Rusty but intact: Nazi Enigma cipher machine found in Baltic Sea
Enigma device stymied Allied intelligence until Alan Turing cracked it. …
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Divers scouring the Baltic Sea for discarded fishing nets have stumbled on the rarest of finds: an Enigma encryption machine used by the Nazis to encode secret messages during World War II.
The electromechanical device was used extensively by the Nazi military to encrypt communications, which typically were transmitted by radio in Morse Code. Three or more rotors on the device used a stream cipher to convert each letter of the alphabet to a different letter.
The Enigma had the appearance of a typewriter. An operator would use the keys to type plaintext, and the converted ciphertext would be reflected in 26 lights above the keys—one light for each converted letter. The converted letters would then be transcribed to derive the ciphertext.
Cipher keys were changed using a series of device settings that were changed regularly using lists that were made available in advance. People receiving the messages had to use the same lists as the senders for the messages to be readable.
Divers on assignment
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