Review of 'Seizing The Enigma: The Race To Break The German U-boat Codes, 1939-1943' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Great book that combines many of my interests. WWII, Bletchley Park, cryptography and submarine warfare.
The are many books on the cracking of the German enigma code but we forget that the code could only be broken by brute force which was automated and assisted by intelligence that had been gathered from captured German ships and submarines. This book details how German code books and rotor setting books were captured.
If you are only interested in cryptography there are lots of lessons to be learnt from this book especially of the danger of reusing keys and mistakes where messages transmitted multiple times by different methods and repetitive messages who’s content could be guessed.
If you are interested of the work of Bletchley Park code breakers there is a lot of interesting details about the organisation of the work and the personalities who worked there.
An interesting detail often overlooked was …
Great book that combines many of my interests. WWII, Bletchley Park, cryptography and submarine warfare.
The are many books on the cracking of the German enigma code but we forget that the code could only be broken by brute force which was automated and assisted by intelligence that had been gathered from captured German ships and submarines. This book details how German code books and rotor setting books were captured.
If you are only interested in cryptography there are lots of lessons to be learnt from this book especially of the danger of reusing keys and mistakes where messages transmitted multiple times by different methods and repetitive messages who’s content could be guessed.
If you are interested of the work of Bletchley Park code breakers there is a lot of interesting details about the organisation of the work and the personalities who worked there.
An interesting detail often overlooked was that the British naval codes were being routinely read by the Germans and often many of the same mistakes that were made on the German side which lead the codes to be broken were repeated by the British.
