Stats for nerds
5recommend
6mentions
6people
2014–2022years
83% recommend17% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- While the Enigma Machine is truly fascinating, we largely only know about it because it failed.
Meanwhile, the Allies had multiple encryption technologies fielded during the war that were far superior:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGABA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGSALY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGTOT
But that's only part of the story - the allies were far more robust operationally. The Nazis were terrible at intelligence and counterintelligence (something to do with the subtlety required). And because they didn't take spying or intelligence seriously, they never "pentested" their own processes very well. They were fairly happy enough to create the Enigma machine and use it everywhere.
Meanwhile, the allies were much more careful about what sort of encryption was used in each circumstance, and much more cautious about how much information (even encrypted) they made available for their enemy to intercept.
If you really want to get into the details of how and why the Enigma was a failure, I strongly recommend Seizing the Enigma by David Kahn. It does an excellent job of combining the technical details of the Enigma codebreaking with the overall story of naval intelligence.
- Flow matters as much as the content. Some people can just talk about X in a far more enjoyable manner than others.
Isaacson is really good - his Jobs' biography, the Innovators, the Code Breaker - all are firmly footed in facts, but very easy and interesting to read.
"Kitchen Confidentials", "Blind Man's Bluff" and "Seizing the Enigma" are really good in the same sense.
Level down there are "Skunk Works" and "The Soul of a New Machine" - interesting, but dense and sluggish.
At the bottom, to me at least, there's "Unix" and "Most Secret War" - very difficult to get through with all joy lost to being buried in facts and no connective tissue.
- David Kahn's books "Codebreakers" and "Seizing the Enigma" are both very good and detailed reads.
- "The Codebreakers" cited above, is a massive history of cryptography. The same author, David Kahn, has written a book focusing on the Enigma called "Seizing the Enigma".
http://www.amazon.com/Seizing-Enigma-German-U-Boats-1939-194...
- 'Enigma' the novel by Robert Harris on which that movie was based, is superb though. Definitely makes 1943 seem like 1943.
Another book worth reading is David Kahn's historical account 'Seizing the Enigma.'
- Currently actively reading:
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War by Clark
The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History by Mikaberidze
An Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp by Chassell
The Girl from the Channel Islands by Lecoat
Recently completed:
Leviathan Falls by Corey
Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 by Clark
Showstopper! the Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft by Zachary
Mercury Rising: John Glenn, John Kennedy, and the New Battleground of the Cold War by Shesol
Seeking Love in Modern Britain: Gender, Dating and the Rise of 'the Single' by Strimpel
The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age by Damrosch
Come Fly with Us: NASA's Payload Specialist Program by Croft
Aerial Warfare: The Battle for the Skies by Ledwidge
De Gaulle by Jackson
1913: The Year Before the Storm by Illies
Vichy France by Paxton
Year Zero by Reid
And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-occupied Paris by Riding
The Kinsman Saga by Bova
The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters by Rove
La Place De La Concorde Suisse by McPhee
End of a Berlin Diary by Shirer
Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1933-1945 by Kahn
Hell and Good Company: The Spanish Civil War and the World it Made by Rhodes
The Forgotten Depression: 1921 : The Crash that Cured Itself by Grant
Bernard Baruch by Grant
Wool by Howey
Project Hail Mary by Weir
