🚀 go-pugleaf

The story that the English deliberately allowed Coventry to be bombed for
fear the Germans would learn that Enigma had been compromised is one that
is highly arguable, and is not considered true by at least one expert in
the field.  In his book "Kahn on Codes" crypto historian David Kahn says
(now here it gets approximate, because I don't have the book; I read it
a few months ago) that there was a postwar official investigation of what
happened at Coventry.  Supposedly the Enigma decrypts were ambiguous
as to the target.  In military messages they tend to use coded names
for geographical sites, as well as encrypting the messages; so even with
a perfectly good and timely decrypt you may need additional information
to know what the message means.  In the middle of a war a lot of things
can go wrong with the defense.
-- 
haynes@cats.ucsc.edu
haynes@cats.bitnet

"Ya can talk all ya wanna, but it's dif'rent than it was!"
"No it aint!  But ya gotta know the territory!"
        Meredith Willson: "The Music Man"