The real story of how Enigma was broken - Sir Dermot Turing

A virtual talk by Sir Dermot Turing.
Surely Enigma was broken by the British at Bletchley Park? The real story begins much earlier, in December, 1932. In the bathroom of a Belgian hotel, a French spymaster photographs secret documents - operating instructions of a new cipher machine, Enigma. A few weeks later a mathematician in Warsaw begins to decipher the coded communications of the Third Reich and lay the foundations for the famous operation at Bletchley Park. In this illustrated talk Dermot Turing explains the international alliance which set the Bletchley Park codebreakers on the path to the British Bombe, as seen at The National Museum of Computing.
Dermot Turing is the acclaimed author of Prof: Alan Turing Decoded, a biography of his famous uncle, The Story of Computing, and most recently the award-winning X, Y and Z - the real story of how Enigma was broken. His new book, a reappraisal of Alan Turing’s legacy, Reflections of Alan Turing, is published on 22 April He began writing in 2014 after a career in law. Dermot worked for the Government Legal Service and then the international law firm Clifford Chance, where he was a partner until 2014. He is a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford.
This Illustrated talk last approximately 40 minutes, followed by a 20 minute Q&A session.
Recorded 7th April 2021.

[@MikeKobb]

My dad was a cryptographic radio operator in the US Army during WWII, and we are of Polish descent. He always used to talk about how critical the Poles had been to the breaking of Enigma. He would have enjoyed your talk very much, Sir Dermot.

[@antonliverpool1]

Thank you for this insight Sir Dermot. You’ve definitely done the real story justice. P.s I think uncle Alan was a real fox. I often put a scarf on him when I’m passing through Savkville Gardens in the winter x

[@johndrum6613]

Yep. Mate. It was always the bloody Poles. It went further. Please investigate the Polish Squadron of British Air Force. That will really entertain you.

[@raibeart1955]

Hi Mike, The Polish people were critical in many areas and disciplines during the war. The UK owe them a debt of gratitude. All the best to you and yours. Rab

[@helenamcginty4920]

I came across the story about the Polish breakthrough just recently. I, like most people, had read that it was down to Alan Turing.

[@jankesjankeski9378]

Enigme, a few years before the outbreak of World War II, was broken by three Poles: Zygalski, Rejewski and Różycki! They built the world's first decryption machine called Crypto Bomb! The name bomb came from the fact that it ticked like a time bomb! IT WAS IN 1932! Just before the war, the Poles passed the secret of decryption to the French and the English. The latter have appropriated the success of the Poles and declare that it was Toring who broke Enigma in 1940! Hahaha! Thieves!

[@gregskuza7166]

Thank you for telling the true story about how the enigma was cracked, many sources don’t even mention Polish part and we Pols tend to get a little disappointed with it.

[@adamnoir5014]

I have been inspired in my research by the Polish logicians and mathematicians especially Stanisław Leśniewski. There was an incredible centre of knowledge in Warsaw prior to WW2 and the Polish contribution to maths/logic and deciphering Enigma was and is still pivotal.

[@sre331l]

We hold them in the highest regard and greatest respect for their. Actions.

[@johndrum6613]

Well done Greg. Mate. Alan Turing didn't decode Enigma. What he did was to industrialise the process. We call that "computing".

[@davidelliott5843]

Just like today, UK and France kidded themselves the foreign fascists were not about to kick off a serious war. Quite probably their own fascists had more control and influence than we are allowed to know.

[@bwmcelya]

The Polish fight against the Nazis will never be forgotten. Certainly not by us Americans. Nor will we forget your fight against the Communists. Poles are welcome at my house always.

[@jaroslawpeter3586]

Btw, claiming TWICE that Polish code breakers had worked in Warsaw in some " dirty office" is quite amusing and shows factual carelessness. Please be advised that Polish code breakers prior to the WW2 worked in the elegant Saski Palace which was located on the Pilsudski Square - very prestigious part of Polish capital. Later they moved to the suburbs, the nearby town of Pyry where their brick house was much more cozy and neat than code breakers barracks in the suburbs of London. Of course it does not matter regarding the target: deciphering Enigma and defeating Germans, which was done by Poland and Britain, but making minor unfounded negative remarks is not cool.

[@mark.lawrence]

yes.

[@josephstalin7389]

I think by there strandeders you need to be in a crystal palace

[@billisaac326]

@@josephstalin7389 An insensitive choice or plain ignorant your choice of name with regard to this piece, which is it?

[@josephstalin7389]

@@billisaac326 you will be purged

[@forestg83]

During my studies (CS), proffesor Janusz Stokłosa have, a lecture about Enigma. As far as I remember, he said that Polish intelligence got access to some early version od Enigma when germans accidentally send it over Polish Post. Once they realised the mistake, they urged polish authorities to return it immiadetely. Given it was a weekend, the case was opened without leaving any marks. The machine was documented and returned to germans on Monday morning. I'm not sure if this documentation was later given to the cryptographers.

[@gustavderkits8433]

Thank you very much for your outstanding public description of the role of the Poles and the French in the process of solving Enigma.

[@shinjaokinawa5122]

Vive La France, and our Polish Allies Poland bends the knee only for God!

[@kjellg6532]

The Pole contribution was of utmost importance, bus so was the work at Bletchley Park. The Polis Bomba had a simple task. At that time all German messages started with a “random” three letter code, BUT this code was repeated in the next three letters, so the Bomba should only find a setting in whitch these letters repeated themself. The Turing Bombe at Bletchley was tasked with finding “cribs” guessed text in clear, hidden somewhere randomly in the message. It took Bletchley about 10.000 people to crack the Enigma on a daily basis, again and again and again….. If the Poles did not have the resources to build 60 Bombas, they would not have had the resources to run the Bletchley “factory”.

[@TB-bb6kb]

To give You something to think about is that Marian Rajewski who broke enigma code was 23 years old at the time of breakthrough Credit goes to other Polish mathematic experts like Zygalski& Ruzycki. Enigma code was broken by them on December 31 ,1932 . Thanks for setting history straight. - the honest & truthful way

[@LMB222]

They were also math students (PhD candidates), so...

[@railwaymechanicalengineer4587]

Enigma was already "done & dusted" when the Germans introduced its successor - Digitised "Tunnie" in Mid WW2 which Turing unravelled.

[@Sonex1542]

This is what I would consider an authoritative historic compilation of events.

[@zyghom]

there is no REAL TRUTH ever - even in the court you have 3: the defendant, the prosecutor and the judge - all their own "truth" - expect the same in the history - it all depends on who wrote the book ;-)

[@jarosawzon4272]

The Enigma was broken in 1932 by three Polish mathematicians: Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski, who were employed by the Polish military Cipher Bureau. The first Polish copy of the military version of "Enigma" was built in the "Ava" factory in Warsaw in 1933. The process of putting the elements together took place in Pyry near Warsaw. From then on, Poles could read German military correspondence. In 1939, Poland handed over the Enigma documentation to the British.

[@julijakublicka843]

This is very helpful for me. My great grandfather was the head chief of the cipher bureau in Poland and I always wanted to know more about what he did and how he assisted. Thank you!

[@johnmccormick3254]

No, thank you and your great grandfather - March, March, Dabrowski !

[@himemjam]

The Poles were KEY. It was their Secret Service that procured the first enigma, created the first bombes (decryption machines. We might not have won the war without them

[@himemjam]

HURRAH for Biuro Szyfrów!

[@johndrum6613]

Julija. Please don't wait. Get the bloody book that Turing wrote of his uncle, Turing. It is so, so, fulfilling. Written from within the family it is just so, so good.

[@sebastianrutkowski7316]

seems like half of Poland was involved somehow... 😅

[@disphoto]

A wonderful presentation about the Polish codebreaker's contribution. It filled in some holes in my understanding.

[@willb866]

Also Polish resistance gave the UK drawings and actual parts of a V2 rocket

[@richardbriscoe8563]

Without the very considerable contributions of the Poles the breaking of Enigma would have been much delayed.

[@fouadmas5413]

There was most likely a mole or informant from Germany to help the British break the Enigma code. Note: Germany was doing well from 1914-1917 till the Balfour declaration signed DURING WW1 1917

[@richardbriscoe8563]

@@fouadmas5413 I have read elsewhere that errors by some of the German operators aided in keeping up with the changes. Apparently some of them used children’s nursery rhymes as the padding in the messages on a recurring basis and some other similar errors which helped the Brits stay current.

[@SerBallister]

@@richardbriscoe8563 I read somewhere the "heil hitler" on the end of every message also made breaking the code easier as it allows a computer to verify the results

[@pawelartymowicz1617]

The story of the escape of Polish cryptographers from Poland via Rumania, and all the further hiding from Gestapo is also very dramatic and worthy of a movie. In fact, there is one done in Poland long time ago, but now forgotten. Unfortunately the checks at all the railway stations, with personal lists given to all German units of the mathematicians to be arrested were sometimes effective, not all got to France and then to England.. ENIGMA was important enough for the survival of Britain that I think a joint Polish-British movie is in order

[@-VOR]

I agree. But the Brits never admit that that have ever had help... no matter the topic. To them, it's all them and they're always greater and smarter than everyone

[@michaelmeddings942]

@@-VOR It might help to understand your comment if you state your nationality.

[@-VOR]

@@michaelmeddings942 chiming in with a fallacy? Great job.

[@michaelmeddings942]

@@-VOR Where's the fallacy? Your nationality might help to explain your anti-Brit comment.

[@-VOR]

@@michaelmeddings942 lol you ask what fallacy you used, then go on to use a second one 🙄 jesus christ dude. Clearly you're not able to have an arguement/debate/etc to begin with.

[@Statist0815]

The truth is that, the polish people were not an easy enemy for the nazis. Very brave and intelligent people.

[@tobberfutooagain2628]

Really? No way…

[@joebatters6508]

Yes, also look at 303 Squadron of the RAF. Mostly Poles that managed to make it to the UK in time to participate in the Battle of Britain. They were ruthless in combat against the Luftwaffe, downing more aircraft than any other squadron.

[@jaremaw2368]

@@tobberfutooagain2628 Where did the British get the unexploaded V-2 rocket from?

[@jamesjames9193]

@@joebatters6508 Nonsense, the British beat the German's in the Battle of Britain ... simply because they built far more fighter planes and did so at a far, far faster speed than the German's could build theirs.

[@jamesjames9193]

Clearly you need to go back and research how Poland fell - easily - to a much smaller army, because Germany threw everything that it had at it, thus they were overwhelmed even though they had a far bigger army.

[@Inglese001]

Poland's contribution to WW2 saved so many lives.

[@rickr530]

Just because they didn't understand the function of the plugboard doesn't mean they knew _nothing_ about the internal workings of Enigma machines. They knew the principles on which they operated, being based on the public model, and just needed some cribs to start to work out custom rotor wiring and the plugboard function. Thank the Poles for breaking it up to that point.

[@donquixote1502]

The Swedish ProfessorArne Carl-August Beurling (3 February 1905 - 20 November 1986) was a Swedish mathematician and professor of mathematics at Uppsala University (1937-1954) and later at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He is perhaps most famous for single-handedly deciphering an early version of the German cipher machine Siemens and Halske T52 in a matter of two weeks during 1940, using only pen and paper.

[@eddielasowsky7777]

No one cares.

[@Tom-hp3kw]

That's interesting, I care.

[@patrikedstrom974]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_Beurling?wprov=sfti1

[@patytrico]

Fascinating topic, great exposition! Thank you very much for share all this historic events with us! Greetings from Uruguay.

[@marcamant7258]

Thank you very much for such an informative and accurate lecture on such a discrete piece of the history. Bravo merci beaucoup

[@2000nurek]

Finaly, thank you for the real story of Polish code breakers of Enigma

[@tuckergary1516]

puts a permanet end to polish jokes.

[@Raj-nh3fc]

Thank you for giving the credit to the Poles that they so much deserve.

[@SzymonJakubiak]

Awesome talk, I learned a lot. Thank you.

[@danielpittman889]

Sir Dermot Turing, I've been to Bletchley and seen the evidence of your uncle's genius. We all owe him a debt of gratitude. It's shameful how we treated people like him back then. I like to think that the world is slowly becoming a better place. At the very least I am working towards that goal.

[@osvaldoschilling9129]

At the same time Alan Turing was treated like a criminal essentially for police meddling into his private life, a well known British classic music composer ( friend of the Royals and of the rich and powerful) had a life-long affair with a top British Tenor and nobody cared about it.

[@AlanCanon2222]

I'm from Kentucky, and on my only trip overseas, Bletchley Park was my utmost priority as a destination. It is a very moving place to visit, and would encourage everyone to make the trip, and to support the Bletchley Park Trust.

[@markofsaltburn]

@@osvaldoschilling9129 Quite; and Britain’s draconian laws against homosexuality only came into question after one of the aristocracy had been punished.

[@raphaelklaussen1951]

Rumor has it prince Charles is homosexual, which might explain why he wasn't interested in Diana, a gorgeous woman by any standard.

[@garlandremingtoniii1338]

How are you working towards that goal today? And what is your goal?

[@EdgyNumber1]

So the Polish cracked it but couldn't work fast enough to figure out all the messages Turing built the machine that massively sped up the process.

[@pdwmr]

some facts: On 5 August 2014 the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) honored Rejewski, Różycki, and Zygalski with its prestigious Milestone Award, which recognizes achievements that have changed the world. The uniqueness of the device lay in both the concept of mechanical cipher-breaking and the exceptional mathematical ideas that Polish cryptanalysts employed to crack the supposedly unbreakable encryption mechanism. July 2005 Rejewski's daughter, Janina Sylwestrzak, received on his behalf the War Medal 1939-1945 from the British Chief of the Defence Staff. On 1 August 2012 Marian Rejewski posthumously received the Knowlton Award of the U.S. Military Intelligence Corps Association; his daughter Janina accepted the award at his home town, Bydgoszcz, on 4 September 2012. Rejewski had been nominated for the Award by NATO Allied Command Counterintelligence.

[@courtenaybarber2555]

Thank you D Turing for a very clear talk that a very much non-mathematician can understand. Appreciated it so much. C Barber, Falmouth MA

[@AlanCanon2222]

I never get tired of learning more about the cracking of Enigma. One of the great sagas of the 20th century intellect.

[@williamhughmurraycissp8405]

The German use of Enigma is very instructive. In modern cryptography automatic key management resists most of the things that contributed to the fail of Enigma. We encrypt so little data under a key that brute force attacks, even highly automated and cooperative ones, become inefficient. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DES_Challenges What none of these articles note is the cost of the attacks vs. the value. Nor do they address the elapsed time of the attack vs the life of the data.

[@AlanCanon2222]

@@williamhughmurraycissp8405 Neal Stephenson treats one of your points in his novel "Cryptonomicon": even if you can't decrypt a message, the strength of the encryption provides a clue as to the planning horizon of the sender. In choosing key strength, for example, one could amortize Moore's Law and calculate how many years (decades, centuries) it would be before the message could be decrypted by brute force.

[@williamhughmurraycissp8405]

@@AlanCanon2222 Good point. The "standard" of the DES was that "the cheapest attack is an exhaustive attack against the key." Still true today. Brute force attacks against the key are still not zero. Incidentally, the IBM cryptographers knew very early how they would a address the limitations of the 56 bit key. Within a couple years of the publication of the standard they shipped a hardware device that implemented "triple DES." Triple DES has an effective key length of 112 bits and is certified for use until 2035.

[@okuninushi]

@@williamhughmurraycissp8405 You are approaching the problem from the position of our times. When thinking about the real-time strategy Poles had waaaay much more factors to consider in play. Read the book "W kręgu Enigmy" and find out :D

[@okuninushi]

@Leonard squirrel If only stakes at the eve of WW2 were that low..

[@BK-uf6qr]

Really well done. Thank you!

[@electroncommerce]

Very revealing presentation. Thank you!

[@ebthedoc4992]

Thanks, TNMoC and Sir Dermot, for a delightful talk; and the Q&A after. To this Old-School Prussian of Silesian / Pomeranian descent, naturalized in the US in ‘59, you touched on so many aspects of Math, Psychology, History, institutionalized bureaucracy, vagaries of partisan “Realpolitik”, and plain-old military boneheadedness, that I’m still shaking my head in wonder. Our old Family Fœff is now Miedzychod near Poznań, I learned my BASIC from Kemeny himself, our maternal Opa was born in Breslau, and we’d fought the Nazi Scourge from inside.

[@gandalfgreyhame3425]

A Warsaw Pact era Polish movie was made in 1979 called Sekret Enigmy that dramatized the Polish and French contributions to the breaking of the Enigma code. The movie is very difficult to find nowadays, but somebody posted it onto KZbin. No translations of the Polish dialogue and no subtitles, unfortunately: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fmjcq4CumcimrLs

[@Mcfreddo]

Very interesting and great questions and the insights from those! I never knew much about it. Thanks for making this.

[@brianrajala7671]

A fascinatíng explanation to a fascinating subject.

[@willhovell9019]

A real multinational collaboration , with the Poles in the lead and the French and British with the resources in Jan 1939. The reality was always more complex and shared in German. Fantastic

[@johankorten2797]

Thank you, great video. I once visited Bletchley Park and when COVID is better, hope to visit it again some time. I like to also include these stories in my subjects (when teaching) where relevant.

[@JDrwal2]

Be nice to explain to the viewers the meaning of the word “bomba”. Just this word alone indicates that that “bomba” was Polish. Obviously it means a bomb, but in Polish it has more meanings. It is not used today so much, but in the past, when a Pole shouted out of a blue: Bomba! , it meant Eureka! Just like Americans would say Bingo! That must had been the moment of revelation for one of those Polish guys who worked on Enigma. Another meaning is: that’s something big! Really big. In that case Poles say “ale bomba” = what a bomba! It can relate to anything: news, invention, device. And it relates to its significance, not to its size. I hope bomba is no longer Enigma to you.

[@k0smon]

Bomba in Spanish also means 'pump'.

[@marcsmithsonian9773]

Mr. Drwal I am afraid you missed the point.. in Poland prime meaning of the word "Bomba" is a "bomb" or a " time bomb" an explosive device with ticking clock, Poles call it Bomb becouse this mechanical code braker machine in construction used clock/ watches gears and guts and when was crunching combunations it was ticking like a bomb...

[@JDrwal2]

Marc Smithsonian It could very well be the case. We’ll never know - will we? Unless there are records explaining what’s behind that name. I’ve never seen a bomb so couldn’t tell… The other meanings however seem plausible since they are still in use in Poland today in situations I explained.

[@marcsmithsonian9773]

@@JDrwal2 Well mr. Woloszanski in o e of his ww2 archive documentary ecplained that machines name come from the sound of ticking bomb it mke during the decryption. His study come from written sources memoairs and inteligence records.

[@dinerouk]

@@marcsmithsonian9773 In all the books I have read on Bletchley,it was Bombe not Bomba!

[@roger_isaksson]

Brilliant, this would have been an excellent movie. 👍

[@youtubeisdeletingmycomment3235]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qHi1pmB6bc9pqtU Unfortunately there is no subtitles

[@kellydavies7166]

Excellent. One of my favourite topics and this provided a different perspective and information I hadnt heard. Added to my codebreaking playlist.

[@railwaymechanicalengineer4587]

How little you know ! Enigma was superceded in Mid WW2 by the Germans more sophisticated Digitised "Tunnie" system. Unravelled by Turing, which then required proper electronic computers to decode !!!

[@Wol747]

The most interesting KZbin video I have ever seen. (From one who has been interested in Enigma for years)

[@davidhewson1234]

No advertisements !!. Some people know importance out here. Fabulous, Dave

[@rogersledz6793]

Thank you so much for uploading this video. It is helping me get through the pandemic!

[@erdi950]

Stunningly good content. Thank you.

[@brianrajala7671]

Such an interesting and important development!

[@wojtekskaba9757]

You didn't mention that Jerzy Różycki actually perished in the Mediterranean Sea while returning to the France, on Jan 9, 1942.

[@patrickyoung3503]

Mat the Lord have mercy on his soul .

[@tonygibbs3143]

XYZ is great peice of co-operation, and Sir Dermot Turing's book XYZ is great.

[@williamhughmurraycissp8405]

Yes, a crib was always needed. It was used to set up the Bombe. The "crib" was a "known plain-text" attack. It exploited the correspondence between a guess at the plain-text, the same across many messages, and often days, and the corresponding cipher text, to identify, and eliminate, possible key settings. The rule for cryptographers is "never encrypt (under key settings) text which is known to the adversary." As Sir Dermot says, "My general, I have the honor to report..." If a trial key yielded the cipher text for the known plain-text then it would yield the plain-text for the unknown text of the message. The purpose of the Bombe was to try keys. The development of cribs was as much art as science. They involved guesses about plain-text. One interesting crib was used with the Kriegsmarine 4 rotor machines. The sub-mariners would report the weather daily. Of course, the Brits also knew the weather, i.e., corresponding known and cipher text. On my visit to Bletchley I got to see the Bombe re-build. The engineers were having their brown-bag lunch and they talked to me. They told me that one of the things that they learned was how forgiving the Bombe was of errors in the cipher-text, as recorded by operators listening in. Of course, such transcriptions of dots and dashes, with no discernible pattern, would be highly error prone. In modern cryptography, a one-bit error in the cipher text might cause the entire message to decode to garbage (GIGO).

[@tonygibbs3143]

@@williamhughmurraycissp8405 depends if it has any forward error correction (FEC) with a large enough Hamming distance to do error correction as well as error detection.

[@tonygibbs3143]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamming_distance

[@richardbriscoe8563]

What of the story of the Poles capturing an Enigma machine, documenting everything about it and returning it before the Germans were aware of it?

[@okuninushi]

They never captured the military version of the Enigma machine. It's possible that they had obtained the commercial version via Switzerland and reversed engineered missing rotors section and wiring using the mathematical techniques. The tough cookie for them was that Germans were constantly improving the specification - adding more rotors etc. This happened at the eve of Sep 1939 - where almost all Enigma machines had the 4th rotor introduced. You also had a Kriegsmarine version of the Enigma that had more than 3 rotors Sep 1939 prior. Polish counter-intelligence office in Warsaw invited Bertrand and Brits (including Turing) in August 1939 to the De-cyphering bureau and handed over completed sets of polish built Enigmas as well as Bombas technical description - so they could be built by Allies themselves. Cost of the program was enormous, Poles always lacked founds to introduce more Bombas etc. Poles also knew that they had to act in deep secrecy - if any of this was discovered later on during the war by Germans, they would have had changed the Enigma system or moved to other types of "cyphers". All 3 mathematicians managed to escape Poland during the "Fell-Weis" attack on Poland and managed to re-surface themselves in France (via Romania).

[@richardbriscoe8563]

@@okuninushi I’m not sure of the source of your information, but what I have read indicated that the Poles actually intercepted a then current military machine. The German Army supposedly did not add a 4th rotor, if at all, until very late in the war.

[@okuninushi]

@@richardbriscoe8563 I will check the book once received and update the thread. You might be right, I was citing from memory and I read the book in mid 90s. For sure month or two before Fall-weiss they have changed their procedure making it harder for the Poles to use Bomb attack on the intercepted communication.

[@okuninushi]

This is what the book says: "15 grudnia 1938 r. Niemcy znów gruntownie przebudowali swoje Enigmy. Tym razem dotyczyło to nie samych sposobów użycia, ale podzespołów maszyny. Wprowadzili do niej po dwa dodatkowe wirniki szyfrujące, przez co liczba ich zwiększyła się z trzech do pięciu" - so in fact Germans did intruduce in Dec 1938 2 rotors to already 3 exisiting ones. Source: Wladysław Kozaczuk "W kręgu Enigmy" Page: 55 Książka i Wiedza Warszawa Realese: 1979

[@okuninushi]

Pdf version of the book in polish is obtainable over the internet :-) Google translate might just be an option here ;-)

[@jtc1947]

FASCINATING! Love this INFO!

[@davidluftig4644]

Wonderful lecture and what's is missing is the other secret, the "Colossus" computer, the 1st programmable computer. This was so secret its not even mentioned in any films.

[@ramachandran8666]

Just a fascinating account of the "REAL" facts behind cracking the Enigma machine from someone who has produced the most compelling factual evidence. Wow this ought to have been the movies based on the "REAL" facts

[@brianrajala7671]

No, dn put in the movies. It would

[@brianrajala7671]

destroy the truth

[@alexandermenzies9954]

First class video. Many thanks. I've been to Bletchley several years ago (from the Antipodes). It was a wonderful experience and now my lovely working National HRO Sr receiver has its own Bletchley medal hanging on its front panel :-). No Enigma machine yet...

[@v31ry]

You can have one of your very own :-) enigmamuseum.com/for-sale/

[@alexandermenzies9954]

@@v31ry Lovely, Glenn! But hold on, will there be anything to run it past, where in the universe are those signals, still travelling having left the solar system and ventured forth to another part of the galaxy?

[@nicedog1]

I found this by accident but really enjoyed it. I visited Bletchley Park a few years ago and it was a good day out.

[@geoffh2560]

Thanks very much for this talk

[@LMB222]

20:20 yes! That's the piece of information that rarely gets through. It wasn't pure science, but sort of a "psychological engineering" that pushed the problem through.

[@dadw7og116]

Thank you so very much for your talk. I read Kozaczuk's and Straszak's book years ago. But, after seeing recent movies and reading (supposedly reliable) online commentaries as well as books by the Americans and Brits I was beginning to get very confused. There appears to be significant disconnect between what's in other media and their book. It's good to know that the experts associated with the TNMoC appear to agree with the Polish version of the narrative.

[@jakubjodlowski2768]

Thank you, wonderful insights!

[@AroundPhysics]

A very nice presentation. Thank you. In particular when to take into account a lot of simplifications of the story here or there. I would not mind to translate these documents mentioned in Polish, to English (the text is too small on my computer for clear reading). But it is not very likely that I would be able to explain the meaning of mathematics there, without knowing a broader context of math there, not knowing full article.

[@306champion]

I've been fascinated by Inigma since it was first declassified. You have added a couple more layers to it. Thank you.

[@garrysekelli6776]

If u wait for the government to allow u permission to access something before becoming interested u r part of the problem.

[@YadraVoat]

When was it declassified?

[@306champion]

@@YadraVoat I'm not sure, probably between 1985 and 1995.

[@pawelpap9]

@@306champion What do you mean by “declassified”? That Enigma existed was known since 1920s as Germans were selling commercial machine. That Brits broke the code was known at least since the late 50s. I read about it in the 60s. So what specifically was declassified in the 80s?

[@306champion]

@@pawelpap9 Well the breaking of the enigma code was broken during WWII but the breaking of the code was classified for forty or forty five years. After that it was released to the public. I dont know where you come from but the Poms always did like to keep us colonials in the dark (as well as use us for cannon fodder).

[@mcgama88]

I enjoyed this talk for the depth of historical fact to the outbreak of war. And several of the key points. The orderly, available process of the German mind. The cunning of the German secret police at gather to Warsaw papers and names as code breaking activity...and how much was owned by the Poles in intellect. The mathematical prowess ...huge in compartment to understanding Bayesian probability. Eugenevi Selkov, Ru, seizing advantage and later breaking new barriers toward algorithm. All, a summary lead to Allen Tourings insight toward solve in probability and untangle to Enigma and Tunny. *at the war years. An amazing sketch of a time that in fact shaped our modern world. M.

[@ejdotw1]

Absolutely superb historical work every thanks to you!

[@passiton3801]

Fascinating, it was truly an enigma....

[@miroslawturski]

Great video, thank you very much. One comment on Polish film mentioned. I think you meant "Sekret Enigmy". I think it is fairly accurate, but unwatchable for moden audiences 😉 Those interested in the history of Polish code breaking may ask, how that expertise was even born. In the end Poland regained independence just 14 years before the begining of this story. That's where it becomes even more fascinating. In 1920 Poland was involved in huge war with Bolshevics and almost lost. What changed the fate of war, was the battle of Warsaw spectacularly won partially because of the ability to break Soviet codes and track moves of the enemy.

[@marcsmithsonian9773]

The. Best study of enigma ww2 I have seen so far... so it was enough to cut the check to Poles so they can afford to builid extra 54 "Bomba machines" and no need to take further credits by Brits French and Holywood...

[@gadgetgus]

I have known most of this for some years now, like quite a few of us. However, it’s great to learn some more finer details. Thank you for an excellent slide-show with a good Q & A session. I need to get myself a ‘Bombe’ background 👍 * I would choose the Naval - 4 rotor version :)

[@truettneathery4358]

Most interesting discussion !!! I operated an Enigma machine at the NSA museum - my name has four letters "T" , yet the machine did not repeat the same number even once !!!

[@keithmills5027]

One of the anomalies of the enigma was that it never encrypted the plain text character into the same character in cypher text... this may have been a security flaw...

[@robertgarrison7836]

The father of a friend of mine was captain of a corvette which intercepted a German-manned Dutch "fishing" vessel in the North Sea. The crew threw the enigma machine overboard and it was lost, however a briefcase of documents/codes was still afloat and he ordered a seaman to dive overboard and retrieve it. Yhis was deemed as helpful to the British. Although the return and celebration was rebuked as it may have clued in the Germans as to the outcome of their find.

[@jimmyowens1654]

Richard Hayes from Ireland, who broke the ''Gortz Cipher'', which had stumped the minds at Bletchley park. After the war. Richard Hayes was awarded a medal by Winston Churchill in London

[@davidwild7254]

I've met Dermot Turing at the unveiling of Alan Turing's bust at Sherborne School, in my capacity of Head of Computer Science there. He was generous with his time with me and I found him very interesting indeed. I'm a Ph.D mathematician myself, too. I just wish I had one tenth of the brain of his late Uncle.

[@pointermom7641]

My complete stupidly in mathematics is the tragedy of my life.

[@wasiuuu1]

thank YOU for mentioning Polish hard work and contribution to Enigma code breaking, most of us in Poland know this story anyway but did notice the English speaking country's have actually no clue about it even now in 21st century. once again Thank YOU, very detail work, interesting talk throughout the subject and most important it is in English :-)

[@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684]

Thanks for your generalisation. As A Brit I've known the "ultra" secret and the Polish involvment in it since the 1970s.

[@agtpony]

Yes I must say this was rather well done I enjoyed the information

[@karelius7085]

In a Dilly Knox biography, he travelled to Warsaw with intelligence colleagues in 1932 to meet Polish intelligence people. They supplied him with the Enigma knowledge which they had gained thus far. When he returned to the UK he made no mention of the Polish achievements. This, according to his peers, was because of his disdain for the Poles and their expertise that they had beaten him to the decryption. This was the reason why the Poles withheld Enigma information until 1939. They hated him. He was also instrumental in sidelining the Poles in the UK because of the dubious Russian connection.

[@richardsinger01]

I’d like to investigate this - it’s news to me. Do you know what the biography was called and who wrote it?

[@Anonymous-it5jw]

If true, Knox must have been related to the British strategists who caused so many loyal British Commonwealth soldiers to be slaughtered in WWI in pursuit of a no-clear-strategy-to-win campaign aided by a complete lack of tactical situational judgment, that accomplished nothing but the bankrupting of the U.K. from the expense of years and years of fruitless warfare and, most importantly, the deaths of millions of young men by machine guns, poison gas, unrelenting artillery fire, bombs in tunnels under the trenches, and disease from the grossly unsanitary conditions in the trenches.

[@peterjackson4763]

I am sure I read that he wrote a letter to one of the Polish mathematicians praising their efforts. That is why they tried to ask him for help when they came to England, but at that time he was dying of cancer. He certainly was NOT instrumental in sideling them, just, unfortunately, unable to help them. Founds a reference to the note - jeweltheatre.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Dillwyn-Knox-Bio.pdf "After the meeting, he sent the Polish cryptologists a very gracious note in Polish, on official British government stationery, thanking them for their assistance and sending “sincere thanks for your cooperation and patience”." The Poles were impressed by Dilly: "Knox grasped everything very quickly, almost quick as lightning. It was evident that the British had been really working on Enigma ... So they didn't require explanations. They were specialists of a different kind, of a different class. - Marian Rejewski" On the other hand he seems to have felt humiliated at being beaten. Dennison wrote that Dilly let out an angry rant in the car after the meeting.

[@peterjackson4763]

@@richardsinger01 Batey, Mavis (2009). Dilly: The Man Who Broke Enigmas Unfortunately I seem to have mislaid my copy during my last house move.

[@hermandegroot1946]

Alan Turing, the Polish scientists and all the other people working on breaking the Enigma code shortened the war by years.They all should be on banknotes. Their work shortened the war more than all the special weapons like the Grand Slam bomb, the dambuster jumping bombs. The atomic bombs are perhaps an exeption.

[@grahamwood333]

Tommy flowers is often forgotten he built the first colossus using his own money.

[@pcka12]

The atomic bombs had no effect on the war in Europe (the proximity fuse did).

[@mvaruna8605]

Indeed it's true. Poland has produced top mathematicians although our school textbooks don't talk about it much. In the inter war years (1919-1939), Warsaw seems to have been like any other western European metropolis. Later, I suppose Uncles Joe, Nikita and Leonid made sure it looked as gray as anything back home.

[@robmiller1808]

He uses this letter from the British to the French saying that they don't understand a part of the machine. He then uses that as evidence that the British understanding was very poor. However, even if the British did understand or guess more about the machine they wouldn't be letting on in the letter. They would be fishing for whatever info they could get and wouldn't be giving up anything they did know, especially as there would be a risk of security breaches.

[@laganuk]

Brilliant

[@chrisrichardson8881]

I have done some interesting engineering study of the Enigma machine. There are some very interesting limitations built into the engine and the assumptions are a huge hurtle to overcome. The number of wheels used were kept in sets of 5 or 6 wheels of 26 characters on each wheel and the wheels were all different. The peg board was an additional projection of a part of an extra wheel. Now the question is, what is missing in the character set being utilized? and the similar question how many actual characters does the German language have? How about the 26 basic letters, but no numerics, no punctuation, not even a space character between words, and only one case of characters. The framing of the messages can provide some aspect of where date/time and map coordinates can be used to substitute assigned letters to numerals and maybe accents for degrees, minutes, and seconds. Basically, this engine is a character substitution engine. Hitting a key, enters the first wheel at some initial offset, that letter is changed to another character, that would feed into the next wheel to exchange this letter for yet another to feed into the next wheel, then through the peg board, and back through the third wheel to the second wheel exchanging the generated character to the next character, and finally back to the first wheel for the final exchange to light a bulb. That bulb represented one of the 26 characters. To test the messaging, enter a message of all one letter. The recursive rotation of the wheels incremented by the process of the key board input will change the assignment of the encrypting letter exchange. At the end of the war, the Nazi Navy smelled a rat that the English had cracked the 3 wheel enigma and added a 4th wheel. This slowed down Bletchly Park decoding, but was overcome in fairly short order.

[@chrisrichardson8881]

@John Cliff Enigma was the problem that they were able to solve over time, but the order and initial state of the unit changed every 24 hours. The wiring of the peg board was a complication that made the operation of encoding and decoding very exacting. Also it seems that the letter X was not used in the German language very much and that was used as the separator between words in the messages after decoding of course. The Brits did revel in the capture of a setup manual when they could get it, but they used a massive parallel method called the "bomb" to try to solve the encryption ASAP. The Brits and the Americans captured devices through the war, but the Germans never really changed out their wheels. There were only 5 or 6 wheels that they used and the math behind the encryption ran factorially, 26 time 25 time 24 times 23 and so on to 1 and that is a pretty big number, 4.0329146112 times 10 to the 26th power. That is the number of different wheels that could have been generated. But they only ran the war with the 6 wheels. It made it easier, but not that simple.

[@rudywoodcraft9553]

absolutely fascinating I have spent alot of time learning ww2 history and never knew the role of the Polish code-breakers thanks

[@77teddy77]

Winston Churchill said IT WAS THE ENIGMA THAT WON THE WAR.

[@davidelliott5843]

UK kept the Collosus computer totally secret right up to the 1970s because the Soviets used enigma machines and had no idea the codes were broken.

[@pagegreer5081]

It was first opened up by Poland who gave it to UK who took it to other zenith. But was back word engineered by the Polish.

[@davidzweiban5549]

Without taking anything away from A Turing who was great. It's like the story of the discovery of DNA in England in the 1950s which we now know wasn't just discovered by Watson and Crick, but with the work of R Franklin the Jewish Chemist and X-ray Crystallographer who actually took a picture of the double helix structure before it was "discovered". Yet as a woman never received the recognition or the Nobel prize for Chemistry.

[@rickharold7884]

Love it! Awesome

[@millomweb]

Having been involved in local amdrams, the organisation is a bit unusual in that it has it's own theatre. Within it, there were 3 organisations - one for the amdrams, one to look after the theatre building and then a 'supporters group'. I got more heavily involved in the latter 2. It turned out that the supporters group was wholly 'off the record' and although operated within the theatre at the time of the shows (and also rehearsals) the amount of money it collected or had in reserve was never revealed. From time to time, the building group needed extra funding - and that would magically appear from the supporters group when asked for ! The supporters group was managed entirely by an elderly couple - and they're no longer with us - so what the situation is now, I don't know.

[@tomschmidt381]

Nice learning more about the cooperation of the British, French and Poles on the eve of WWII. I often wondered what happened to the Polish codebreakers so that portion of the talk filled a void in my knowledge.

[@raystiles9506]

Enigma was broken - Sir Dermot Turing: You can't pick the poisoned apple until the seed becomes Steve Jobs, duh... You'll Never Leave My Heart - Ed Harris [APPALOOSA] kzbin.info/www/bejne/g3u9lmStoqyjaJY

[@jaroslawpeter3586]

Rejewski had to return to communist Poland after the war. His sick son and wife were there, in the city of Bydgoszcz, and he had to support family. To the end of his life he was harassed and under surveillance of the security services and he was gauged by them to talk about his past. He hold low profile accountant job in some small co-operative in Bydgoszcz and lived private life. In the 70's, after the documentary book was published in Poland (by the historian who had gained access to sealed Polish military files) about the Polish Enigma breakers, Rejewski wrote very modest and short letter that he is the one, who participated in it. Unforunately he had died unknown to the public and never got any credit from the communist Poland for breaking Enigma code long before the WW2.

[@tomschmidt381]

@@jaroslawpeter3586 What a sad story, it is too bad almost everyone involved died before their contributions were recognized.

[@jaroslawpeter3586]

@@tomschmidt381 Well, in sad twisted way he was lucky because many Polish soldiers coming from the West to communist Poland had been imprisoned, heavily interrigated for months and tried for trison, espionage, collaboration with fascists and later executed. Rejewski knew all that and even at his work place he never said anything about his military past. 40's and 50's vere extremely cruel in Poland for former soldiers of AK (National Army, which during the war fought in occupied Poland but was commanded by the government in London) and for Poles who fought with allies in the West and who decided to return later. Most of these victims did not oppose Communist government.

[@tomschmidt381]

@@jaroslawpeter3586 Agree, Britain and the US cruelly sent back everyone to the USSR even those who did not want to return and face almost certain death, or at least persecution under Stalin.

[@OdysseusIthaca]

I don't quite recognize the notation but the equation list put put up at 19:33 appears to be a list of conditional probabilities of finding certain groups of letters if the following group is found.

[@pawelpap9]

No, the text and equations are about possible permutations and their relations of wheels of the machine, not about conditional probabilities.

[@EwaRach]

Thank you so much for presenting the truth story of Polish codebreakers. We were waiting for this so long. Thank you Sir Turing for revealing this and your deep study of Marian Rejewski and all the team achivments and influence for the WWII. Unfortunately not good for us...

[@kjellg6532]

Waitng for so long? Has been in Wikipedia for years. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Bombe

[@thatbeme]

I have always had an admiration for Turing. He was smarter than I am.

[@TheNameOfJesus]

I have a friend who bought an Enigma (probably over 20 years ago) and loans it to our national museum from time to time. I think he said to me that it cost him $10,000, which was the largest purchase his wife ever let him make for his collectibles hobby. I've seen it, but I have no idea which model it was. I can't even remember if it had the front side plugboard. I think I've heard of some Enigmas selling for six figures now.

[@powerjets3512]

Thanks so much, I find the real story always is so much more interesting than the movies. Regarding other unsung heroes, can somebody explain or do a video on the role of Tommy Flowers?

[@scaleyback217]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/mmjNl51vip6peJY

[@meccy2523]

The Secret War BBC production is still on KZbin.

[@zounds010]

Tommy Flowers built the Colossus computer, which was used to break the Lorenz cipher. He had little to do with the Enigma efforts. Video on Colossus: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nWPXfpaDhtaGmKM

[@arcanondrum6543]

I would like to commend and to thank Dermot, the Nephew of Alan Turing, for pursuing the truth instead of simply writing a book that praised only his Uncle.

[@terrystanski7814]

With the advent of modern day super computers, how fast enigma would be broken. And how modern encryption has evolved.

[@lancejackson3524]

I had read where the Luftwaffe was less security conscious than the other services and this became a factor in breaking encryption.

[@everestyeti]

Yep, they believed it to be unbreakable, what also didn't help was that the German army was moving so fast that they were not always that conscious with regards to using the the right code settings for the right days. Then when we were in a position to read the codes the Germans at the end of each message, singed off with Heil Hitler. Which meant that it didn't matter what the settings were for each day as they always said Heil Hitler! .

[@rex8255]

I just had this thought for a sort of lesson or lecture, called "Maps, and our understanding of history". When you mentioned that Poland hadn't existed for over a hundred years, I realized (also considering Afghanistan, a country which is to my understanding an entirely European fiction foisted on the various tribes that live in the area), that in modern days we tend to consider all countries and borders as sort of "fixed". But they're not. I would think that any serious study of, for example, WW I would need to start with a thorough study of the borders extant at the start of the way, and end with a comparison with the new borders that existed after the war. Thank you for reading :)

[@radiotelegram]

Spot on. History without context is trivia. Looking at Africa and SE Asia in particular, we (Europeans) drew lines on paper as if the ink would magically dispense with tribal realities born in antiquity. The imbecility of arbitrary lines is curious to me in that these realities were known thoroughly to us over centuries of occupation. Over a billion hapless people were booby trapped with the seeds of war. Federal Nigeria vs Biafra, Tamil vs Sinhal, West Pakistan v East Pakistan to name a bloody few where millions died and continue to die two generations after the fact. A pen in the hands of halfwits is not mightier than the sword.

[@SomeBuddy777]

This was a wonderful lecture and lesson, exposing so many more details and truths. Thank you so much. This has very well described and demonstrated that names of land masses and borders of countries are fluid, and can be directly related to conquering, mergering and total dissolution: Country --> new country --> another country, but not new --> newly formed and named countries. Amazing that I would be able spin an antique globe of this same earth and not recognize some of the placements and shapes of land masses and their names, while having the most relevant globe of this day in comparison. Yes, in our mind's eye, everything is relatively constant. But, with the only constant being change, all we must do is blink, and things have changed.

[@johnchristie1466]

I'm glad someone kows the real history of how and when enigma was broken.

[@davidbaumer1724]

In 1995 I borrowed from NSA's Fort Mead museum a naval Enigma machine with Japanese characters for an exhibit at The Mariners' Museum in Newport News VA.

[@teodelfuego]

Good video! I wonder if the audio could be improved a bit?

[@hurri7720]

A few things to add, the British used the German commercial Enigma slightly modified. How hard or easy it was for the Germans to debug British transmissions is also not of great British interest to speak about. But what we can grasp here, and it's nothing new, is that the British are world leading creating heroes of themselves for themselves.

[@sandydennylives1392]

Well we did have 200 much better bombes that took minutes to decode and covered all theaters of the war and they did shorten the war by two years and save around 20 million lives and with Turing being at the tip of the spear I think he totally deserves his hero status.

[@ar2rgski]

@@sandydennylives1392 Well, the British did not decipher ENIGMA and did not build replica, but the Poles few years earlier, which was more difficult. The British "got finished product" and "only" continued their good work and in creating national heroes they are "WORLD CHAMPIONS" Greetings from Germany

[@sandydennylives1392]

@@ar2rgski They actually did old boy, and a lot more. After the 100 or so Turing Bombes were reading general messages they invented the first computer in the world to read the Lorenz machines of the high command. All this mean't that your great grandfather's generation couldn't extent the war for another year or two with millions more lives lost. Unlike the world's response to Covid 19, with 18 million lives lost and counting.

[@peterjackson4763]

@@ar2rgski It wasn't "finished product". The British Bombes were an improvement on the Polish Bombas, being faster and more flexible, The Germans changed their procedures in 1940 which stopped the Polish methods from working. The British devised techniques to get them to work again. Then there was the more complicated 4 rotor naval code used by the German Navy.

[@peterjackson4763]

The British rejected the commercial Enigma as being insecure and developed their own machines. It was the Germans who made the British out to be the greatest intelligence service. At the start of WW1 the British arrested every German agent in Britain. The German intelligence service thought we are good so the British must be fantastic to beat us. In actuality the German intelligence service had made a simple error which allowed the very small British counter-intelligence service MI5 (8 men) to find all their agents. MI5 had the power to order the interception of mail. One German agent asked suspicious questions. His mail was intercepted. He was sending reports to an address in Belgium. Mail to that address was intercepted. It turned out that all German agents in Britain were sending their reports to the same address. This was of course kept secret for a long time and the German intelligence service made basically the same mistake in WW2 - not keeping networks independent.

[@andrewjost6714]

Thank you for the detailed education on the history! Very interesting and good to know truly how much the Polish mathematicians and cryptologists really contributed to our western success in overcoming Nazism!

[@maciejszpalerski3351]

All put out right, at last!

[@its1110]

Most of this has been well known and discussed by those in the know for 40-plus years. The book The Ultra Secret was published in the 70s. It certainly covers the work of the Poles and French. But of course... Hollywood.

[@First_Principals]

Someone needs to write a book about the history of mathematics from the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900 until the year 2000. The David Hilbert questions at the conference had a huge impact on mathematics and the advances in technology we have seen since 1900, all based on maths. The polish started specialising in mathematics in 1917.

[@szymonjarczewski3709]

There were great polish matematicians but there was no Poland prior to 1917.

[@dragade101]

Very interesting. Kind of interesting retracing some of these physical places and understanding the associated history. I wonder if there is any significance with Kings Langley, just outside of Felden but maybe I'm reading into the reuse of land too deeply.

[@tadeuszdolkowski]

Thank you.

[@praeparatus_supervivet]

This and the Lorentz machine and Swedish scientist Arne Beurling that broke the decoding of the Geheimfernscreiber were very important for intelligence. People talk a lot about the war machines and soldiers but this is so important to be able to know what the enemy is planning.

[@grahamwood333]

The Lorentz code was broken by a chap called Tut ?

[@user-wp9ds1ce6b]

Yes you are right the Swedish mathematician and cryptographer Arne Beurling was able to decipher the first versions of the T-52 machine a much more complicated machine than Enigma using only pen and paper something Tut did as well later with the Lorentz. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_and_Halske_T52 I love these mechanical machines they were truly amazing as well as the mathematicians that were able to analyze how they worked without ever even having seen one for real.

[@warhurst1968]

50.53 "you go to the movies for entertainment, you don't go for historical education" but you might just be getting washed in false belief and propaganda.

[@pawelpap9]

Only if you are so dumb to believe movies are history lectures.

[@warhurst1968]

@@pawelpap9 Sadly that's often the case.

[@mikekenney1947]

In graduate school in the 70’s, before the official secrets act expired, Alan Turing was the darling of systems management thinkers for his deterministic models. When his involvement with Enigma was made known there was a significant quantity of misinformation, lifestyle innuendo, and political spin. Glad to see real story coming into focus.

[@snakebezant]

Excellent talk. Thank you.