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A particularly complicated puzzle to solve? Get this… imagine the situation in London between the 1930s and the 1940s: men in black suits and bowler hats, cigar smoke rising to the sky in abundance, and, above all, great tension at MI6 headquarters (in case you don’t know what we’re talking about, click here). The reason? Well, the suit and bowler hat was a status symbol, and Churchill devoured one cigar after another. As for the third point — how about that?
That was the name of their problem, or their puzzle. No, I’m not making fun of you, and no, it’s not a pun.
During the years leading up to World War II, and during the war itself, the Germans developed a complex system for encrypting their messages. Enigma was precisely the name of the device used for this purpose.
Similar to a typewriter, Enigma ensured, for several years, total security in German communications. The encryption codes, which were changed from day to day, allowed for an extremely confidential exchange of information. So much for encryption on Whatsapp – this is a real enigma to solve!
But back to our British friends. Are you still imagining them? Good. Think of this scene: between a glass of whiskey and a cigar, good old Winston gets some great news, namely that some MI6 agents have intercepted a message for the German navy coming straight from Berlin.
Big party at the British house: toasts, glowing stars and celebratory selfies! The British may be holding the real game changer of the conflict. But when the text of the message arrives, frost takes hold of those present, so much so that the ice returns to solidify in the whiskey glasses. From Berlin, the upper echelons of the Nazi empire tell their fleet:Â put cream in your carbonara.
Can you guess the drama that assailed the British? No, it was not because of the cream in the carbonara-which would have horrified us Italians, of course; it was because of the content of the message, which was absolutely devoid of any wartime significance, and was a complete puzzle to them. What could Churchill do at this point, other than light another cigar?
There were two options available to him:
Well, good Winston, together with his collaborators, decided to go the second way, and so it was that the attempts by the British to understand the coded language and decode the puzzle used by the Germans to communicate began.
And here our Enigma comes back into play. As already mentioned, decoding messages transmitted with this machine was virtually impossible (but not for us, check this out!). The potential letter combinations were in fact billions, for those who did not have the encryption key available. So that put cream in your carbonara: it was a puzzle and could have meant anything.
The real breakthrough, for the British, came when they managed to get hold of one of the Enigma machines available to the Germans. They managed to understand its workings, the four-rotor cipher system, and they began to decipher the first messages.
Imagine if Churchill had stopped and not delved into that issue. How would things have turned out? That, too, is a puzzle to be solved.
What about you? How will you fare? Will you have the courage to test yourself in the difficult art of espionage? We give you a chance to try! Click here to enter a new world without bowler hats, cigars and whiskey, but with lots of adrenaline and fun.
