juergen
The Enigma is the most widely known and iconic cryptography device, by a large margin. Invented by Arthur Scherbius in 1918, developed first for civilian use and later adopted by the German military and its allies, it had a major impact on the course of World War II. First due to its smart design, which provided surprisingly strong cryptography with simple electro-mechanical means; then due to the even smarter codebreakers in Poland and England, who managed to exploit weaknesses in the machine’s cryptographic design and in the daily procedures to regularly decrypt German messages.
The Enigma was a clever and elegant design, using simple electro-mechanics to implement its ever-changing transposition cipher, in a robust and portable package. The Enigma touch aims for an equally elegant and minimalist design – an electronic implementation without moving parts which recreates the appearance and operation of the original machine.
The circuit board itself performs many functions: It forms the front panel, the capacitive keyboard, diffusers and letter masks for the lamp field, sockets for the plugboard – and it is the soundboard for an acoustic transducer which plays original Enigma sound samples. Small graphic displays under the board show the rotor positions; capacitive sliders reproduce the sprockets for turning the rotors.
Ian McJohn
Ironpark
Stefan Wagner
janusprotocol