HOW STATISTICS LED THE GERMANS TO BELIEVE ENIGMA SECURE AND WHY THEY WERE WRONG: NEGLECTING THE PRACTICAL MATHEMATICS OF CIPHER MACHINES

Abstract

Only in 1974 did German intelligence and cryptologists admit that the Enigma cipher machine was not, and had not been, a secure system. Throughout World War II, German experts relied on a theoretical statistical security that took neither wartime operational reality nor their opponents' years of attention and attack into account. They ignored the far more important operational weaknesses and human errors that actually provided enemy cryptanalysts with their most valuable entries into the cipher system.