How The Enigma Machine Worked, In One Infographic

The release of the film , The Imitation Game , about the life story and workplace of Alan Turing , pep up the Guardian to publishthis descriptionof how the German encoding machine worked — and why , like all adept cryptography , it was a dim-witted concept that was a incubus to intermit .

Part mechanically skillful , part electrical , Enigma reckon like an oversized typewriter . Input the first letter of your message on the keyboard , and then a letter lights up revealing what it has been put back with in the encrypted message :

Inside the box , the system is build around three physical rotors . Each occupy in a letter and outputs it as a unlike one . That letter passes through all three rotor , bounce off a “ reflecting telescope ” at the end , and hap back through all three rotor in the other direction .

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The control board lights up to show the encrypted turnout , and the first of the three rotor clicks round one location – changing the outturn even if the second letter comment is the same as the first one .

When the first rotor has turned through all 26 view , the 2d rotor coil clicks round , and when that ’s made it round off all the direction , the third does the same , leading to more than 17,000 different combinations before the encryption appendage repeat itself . sum up to the scrambling was a patchboard , sitting between the primary rotor and the stimulus and output , which swop pairs of letters . In the earliest machines , up to six distich could be swapped in that agency ; later models advertise it to 10 , and added a 4th rotor coil .

Thanks to the reflecting telescope , decoding was the same as encoding the textual matter , but in reverse . But that reflecting telescope also extend to the defect in Enigma , and the basis on which all computer code breaking travail were launch : no missive would ever be encoded as itself . With that knowledge , as well as an educated guessing at what might be encrypted in some of the messages , it was potential to eliminate thousands of possible rotor coil positions .

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