The Maseeh Mathematics and Statistics Colloquium Series presents:
Dr. Dimitrije Kostic, US Government
Defeating the German Enigma
This talk is open to PSU students, faculty, and staff only.
Abstract: The Enigma is a message encryption device (or, more accurately, a family of similarly-designed devices) most famously used by the Nazi military during World War II. The Nazis were confident that the sophisticated and cleverly-designed Enigma devices could protect their sensitive military communications from Allied cryptanalysis. But a sequence of unlikely accidents and the ingenuity of mathematicians in Poland and England culminated in an Allied capability to decrypt this traffic. This remarkable success was among the most carefully guarded secrets of World War II, remained so until decades later, saved untold millions of lives, and was mythologized in the popular 2014 film The Imitation Game.
In this talk, we will survey the history of cryptography that informed the Enigma’s design and see why the Nazis had such confidence in it. Then we will examine how the Enigma actually encrypts messages, and discuss in some detail how the cryptanalysis against it worked. We will have an actual working Enigma machine on hand to help us! An undergraduate course in abstract algebra will be helpful to understand the cryptanalytic details, but the bulk of the talk will be generally accessible and we assume no prior familiarity with cryptography.
Remote participation is available via Zoom: https://pdx.zoom.us/j/84540759571
(Join before 3:15pm. Meeting may be locked once the talk begins)
The faculty host of this speaker is Dr. Steven Bleiler