Re: The Enigma Cipher

dsr_at_Florence.edu
Date: 01/22/04 

Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 19:38:05 GMT

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:19:06 GMT, jsavard@ecn.aSBLOKb.caNADA.invalid
(John Savard) wrote:

>On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 15:18:11 GMT, dsr@Florence.edu wrote, in part:
>
>>Certainly would create some revisionist history if it could be proven
>>that the enigma was not intended to protect messages long term
>>wouldn't it?
>
>The Enigma was definitely intended to protect messages from being
>read, at least in the short term. It was one of the key elements of
>the Blitzkrieg strategy: allowing units to coordinate attacks that are
>unpredictable to the enemy.
>
>Authentication is a side-effect of most traditional forms of
>encryption, even if today's XOR stream ciphers don't offer it. I don't
>think it makes sense to claim that secrecy was not the primary goal of
>Enigma encryption; but that authentication, as a benefit, was also
>appreciated is true enough.
>
>The Enigma was designed to keep messages as secure as was reasonably
>practical, and improvements were continuously being made, despite the
>fact that the Germans believed it was not broken. Two systems of
>teletypewriter encryption were used for the highest security messages,
>the Schlusselzusatz (Tunny) and the Geheimscrhreiber (Sturgeon), and
>the latter was not a priority of the British because the messages sent
>over it were also sent by Enigma.
>
>So I don't think the historical evidence agrees with the idea that the
>Enigma was regarded as a low-grade secrecy system either, let alone
>the idea that it was primarily intended for authentication.
>
>John Savard
>http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

I guess it was just those grade school lockers they made me keep my
history books in that gave me the idea it was a low-grade security
system..

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