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back to article GCHQ to encrypt your tweets with Enigma - for science

The Enigma code, once used by the Nazis to send secret military commands, will be used by visitors to the Cheltenham Science Fair next week to send tweets. In a celebratory code-cracking session to mark 100 years since Alan Turing's birth, GCHQ has lent out one of its Enigma coding machines to the Science Fair from 12 to 17 …

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  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Headmaster

    El Reg standard are slipping

    The headline should capitally say "...for SCIENCE!!"

    I do not consider this a triumph.

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  2. g e

    And finally...

    Buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters...

    We thank you, Douglas Adams.

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  3. Stoneshop
    Headmaster

    Less sense?

    On the contrary, a lot of tweets would gain comprehensibility by being run through Enigma.

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  4. Craig 8
    Stop

    Where are they going to get the cribs?

    To use a Turing Bombe to crack an Enigma message, you require a "crib" (some known plaintext of the message). Are they going to add a fixed preamble to every message to provide that crib, then? (e.g. "Cheltenham Science Fair: ...") I think it's only fair to disclose that, as otherwise the educational point is missed, i.e. that the Bombes weren't magic and weren't even computers, they just tested all the possible rotor orders and positions.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The Enigma code was developed by the Germans just after the WWI"

    It is accurately referred to by historians as 'The Great War'.

    The conflict of 1914-1918 is not known as 'the WWI'.

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    1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Headmaster

      Re: "The Enigma code was developed by the Germans just after the WWI"

      WWI is in the Concise Oxford Dictionary. Until 1939 it was referred to as the Great War or the World War. Only after WWII did the phrase WWI become commonplace.

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      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Reply Icon
        Headmaster

        World Wide Idocy

        Also known as the "Great War for Civilization" or the "War to End all Wars".

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      2. Jess
        Reply Icon

        Re: "The Enigma code was developed by the Germans just after the WWI"

        Surely "WW1" or "The 1st World War" not "THE WW1"

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        1. Robert G Ward
          Reply Icon
          Coat

          Re: "The Enigma code was developed by the Germans just after the WWI"

          But what does the Wantage Womens Institute have to do with this?

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  6. Graham Hawkins

    Only after WWII did the phrase WWI become commonplace...

    ...and even then, without the use of the definite article.

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well, you know what they say...

    "Hjuyi djduy kklwy iotus nksgt ppwut 4hjsf nmno2" Lol

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    1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Joke

      Re: Well, you know what they say...

      Don't be silly! It is never that small

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    2. Graham Marsden
      Reply Icon
      Pirate

      Re: Well, you know what they say...

      jwiaz pwmql !

      Pistols at dawn, Sir!

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    3. Simon Harris
      Reply Icon
      Headmaster

      Re: Well, you know what they say...

      "Hjuyi djduy kklwy iotus nksgt ppwut 4hjsf nmno2"

      Obviously, not a navy man!

      (and numerals never appeared in Enigma code).

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      1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Well, you know what they say...

        You lot still using a three wheel system?

        thrwt wyndr plctb fvwhl

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    4. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Well, you know what they say...

      This is a really good idea. The resulting silence would be deafening.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If it was reall for science

    They would be working on AES 1024 !

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  9. daveeff

    Not to diss Mr T but I thought the Poles "invented" the bombe:

    >> It was a substantial development from a device that had been designed in 1938 by Polish Cipher Bureau cryptologist Marian Rejewski, and known as the "cryptologic bomb" (Polish: "bomba kryptologiczna"). <<

    & thats wikipedia so it must be right!

    Or

    >>Before World War II, Polish crypto-analysts had already designed an electro-mechanical machine to test Enigma rotor settings called a ‘Bomba’. However, in December 1938 the German military changed their system slightly thus thwarting the Poles’ ability to decrypt Enigma messages.<<

    that's from http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/content/machines.rhtm which may be more reliable.

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