Talk:Marian Rejewski

Single most valuable contribution?

I moved this sentence here for now:

It would not be unreasonable to characterize Rejewski's early 1930s conceptual breakthrough as the single most valuable contribution by an individual to the winning of WWII by the Allies.

Certainly Rejewski's work was highly important, but I think assertions like this are extremely debatable. Of course, if this is a common evaluation of Rejewski's contribution, then it might be good to include a sentence like this, perhaps as a quote from a historian; otherwise I think we'd do well to leave it out. The David Kahn quote certainly helps demonstrate how well-regarded he is by cryptographers. — Matt 04:25, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Some biases

On the principle of parsimony, I regret William Friedman's aging neologism, "cryptanalysis." Why did he need a new term, when there already was a well-established, elegant one, "cryptology" ("the study of secret writing," chiefly for the honorable purpose of "decrypting" or "breaking" others' ciphers or codes)? The proper term then for the creation or use of ciphers or codes was "cryptography" ("secret writing," per se). The two fields are, of course, two sides of the same coin: one studies crypto-systems both to break those of an opponent, and to make one's own resistant to breaking.

Both Anglophones and Polonophones show a marked predilection for conceptual sloppiness. The former like to lump ciphers and codes together as "codes," hence referring to the breaking of either as "codebreaking." Polonophones, doubtless from esthetic considerations of their own, tend to do exactly the opposite: they lump ciphers and codes together as "ciphers," and refer to decryption of either as "deciphering." Such verbal sloppiness inevitably leads to conceptual confusion and should, where possible, be avoided. There is, of course, the third term, "decryption," that may be applied to mixed situations.

Uninitiates, of course, tend to confuse "decipherment" with "decryption"—which is like equating, respectively, a legitimate bank withdrawal with a bank burglary.

But what I perhaps find most objectionable is the imputation of inelegance, stodginess or excessive punctiliousness to any word that contains the Greek root "-logy" or "-logist." Logologist 07:53, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Authoritative account

"the bomba — Polish for "bomb": the most authoritative account, by Cipher Bureau technician Czesław Betlewski, relates..."

For reasons of NPOV, I don't believe that we can assert that this or that account is authoritative or otherwise unless there's some clear consensus in the literature that this is so. My suspicion is that there is no consensus here; there are plenty of other accounts which seem to remain unchallenged: "Bomba is Polish for bomb. Wladyslaw Kozaczuk's book Enigma (University Press of America, 1984, 63) cites a letter from Col. Tadeusz Lisicki, chief of a Polish signal unit, which claims that Jerzy Rozycki named the machine after an ice cream dessert the mathematicians were eating at the time. The bomba dessert was a round ball of ice cream covered in chocolate and resembled an old-fashioned bomb. However, in an article Rejewski himself says, "For lack of a better name we called them bombs." ("How Polish Mathematicians Deciphered the Enigma," Annals of the History of Computing, v.3, n.3 (July 1981): 226.) Finally, a U.S. Army document describing the Polish Bombes claims, "When a possible solution was reached a part would fall off the machine onto the floor with a loud noise. Hence the name 'bombe'." (6812th,10.)" [1]. — Matt Crypto 08:29, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The phrasing as it now stands, without "most authoritative," is fine.

It's questionable whether Tadeusz Lisicki had factual grounds for his assertion: he attributes the device's naming to Jerzy Różycki, whom he never met. (Różycki died in the Mediterranean in 1942.) Lisicki was never associated with the Cipher Bureau. Betlewski was. Barring convincing documentation, how the Americans derive the name is irrelevant, since they hadn't named the device in the first place.

I doubt that Rejewski or Zygalski would have discussed Enigma decryption, much less the naming of the bomb, with Lisicki during the war, having been sworn to secrecy by their employers. Lisicki received information from Rejewski after Enigma decryption had become public knowledge and Lisicki offered to advocate for the Poles' primacy. Logologist 09:10, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Interesting. It'd be good to add Betlweski's account to the various theories listed at Bomba (cryptography) — would you be able to provide a reference for this? — Matt Crypto 09:53, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Betlewski's version appears in Kozaczuk's 1984 Enigma, p. 63, note 1: "B.S.-4 workers also referred to the device, irreverently, as a 'mangle' ([Polish:] magiel) or 'washing machine' (pralka), on account of the characteristic muffled noise that it produced. (Oral account by Czesław Betlewski.)"

Betlewski also appears on pp. 212-15, in relation to security considerations under German occupation and drastic measures employed to protect the Enigma-decryption secret.

Incidentally, a diagram of a Polish cryptological bomb appears on p. 289 which I believe has also figured in other publications; an adaptation might serve as a helpful illustration to the "Bomba" article. Logologist 05:14, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the reference. Would you be able to also provide the source s for the Rejewski, Good and Welchman quotes? I've recently realised that it's quite a good idea to provide sources for quotes and the like (even though it's quite tedious!). Yes, the bomba picture (if it's the same as the ones I've seen) would be quite useful if someone could create one for us. — Matt Crypto 22:55, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sources provided.

Thanks! — Matt Crypto 10:23, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The drawings of Rejewski's cyclometer and bomb that appear in Kozaczuk 1984 (pp. 284, 289) are reproduced identically in Jan Bury's "The Enigma Code Breach," which you've linked to "Marian Rejewski." They have, in fact, appeared in so many places that they probably may be considered public-domain.

While we probably can't consider them public domain (unless the author has specifically indicated as such) their widespread use does speak in favour of a Fair Use case (to some extent). I think it would be preferable to create our own, though. — Matt Crypto 10:23, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Bury's piece, though generally accurate, is occasionally misleading (e.g. the cyclometer came long before the bomb) and of course requires translation from "Poglish" to English (e.g. "auxiliary connectors' plate at the front panel" = "plugboard"). Logologist 06:35, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Extended Rejewski quote

I'm not sure that the extended Rejewski quote is the best way here. Short quotes are clearly very useful, but the job of an encyclopedia article is to summarise primary sources; here, we seem to be incorporating Rejewski's narrative to tell the story for us. I don't believe the events are so contentious that we can't synthesise our own summary of them. — Matt Crypto 10:23, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There has been an awful lot of confusion and speculation (for over 30 years!) about just what it was that Rejewski did. I thought that hearing about it straight from the horse's mouth might help clear things up. But perhaps someone could attempt a deft (and accurate) summary — and perhaps we might consider transferring the extended quotes to the WikiQuotes, for convenient reference? Logologist 12:27, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, sounds like a good plan to me, and Rejewski's account does seem the obvious starting point for a summary of the events! — Matt Crypto 12:17, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Revert

@Nihil novi: What't the point of this revert? You should at least leave some WP:edit summary when reverting. In my edit, I just removed the sentence that was duplicated ("Five weeks before the outbreak of World War II in Europe, the Poles shared their technological achievements with the French and British at a conference in Warsaw", and then again "Five weeks before the Nazi German invasion of Poland in 1939 Rejewski and colleagues presented their achievements to French and British intelligence representatives summoned to Warsaw"). What's the problem with that edit? Vanjagenije (talk) 15:31, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Vanjagenije, I apologize for not leaving a summary. When I reverted your well-intentioned edit, a lengthy automated statement was generated which seemed to leave no space to write an adequate explanation.

I propose to streamline the lead further, leaving out the duplication you noted as well as some details not necessary in a lead, and adding some information.

Rather than try to list all the proposed changes here, I'll go ahead and make the edits.

Please then make what changes you think necessary, or discuss them here.

Thanks for your interest in the subject.

Nihil novi (talk) 23:40, 28 March 2024 (UTC)