WW II encryption and codebreaking emulators

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Another one that’s a few weeks old, but the GCHQ has dropped some cool WW II technology onto GitHub.

News:

GH:

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The Bombe is/was a remarkable electromechanical machine - you can see one working at TNMoC on the Bletchley Park campus.

http://www.tnmoc.org/news/news-releases/bombe-gallery-ready

http://www.tnmoc.org/explore/turing-welchman-bombe

Here’s a demo of a decryption challenge event:

There were later electronic versions which were of course faster. The diagonal board is particularly interesting, because it uses electricity in a very bidirectional way which doesn’t admit to easy implementation in FPGA.

(Much) more on the Bombe here:
http://www.quadibloc.com/crypto/ro2453.htm
(Link at the bottom has rotted: archive version here.)

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The Bombe simulator might be interesting. Otherwise, plenty of sims out there… :wink: