If you think about military crypto machines, you probably think about the infamous Enigma machine. However, as [Christos T.] reminds us, there were many others and, in particular, the production of a “combined cipher” machine for the US and the UK to use for a variety of purposes.
The story opens in 1941 when ships from the United States and the United Kingdom were crossing the Atlantic together in convoys. The US wanted to use the M-138A and M-209 machines, but the British were unimpressed. They were interested in the M-134C, but it was too secret to share, so they reached a compromise.
Starting with a British Typex, a US Navy officer developed an attachment with additional rotors and converted the Typex into a CCM or Combined Cipher Machine. Two earlier verisons of the attachment worked with the M-134C. However the CSP 1800 (or CCM Mark III) was essentially the same unit made to attach to the Typex. Development cost about $6 million — a huge sum for the middle of last century.
By the end of 1943, there were enough machines to work with the North Atlantic convoys. [Christos] says at least 8,631 machines left the factory line. While the machine was a marvel, it did have a problem. With certain settings, the machine had a very low cipher period (338 compared to 16,900 for Enigma). This wasn’t just theoretical, either. A study showed that bad settings showed up seven times in about two months on just one secure circuit.
This led to operational changes to forbid certain settings and restrict the maximum message length. The machine saw service at the Department of State until 1959. There were several variations in use within NATO as late as 1962. It appears the Germans didn’t break CCM during the war, but the Soviets may have been able to decode traffic from it in the post-war period.
You can see a CCM/Typex combo in the video below from the Cryptomuseum. Of course, the Enigma is perhaps the most famous of these machines. These days, you can reproduce one easily.
“… the video below …”
MIA!
Now restored, thanks.
So in the end, is the enigma infamous or famous?
You can’t be infamous without being famous too, no? ;-)
Sure you can! “Infamous” just means having the quality of infamy, i.e. being reprehensible, which you can do without anyone knowing. It has nothing to do with fame other than the lexical coincidence.
(And the fact that it’s been misused as a synonym for “notorious” often enough that dictionaries now document this usage, since their job is to document what people are saying, even when they shouldn’t be)
No, I don’t think that you can be infamous without anyone knowing… It doesn’t seem to be applied to hidden or private events. “Having a reputation of the worst kind” implies that people know about it.
“…the state of being well known for some bad quality or deed.” It’s not really just a lexical coincidence either, coming from the same Latin etymology.. For ill-famed. It doesn’t just mean evil, it means of bad repute, which is all about the perception of many others.
Perhaps this video?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dG09jv3c1sE&t=1s&pp=2AEBkAIB
“These days, you can reproduce one easily.”
Pfft want security just buy an Atari 7800
960bit encrypted hash/checksum
Nobody has cracked it, they were able to sign valid cartridges after someone finding the 7800 development and signing tools in a trash can….
2048 or 4096 bit rsa or aes ain’t got nothing on enigma
Then take that encrypted shit and send it thru pgp
So you need two keyapair, and used in the right order.
Even if one is compromised they still have another migraine to deal wit😎