headers
Frode Weierud | 4 Dec 2002 14:26
Picon
Picon

Rejewski on Breaking the Enigma Cipher

I should like to draw your attention to a transcription of
Marian Rejewski's paper "An Application of the Theory of
Permutations in Breaking the Enigma Cipher" first published
in Applicaciones Mathematicae, vol. 16, No. 4, Warzaw 1980.
The transcription has been made by Enrico Grigolon and
permission to publish the paper on my Crypto Web page has
been obtained from the The Institute of Mathematics of the
Polish Academy of Sciences who is the sole copyright holder.

The paper, which is in Adobe PDF, can be downloaded from the
section Historical Papers on my Crypto Web page:
http://home.cern.ch/frode/crypto

Frode

        Frode Weierud           Phone  : +41 22 7674794
        CERN, SL,               Fax    : +41 22 7679185
        CH-1211 Geneva 23,      E-mail : Frode.Weierud@...,
        Switzerland                      Frode.Weierud@...
                                WWW    : http://home.cern.ch/frode/
Permalink | Reply | 10 comments |
headers
Eugene Griessel | 4 Dec 2002 14:52
Picon

Re: Rejewski on Breaking the Enigma Cipher

On 4 Dec 02, at 14:26, Frode Weierud wrote:

> I should like to draw your attention to a transcription of
> Marian Rejewski's paper "An Application of the Theory of

Something I have been meaning to clear up for some time, who named the
"bombe" (or bomba) - was it Rejewski?  Or was it Rozycki?  And why?
Was it the ticking of a time bomb or the icecream desert which lent it's
name to the device?

Eugene L Griessel                 Dynagen E-Mail Systems Administrator
eugene@...                                     (021) 7891252

http://www.dynagen.co.za/eugene

Fortune Cookie:
    Behind every great man is a great woman.
    Behind every great woman is a great behind.
    -- anonymous male chauvinist
Permalink | Reply | 8 comments |
headers
Graham Ellsbury | 4 Dec 2002 21:44
Favicon

Re: Rejewski on Breaking the Enigma Cipher

Well done Frode - this paper deserves a wider audience.

Bearing the title 'The Mathematical Solution of the Enigma Cipher' the paper
appears in a more complete form and with a different translation as Appendix
E in 'Enigma' by Wladyslaw Kozaczuk published in English by University
Publications of America in 1984.

The main text of the book itself is at best unimpressive but the book is
nonetheless to be highly valued for its six appendices, three of which are
by Rejewski. The last I heard the print run for the book had not completely
sold out.

Graham Ellsbury

----------------------------------------------------------

> I should like to draw your attention to a transcription of
> Marian Rejewski's paper "An Application of the Theory of
> Permutations in Breaking the Enigma Cipher" first published
> in Applicaciones Mathematicae, vol. 16, No. 4, Warzaw 1980.
> The transcription has been made by Enrico Grigolon and
> permission to publish the paper on my Crypto Web page has
> been obtained from the The Institute of Mathematics of the
> Polish Academy of Sciences who is the sole copyright holder.
>
> The paper, which is in Adobe PDF, can be downloaded from the
> section Historical Papers on my Crypto Web page:
> http://home.cern.ch/frode/crypto
>
> Frode
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Frode Weierud | 6 Dec 2002 14:39
Picon
Picon

Re: Rejewski on Breaking the Enigma Cipher

This is recurrent question and one that I am afraid we probably never will
get completely resolved. What has always puzzled me is that Marian
Rejewski never seems to have given any real importance to the name
Bomba. It was Wladyslaw Kozaczuk who first came with the story of the
Bomba ice cream but as far as I know Rejewski himself never seems to have
mentioned it to others.

To confuse you further I will repeat here something I posted on the USENET
group sci.crypt in August this year.

----------------------
The origin of the name Bombe has not been established satisfactorily.
It is most likely that it is a derivative of the name the Poles used
for a machine similar to the Turing/Welchman key finding machine and
which they called the Bomba. The origin of the name Bomba is also
vague. The story which seems to get most credit is that it was named
after a Polish ice cream of the name Bomba which the Polish crypt-
analysts Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki and Henryk Zygalski were
eating when they had the idea of the Bomba machine.

In an American history of the origin of Bombes there is a reference
to the origin of the name Bomba. It does not mention an ice creams
but rather refer to a weight that would drop of the machine when the
machine found a hit. The dropping of the weight would then stop the
machine. So, it say, Bomba came from dropping the bomb or weight.

I don't have any knowledge of Polish but apparently Bomba in Polish
also can mean bomb. As the American cryptanalysts who wrote this
history probably had this from somebody at Bletchley Park, who
perhaps did not have any direct contact with the Poles, it is
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 7 comments |
headers
John Harper - Bombe Rebuild Project | 6 Dec 2002 15:04
Picon
Picon

Re: Rejewski on Breaking the Enigma Cipher

Dear Frode and others.

Reference the American history below.

Just to say that when a British Bombe stops it sounds nothing like a
falling weight. The nearest I can describe it is to liken it to a heavy
metal dor banging shut. The noise is generated when the clutch is
de-energised and allows a hooked end to 'grab' one of the four rotating
projections. This happens with a lot of force and in the process drags
the drive pawl out of its ratchet and locks itself up.

Mind you I have no idea what noise the Polish Bombe made when it
stopped. I doubt if there is anybody alive to tell us.

My understanding from Phil Bochicchio is that the American Bombe did not
come to an abrupt stop so there was no particulr sound to indicate this.

All the best

>This is recurrent question and one that I am afraid we probably never will
>get completely resolved. What has always puzzled me is that Marian
>Rejewski never seems to have given any real importance to the name
>Bomba. It was Wladyslaw Kozaczuk who first came with the story of the
>Bomba ice cream but as far as I know Rejewski himself never seems to have
>mentioned it to others.
>
>To confuse you further I will repeat here something I posted on the USENET
>group sci.crypt in August this year.
>
>----------------------
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Eugene Griessel | 6 Dec 2002 16:47
Picon

Re: Rejewski on Breaking the Enigma Cipher

On 6 Dec 02, at 14:04, John Harper - Bombe Rebuild Project wrote:

> Dear Frode and others.
>
> Reference the American history below.
>
> Just to say that when a British Bombe stops it sounds nothing like a
> falling weight. The nearest I can describe it is to liken it to a heavy
> metal dor banging shut. The noise is generated when the clutch is
> de-energised and allows a hooked end to 'grab' one of the four rotating
> projections. This happens with a lot of force and in the process drags
> the drive pawl out of its ratchet and locks itself up.
>
> Mind you I have no idea what noise the Polish Bombe made when it
> stopped. I doubt if there is anybody alive to tell us.
>
> My understanding from Phil Bochicchio is that the American Bombe did not
> come to an abrupt stop so there was no particulr sound to indicate this.

My readings (and I may be totally wrong on this point) have led me to
believe that the Polish machine was fairly small, compared to the British
and later American Bombes.  I seem to recall reading somewhere that it
would fit on a table (does this make it the first desktop?) - anyone perhaps
have dimensions?

Eugene L Griessel                 Dynagen E-Mail Systems Administrator
eugene@...                                     (021) 7891252

http://www.dynagen.co.za/eugene
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Tony Sale | 6 Dec 2002 18:50
Picon
Picon

Bomb-e-a

Dear All,
The name for the Polish machine was Bomba and the ice-cream story is
correct as confirmed in a letter from Marian Rejewski to Henryk Zygalski
in about 1980 and now in the possession of Zygalski's daughter (niece?)
Mrs Zygalski-Cannon.

The British name "Bombe" was derived, quite independently from the
Polish name, almost certainly by Dilly Knox probably in 1938.
(Although it might have been Hugh Foss arising from his breaking of
Enigma in 1937. Details now in the PRO)
Turing in his "Treatise" talks about constatations of plain text/cipher
text pairs and says about one pattern, "half-bombes as they are rather
absurdly called". (Frode's reproduction Chapter 3 Frode Page 17, further
references pages 19 and 28.)

I assume Turing just took over this name for his later machine.

The sketch drawn from memory by Rejewski indicates that the bomba was
not very large.

regards--
Tony Sale
Permalink | Reply | 4 comments |
headers
Eugene Griessel | 6 Dec 2002 19:26
Picon

Re: Bomb-e-a

On 6 Dec 02, at 17:50, Tony Sale wrote:

> The name for the Polish machine was Bomba and the ice-cream story is
> correct as confirmed in a letter from Marian Rejewski to Henryk Zygalski
> in about 1980 and now in the possession of Zygalski's daughter (niece?)
> Mrs Zygalski-Cannon.
>
> The British name "Bombe" was derived, quite independently from the
> Polish name, almost certainly by Dilly Knox probably in 1938.
> (Although it might have been Hugh Foss arising from his breaking of
> Enigma in 1937. Details now in the PRO)
> Turing in his "Treatise" talks about constatations of plain text/cipher
> text pairs and says about one pattern, "half-bombes as they are rather
> absurdly called". (Frode's reproduction Chapter 3 Frode Page 17, further
> references pages 19 and 28.)
>
> I assume Turing just took over this name for his later machine.

> The sketch drawn from memory by Rejewski indicates that the bomba was
> not very large.

Thank you Tony,

I regard this as near an oracular pronouncement on the subject of the
"bomba" or "bombe" as we are likely to get.  Where did the ticking time
bomb theory come from?  Even Kahn perpetuates it, albeit qualified with a
"maybe".  My contention is that the thing was named before any actually
ran - so how were they to know that it made a ticking noise?  Do you know
if any copies of Rejewski's sketch are available anywhere?
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 3 comments |
headers
Tony Sale | 6 Dec 2002 22:01
Picon
Picon

Re: Bomb-e-a

In message <200212061822.gB6IMwJ27698@...>, Eugene
Griessel <eugene@...> writes
>On 6 Dec 02, at 17:50, Tony Sale wrote:
>
>> The name for the Polish machine was Bomba and the ice-cream story is
>> correct as confirmed in a letter from Marian Rejewski to Henryk Zygalski
>> in about 1980 and now in the possession of Zygalski's daughter (niece?)
>> Mrs Zygalski-Cannon.
>>
>> The British name "Bombe" was derived, quite independently from the
>> Polish name, almost certainly by Dilly Knox probably in 1938.
>> (Although it might have been Hugh Foss arising from his breaking of
>> Enigma in 1937. Details now in the PRO)
>> Turing in his "Treatise" talks about constatations of plain text/cipher
>> text pairs and says about one pattern, "half-bombes as they are rather
>> absurdly called". (Frode's reproduction Chapter 3 Frode Page 17, further
>> references pages 19 and 28.)
>>
>> I assume Turing just took over this name for his later machine.
>
>> The sketch drawn from memory by Rejewski indicates that the bomba was
>> not very large.
>
>Thank you Tony,
>
>I regard this as near an oracular pronouncement on the subject of the
>"bomba" or "bombe" as we are likely to get.  Where did the ticking time
>bomb theory come from?  Even Kahn perpetuates it, albeit qualified with a
>"maybe".  My contention is that the thing was named before any actually
>ran - so how were they to know that it made a ticking noise?  Do you know
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Ralph Erskine | 8 Dec 2002 21:43
Picon

Re: Bomb-e-a

At 21:01 06/12/02 +0000, Tony Sale wrote:

...

>>> The British name "Bombe" was derived, quite independently from the
>>> Polish name, almost certainly by Dilly Knox probably in 1938.
>>> (Although it might have been Hugh Foss arising from his breaking of
>>> Enigma in 1937. Details now in the PRO) ...

>>> I assume Turing just took over this name for his later machine.
...

I don't follow this, and wonder if Tony can add more.

Any 1937 or 1938 reference by Hugh Foss or Dilly Knox can scarcely have
referred to a machine.

In fact, Foss worked out methods to solve early commercial Enigma in 1927 -
not "1937" (which may be a typo).

The earliest reference (at least on file) by Knox to a bombe is probably in
a note dated 4 August 1939, very soon after the meeting with the Poles
outside Warsaw. This refers to the Polish "machine (Bombe)" which "at
present is not yielding results".

A document of 1 November 1939 signed by Knox, Gordon Welchman, Alan Turing
and Peter Twinn refers to "the machine now being made at Letchworth,
resembling but far larger than the Bombe of the Poles (superbombe machine)".

If GCCS had already used the term "bombe" in 1938, one would have expected
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 1 comment |

Gmane