i think cipher decryption should be inpossible for germany and usa

[alexman]

no one could break enigma it was only turing. only uk with a NF of turing machine should be able to break it.
usas windtalkers were also very hard to break as no one knew the indian language

 

[ThaHoward]

I think they should make capture cipher a mustto have once your foe have upgraded to encryption machine (each upgrade also need another cipher/codebook to be stolen). Each new upgrade for encryption and decryption machine also need relevant computing machine researched.

Signal interception do not require you to steal the cipher codes, but signal interception 2 should require a radar station that reach the enemy border or a signal company close by the border. Then Germany can't decrypt USA in 1936.

As of now it is too easy to decrypt others, and too little you can do to counter them.

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

no one could break enigma it was only turing. only uk with a NF of turing machine should be able to break it.
usas windtalkers were also very hard to break as no one knew the indian language

I got to disagree in that one. Actually a polish cryptologist cracked Enigma in 1939 before the start of WW2. They started in 1932 with incomplete Documents the french provided and the modifications the Germans made to the cypher didn't really help.

And before anyone wants to disagree, maybe read some more about "Marian Rejewski"

 

[Vlad123]

Historically Italians, before the entry into the US war, stole the US black code that helped Rommel in North Africa source : https://translate.google.it/translate?sl=it&tl=en&u=http://www.warfare.it/storie/as_mussolini.html
Regarding turing, encryption was impossible if those of the wehrmacht had not made mistakes (famously that of a luftwaffe pilot who always started sending with the same blasphemy) it would have been impossible to decipher. And Churchill himself knew that if the Germans had simply suspected that Enigma had been decrypted, they would have used a different system (Convertry was destroyed for this very reason, because churchill preferred to sacrifice the city rather than move the AA to defend the city and reveal that it had decrypted enigma).
In my mod, when you find out what ENIGMA has been decrypted, you go on a mission to destroy the "ENIGMAdecrypter" (or rather you should, but due to my problems I preferred to do a simple action activated via focus.) Which destroys bletchey park, from a heavy malus to the English decrypter / cyper and a huge bonus to the decrypter encrypter of the axis (+ 300 protection and +30 decrypt) as the agents before destroying everything take pictures and take away the projects.

 

[DaleDVM]

Turing was brilliant. Yet his success required quite a bit of luck. I can't disagree with your post more. The Americans and Germans were more than capable to break codes. It is only a matter of what those countries focus on.

With enough resources dedicated even minor countries could win in the spy game. It is the one arena where a small number of people can make a big difference. What small countries can't do is equip large air forces or many armored divisions.

 

[Meglok]

no one could break enigma it was only turing. only uk with a NF of turing machine should be able to break it.
usas windtalkers were also very hard to break as no one knew the indian language

You might want to read up on your WW2 cryptography history. Enigma was not the only code in the war. The Germans broke the RN convoy code and several Russian low and mid level codes, the Italians managed a canary trap that got US codes, the US broke the Japanese Purple code and others. No one knows what the Russians were able to do, those files are still locked afaik. But given their competency in espionage you can bet they were cracking the codes of everyone.

 

[Emperor_Napoleon]

The US cracked an important Japanese code after a bunch of code books were found by some Australian soldiers digging around on a beach. This helped the US against one of the Japanese armies.

 

[Vlad123]

Turing was brilliant. Yet his success required quite a bit of luck. I can't disagree with your post more. The Americans and Germans were more than capable to break codes. It is only a matter of what those countries focus on.

With enough resources dedicated even minor countries could win in the spy game. It is the one arena where a small number of people can make a big difference. What small countries can't do is equip large air forces or many armored divisions.

I speak historically. Churchill called ULTRA the "golden hen that makes no noise" because if only it had made noise (aka the Germans had noticed) goodbye advantage ... ironically, as in the link I give, the Italian code WAS NEVER broken, but the Germans blamed the Italians for not using ENIGMA. As you say you need a little luck. If luck turned to the axis, as it had done so far, they would realize that ENIGMA was not so impenetrable. Now, if I remember correctly ENIGMA, it had 4-5 rotors if they had put 7-8 it would have been much more difficult, already with 5 rotors you needed various "machines" with 6 you needed the speed of light (aka the first real computer) obviously these upgrades arrived towards the end of the war (if I remember correctly from 42/43) when the game was over. If instead this had been done since 40 ... luck, dear user is VERY IMPORTANT, one who has lost the best games because of the dice against ... you can also have 20 troops against 1, but if like Xcom even if you have a 99% chance of hitting the target you have bad luck ... (someone who often has lost double / triple units due to this factor due to bad luck speaks to you) you are not going anywhere. For this, I personally avoid games where luck is an important part of the gameplay.
edit: what the user Emperor_napoleon says is right: Luck! What if those Australian soldiers hadn't found the books?

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

I speak historically. Churchill called ULTRA the "golden hen that makes no noise" because if only it had made noise (aka the Germans had noticed) goodbye advantage ... ironically, as in the link I give, the Italian code WAS NEVER broken, but the Germans blamed the Italians for not using ENIGMA. As you say you need a little luck. If luck turned to the axis, as it had done so far, they would realize that ENIGMA was not so impenetrable. Now, if I remember correctly ENIGMA, it had 4-5 rotors if they had put 7-8 it would have been much more difficult, already with 5 rotors you needed various "machines" with 6 you needed the speed of light (aka the first real computer) obviously these upgrades arrived towards the end of the war (if I remember correctly from 42/43) when the game was over. If instead this had been done since 40 ... luck, dear user is VERY IMPORTANT, one who has lost the best games because of the dice against ... you can also have 20 troops against 1, but if like Xcom even if you have a 99% chance of hitting the target you have bad luck ... (someone who often has lost double / triple units due to this factor due to bad luck speaks to you) you are not going anywhere. For this, I personally avoid games where luck is an important part of the gameplay.
edit: what the user Emperor_napoleon says is right: Luck! What if those Australian soldiers hadn't found the books?

Uh...no...the navy Version already 8 Rotors at the end. And the british broke them nonetheless because from a mathematical and cryptological point of view the enigma was inherently flawed.
And maybe there's no Story about italian Codes being broken because they used the enigma too, afaik.
And of course they used the broken codes for convoy Protection and so on. Not evacuating civilians despite knowing about the bombing run was a stone cold decision by churchill with keeping the Germans in the dark about their codes being only one.

 

[Vlad123]

Uh...no...the navy Version already 8 Rotors at the end. And the british broke them nonetheless because from a mathematical and cryptological point of view the enigma was inherently flawed.
And maybe there's no Story about italian Codes being broken because they used the enigma too, afaik.
And of course they used the broken codes for convoy Protection and so on. Not evacuating civilians despite knowing about the bombing run was a stone cold decision by churchill with keeping the Germans in the dark about their codes being only one.

Maybe I didn't make myself clear: Once you have deciphered the puzzle (AKA how to do it) even adding the rotors is quite "easy" in theory. The fact that the enigma was indecipherable comes from Italian wikipedia, which blames the mistakes of the Germans. The Italian code, on the other hand, was NEVER broken (the link from a few posts ago) ...
If by hypothesis the Germans discover that Enigma has been decrypted, I think they would run for cover more powerfully than simply "adding a rotor". I want to remember that the Russians, often against the Germans, lost despite having the information from the allies ... if the Germans made a (fatal) mistake it was considered an impenetrable enigma.

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

Maybe I didn't make myself clear: Once you have deciphered the puzzle (AKA how to do it) even adding the rotors is quite "easy" in theory. The fact that the enigma was indecipherable comes from Italian wikipedia, which blames the mistakes of the Germans. The Italian code, on the other hand, was NEVER broken (the link from a few posts ago) ...
If by hypothesis the Germans discover that Enigma has been decrypted, I think they would run for cover more powerfully than simply "adding a rotor". I want to remember that the Russians, often against the Germans, lost despite having the information from the allies ... if the Germans made a (fatal) mistake it was considered an impenetrable enigma.

The fact that enigma was unsafe per se does come from the initialization vector and that it produced predictable outcomes by formatting of the Text (e.g. Standard sentences in military messages). As an equivalent, it was like caesars chiffre - only a little more complicated. With the technology of the time there were no ways around those Problems.
As for the italian code: if they used the enigma then their code was as breakable as the german's.
If this'd be a meme I'd say because of the Performance of italian military noone ever bothered.
In reality my guess would be that later in the war because the Germans made the calls so decrypting the italian codes was unnecessary.

 

[Znail]

Uh...no...the navy Version already 8 Rotors at the end. And the british broke them nonetheless because from a mathematical and cryptological point of view the enigma was inherently flawed.
And maybe there's no Story about italian Codes being broken because they used the enigma too, afaik.
And of course they used the broken codes for convoy Protection and so on. Not evacuating civilians despite knowing about the bombing run was a stone cold decision by churchill with keeping the Germans in the dark about their codes being only one.

Sweden also cracked the German Navy code, so the idea that only some specific major powers could crack codes are unfunded.

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

Sweden also cracked the German Navy code, so the idea that only some specific major powers could crack codes are unfunded.

Yeah I know but that wasn't what I wanted to focus on. Deciphering the enigma was rather trivial if you knew the Design flaws. It's basically security by obscurity which never works in the long run.

 

[STABBY5]

America should definitely get a large bonus to encryption. During the first and second world wars, I don't think they were ever broken.

 

[GSP Jr]

This ain't the Discovery Channel folks.
It makes no difference at all who broke what codes historically.

What does matter is that as the leader in charge of the country, YOU can choose to devote resources to encrypt/decrypt.
Maybe you are just smarter than Hitler, Stalin, FDR, Churchill, or that Italian guy who broke everybody's codes.

 

[Vlad123]

The fact that enigma was unsafe per se does come from the initialization vector and that it produced predictable outcomes by formatting of the Text (e.g. Standard sentences in military messages). As an equivalent, it was like caesars chiffre - only a little more complicated. With the technology of the time there were no ways around those Problems.
As for the italian code: if they used the enigma then their code was as breakable as the german's.
If this'd be a meme I'd say because of the Performance of italian military noone ever bothered.
In reality my guess would be that later in the war because the Germans made the calls so decrypting the italian codes was unnecessary.

Maybe you didn't understand: the Italians did not use enigma.
Their code was never decrypted.
But the Germans obviously said (sometimes) what the Italians did. Ironically when no enigma was used, the British understood nothing. When the Germans talked to each other they understood everything. And the Germans, thinking it was the fault of the Italian code (and not Enigma), told the Italians to use enigma.

 

[George Parr]

I speak historically. Churchill called ULTRA the "golden hen that makes no noise" because if only it had made noise (aka the Germans had noticed) goodbye advantage ... ironically, as in the link I give, the Italian code WAS NEVER broken, but the Germans blamed the Italians for not using ENIGMA. As you say you need a little luck. If luck turned to the axis, as it had done so far, they would realize that ENIGMA was not so impenetrable. Now, if I remember correctly ENIGMA, it had 4-5 rotors if they had put 7-8 it would have been much more difficult, already with 5 rotors you needed various "machines" with 6 you needed the speed of light (aka the first real computer) obviously these upgrades arrived towards the end of the war (if I remember correctly from 42/43) when the game was over. If instead this had been done since 40 ... luck, dear user is VERY IMPORTANT, one who has lost the best games because of the dice against ... you can also have 20 troops against 1, but if like Xcom even if you have a 99% chance of hitting the target you have bad luck ... (someone who often has lost double / triple units due to this factor due to bad luck speaks to you) you are not going anywhere. For this, I personally avoid games where luck is an important part of the gameplay.
edit: what the user Emperor_napoleon says is right: Luck! What if those Australian soldiers hadn't found the books?

Um, Italian codes got broken just like those of any other nation. I have no idea where this myth came from that they were somehow spared from that fate. The British even listened in on Italian high-level communication before they (read: the Italians) started their invasion of Egypt.

Needless to say, there also wasn't just one version of Enigma. Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe and Heer all used different versions, which got broken at different times, and some changes made even prevented the Allies from listening in for some time. Adding more rotors definately could have made it safer, but the biggest issue was that a letter could never represent itself. If you read a K you could be sure that it was in fact anything but a K. In the end, it was arrogance that cost the Germans. You should never assume that your code is definately safe, nor should you be so lazy that you keep using certain phrases again and again.

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

Maybe you didn't understand: the Italians did not use enigma.
Their code was never decrypted.
But the Germans obviously said (sometimes) what the Italians did. Ironically when no enigma was used, the British understood nothing. When the Germans talked to each other they understood everything. And the Germans, thinking it was the fault of the Italian code (and not Enigma), told the Italians to use enigma.

The italian Navy at the very least used Enigma afaik. I haven't found any other reference of italian encryption. They also seemed to have used the swedish Hagelin machine but the USA and France also got some of those so yeah, they propably already knew how to crack it.

 

[Vlad123]

In a Historical film italian use their dialect can are uncomprensibile for not native of their location (if you make listen the dialect of turin a person of palermo not understand a world) and this thing run very good unlucky italian not use much because this news can sayer and listener are from the same city.

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

In a Historical film italian use their dialect can are uncomprensibile for not native of their location (if you make listen the dialect of turin a person of palermo not understand a world) and this thing run very good unlucky italian not use much because this news can sayer and listener are from the same city.

First off, I don't want to offend you then I say I don't know how much understanding you do have about how encryption works.
In that example we're talking about real time encryption in modern days. That wasn't a thing back in the days as all global Players lacked the technology. Radio Transmission physically is a "boradcast", meaning everybody listening on that frequency and in Range is able to receive it.
So they "defaulted" to obfuscation. Like using codebooks, codenames, unusual languages and the like.
Those are considered unsafe due to their nature. So as an example, by pure random Events because the USA is a country of Immigrants from all over the world it would be quite possible that a large enough number of soldiers would speak that language or be able to identify it. Thus, going up chain of command, the message are now unsecure.
The reason the americans could do that was because no Native American migrated to europe at that time. That's not the case for Europeans or Japanese who migrated to the US over several decades and generations.

All in all, I don't wanna give anyone a cryptography lecture here but just as a TL;DR WW2 encryption was unsafe by Design even by the standards of the era (it just was new) and blatantly trivial to crack only a decade later.