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noname • May 3, 2024 9:47 AM
Wonderfully, the first 61 pages of his Marian Rejewski’s biography, The First Enigma Codebreaker, are available online.
“He began studying insurance mathematics at the University of Göttingen, about which he said: ‘[the Institute of Mathematics was high up. It was like going to Mecca.” His adventure with cryptology had only just begun.”
JGar • May 3, 2024 10:39 AM
As most of this stuff was classified, there is a lot that has been lost to history. I only recently found out about the Polish team and that there was also a Spanish team.
During the Spanish Civil War, Germany lent Franco some “low grade” Enigma machines and the Republicans had quite good cryptanalysts. They mainly ended in France and then joined forces with the Polish team.
You can see a picture of Marian Rekewski and both teams in
https://www.ugr.es/~aquiran/cripto/museo.htm#cryptozone
This is still little known. There are few papers, like
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/5735274
Camazón (an important mathematician in the Spanish team) worked for the French Government after WWII and died in Spain in 1982. I only heard about him in a documentary:
(It was available from the Spanish public TV network, but you can no longer watch it…)
https://www.rtve.es/play/videos/somos-documentales/equipo-codigos-olvidados/5858674/
ResearcherZero • May 6, 2024 2:11 AM
@ noname, Clive and JGar
Thank you for great additions to the topic. Very interesting reading. 🙂
AssignmentPay Australia • May 13, 2024 8:05 AM
What a remarkable opportunity to gain insights into one of the most pivotal moments in cryptography history! These rare interviews with Marian Rejewski, the mastermind behind cracking the Enigma cipher, offer a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a true cryptanalyst pioneer.
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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
Clive Robinson • May 3, 2024 8:00 AM
@ ALL,
Like many cryptographers that come eventually to public attention Marian Rejewski had an interesting life.
Sadly for “security reasons” his skills went to waste during WWII when he arrived in Britain.
As British cryptographer Alan Stripp said in his 2004 book on the three Polish Cryptographers,
“Setting them to work on the Doppelkassetten system was like using racehorses to pull wagons.”
(The Doppelkassetten system was a low grade hand cipher used by the SS and SD and similar to “double Playfair”).