About the seminar

In the mid-to-late 1930s, Polish mathematicians created a number of methodologies to decrypt messages sent using the 3-rotor Enigma. This talk will:

• Explain the considerable variety of known Enigma machines. Enigma is not just A Machine; it’s an entire family!
• Provide an introduction to cryptography starting at the Caesar Cipher and ending on focussing on the operation of one particular common Enigma machine variant.
• Discuss some of the Polish methodologies for cracking that machine, and finally focus on the Cyklometer created by Marian Rejewski, which was a device which took advantage of some of the behaviour of the 3-rotor Enigma, and for which the speaker has developed a working model using a mixture of ancient and modern techniques. A basic prototype will be described, and the subsequent working model will be demonstrated and explained in some detail.

About the speaker

Jerry’s day job used to be to write software, in areas such as retail systems, cryptography and internationalisation, for a global computing company. Since his recent retirement, he now volunteers at The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC), which is situated within the Bletchley Park Campus. There, he talks to visitors about, inter alia, Tunny, Colossus, and the Museum’s slide rule collection. He takes an interest in other crypto systems such as Enigma and similar systems.

Jerry is not rich enough to be a full-time cryptocollector, but is interested in crypto simulation techniques which allow virtual acquisition of crypto hardware without needing to find the space to store it. Jerry’s house is definitely not big enough for a Colossus!

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