Lorenz cipher facts for kids
The Lorenz cipher was a special code machine used by the German Army during World War II. It helped them send secret messages. But a clever team of codebreakers at Bletchley Park in Britain managed to figure out how it worked. They even broke its secret messages!
British codebreakers worked out how the Lorenz machine created its codes. They did this three years before they even saw one of the actual machines!
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What was the Lorenz Cipher Machine?
The Lorenz cipher machine was like a super-secret typewriter. It scrambled messages so only someone with another Lorenz machine could read them. The German Army used it for very important communications during World War II. It was much more complex than the famous Enigma machine.
The machine used many spinning wheels, called "rotors." Each rotor had pins that could be set in different ways. These pins changed the letters of the message, making it look like gibberish. This made the code very hard to break.
How the British Broke the Code
Breaking the Lorenz code was a huge challenge. The British codebreakers at Bletchley Park didn't have a Lorenz machine to study at first. Instead, they had to work out how it functioned just by looking at the scrambled messages.
One day, a German operator made a mistake. They sent almost the same message twice, but with tiny differences. This small error gave the British codebreakers a big clue. It helped them understand how the Lorenz machine created its secret codes.
The Amazing Colossus Computer
Once the codebreakers understood how the Lorenz machine worked, they needed a fast way to break the messages. This led to the invention of the Colossus computer. Colossus was one of the world's first electronic digital computers.
The Colossus machine was huge and filled a large room. It was built to help break the Lorenz codes quickly. It could read paper tapes with the scrambled messages and find patterns. This helped the codebreakers read thousands of secret German messages during the war.
Breaking the Lorenz code was a very important achievement. It gave the Allies (the countries fighting against Germany) valuable information. This helped them make better decisions and played a big part in winning World War II.
Images for kids
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Cams on wheels 9 and 10 showing their raised (active) and lowered (inactive) positions. An active cam reversed the value of a bit (0→1 and 1→0).
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A rebuilt British Tunny at The National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park. It copied the functions of the Lorenz SZ40/42, producing printed cleartext from ciphertext input.
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A team led by Tony Sale (right) reconstructed a Colossus (Mark II) at Bletchley Park. Here, in 2006, Sale supervises the breaking of an enciphered message with the completed machine.
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A Tunny (Lorenz) machine on display at the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, Maryland, USA
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See also
In Spanish: Código Lorenz para niños
