[Cryptography] Brute force circa 1939

Grant Schultz gschultz at kc.rr.com
Tue Nov 13 20:24:39 EST 2018


On 11/13/2018 11:00 AM, Henry Baker wrote (quoting the movie):
> "This machine offers a variation of 2372 entirely original codes -- 2371 chances of being wrong -- even if he had a machine to work with."
I would bet it was Hollywood that was naive here.  William Friedman or 
many others in Washington D.C. would have known that 2371 possibilities 
was far too few to withstand cryptanalysis.  (Although it would be 
interesting if there were evidence that Washington folk insisted that 
Hollywood use that low number.  Any way to find out?)

Grant Schultz



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