple tragic story then making a movie is a way to go to reach out to the masses. And tbh the majority of people will only remember the main plot and lose the rest of the detail. A heroic hero that was treated horribly because of who he was and couldn't even tell anyone how he saved everyone's else butt.

[@aaronleverton4221]

Good entertainment, garbage history.

[@Angelalynx999]

@@aaronleverton4221 That's pretty much the motto of any Hollywood "true" story.

[@fredbeach2085]

The German who created the machine called it Enigma after the English composer Sir Edward Elgar`s composition Enigma Variations because it really had that many variations, as Michael Caine once said not a lot of people know that. Oh Nimrod is my favourite.

[@rogerwebb7501]

Michael Caine also once said...'You're only supposed to blow the doors off such a preposterous attribution'!

[@BoyceBailey]

3:10 A to Zee? ZEE!?!?! Hand back the English card mate. It is a ZED! Zer Eh Der.

[@Doochos]

This video is for a mostly American audience.

[@BoyceBailey]

@@Doochos Even more important to keep up standards then.

[@owenshebbeare2999]

@@BoyceBailey Too right, mate!

[@WarpFactor999]

Simon, this was a great video! I never realized that there were so many "bombs" made. You did good sir. Give your writer a raise!

[@SlawcioD]

fun fact: Pyry in polish means Potatoes ;) same as ziemniaki, kartofle ;).

[@vibingwithvinyl]

And in finnish it's often used to describe a dense snowfall, lumipyry, in which lumi means snow.

[@MiceAndMinecraft]

My grandmother was one of the women who worked with Alan Turing at Bletchley park, and later transferred to Whitehall. Of course exactly what she did, she’d never divulge till the day she died.

[@rodrigonogueiramota4433]

enigma machine: nobody can understand me woman on her best day ever: rookie

[@TheMeritCoba]

Wow, dude can't you just reign in your male chauvinism when this subject literally demonstrates that dozens of women helped out in cracking the Enigma codes. What is next? Poking fun of gay people?

[@timmotel5804]

You put so much good information in your documentaries. Thank You once again.

[@jordanwilliams9300]

I'm surprised you didn't plug your Alan Turing video on Biographics...