The Polish Bomba - predecessor of the Turing-Welchman Bombe | Virtual Talk

A Virtual Talk by Jerry McCarthy.
In the mid-to-late 1930s, Polish mathematicians created a number of methodologies to decrypt messages sent using the 3-rotor Enigma.
In this talk, Jerry 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 Bomba created by three Polish mathematicians in the late 1930s, which was a device which took advantage of the message protocols used at that time, 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. Some extensions to its original functionality will also be discussed.
• Explain the differences between the Bomba and the Turing-Welchman Bombe.
This will be followed by a Q&A session.
Jerry is a volunteer at TNMOC where he talks to visitors about Tunny, Colussus and the museums slide rule collection. Before his retirement, he wrote software in areas such as retail systems, cryptography and internationalisation for a global computing company. He also volunteers at the Instytut Józefa Piłsudskiego, where he gives the occasional talk on matters cryptological, such as Enigma and early Polish systems for breaking it.
Recorded 28th February 2021.

[@jhelliwell]

Thanks Jerry, that was a very interesting and informative talk. I hadn't previously realised that the Polish Bomba was so advanced and carries out some of the functions of a Turing-Welchman Bombe. The Josef Pilsudskiego museum in Hammersmith sounds worth investigating.

[@jerrymccarthy5954]

It is indeed worth a visit. It is a small museum but they will be pleased to see you there.

[@gustavderkits8433]

Thanks very much for an excellent talk.

[@michaeltyniec7010]

So glad I found this video - thanks for taking the time to post it!

[@ledermueller]

Great talk, thanks Jerry!

[@pierQRzt180]

Although such content may not be popular, is golden. Thank you!

[@paulgibby6932]

Thank you for this fascinating presentation. It is well-organized and clear -- though I have to admit challenging. I wonder if any of the originators of Enigma have written about their thinking as they came up with it.

[@okuninushi]

Thank you for this question. As a matter of fact they did - in this link you will find a description of the Rejowski's life memoir: allegro.pl/oferta/rejewski-zycie-enigma-pisane-10455319249 Other book that I read was polish book that consists of mathemathicaly correct description of the reverse engineering of the Enigma done by Poles described by Rejowski in 1960s allegrolokalnie.pl/oferta/w-kregu-enigmy-wladyslaw-kozaczuk-g3m

[@okuninushi]

However, both books are in Polish, so it might be hard to read :/

[@marcinEcXY]

One of the slides it's titled "Bomba Polska", which is wrong in Polish. Polish Bomba is "polska Bomba" or "Bomba polska" ("Polska" with capital "P" is Poland, not Polish), but we are not writing in this way, so title would be "Polska Bomba" (now with capital "P" as a title).
And great talk btw :)

[@jerrymccarthy5954]

Dziękuję bardzo!

[@edgeeffect]

I wonder if we could get hold of a subtitled (Trochę mówięm po polsku with an emphasis on the "trochę") copy of Sekret Enigmy anywhere?
It'd be a nice prequel to The Imitation Game.

[@karanveersinghdulku]

These are the actual guys who cracked enigma before anyone else

[@marzenanikiel4288]

There is a Soviet film called "Seventeen Moments of Spring" presenting a fictional character of a Soviet spy in the headquarters of the German Whermacht. Watching this film, we can see that internal military plans and documents during World War II, at the German army headquarters, were written using the Cyrillic alphabet. High-ranking German officers speak Russian fluently and even think in Russian. We can come to the obvious conclusion that with such a number of Soviet spies in the German command, it was not worth translating internal documents of the German staff into German. This is elementary, my dear Watson !

[@robertbastien228]

Trata tata ta ta ta. Explanations are useless - if germens technicians watching videos, have very funny time.