Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 480 pages
- Published by: Oxford University Press, USA May 4, 2006
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 019284055X
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0192840554
-
Book Dimensions:
8.9 x 6.2 x 1.9 inches
- Weighs: 1.8 pounds
Reader Reviews
This provides a good general history of the breaking of the German Lorenz and (to a lesser extent) Siemens cipher teletypes, focusing mostly on the British methods using the Heath Robinson and Colossus tabulating machines driven by punched tapes. The breaking of these differed from the breaking of the Enigma machines in that the methods were probabilistic and statistical rather than the logical operations of the Turing and Welchman electromechanical Bombes, so that the mathematics (relegated to appendices) are very different. The appendices include the Swedish mathematician Arne Burling's breaking of the Siemens machine on leased cables from Norway through Sweden. For understanding the mathematics, I prefer Harvey Cragon's "From Fish to Colossus" or Frank Carter's pamphlets sold by Bletchley Park, which seem to be currently unavailable, and Cragon includes descriptions (and schematics) of much of the circuitry of the Colossi. It is interesting to read in Copeland's book descriptions by many of those who actually made the breakthroughs.
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