Transcript 0:00 · foreign 0:04 · [Music] 0:11 · Turing I've been invited here to Trinity 0:14 · College Dublin by the polish Embassy to 0:17 · give the wukashevich lecture this year 0:21 · and this is on the subject of the Enigma 0:24 · machine and the Polish contribution to 0:25 · Breaking that machine and essentially 0:28 · giving the British code breaking effort 0:31 · a leg up in World War II 0:33 · while the achievements the the British 0:36 · code Breakers made at Bletchley Park 0:38 · were very amazing and and fantastic and 0:41 · contributed a great deal to the Allies 0:44 · success in World War II that was all 0:46 · founded on the groundwork that have been 0:50 · done by a group of Polish mathematicians 0:53 · hired by the Polish Military 0:55 · Intelligence as early as 1930 and the 1:00 · great thing that the Polish 1:00 · mathematicians are able to do and so 1:03 · they first of all reverse engineered the 1:05 · machine so they were able to construct 1:07 · their own fake Enigma machines that's 1:09 · pretty astonishing and they've done that 1:10 · by 1932 1:13 · and then secondly they started working 1:15 · on this problem about how you can 1:16 · actually figure out what the settings 1:18 · are that were being used every day and 1:20 · they found solutions for that and they 1:21 · built machines to help them do that it 1:24 · was just an astonishing achievement and 1:25 · they've done all that before World War 1:27 · II began 1:29 · and then I think the most remarkable 1:31 · thing of all happened which is that they 1:33 · decided to share this Priceless 1:35 · intelligence with two very unreliable 1:38 · allies the French and the British and 1:41 · they just basically gifted this 1:43 · information this product of six and a 1:46 · half years of hard work and know-how to 1:48 · their allies and if they had not done 1:51 · that 1:52 · I'm sure it would have delayed very 1:54 · significantly the code breaking effort 1:56 · at Bletchley Park and what consequences 1:59 · that would have had for the history of 2:02 · World War II are really quite unpleasant 2:05 · to think about 2:07 · [Music] 2:08 · so it was lovely being here at uh 2:11 · Trinity it's my first proper visit to 2:14 · Trinity College Dublin so it's the first 2:15 · time I've actually been inside lovely 2:18 · audience the lecture theater was full we 2:20 · had lots of people very enthusiastic 2:22 · lots of questions lots of people who 2:25 · were sort of interested in the subject 2:27 · absolutely fantastic yeah really 2:28 · friendly great place to be 2:35 · foreign 2:37 · [Music]
Putrid crap!
Rewriting history goes on and on and on...
No subject, person. or organization is sacrosanct...
bttt
American Joe Desch and a team hidden in the National Cash Register building in Dayton Ohio along with a team in the U.S. Naval Computing Machine Laboratory built electro-mechanical computers to decipher transmissions from the four rotor Enigma machines.
https://prc68.com/I/NCR.shtml
Enigma was a simple XOR crypto system that required a truly random number generator and adherence to secure protocol to operate well... they had neither.
No programmed or mechanical system to generate random bits is possible, these are Pseudo-Random Number Generators (PRNG) it requires a quantum level source of randomness such as Brownian motion or something very simple like diode noise or a natural phenomenon like weather or cosmic background radiation sampling (TRNG)
When you are faced with breaking a crypto system that is well designed and implemented you must look to human failure to get into it...
Numbers stations that send out broadcasts to distant operatives are generally based on XOR principles and cannot be broken by any computational means, no matter how powerful... even a quantum qubit based system has zero chance of breaking a well executed XOR system... this is because ALL possible decryptions of the data are equally possible and the correct key cannot be determined by any computational means.
XOR methods are handicapped by the fact that the key MUST be generated by a quantum-level random bit sequence. The plaintext can be anything at all and matches the key in length. The system is unwieldly since you cannot possibly remember such a long key, thus it has to exist in the device that performs the encryption... but the introduction of cheap SD memory has mitigated this problem a great deal since it can hold an enormous number of bits that comprise XOR random keys and as the keys are used they can be instantly erased so the individual messages that are sent from such a device cannot EVER be recovered by technical means once the message is sent and received and the key is erased.
It is best to use XOR methods to transfer keys for Symmetric key algorithms such as AES instead of wasting your stored random data to transfer the actual plaintext. A device with just a few GB of random data can easily transfer a staggering amount of data with near absolute security... any security failure will be due to poor implementation and human factors.
The introduction of quantum computing will introduce weakness into public key crypto systems and we will have to resort to XOR methods for high-security applications even though such systems will require returning to the use of key exchanges to function... it is what it is :-( but large SD cards at least means the key exchange only need be done once since you can send an enormous number of symmetric keys with just a TB of random XOR key data... but the bank of XOR bits must remain secure!
Public key encryption is so handy! It will be difficult to abandon it for data requiring absolute security... it will still be suitable for everyday purposes that do not require a level of security that only a nation-state can break... i.e. the data can be decrypted by a major power but not by an individual or small group.. safe against crooks but not the government.
Turing
I’ve been invited here to Trinity College Dublin by the polish Embassy to give the Wukashevich lecture this year and this is on the subject of the Enigma machine. And the Polish contribution to breaking that machine. And essentially giving the British code breaking effort a leg up in World War II.
While the achievements the the British code Breakers made at Bletchley Park were very amazing and fantastic and contributed a great deal to the Allies
success in World War II. That was all founded on the groundwork that have been done by a group of Polish mathematicians hired by the Polish Military Intelligence as early as 1930. And the great thing that the Polish mathematicians are able to do.
And so, they first of all reverse engineered the machine so they were able to construct their own fake Enigma machines. That’s pretty astonishing and they’ve done that by 1932.
And then secondly, they started working on this problem about how you can actually figure out what the settings are that were being used every day. And they found solutions for that. And they built machines to help them do that. It was just an astonishing achievement and they’ve done all that before World War II began.
And then, I think the most remarkable thing of all happened, which is that they decided to share this Priceless intelligence with two very unreliable allies, the French and the British. And they just basically gifted this information, this product of six and a half years of hard work and know-how to their allies. And if they had not done that, I’m sure it would have delayed very significantly the code breaking effort at Bletchley Park. And what consequences that would have had for the history of World War II, are really quite unpleasant to think about.
So, it was lovely being here at uh Trinity. It’s my first proper visit to Trinity College Dublin. So, it’s the first time I’ve actually been inside lovely audience. The lecture theater was full. We had lots of people very enthusiastic, lots of questions, lots of people who were sort of interested in the subject. Absolutely fantastic. Yeah really friendly great place to be foreign.
Ok, I read about this in the 80s. I know I did because I wrote a research paper on it. One of the books I used was "A Man Called Intrepid" which I think was where I got it from but it might have been another book. My point is, if, as a ninth grader living in a non-English speaking country with limited resources, I knew this it is well nigh impossible for this not to be common knowledge.
Is this one of those things that is just regarded as "new" because they have eliminated all history written before 2017?
bfl