About the seminar

In this talk, there will first be a brief explanation of the operation of the German Enigma machine, to be followed by descriptions of four* similar** interesting*** machines, including the Japanese “Green” machine, a Hebrew-ised version of Enigma, and the Polish “Lacida”. Some simulators of the presenter’s construction will be shown as part of the presentation.

* For some value of “four”.

** For some value of “similar”.

*** For some value of “interesting”.

About the speaker

Jerry McCarthy’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 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 also volunteers at the Instytut Józefa Piłsudskiego, Hammersmith, where he gives the occasional talk on matters cryptological, such as Enigma and early Polish systems for breaking it.

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!

Click to see a podcast of this event.