Charles Petzold

During the Second World War, the German military used a device called the Enigma to encrypt communications. Althugh the Enigma was conceptually rather simple, messages encoded on it were devilishly difficult to decrypt. A trio of Polish mathematicians made some headway, and then considerable progress was made at Bletchley Park — the focal point of Great Britain's code-breaking activities during World War II — particularly under the tutelage of Alan Turing (1912 – 1954).

My friend Jeff Prosise recently wrote a very attrictive Enigma simulator in Silverlight. I suspect that almost everyone who reads my blog also reads the Wintellect Wintellog, but if not, here are Jeff's two entries describing his program:

Introducing the Silverlight Enigma Simulator

Silverlight Enigma Simulator Updated

Or you can just skip to the Silverlight program:

enigma.html

I don't know how much my recent book on Alan Turing inspired Jeff to create his Enigma simulator. Perhaps a little.

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	“Petzold will be a stalwart companion to any reader who undertakes to read Turing's classic with his aid. The Annotated Turing will also be quite enjoyable to a more casual reader who chooses to dip into various parts of the text.” — Martin Davis in American Scientist