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In Reply to: RE: Also take a look at the Codebreaker posted by Victor Khomenko on December 29, 2014 at 07:27:53
They would not have broken enigma without Turing's insight that they needed a message with some known phrase or phrases, like weather and Heil, Hitler, in irder to dramatically reduce the number of possible keys his machine had to sift through. In other words. Turng was indispensable.
Follow Ups:
"German military texts enciphered on the Enigma machine were first broken by the Polish Cipher Bureau, beginning in December 1932. This success was a result of efforts by three Polish cryptologists, Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski, working for Polish military intelligence. Rejewski "reverse-engineered" the device, using theoretical mathematics and material supplied by French military intelligence. Subsequently the three mathematicians designed mechanical devices for breaking Enigma ciphers, including the cryptologic bomb. From 1938 onwards, additional complexity was repeatedly added to the Enigma machines, making decryption more difficult and necessitating larger numbers of equipment and personnel—more than the Poles could readily produce."And more:
"During the Second World War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre. For a time he led Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including improvements to the pre-war Polish bombe method, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine."
He was certainly responsible for catching up with the more advanced German models, but the Poles built the foundation, their work was first.
Edits: 12/29/14
This was the new Unbreakable Enigma, not the older one. It's a whole new ball game. If the Poles were so great why couldn't they crack the new Enigma? Because they couldn't. The Poles had a much or more to loose than the Brits so obviously they must have been trying.
The basic principle of the Enigma has not changes, there were extra layers added (extra wheels and the programming board), dramatically increasing the complexity. At some point it simply exceeded the capabilities of the Polish specialists and their equipment, plus they were under the occupation.
Point is - the Turing's contribution was based on previous work, so it is right to give the credit where it is due. Like the Apollo flight could not have happened without the Mercury, most technical breakthroughs rely on achievements of others.
In addition, while the Enigma work rightly took plenty of limelight, I am not sure it was his main contribution to science - the computing machines might be that.
No one is arguing that his enigma work was his main contribution to science. It stopped the war and probably saved millions of lives. Forget science. By the way the movie was very clear about the contribution of the Poles. Recall that was the big expenditure, for 300 new Polish machines. That is also documented.
It certainly made the contribution, but it was the toil of the soldiers that really stopped the war.
I think you might have missed the whole point of the movie. And of the significance of breaking Enigma. In the movie MI6 agrees to keep the whole thing secret and not tip their hand. That's why it took so long, two years or whatever, for the war to end. But it was the big battles like Normandy that we won due to the intelligence gotten from cracking Enigma. But others battles we lost because MI6 did not provide intelligence for all battles, only a statistical sampling worked out by, guess who? Turning.
Two awful awful actors, and the Hollywood production... gee... thanks!
Yeah, I hear ya, but I'm not arguing the merits of the movie....
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