The computer that helped win World War II • Hacker News Board

Re: The computer that helped win World War II

#81

Post by shuwix » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 5:09 AM UTC

40four wrote: post #78

Interesting how this technological war behind the scenes probably had a disproportionately large effect on the war compared to how little you hear about it in text books or history class growing up. The mention Turing a little bit, but I really enjoyed the movie “The Imitation Game” about Turing building the “Bombe” machine and eventually breaking the Enigma code, and the effect that had on the war. Highly recommend!

Because it's harder to grasp for average broader audience. And a topic about bunch of math geniuses is far less entertaining than a secret spy.

Also, that spy is action, mathematician is burried in office.

Re: The computer that helped win World War II

#82

Post by ivlad » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 6:59 AM UTC

cryptoegorophy wrote: post #32

brcmthrowaway wrote: post #13

Was there anything the Germans could have done to make Enigma foolproof encryption like we have in the modern day?

Iirc, veritasium video said it was the weather report at the beginning of the message that fueled quicker decryption. So, not following same letter format each time might have helped.

Three so-called “cribs” are typically mentioned in literature:

1. Weather reports that were encrypted with Enigma for the High Command and then sent again encrypted with a much weaker cipher for (if I recall correctly) merchant fleet.

2. “Keine besondere Nachrichten” or “Keine besondere Ereignesse” - depending on sources. It means “no important news” or “no important events”.

3. “Heil Hitler” at the end of the message. This one is maybe an anecdote. If something like that would be sent I suspect the radio operators would send “HH” at most.

Re: The computer that helped win World War II

#83

Post by Podrod » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 8:04 AM UTC

40four wrote: post #78

Interesting how this technological war behind the scenes probably had a disproportionately large effect on the war compared to how little you hear about it in text books or history class growing up. The mention Turing a little bit, but I really enjoyed the movie “The Imitation Game” about Turing building the “Bombe” machine and eventually breaking the Enigma code, and the effect that had on the war. Highly recommend!

I read a book a few years ago about the battle of the beams, the use of radar navigation to guide bombers over their targets and attempts to jam the signals. I knew the basics of using radar to detect raids but a lot of this was new and eye opening for me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Beams

Re: The computer that helped win World War II

#84

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Jul 28, 2026, 9:19 PM UTC

rsamtravis wrote: post #63

I wasn't sure if this was going to be about Colossus, Eniac, the Norden bombsight, or what. WW2 happened right at the birth of real computing so there are a few examples of computers that helped. Heck there was an air-dropped acoustic-homing torpedo that had what is essentially a small single-purpose analog computer to direct it.

The subhead, "Colossus cracked Germany’s encrypted communications", makes that clear, and would be far less clickbaity.