posted by
janrinok
on Saturday December 20 2014, @11:55PM
from the ANOEW-VSWO-GNQ-ZUIRJL-QDYNTBS dept.
from the ANOEW-VSWO-GNQ-ZUIRJL-QDYNTBS dept.
IEEE Spectrum has an article on building your own Enigma machine from a supplied kit:
Nearly a century after its invention, the electromechanical Enigma cipher machine still strikes a deep chord among the digerati. Used by the German military to encode communications in the run-up to and during World War II, the Enigma has achieved a mythic quality in computing history—the Medusa slain by the hero Turing with the new weapon of digital logic.
This is built around the kit from S&T GeoTronics, which was funded through a kickstarter in April.
Additional background on the Enigma machine from wikipedia and at Bletchley park, as well as a software emulated machine are also available for the curious.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 21 2014, @12:21AM
Can someone create a list of successful kistarter campaigns that lead to successful products? It seems like most every time someone starts a fundraising campaign on kickstarter and they meet their objectives instead of actually following through with their initial promise of introducing the promised product to market they simply start another kickstarter campaign with higher goals and ... pocket the original fundraising money?
(Score: 1) by f4r on Sunday December 21 2014, @02:27AM
Don't have a successful list, but I do know of http://www.kickended.com/ [kickended.com].
Do not use as directed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 21 2014, @02:49AM
These folks did a cellphone with the ideals of no conflict minerals and no unfair labor practices.
Fairphone [fairphone.com]
It was a pay-first operation. The goal was 5000 units. [fairphone.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Interesting) by martyb on Sunday December 21 2014, @02:45AM
Did anyone else notice the "dept" line for this story:
My attempt at a solution using an online solver (quipqiup [quipqiup.com] Pronounced 'kwip key-up') did not work out so well. Here are the top ten:
Yes, I *do* realize it could well be that it was just random uppercase letters put there in jest. On the other hand, maybe it wasn't? I am interested in seeing if anyone else attempted solving this and what results they had.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday December 21 2014, @06:23AM
Quite obviously, it is
BOYCE THEY FOR MAKING RUDOLPH
The key here being that Rudolph is both Germanic sounding and one of Santa's reindeer!
Or :
PASTY KEYS HAD MOVING DURABLE
Which sounds more on the topic, because enigma has movable keys that were pasted, or something.
Decryption depends on the assumption that the original message made sense, and this is not always a reasonable assumption. And besides, who would want an Enigma machine now that we have PGP? And didn't the Nazis lose the war?
(Score: 1) by treeves on Monday December 22 2014, @02:00AM
If it was a substitution cipher they used to generate the "Dept. Of" line that might have worked, but was not a simple substitution cipher.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday December 21 2014, @03:07PM
The crypto museum used to resell (sell?) a much cruder less realistic version, admittedly for about 1/10th the cost. Wonder whatever happened to that.
(Score: 2) by mrchew1982 on Monday December 22 2014, @03:44AM
This one isn't that realistic either, it uses electronic components to emulate the functions. I was hoping for a mechanical reproduction, but I am forced to admit that making one entirely mechanical would probably cost a small fortune even in today's world of 3d printing and CNC machines.