[2977] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Turing Bombe story
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steve Reid)
Thu Jul 16 16:45:56 1998
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 12:03:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Steve Reid <sreid@alpha.sea-to-sky.net>
To: Marcus Leech <Marcus.Leech.mleech@nt.com>
cc: cryptography@c2.net
In-Reply-To: <199807161502.AA102731378@bftzh114.ca.nortel.com>
On Thu, 16 Jul 1998, Marcus Leech wrote:
> [Reprinted with permission, from Nortel "Newsweb", July 6, 1998.
[snip]
> from Enigma's 150,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible combinations.
[snip]
> the Turing Bombe could crack a German code in 15 minutes. Today a
> Pentium PC would need 18 hours - or 72 times slower than the Bombe
> designed more than 50 years ago.
Are these figures accurate?
I thought the Enigma had a much smaller number of combinations, around
10^5, give or take a digit...?
I also find it hard to believe that a Pentium can't emulate a WW-II era
device faster than the orignal...?
