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Polish codebreakers 'cracked Enigma before Alan Turing'
- orionblastar 11y agoYes the Polish code breaking was underplayed in The Imitation Game and reduced to just one line. Turing built a more complex version of the Polish Bombie machine to crack a more complex version of Enigma.
- andrzejsz 11y agoDoesn't surprise me because only english are great :)
- keithpeter 11y agoMore to do with Hollywood wanting a short easy story. Much detail about the huge operation that did not involve the Turing character directly was left out or reduced. Most in the UK who have read anything about the use of cryptography in the second world war know about the Polish contribution. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28167071 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28167071 I've read most of Kahn's history of code breaking (2006 edition) which was originally written before the Bletchly Park project was publically acknowledged and I found out about the US cracking of Japanese codes using machine assistance but not what we would recognise now as an electronic computer. Kahn's book is handy for historical depth - this whole cryptography/cryptanalysis thing has been something of an arms race from the invention of radio onwards.
- kristopolous 11y agoI loved how they made it look like known plaintext cryptanalysis was some kind of breakthrough months in the process when the reality is that was the job description - the initial premise of bringing him onboard was based partially on that. KPAs date back to at least the 1800s and were at least well-documented by then, if not also well known. But really, that lovely movie messed with the timeline all over the place. I talked with the screenwriter at the Hammer museum about it ... he said "it makes a better story" without any reservations. I had to agree.
- jacquesm 11y agoBetter stories should not trump accuracy. After all future generations are likely to see this 'better story' as the real one, such accuracy should be preserved where possible.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- satori99 11y agoThis is a good short summary of the accomplishments of the WWII Polish code breakers; http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/virtualbp/poles/poles.htm http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/virtualbp/poles/poles.htm
- wildmXranat 11y agoThe Polish mathematicians were truly great. It was Rajewski and crew who broke the enigma codes.
- stevetrewick 11y agoLooked for a 1990s publishing date, but apparently this really is contemporary because : >Diplomats say Poland's key part in the deciphering the German system of codes in WWII has largely been overlooked Except for being mentioned, sometimes in great detail in every single account - popular and technical - I've ever read and underneath every internet article on Enigma since comments were invented and being basically the first thing any cipher geek brings up when Enigma is discussed anywhere on the planet. But apart from that, yeah, totally overlooked.
- MatthewWilkes 11y agoIn fairness, the polish contributions were completely sidelined in The Imitation Game.
- bowersbros 11y agoThat film was more a memorial towards Alan Turing though. It doesn't make a good memorial to say, 'These guys did it first'.
- DanBC 11y agoPolish contributions were ignored in the film U-571, which showed Americans recovering enigma machines before they entered the war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-571_(film)#Controversies_regarding_content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-571_(film)#Controversies_reg...
- codeulike 11y agothere is this line, when Turing is talking about his machine: "It’s inspired by an old Polish code machine, only infinitely more advanced. "
- colmvp 11y agoWouldn't be the first time Hollywood glossed over contributions for a better story. Regarding Argo: “In the movie, Canada and Ottawa didn’t exist,” said Kenneth D. Taylor, who was the Canadian ambassador to Iran at the time and helped six Americans who escaped from the American Embassy as it was overrun by militants to flee the country. “It’s a great film, it’s great. But at the same time it was a Canadian story that’s been, all of sudden, totally taken over by the Americans. Totally.”
- SixSigma 11y agoGood for them. Personally I feel the Entscheidungsproblem was more important work but that's not such a great story.
- OJFord 11y agoWas it? Or was just Turing's method import?
- gambiting 11y agoWell, it's the same as everyone using the name "Marie Curie" even though every Polish child will tell you her proper name was "Maria Skłodowska-Curie". Curie was her husband's name, and she explicitly used both names on all of her work, yet it's almost unknown that she was Polish in the West.
- tossaway1 11y agoTo be fair, Polish jokes don't work as well if they get a reputation as being smart.
- Practicality 11y agoYou probably don't want to use those jokes anyway: http://www.polamjournal.com/Library/Fighting_Defamation/The_Origin_of_the_Polish_Joke/the_origin_of_the_polish_joke.html http://www.polamjournal.com/Library/Fighting_Defamation/The_...
- cema 11y agoJokes do not work well in HN altogether, with few exceptions. Many people consider them not adding value to the conversation.
- hartpuff 11y ago> yet it's almost unknown that she was Polish in the West Sorry, this is complete nonsense. I can only speak as someone from the UK, but I'm willing to bet almost every schoolkid has heard of Marie Curie, and everyone who has heard of her knows that she discovered polonium and knows why it is called polonium. I'd be surprised to find out the rest of Western Europe is any different.
- ajdlinux 11y agoAustralian here, who did do the science electives in high school... I'm sure I must have read that she was Polish at various points, but I sure as heck didn't remember it until seeing the above comment...
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- ENTP 11y agoWhen I was at Bletchley 4 years ago, we were told all about the Polish mathematicians. There's even a statue/tribute to them there.
- munin 11y agoAnyone who wants more of a history of WW2 crypto that extends the cast of characters beyond Turing (and the cast was significant and varied) should read "Battle of Wits" (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0743217349 http://www.amazon.com/dp/0743217349) the historian who wrote it wrote it after a large NSA declassification in 1996. What's even more extreme about the Polish codebreakers, a story you would read in Battle of Wits, is that they were evacuated from Poland to France after the invasion of Poland, and then stayed in occupied France working in secret for the Allies as part of the occupation government. They posed to the occupation government as the occupation governments signals intelligence system but secretly supplied GC&CS with information they intercepted from the continent (which the Allies had a lot of trouble doing only from the UK). They did that for years, when they tried to evacuate themselves to Spain, a few of them were captured, interrogated, and did not give up the goods about either the invasion or the secret of Enigma. If you want wartime crypto heroes you would have a hard time doing better than Jerzy Różycki, Henryk Zygalski and Marian Rejewski.
- douche 11y agoI'll second the recommendation. That's a really fantastic book.
- rrauenza 11y agoAnother good book, but broader than just Enigma, The Code Book by Simon Singh: http://www.amazon.com/The-Code-Book-Science-Cryptography/dp/0385495323 http://www.amazon.com/The-Code-Book-Science-Cryptography/dp/...
- kyzyl 11y agoI'll second the recommendation. That's a really fantastic book.
- osullivj 11y agoMy understanding is that the Polish team cracked the three rotor Enigma. Turing & co extended that work to four rotor plus plug board.
- scardine 11y agoAccording to the wikipedia article[1], the Polish lacked resources to automate decryption once the Germans upgraded Enigma. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma#Polish_breakthrough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma#Po...
- agumonkey 11y agoThat's my understanding too. They got the basics, Turing worked on a more sophisticated problem derived from that.
- bewaretheirs 11y agoThey reverse-engineered the machine sight-unseen (determining the permutation wired into each rotor) and cracked the original way that per-message settings were sent. A daily key was used to encrypt the "indicator" which determined the initial state of the machine for the rest of the message. Initially, the indicator was repeated (ABCABC); it turns out that if you collect a bunch of indicators, this repeated structure allows you deduce the rotor wiring and also to determine what the key of the day is and thus read all the traffic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma#Rejewski.27s_characteristics_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma#Re... Gradual changes to German practices (different key management, additional rotors to choose from, etc.) increased the work required to the point where it was beyond the limited means of the Polish cryptographers alone, but shortly before the start of WWII they started working with French and British cryptographers and gave Bletchley Park a running start.
- Animats 11y agoExactly. The Polish cryptanalysts cracked the cypher, and even built the prototype bombe. But the technology had to be scaled up for production. That scaleup is the real story of WWII cryptanalysis. Prior to WWII, cryptanalysis had been a few people in offices working by hand. During WWII, on the Allied side it became an industrial operation. Bombe key-testers were built in quantity by the British Tabulating Machine Company and National Cash Register. They were spread around England, so that no one bombing raid could take out more than a few. The US had a big machine cryptanalysis operation at Arlington Hall, and another one in Hawaii. There were radio intercept stations all over Britain, and the US had ones on Pacific islands. See NSA's history of WWII cryptanalysis.[1] They credit the Poles; Turing gets a mention. Gordon Welchman's contribution, the "diagonal board", which reduced the effort required by a factor of 26, is seen as more significant. Turing didn't like the NCR machines. The British bombes just stopped when they got a hit, and someone had to copy down all the wheel positions by hand. NCR's machine was faster and had a printer. When the machine got a hit, it would go past the hit (because the contact drums were spinning too fast to stop instantly), back up, slowly go foward to find the hit again, stop, print the wheel positions, and restart. More automation followed. The Enigma was a hand machine, and someone had to copy the output by hand as the lamps lit up. The US cryptanalysis operation had a machine driven from paper tape to do that job, once the keys had been cracked. Turing thought this automation was unnecessary.[2] But once it was all working, info about German submarine positions was flowing through the system rapidly, and within months, so many German submarines had been sunk that Donetz abandoned the Battle of the Atlantic. It took a huge industrial operation to bring this off. [1] https://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/center_crypt_history/publications/wwii.shtml https://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/center_crypt_... [2] https://www.nsa.gov/about/_files/cryptologic_heritage/publications/wwii/solving_enigma.pdf https://www.nsa.gov/about/_files/cryptologic_heritage/public...
- cognivore 11y agoI originally learned about the Enigma from Len Deighton's "Blood, Tears, and Folly" (http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Tears-Folly-Objective-World/dp/0785811141 http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Tears-Folly-Objective-World/dp/0...). In it he doesn't even mention Turning, and gives full credit to the Polish code-breakers. I thought the recent focus on Turning was more of a "Hollywoodazation" of the event than anything else.
- anovikov 11y agoThey cracked only the older 3-wheel version of the machine. And their achievements were all well known to the Brits, they just didn't help after 4th and 5th wheel was added, along with other complications.
- ianopolous 11y agoMy grandfather worked at Bletchley park (used to play chess with Turing) and when he saw "The Imitation Game" he said it was nothing like working there. He said they were all much more respectful and wouldn't yell at each other like in the movie.
- hendekagon 11y agoIt was a shit movie, and in addition to the "team tensions" trope, apparently Turing wasn't ashamed of being gay at all Could you get your grandfather to blog his memories of Bletchley & Turing ? People would be fascinated
- ianopolous 11y agoI would love to, but sadly he died last year.
- hendekagon 11y agoah, sorry
- ianopolous 11y agoNot at all. You didn't know.
- mdn 11y agoMy Grandfather (Max Newman) was also at Bletchley Park. From 1942. Who was your Grandfather? Which Hut did he work in? Perhaps they met or knew each other.
- ianopolous 11y ago:-) His name was Gordon Preston. He also worked in the Newmanry, so yes they did work together! :-)
- gardano 11y agoMakes me want to re-read Cryptonomicon again. The Imitation Game movie was a disappointment to me, after having read that book -- but I have to admit I don't remember if the Polish contribution was mentioned in the book!
- wowoc 11y agoIt was mentioned in a few places, but very briefly as well. Which is a bummer because Neil Stephenson could've afforded to push a few details more into the story.
- stuxnet79 11y agoHaven't read a fiction book in over two months and I'm thinking of trying one out. Cryptonomicon has been in my Kobo for ages so it is going to be the next book I tackle after the current book I am reading. I guess I will be kind of cheating since Neil Stephenson's books tend to be well researched :) Hoping I can learn a few things from it. A lot of pages though :(
- mcguire 11y agoI realize most people are going to think of the Polish government as bandwagon jumping, but the more we can get past the simple fairy tale versions of history the better.
- jloughry 11y agoFrank Rowlett, a cryptanalyst breaking Japanese codes at the Navy Annexe in Washington in the 1930s, accidentally invented computers when he haywired some conditional branch circuits into an IBM card sorter [1]. He was only trying to solve his problem, and was working in a classified area, so almost no has heard of him today. There is a relevant xkcd, of course [2]. [1] Frank B. Rowlett, The Story of Magic: Memoirs of an American Cryptologic Pioneer, ISBN 978-0894122736 (1998) [2] https://xkcd.com/664/ https://xkcd.com/664/
- rusanu 11y agoEnigma: The Battle for the Code[0] is a very good read. It details the Polish achievements, the rush to save the Polish cryptographers out of France as the it was collapsing in 1940, and then goes into details with the many more details that gone into the cracking effort, besides Turing's team. Eg. tt shows the importance of weather report patterns in finding cribs that short-circuited the decryption (known clear text headers) and the importance of the submarine captured Enigma machines that showed the disk settings in the Navy setup (the Navy machine was much harder to crack than the Army ones). Not only a good read, but also very educating for anyone using cryptography today! [0] http://www.amazon.com/Enigma-Battle-Code-Hugh-Sebag-Montefiore-ebook/dp/B00D8DP3ZI http://www.amazon.com/Enigma-Battle-Code-Hugh-Sebag-Montefio...
- rusanu 11y agoWikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma also a lot of details
- mrsheen 11y agoteż mi nowość
- mrsheen 11y agoteż mi nowość
- ggchappell 11y agoThis seems a little odd. Yes, Alan Turing looms large in the public consciousness; his various Polish contemporaries, not so much. But to anyone who has looked into the history of these events, the work of the Polish is no secret, nor has their story been "lost". For example, some years ago I visited the National Cryptologic Museum[1] in Fort Meade, MD. They were very clear that the enigma code was cracked primarily through the efforts of Polish cryptologists. [1] Highly recommended. They have -- among many other interesting things -- an actual enigma machine, and they let you type on it! (Well, they let me type on it, anyway.)
- kybernetikos 11y agoBletchley Park has a memorial to the Polish codebreakers too. Another spot worth a visit. http://en.tracesofwar.com/article/11049/Polish-Memorial-Bletchley-Park.htm http://en.tracesofwar.com/article/11049/Polish-Memorial-Blet...
- lazyant 11y agoThere were different Enigma versions, even at the same time the different German organizations used simpler or more complicated versions (there were 4 or 5 iirc for Navy, Army etc) the Polish broke an earlier model and Turing's team broke the Navy one (more complicated than the one Polish broke, but simpler than others), why can't journalists read a book or ask someone who read a book before publishing?