Here beginuth my research for on going project. Im starting work on a 'Make your own Adventure' type book. Something like an untold story and game combined.
ENIGMA, an encryption device built by the Nazis during WW2 to send secret messages to each other functioned by means of a series or rotors which shuffle up the alphabet 'at random'. A=L, B=W for example to encrypt a message in what is reffered to as a
polyalphabetic substitution cipher. What made Enigma powerful was that its electromechanical innards contained a gearing system that would re-shuffle the order after every letter typed - one or more rotors would step before the electrical connections were made, so that each letter of every word of a message was encrypted- the letters were re-scrambling if you like. This would be de-coded on the receiving by means of calculations by another machine on the same setting- obeying the same mathematical rule.
Of course, seeing as it is a machine, it is NOT a producer of infinitely random disarrangments. There were a finite number of scramblings it could perform, thus it is determinable, decipherable and was defeated by the Codebreaking team of the Allied forces in
Bletchley Park UK.
The successor of The Wehrmacht Enigma variant, was the
LORENZ cipher, which had 12 rotors rather than Enigma's 3. It was of course, also finite in its ability to shuffle and its psyedorandom powers were, of course, crackable. The Lorenz was vanquished by the Allies as a result of the creation of the very first programmable, digital, electronic, computing device -
COLLOSUS! Colossus was designed by engineer
Tommy Flowers of the
Post Office Research Station at
Dollis Hill and a collective of rather wonderful people from Bletchly Park. Clever Tommy Flowers and clever Alan Turing, also of Bletchly Park who made the
TURING MACHINE ( I will look at this later).
Its a very interesting slither of history which I recommend EVERYONE to read about. But moving on...
TATJANA VAN VARK: Her work is worth looking at!
Other things to look into: Jefferson disks and the Antikythera Mechanism.
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