What was the Enigma Machine?
The Enigma machine was a mechanical device used for encoding and decoding secret messages. During WWII, the Enigma machine was used by the German military to communicate with troops in the field, warships, and submarines. Allied cryptologists, working under the codename ULTRA, successfully cracked most of the Enigma ciphers; this gave the Allies an important source of intelligence for the war effort. The Enigma machine itself was mechanical, and looked much like a typewriter. Every time a key was pressed, the electronic signal would pass through a series of rotatable scrambling wheels, through a plugboard, and then back out in a different direction. Because each wheel could be turned to alter the signal’s path, a huge variety of different keys was possible, and the wheels could simply be rotated every time a new key was needed. The wheels were arranged to rotate every time a key was pressed, making Enigma secure against letter-frequency attacks; the starting positions of the wheels wer
