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Enigma Machine

The document discusses the Enigma Machine, which was used during World War II to encrypt messages. It describes how earlier ciphers like the shift cipher worked by rotating letters of the alphabet, but had a limited number of possible keys. The Enigma Machine greatly increased security by using electromechanical rotor wheels to encrypt messages, resulting in over 158 quintillion possible keys, making the encrypted messages nearly uncrackable without the key settings.

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14 views11 pages

Enigma Machine

The document discusses the Enigma Machine, which was used during World War II to encrypt messages. It describes how earlier ciphers like the shift cipher worked by rotating letters of the alphabet, but had a limited number of possible keys. The Enigma Machine greatly increased security by using electromechanical rotor wheels to encrypt messages, resulting in over 158 quintillion possible keys, making the encrypted messages nearly uncrackable without the key settings.

Uploaded by

razvanitm
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Enigma Machine

Sending secret, “uncrackable” messages in World War II


Imagine you’re Britain in 1937…
You need a way to communicate with your armies

You can use a telegraph to send Morse


code over the radio, but the enemy
can intercept your messages

You need a way to encrypt your


messages so that only your armies and
your allies will understand

Enter… cryptography!
Some quick vocab
• Cryptography – the science of encrypting and decrypting messages
into cipher text
• Encryption – converting plain text into cipher text
• Decryption – converting cipher text into plain text
• Plain text – the original message that you can ready normally
• Cipher text – the secret message that you cannot read normally
• Key – the algorithm or settings used to encrypt and decrypt
The simplest cipher is a shift cipher
• Each letter maps to a new letter
• The letters stay in order – the key
is just a rotation (a shift) of the inner
wheel
• For example, if we shift from A on
the outer wheel lining up with A on
the inner wheel (key = 0) to A on the
outer wheel lining up with C on the
inner wheel…
The simplest cipher is a shift cipher
• The key is now 2, since A has been shifted
by 2 letters
• If we rotate further, so A is now lined
up with O (the fifteenth letter of the
alphabet)…
The simplest cipher is a shift cipher
• The key is now 15, since A has been
shifted by 15 letters
• Now let’s encrypt a message. The
plain text is “TROOPS TO POLAND”
• T on the outer wheel lines up with
H on the inner wheel
• R lines up with F
• O lines up with C…
The simplest cipher is a shift cipher
• “TROOPS TO POLAND” becomes
“HFCCDG HC DCZOBR” with key = 15
• If whoever receives that cipher text
has the key, they can decrypt it by
finding the letters on the inner wheel
• H on the inner wheel lines up with T
• F lines up with R
• C lines up with O…
Class practice!
• Decode this message:
“CSY KSX MX VMKLX”
• Note that the key is now 5
Now you will create your own cipher wheel
• Cut out the outer and inner wheels and connect them with a fastener
• Create a secret message and pass the cipher text and key to a partner
– make sure your message is school appropriate
• Decode your partner’s secret message using your own cipher wheel
The shift cipher is not very strong
• How many possible keys are there?
• How long do you think it would take to crack the algorithm, even if
you didn’t know the key?
• How could the cipher be strengthened?
158,962,555,217,826,360,000
• That’s how many different keys there are for the Enigma Machine
• Even if you cracked it in a day, the key would already have changed
• Compared to the 26 keys of the shift cipher, this certainly seems
nearly uncrackable

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