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Show HN: I made a binary enigma machine for manual encryption

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Show HN: I made a binary enigma machine for manual encryption

#1
Introducing the 3D Printed Binary Enigma (10 Enigma) – the ultimate encryption and decryption device, no batteries required! Inspired by the iconic Enigma machines of WWII, this sleek and intuitive device lets you encode and decode messages “effortlessly”.

Or how else are we going to send secure messages in the future?

Show HN: I made a binary enigma machine for manual encryption
makerworld.com

Re: Show HN: I made a binary enigma machine for manual encryption

#2
My very first (self choosen) real software project in school was a simulated replica of the Enigma, but it is of course way cooler, to have something that you can print out to actually physically put together.

"Or how else are we going to send secure messages in the future?"

And you could probably also market it as quantum secure, you know, there probably can't be a bitflip due to cosmic radiation .. (isn't this what quantum computers are doing? /s)

Re: Show HN: I made a binary enigma machine for manual encryption

#8
I love this, my dissertation at uni was on the Enigma machine and I built a configurable one in software (Java) and it was fascinating to me that once you matched the spec of the real machine you got matching letter for letter encryption and decryption of real messages. The day my outer acceptance tests started working was amazing! The fact this needs no power is brilliant. Makes it surprising now they didn’t come up with it being a pure mechanical version back then and relied on the electrical current. Would love to try this out in the flesh.

Re: Show HN: I made a binary enigma machine for manual encryption

#9
post #2

My very first (self choosen) real software project in school was a simulated replica of the Enigma, but it is of course way cooler, to have something that you can print out to actually physically put together. "Or how else are we going to send secure messages in the future?" And you could probably also market it as quantum secure, you know, there probably can't be a bitflip due to cosmic radiation .. (isn't this what…

Early versions of unix included a crypt utility based on simulating an Enigma machine. It's funny to look at old man pages and see the warnings change from

Methods of attack on such machines are known, but not widely; moreover the amount of work required is likely to be large.

to

Methods of attack on such machines are widely known, thus crypt provides minimal security.

Re: Show HN: I made a binary enigma machine for manual encryption

#10
> Or how else are we going to send secure messages in the future?

That's an intriguing comment. What do you mean by that? Do you mean a future when governments force tech companies to install backdoors in all end-to-end encrypted software we use? Or when AGI writes all of our software, designs all hardware, and AGI decides that it needs to monitor all human communications. Only half joking.

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