Instructions For Completing Budget Request Form: Fill & Download for Free

Massachusetts Budget ProcessThe Governor gets the ball rolling and actually is allowed to send their budget to the House as a Bill, this is not the case in all states. This is the process:1. Governor's BudgetThe annual budget process begins each year when the Governor files recommendations as a bill with the House of Representatives. Under the state Constitution, the Governor must submit a proposal by the 4th Wednesday in January or, in the event of a new term, within five weeks later. This bill is called 'House 1’ or ‘House 2’ depending on the year.2. House Ways & Means BudgetThe House Committee on Ways and Means examines the Governor’s proposal and releases its own recommendations for the annual budget for deliberation by the House of Representatives. Prior to release of the House Ways and Means Budget, Joint Ways and Means Committee budget hearings are held across the state.3. House BudgetThe full House of Representatives considers amendments to the House Ways and Means recommendations and debates their inclusion in the bill. The House of Representatives then approves a final, amended version of the bill which is then sent to the Senate for consideration.4. Senate Ways & Means BudgetThe Senate Committee on Ways and Means examines both the Governor’s proposal and the House proposal and releases its own recommendations for the annual budget for deliberation by the Senate.5. Senate BudgetThe full Senate considers amendments to the Senate Ways and Means recommendations and debates their inclusion in the bill. The Senate then approves a final, amended version of the bill.6. Conference CommitteeThe House and Senate appoint three members each to a "conference committee" to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate proposals. One member of the minority party must be appointed by each branch. The conference committee reports a final compromise bill to the House and Senate for a final vote of acceptance in each branch.7. Governor's ActionsThe Governor has 10 days to review the budget and take action to either approve or veto the budget. The Governor may approve or veto the entire budget, veto or reduce specific line items, veto outside sections or submit changes as an amendment to the budget for further consideration by the Legislature. (NOTE: Governors in many states have the line item veto, the President of the US does not.)8. Legislative OverridesThe Legislature can override the Governor’s vetoes with a two-thirds vote in each branch. The House must vote first to override any vetoes before they may be considered by the Senate.9. Final BudgetFollowing any Legislative overrides, the budget is finalized and is commonly referred to as the “General Appropriations Act” for the upcoming fiscal year.This process takes about 7 months.Massachusetts Budget ProcessNew York State Budget ProcessNew York State uses an executive budget model. Under this system, the Executive is responsible for developing and preparing a comprehensive, balanced budget proposal, which the Legislature modifies and enacts into law. The Governor is required by the State Constitution to seek and coordinate requests from agencies of State government, develop a “complete” plan of proposed expenditures and the revenues available to support them (a “balanced budget”), and submit a budget to the Legislature along with the appropriation bills and other legislation required to carry out budgetary recommendations. The Governor is also required by the State Finance Law to manage the budget through administrative actions during the fiscal year.The State’s fiscal year begins April 1 and ends on March 31. However, the actual “budget cycle,” representing the time between early budget preparation and final disbursements, begins some nine months earlier and lasts approximately 27 months – until the expiration of the State Comptroller’s authority to honor vouchers against the previous fiscal year’s appropriations.1. Agency Budget Preparation (June–September/October)http://...Preparation of budget requests varies among agencies reflecting their size, complexity and internal practice. Typically, budget development begins at the program or subdepartmental level, with staff preparing individual program requests. The head of the agency or its top fiscal officer may hold internalhearings at which program managers outline their budgetary needs.Although agencies begin to analyze their budget needs as early as May or June, the formal budget cycle begins when the Budget Director issues a policy memorandum - the “call letter” - to agency heads. The call letter outlines, in general terms, the Governor’s priorities for the coming year, alerts the agency heads to expected fiscal constraints and informs agencies of the schedule for submitting requests to the Division of the Budget. The call letter signals the official start of the budget process.By early-mid fall, a final program package is assembled by each agency, which is guided by the instructions set forth by the Division of the Budget, reviewed for consistency with the call letter, and approved by the agency head.2. Division Of The Budget Review (September/October–December)http://...In accordance with the schedule outlined in the call letter, agencies typically submit their budget requests to the Division of the Budget in early-mid fall, with copies provided to the legislative fiscal committees. Examination units within the Division then analyze the requests of the agencies for which they have responsibility. Examiners may seek additional information from the agencies and may hold informal hearings or meetings with agency management to clarify agency requests and seek a more precise definition of agency priorities. By the end of October, examination units have also usually determined funding requirements to continue agency programs at current levels in the new year.In November, the Budget Director conducts constitutionally authorized “formal” budget hearings, giving agency heads an opportunity to present and discuss their budget requests and giving the staff of the Division of the Budget and the Governor’s office an opportunity to raise critical questions on program, policy and priorities. As provided in the Constitution, representatives of the Legislature also participate in the hearings.Under reform legislation passed in January 2007, a “quick start” budget process was instituted to help provide an earlier understanding of the state’s available funding resources. By November 5, the Division of the Budget, the Assembly, the Senate, and the comptroller release detailed forecasts of revenues and expenditures. After a public meeting with the respective staff members of these parties, DOB, the Senate, and the Assembly release a consensus forecast of the state’s financial position by November 15.Through late November, the Division’s examiners transform agency requests into preliminary budget and personnel recommendations which are reviewed in detail with the Director. They also prepare the appropriation bills and any other legislation required to carry out these recommendations. Concurrently, the Division of the Budget’s fiscal planning staff is reassessing economic projections, investigating possible changes in the revenue structure, analyzing trends in federal funding, and preparing the Financial Plan that describes and forecasts the State’s fiscal condition. The Financial Plan is prepared both on a cash basis and according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).By early December, the Division of the Budget will normally have completed its preliminary recommendations on both revenues and expenditures, and presented them to the Governor and the Governor’s staff. Budget staff then prepare the tables and the narrative (the “budget story”) that accompany each agency budget, and the descriptions and forecasts of individual revenue sources.3. The Governor’s Decisions (November - January)The Governor’s staff, who are also preparing the annual “State of the State” message to the Legislature, work with the Division throughout the development of the budget. The Governor is kept up-to-date on changing economic and revenue forecasts and confirms that executive program priorities are accurately reflected in the budget. Based on the preliminary recommendations and the most current reading of the economic and fiscal environment, the final Executive Budget recommendations are formulated in a series of meetings between Division of the Budget staff and the Governor. These sessions focus on major fiscal and policy issues and may lead to significant revisions in agency budgets.4. Legislative Action (January–March)http://...Typically by mid-January – or, following a gubernatorial election year, by February 1 – the Governor submits his Executive Budget to the Legislature, along with the related appropriation, revenue, and budget bills. The State’s five-year Financial Plan, Five-Year Capital Program and Financing Plan, and financial information supporting the Executive Budget are also submitted with the Executive Budget. The Executive Budget documents are available here.The Legislature, primarily through its fiscal committees – Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means – analyzes the Governor’s spending proposals and revenue estimates, holds public hearings on major programs, and seeks further information from the Division of the Budget and other State agencies. Following that review, the Legislature acts on the appropriation bills submitted with the Executive Budget.Under budget reform legislation passed in 2007, the Legislature is required to use a conference committee process between the two houses to organize its deliberations, set priorities, and reach agreement on a Budget. In addition, the State Finance Law requires that the Executive and Legislature convene a consensus economic and revenue forecasting conference and issue a consensus report on tax, lottery and miscellaneous receipts on or before March 1. If the parties fail to reach consensus, the Comptroller is required to issue a binding revenue forecast by March 5.Based on their separate and joint deliberations, the two houses reach agreement on spending and revenue recommendations, which are reflected in amended versions of the Governor’s proposed appropriation bills and related legislation, and approved by both houses. These amended bills are available from the Senate and Assembly Document Rooms located in the Capitol and the Legislative Office Building, and on the Internet.The appropriation bills, except for those items which were added by the Legislature and the appropriations for the Legislature and Judiciary, become law without further action by the Governor. The Governor must approve or disapprove all or parts of the appropriation bills covering the Legislature and Judiciary, and may use the line item veto to disapprove items added by the Legislature while approving the remainder of the bill. As provided in the Constitution, the Legislature may override the Governor’s veto by a vote of two-thirds of the members of each house. The appropriation bills legally authorize the expenditure of funds during the new fiscal year.Prior to passage of the appropriation bills, the Legislature must issue a summary of the proposed changes to the budget to its members. The Division of the Budget is also required to prepare a report that summarizes the impact of the Legislature’s actions on the State’s multi-year Financial Plan. Once the Governor completes his review of the Legislature’s actions, the Division then issues a comprehensive Enacted Budget Report that contains the State’s official Financial Plan projections for the current and successive fiscal years. The Legislature must also issue a report describing appropriation changes and the effect of the Enacted Budget on State agency employment levels.5. Budget Execution (April–March)At this point the budget process enters a new phase: budget execution. As a first step, the Division of the Budget approves “certificates of allocation” informing the State Comptroller that accounts may be established as specified in the certificates and that vouchers drawn against the accounts may be honored.In addition, the Division of the Budget keeps a close watch throughout the year on the flow of revenue and the pattern of expenditures against its projections. This information is reflected in quarterly updates of the Financial Plan which are provided to the Legislature as required by law in April (or as soon as practicable after budget enactment), July, October and with the Executive Budget for the ensuing year (usually January).The Debt Reform Act of 2000 requires the Governor to report on the State’s compliance with statutory caps placed on new debt issued after March 31, 2000. The State annually reports these findings in the Financial Plan Update closest to October 31.These updates serve as the basis of financial management during the fiscal year, and may alert both the Governor and the Legislature to potential problems in maintaining budget balance as the State fiscal year unfolds.Shortly after the end of the fiscal year, the Division of the Budget issues a comprehensive report that (1) compares unaudited year-end results to the projections set forth in the Enacted Budget and in the final update to the Financial Plan and (2) summarizes the reasons for the annual change in receipts and disbursements.The Budget Process, New York StateTexas State Budget ProcessIn Texas, the legislature, specifically the Legislative Budget Board is responsible for preparing the preliminary budget. Since the state has a divided executive branch, the state comptroller is also involved in the process.The Texas budget process begins during the year prior to each regular session of the state's Legislature, which are held in odd-numbered years.1. Legislative Appropriations RequestsEach state agency prepares a detailed legislative appropriations request (LAR) under the guidelines of the state's Legislative Budget Board (LBB). These LARs itemize the funding each agency feels it needs to pursue its various tasks, and include performance measures designed to ensure the money is spent efficiently and effectively.These LARs generally are sent to LBB, the Comptroller's office and several other state agencies by the end of summer or in early fall.2. LBB and Governor's Office of the Budget, Planning and Policy Hearings.The LBB and the Governor's Office of Budget, Planning and Policy hold hearings on their content.In the fall before the session, LBB uses the LARs as a basis to prepare a draft of the state's general appropriations bill, which will provide state agencies and institutions with funding for the following two fiscal years.3. State Comptroller Issues the Biennial Revenue Estimate.At the beginning of the legislative session, the Comptroller's office issues its biennial revenue estimate (BRE), a careful estimate of the funds likely to be available from taxes and other revenue sources over the next two years. The Texas Constitution makes the BRE a cap on legislative spending for this period.4. House and Senate HearingsBoth the Texas House Committee on Appropriations and the Senate Finance Committee hold hearings on the general appropriations bill, and make changes to it reflecting the BRE's limits and their funding priorities.5. Approval of House and Senate hearing versions.When the committees complete their versions of the bill, they send them to the full House and Senate, respectively, for approval.6. Bicameral Conference Committee to resolve differences in billsThese two bills then go to a conference committee made up of members of both the House and Senate, which resolves their differences to produce a single bill reflecting the wishes of both bodies.7. Both Houses Vote on Combined Bill.8. Certification by State Comptroller.Once approved, it goes to the Comptroller's office for "certification," a formal statement from the Comptroller that the bill spends no more than the amounts reflected in the BRE.9. Governor's signature.The bill then faces a final hurdle, the governor's signature. Texas has a "line-item veto," allowing the governor to trim individual spending items from the bill as he or she sees fit. (This veto can be overridden a two-thirds majority vote in each house, but in practice the governor's decisions are rarely challenged.)Once signed, the bill becomes law, directing the state's finances for two more years.http://www.texastransparency.org/State_Finance/Budget_Finance/Budget_Primer.phpEach state's budget process is slightly different so if you want to know about a specific state I suggest you go to that state's website to find out.

YES.Polish cryptanalysts broke Enigma ciphers in the 1930s - long before the British codebreakers at Bletchley Park did during the war. This achievement was one of the relatively obscure facts surrounding WW2.Now, I can simply stop here because apparently the question only asks for a yes/no response. However, that will be too boring and disappointing to those readers who are curious about exactly how Polish codebreakers unraveled some of the most formidable ciphers in the history of cryptography. Having read about the Polish code-breaking effort, I am thoroughly fascinated by a true story about extraordinary human ingenuity, determination, patriotism, and treachery that was every bit as praiseworthy and compelling as the endeavour of British codebreakers at Bletchley Park during WW2. It is a story that warrants an in-depth account.Thus, this answer is dedicated to recounting the achievements of Polish codebreakers (and to honouring a promise made to a Quora friend of mine!).Since every story has an underlying context, the same is true of the this story. Thus, for the sake of full understanding, I will recount not only the codebreaking endeavour of the Poles but also the historical context and the crucial characters involved in this story.Let the story begin!!!The Development of Polish Cryptanalytic ExpertiseThe year 1918 witnessed momentous developments in Europe. It marked the end of the Great War and the beginning of a period of political turmoil that would dramatically transform Europe.The situation was particularly dire for Poland. The Bolshevik revolution was sweeping across Russia, precipitating the country into a civil war between the Communist and Imperial factions. Unfortunately for Poland, Lenin’s determination to annex Poland and turn it into a Communist satellite state led to the Polish-Soviet War in 1920.The intrusion of Soviet forces into Poland and the spectre of a Communist domination prompted capitalist European countries to form a military coalition to support Poland in the struggle against Soviet aggression.Despite this multinational military support, the Poles knew that they could not rely completely on foreign intervention to repel the Soviet invaders. They had to do some of the fighting by themselves. Because their resources were limited and their military was relatively small, they had to employ those assets intelligently. How could they do that? - by deploying their forces at the right place at the right time. The only way to accomplish that was to determine in advance Soviet military intentions => Polish military intelligence was born.The first capability that it developed was radio intelligence. The widespread use of radios by the Soviets to maintain communication between the front lines and their distant HQs filled the air with radio signals that represented coded messages.One aspect of radio intelligence was traffic analysis which involved analyzing directions from where messages emanated. This provided information about calls signs and some hints about unit dispositions and movements. This allowed the Poles to deduce with some degree of accuracy what the Soviets might do. But as you can guess, intelligence revealed by traffic analysis was wholly inadequate in many situations where full knowledge of enemy intention was crucial for Polish commanders.Thus, the decryption of Russian enciphered messages became the top priority for Polish intelligence. Three Polish officers would play a critical role in this effort: Jan Kowalewski, Maksymilian Ciezki, and Antoni Palluth.Jan KowalewskiKowalewski was highly instrumental in the establishment of Polish intelligence. He not only turned Poland into a world-leader in cryptanalysis but also implemented an innovative approach to codebreaking. Being an engineer, Kowalewski was convinced that code-breaking was amenable to mathematical analysis. So he recruited mathematicians for his team. This was arguably an unprecedented step in cryptography because prior to this, code-breakers were predominantly linguists.Kowalewski’s innovative approach to cryptanalysis quickly proved its worth. Soviet ciphers were broken quickly. This revealed almost everything: orders of battle, dispositions of units, and even details of a new cipher system the Soviets were going to use.The power of mathematical analysis in codebreaking was vindicated on 12th August 1920. On that day Polish radio intelligence intercepted a message several pages long and was encrypted using a new cipher system. Kowalewski’s team rose to the challenge by unravelling the new cipher in just one hour. Although they could not decipher the message completely, what they uncovered was more than enough to alert the Polish army to an impending Soviet offensive directed at Warsaw on 14th August 1920.Armed with this actionable intelligence, the Polish high command quickly ordered the jamming of Russian radio communication between front line forces bound for Warsaw and HQ in Moscow. This served to delay the Soviet offensive, giving the Poles a few more days time to prepare defenses. When the Soviets arrived, they faced determined and skillful Polish opposition. The battle ended in a decisive Polish victory that were referred to as Miracle on the Vistula.A Soviet telegram signed by Stalin and deciphered by Jan Kowalewski’s team during the Russo-Polish war.The Polish government appreciated the role military intelligence had played in the Polish-Soviet War, and in particular Kowalewski’s pioneering mathematics-assisted approach to code-breaking. The need for a dedicated code-breaking organization was heightened in light of the awareness that for centuries Poland - being surrounded by Germany in the West and Russia in the East - had been subjected to many acts of aggression by both military powers. Knowing that they could not compete with either nations in military strength, the Poles determined to compensate for that weakness with world-class code-breaking prowess that would enable them to employ their assets intelligently against the Germans and Russians in a future conflict. This situation gave impetus to the establishment of the Biuro Szyfrów - Cipher Bureau.The codebreakers at the Cipher Bureau regularly intercepted and broke foreign coded radio messages. The Poles were particularly interested in German ciphers. They knew that the Germans - having lost the Great War - would seek to avenge the humiliation of that defeat by planning for another war.Initially, the Poles were successful in breaking German cipher. In the German section of the Cipher Bureau, the Poles had employed standard techniques in a book written by Marcel Givierge - a French army general and cryptographic expert. He directed French military cryptanalytic effort in the Great War. He left his mark by devising cryptographic techniques during the war and publishing them for everyone to read.Drawing on the book, the Poles had been able to break German coded messages, including the doppelwürfelverfahren (double dice) cipher system - which presented the greatest challenge for the Poles. The double dice system worked by shuffling the letters of a message twice, each time using a predetermined scheme (analogous to a huge anagram). Although the double dice system was sufficiently described in Givierge’s reference book, breaking double dice ciphers was not trivial and required considerable efforts. But it was at least within the bound of human effort and the Poles had notable success in breaking double dice.However, this period of success would come to a halt in 1928 when the Poles encountered a complete new cipher that defeated all standard codebreaking techniques.Let’s conclude this section with a brief introduction of 2 of the aforementioned figures in Polish intelligence.Maksymilian Ciezki was a career army officer who served in Kowalewski’s team during the war and went on to work for the Cipher Bureau. He discharged his duties well enough to earn a high mark from Kowalewski on his appraisal form. Ciezki would go on to become chief of the German section in the Cipher Bureau and oversee the cryptanalysis of Enigma ciphers in the 1930s.Antoni Palluth had a passion and a remarkable aptitude for radios. He had served in radio intelligence during the war, engaging in radio interception and traffic analysis. After the war, he joined his friends to found AVA Radio Company - a small company specializing in making all kinds of radio equipment for the Polish military. But he was no regular entrepreneur. He was on the payroll of Polish intelligence service and pursued all kinds of clandestine activities under his guise as a factory manager, the foremost of which was codebreaking. In fact, he occupied a position in the German section in the Cipher Bureau overseen by Maksymilian Ciezki. His company would later create the technologies designed to break Enigma.The mysterious German cipherIn reality, the Poles encountered the new cipher in Feb 1926 when they intercepted messages sent by the German Navy. The new cipher used to encode them was evident just by looking at the messages. The streams of coded letters showed no discernible patterns similar to any known patterns. In fact, the letters appeared completely random and in nearly equal frequency. The Poles had no doubt that they had come upon a new form of cipher. What’s more? Judging by the apparent randomness and equal frequency of the letters, it was most likely that the messages were generated by a machine.This was an unpleasant but unsurprising realization for the Poles. They knew from the reference work of Givierge that mechanical ciphers would replace manual ciphers. But at the same time, their inability to break the new cipher did not concern them because the German navy was of little interest to them. The threat to Poland’s national security came primarily from the German Army whose ciphers the Poles had been able to break.That would change in 1928 when the German army followed suit and employed the new cipher. This frustrated all Polish attempts at uncovering German military secrets. The Poles became anxious about the future of their country as they appreciated the consequences of their failure to read German military communications.Polish Intelligence had heard that the enciphering machine was called Enigma. But they had never seen one. This machine was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius to provide commercial businesses with a tool to protect confidential information. It was an ingenious contraption that had a very simple mechanism. I described meticulously how the machine worked in this answer.How exactly did the Enigma machine work? How did the plugboard and the rotors change the letters?Now, Enigma machines were available on the market. The Cipher Bureau acquired a few Enigmas, disassembled them to study their enciphering mechanism. However, this knowledge did not help them break coded messages of the German military. The reason could be inferred from the marketing material of the Enigma’s Company which stated that the company could tailor the rotors to the specification of individual customers. Thus, it was safe to assume that the German Army had requested the company to make custom rotors that were different from those in the commercial version as well some other modifications to make the military variant more difficult to break.The challenge confronting the Poles appeared to be insurmountable. But there was hope. Kowalewski had just returned from Japan (on a mission to help the Japanese improve their own cryptographic system). Since Enigma was a mechanical cipher, he reasoned that a mathematical mind would be better suited to break it. So he requested that mathematicians be recruited for the Cipher Bureau.Fortunately for Kowalewski, he would get precisely the mathematical talent that would break the Enigma.The Polish MathematiciansThe 1920s witnessed the flourishing of Polish mathematics with the establishment of world-class mathematics departments at some universities.One such university was Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. It was here that three brilliant Polish mathematicians would be recruited for the Cipher Bureau. They were Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski, Jerzy_Rozycki.Of these three, Marian Rejewski was the most talented would play a critical role in breaking the Enigma.Marian Rejewski was born into a middle class family. In his youth, he was a studious and high-achieving student at a German-speaking school. He displayed an inclination and remarkable aptitude for mathematics. His father - the owner of a going concern - hoped that Marian would follow in his footsteps. But Marian’s uncle - a gifted mathematician - persuaded him that a mathematics degree would assure him of a prosperous career in the insurance industry.So Marian decided to study mathematics in university. He attended Poznan University - an institution that boasted a first-rate mathematics department. It was here that he met and befriended Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski.One day in 1928, at the end of a lecture, professor Zdzisław Krygowski - a noted mathematician - requested Rejewski, Rozycki, and Zygalski to stay in the classroom to discuss something important with them.Professor Krygowski told them:There is a fascinating project I think all three of you might enjoy - as you seem to be more interested in crosswords and puzzles. I also trusted we are all loyal to the Polish cause.There is a man I would like you to meet. He is from the Polish Government. His Department is seeking to recruit talented mathematicians who they trust and who are fluent in German as soon as possible. I have been asked to recommend my most talented and trusted students for a study of the utmost importance to the Polish cause. I don’t know any more than that… interested?Jerzy responded impulsively: “Of course”. His two friends were a bit dubious, but Jerzy’s response inclined them to nod in agreement.These three students were about to be initiated into the obscure world of cryptography. One day, the three students came to a small room dimly lit room. A sense of anxiety gripped as a man greeted and spoke to them.The following conversation unfolded between them.Man: So here I have Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski, and Jerzy Rozycki. I trusted you are each loyal to Poland?They nodded in response. The man continued: “What is your view on recent events in Germany?”Henryk responded quickly: “It is a matter of concern to me. I believe it is only a matter of time before Poland is invaded by Germany. It is inevitable that they will seek to re-incorporate us into their empire.”Man: “Do you not think that Germany’s expansionist ambition has been extinguished?”Henryk: “No. I believe that the current economic situation in Germany can only serve to intensify resentment against the Allies. If the current situation is not resolved, a further war, in my view, is inevitable. And if that happens, I am certain that the security of Poland will be jeopardy.”Man: “And would you welcome a return to German domination?”Henryk: “Of course of. Poland must remain free”.Man: “I see. And is Mr. Zygalski’s view shared by you all?”Marian and Jerzy nodded.The man then identified himself: “Good. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Major Maksymilian Ciezki of the Cipher Bureau. I am in charge of the German section. Our function is to intercept coded messages from Germany and decode them. Our bureau operates in the utmost secrecy. I am not in uniform because I am here today in connection with a matter that required discretion.I apologized for my questions. Can I be clear then that each of you supports a free Poland? Think carefully before you answer. If you choose to continue, you may place your lives in danger.”His words sent chill down the spines of the three men. But being patriots, the three men agreed to commit themselves to the task.Maksymilian: “Excellent. My department have decided to take a fresh approach to our work. We are seeking talented and motivated mathematicians. We want to train them in codebreaking. This is a completely new concept. You three have been recommended to me as outstanding students. We are concerned about certain messages that we have intercepted but been unable to decode. My office decided that mathematics students fluent in Germany may be able to overcome this challenge.There is a limited amount of information I can give you at this stage. What I can tell you is that in 1926, the German Navy began using a type of code we could not recognise. The German land forces started using the code in 1928. Our experts have concentrated on breaking this code but to date have not been able to make any progress.We are convinced that the coded messages are being generated by a mechanical device. We are certain that Germany is rearming. Poland will inevitably be one of their first targets. Our national security is threatenedThe government and I are formally inviting you to participate in our training programme, which will commence as soon as possible. This would involve attending a course for two evenings a week in cryptology.It is imperative that you maintain utmost secrecy both concerning the existence of the course and your participation in it. In addition, you will be required to keep up-to-date with your ongoing university studies. The professor has insisted upon that.There must be nothing that could draw attention to any of you. In addition, you will be required to sign documentation confirming your agreement to maintain confidential state secrets. You must understand that signature of these forms imposes serious obligations upon you and that any breach would result in repercussions of the most severe nature.”Maksymilian’s serious tone struck a measure of apprehension in Rejewski, Różycki, Zygalski. But at the same time, the challenge piqued the curiosity of the three students.After signing all documents necessary to obtain security clearance, they began their training in cryptology in earnest. In the end, only a few students, including Marian, Jerzy and Henryk, managed to complete the courses and their mathematics program. Marian was the best among them who graduated with distinction. Maksymilian invited them to work for the Cipher Bureau. However, there were no well-paying jobs for cryptologists. Plus, Marian had intended to pursue a career as an actuary. So he decided to go to Göttingen to receive further education. But before he departed, Antoni Palluth had one last secret to share with him and other graduates of the cryptology course.In a small room, Antoni showed the men a machine that looked like a typewriter.Pay attention, gentlemen. This is an electromechanical rotor cypher machine. It was invented and patented in 1919 by a Dutchman named Hugo Koch. In 1923, a Berlin engineer named Arthur Scherbius established a company to produce the machines. Scherbius had envisaged that the machine — which he called Enigma — would be of interest to companies who required secret correspondence to preserve confidential trade information. It was for this purpose that the machine was advertised and sold.However, we believe that this machine, or at least a modified version of it, is being used by the German forces to transmit messages. It is a device that has confounded the best minds in the world.As you will remember from the earlier lectures here, previous types of cyphers have generally been solved through searching for repeat patterns. That method is ineffective with the Enigma.That is why we selected mathematicians to train in codebreaking. This machine has added a whole new dimension to the craft of cryptology. We are convinced there is a mathematical solution to the problem.Marian surely was excited by the Enigma. After studying in Gottingen for one year, he became bored and decided to go to Poland to work on the Enigma cipher.But there was a problem that even Marian’s mathematical brilliance and determination could not overcome. As noted before, the German military was employing a specially modified version of the Enigma that was markedly more complex than the commercial Enigma that Antoni had revealed to the Polish cryptologists. Without knowing the internal wiring of the military model of the machine, it was practically impossible for the Poles to decode Enigma ciphers.In a stroke of incredible luck and irony, the Poles would get help from a citizen of their country’s future enemy.A German TraitorOn November 2nd 1931, agents of the French secret service held a meeting in Paris. The meeting revolved around an offer of top secret information by a German agent.Captain Gustave Bertrand fired prodding questions at his operative Rodolphe Lemoine to test his confidence.I understand that this man is of impeccable reputation. H.T.S, a civil servant of rankin the German Secret Service. Married with two children. A man who fought for German in the Great War. What is more, his brother is highly ranked in the German Army. Surely this man is better qualified to be a double agent than a traitor? What possible motivation can he have? I cannot see how we can justify funding this project.Lemoine delivered a calm and convincing response:But you have not had the opportunity to meet him in person. I have. He is desperate for money. What could be simpler? I assure you, gentlemen, I have spoken to Herr S. at length regarding his motivation for contacting us and I have no doubt that having himself been betrayed by his native country, he is more than willing to become a mercenary for our cause. He has a price and if we will pay it, we will have his unfailing loyalty.Reassured by Lemoine’s response, captain Lemoine granted his approval. The other agents also expressed their agreement.Captain Bertrand firmly stated:The funding of this project will stretch our budget to the limit. I want to be certain it is worthwhile. I will accompany you to the meeting scheduled for next week. I want to assess this gentleman in person. This operation will be given the highest level security clearance.Who was H.T.S exactly?Hans-Thilo SchmidtBorn in 1888 in Berlin, Hans was the second son of an eminent professor and his wife who was descended from the Prussian aristocracy. Schmidt enlisted in the German Army and fought in the Great War. After the war, the Treaty Of Versaille limited the German Army to a maximum of 100,000 men and prohibited it from having offensive weapons.The small size of the Reichswehr increased the selectivity of its officer corps. Only the best candidates qualified for the small number of posts available. Because Hans Thilo Schmidth wasn’t deemed good enough to be retained, he was dismissed - much to Hans’s humiliation. He then tried to make a living as an owner of a soap business. But the post-war hyperinflation destroyed his business, precipitating his family into poverty.The humiliation caused by this reversal of fortune was exacerbated by his resentment towards his elder brother - Rudolph Schmidth. Like Hans, Rudolph had fought during the Great War. Unlike Hans, he was retained by the Army. Not only that, he rose through the ranks and reached the pinnacle of success through the appointment as Chief of Staff of the Signal Corps. In this capacity, he oversaw all aspects of secret communications, including cipher systems. In fact, it was Rudolph who sanctioned the Army’s use of Enigma cipher.Following the collapse of his soap business, Hans-Thilo was forced to ask his brother for help, and Rudolph offered him a job at the Chiffrierstelle in Berlin. The Chiffrierstelle was no ordinary organization. It was the cipher department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht - responsible for administrating Germany’s secret communications. It was Enigma’s command center, a top-secret facility dealing with highly sensitive information.The job required Hans to relocate to Berlin and leave behind his family in Bavaria because of the high cost of living in Berlin. So Hans Thilo Schmidt ended up living alone in expensive Berlin, impecunious and envious of his perfect brother and resentful toward a nation which had rejected him. He resolved to avenge this humiliation. He decided that the best way to fulfil this aim was to sell classified Enigma information to Germany’s enemies. This would not only allow him to earn a lot of money but also undermine Germany’s national security.This set the stage for a top secret exchange with French Secret Service.On 8th November 1931, Schmidt arrived at the Grand Hotel in Verviers, Belgium to meet French secret service agents. Inside a room, Captain Bertrand carefully studied Hans and his documents. After convincing himself of the authenticity of the documents, Bertrand began talking to Schmidt.“You have the money here?” - asked Schmidt.When Captain Bertrand presented a suitcase containing cash before Schmidt, he exhaled in relief.Schmidt revealed his repressed thoughts: “I fought in the Great War, for Germany of course. I was injured. After the war, there was no work for the injured soldiers. I had to apply for dole money. I risked my life for my country then I was left to starve on the street with my family. I had to beg and borrow money for food.”Captain Bertrand: But then you found work.Schmidt replied bitterly: “Yes, work, and I was paid a pittance. Not enough to feed my family. There is rocketing inflation in Germany. It was insulting. The High Command, like my brother, live like aristocracy. They never went near the front line. They didn’t risk lives.Smidth carried on, in a flat one: “Germany betrayed me. Now I will betray Germany.”Bertrand’s doubt about Schmidt’s reliability vanished. It was clear to him that the German had succumbed to greed and that as long as the French secret service could supply money, Schmidt would provide them with a direct link to Enigma.The result of that meeting was a set of photographs of two top secret documents1/ gebrauchsanweisung für die chiffriermachine enigma (instructions for using the enigma encryption machine)2/ Schlüsselanleitung für die Chiffriermaschine Enigma (key instructions for the Enigma cipher machine)These documents were essentially instructions for using the Enigma machine. Although they did not describe the internal wirings of the machine, they contained the information from which those wirings could be deduced.Thanks to Schmidt’s treachery, it was now possible for the French to create an accurate replica of the German military Enigma machine.However, despite this valuable information, the French were unable to make any progress on breaking Enigma. The reason was they did not have the code book containing key settings for the Enigma. This was a problem made possible by a fundamental principle of cryptography: The strength of a cipher system consists not in keeping secret the enciphering mechanism but in keeping secret the keys.Indeed, this explained the Germans’ overconfidence in the Enigma. They knew that as long as they could keep the keys from falling into enemy hands, they would prevent them from reading Enigma-enciphered messages.So the French did not take advantage of the information supplied by Schmidt. They did not even bother making an Enigma replica because it would still be useless without the keys.Also, the French had become complacent. Germany at that time had not yet emerged as a military threat so they had no interest in breaking Enigma ciphers. The same could be said of the British who had not regarded Germany as a threat.However, there was one nation that could not afford to be complacent: Poland. The Poles at the Cipher Bureau were desperate for any information related to Enigma they could get. As luck would have it, France and Poland had signed an agreement for military cooperation which obliged both nations to help each other in all matters of national security. So the French offered Schmidt’s information to the Poles who eagerly accepted it. The Poles constructed an Enigma replica and proceeded to find a way to break Enigma ciphers in earnest.Polish Codebreakers Tackled EnigmaStarting in November 1932, Marian Rejewski set about breaking Enigma ciphers. Captain Maksymilian supplied Marian with the following materials:A commercial Enigma.A copy of the operating instructions originally provided by Hans Thilo Schmidt.In addition, Marian had at his disposal hundreds of coded messages intercepted by Polish signal intelligence. He spent hours examining these messages and identified one thing they all had in common: a group of six letters that appeared at the top of every message as illustrated below:(Each piece of info in the 1st line was interpreted as follows:1/ 1230 = 12h30 = the time at which this message was produced.2/ 3tle = this message consisted of 3 parts of of which this was the 1st part (1tl)3/ 180 = this message contained 180 characters.4/ WZA RSL = the characteristic 6-letter group)What did those six letters represent? Marian deduced correctly that they were the message keys that were repeated twice. A message key was referred to as an indicator. They were generated based on the key setting defined in an Enigma key book. All German army units were periodically issued (once a month) with key books that contained lines of key setting for a particular day in a month. A key was composed of the following elements:The arrangement of the three rotating rotors.The plugboard for swapping keyboard inputs.The ringstellung - ring position.The ringstellung warrant some elaboration. Enigma rotors came in 2 versions: those with a ring of numbers (1-> 26) and those with a ring of letters (A-Z). A ringstellung = a specific letter/number for each rotor forming a sequence visible through the rotor windows.Rotors with alphabetic letter-ringsRotors with number ringsLeft: a key book showing key settings for rotors with number rings. Right: a key book showing key settings for rotors with letter rings.Now, although the Germans could have used the same key to encipher all messages, they were discouraged from doing so because using the same key to encrypt numerous messages would increase the risk of the key being uncovered by the enemy. Instead, Enigma operators were advised to choose a unique indicator for each message, then encipher this key using the daily key.So for instance, if on a given day the ringstellung for the key of that day was YHZ (from the key book), then an operator was not supposed to use YHZ as the key for any message he produced. Instead, he was supposed to do the following steps:Choose a unique key for every message, let’s say WAK.Encode WAK using the predefined ringstellung YHZ which would yield, say OLQ (from the lampboard).Write OLQ at the top of the message.Adjust the rotor to WAK and then began enciphering the main message.But that wasn’t enough. A message transmitted via radio could be corrupted by various causes. So the Germans decided to encrypt an indicator twice as a way to verify that the key was not distorted during transmission. So WAK would be encrypted twice using YHZ to become, say AHWTFS. This 6-letter group would be placed at the top of a message. Enigma operators who received this message would first set the rotors to YHZ (the predefined ringstellung), then type in AHWTFS. If he got WAKWAK, then they knew that the key for that message was WAK. They would adjust the rotors to WAK and proceed to decipher the message. Note how the decoding process was the mirror image of the encoding process. This was made possible by the reflector - the leftmost fixed wheel in the illustration below.Unbeknownst to the Germans, by encrypting the message keys twice, they unwittingly gave Marian a way to break Enigma ciphers.Here is howMarian was convinced that there existed a relationship between those 6-letter groups and the ringstellung on a given day, and that with sufficient tenacity and wit he would find a way to determine key for that day. So he directed his attention towards those 6-letter groups. He would gather as many of them from the messages intercepted on that day. One example was shown below:An illustration of the 6-letter repeated encrypted indicator that Marian would examine on a typical dayMarian scrutinized those letters for hours, trying to find a pattern. Eventually he had a crucial realization.Since the 6 letters represented the indicator repeated twice, there was a positional relationship between the letters. Specifically:The 1st and 4th letters = cipher letters of the plaintext indicator’s 1st letter.The 2nd and 5th letters = cipher letters of the plaintext indicator’s 2nd letter.The 3rd and 6th letters = cipher letters of the plaintext indicator’s 3rd letter.This insight led him to form tables relating the above pairs of letters. For example, one table may look like this.He studied those tables of relationships. Eventually he discovered an interesting pattern: disjointed circular chains of letters. One such chain was: (ek)e (1st row) -> k (2nd row) -> k (1st row) -> e (2nd row) = (ek)Repeating this process for other letters will yield the following circular chains.(atuvmsidwpxy)(bfjgol)(crzh)(ek)(qn)Marian referred to these disjointed chains as the characteristic set of a given day. Take note of this important fact.Marian’s next insight was that each of the cipher letters and consequently the chains of letters were the results of permutations. This followed immediately from the mechanism of the Enigma which consisted in:Transposition (the rotor replaced an input letter with another letter through an electrical pathway).Swapping (the plugboard swapped the input letter with another one).The implication? The encipherment could be modelled by mathematical equations - especially permutation equations. What’s more? The solution to those equations would reveal the ringstellung which would lead to complete decipherment!Marian found himself with a mathematical puzzle - precisely the kind of challenges that he loved and for which he was well equipped to tackle. At Poznan university, he had studied Group Theory under professor Krygowski. One subject of this branch of mathematics was combinatorics. It was a course he thoroughly enjoyed and he would now apply the knowledge to this puzzle.Each cipher letter was generated by a permutation process which always turned a letter into a different one. There were 6 cipher letters so there were 6 corresponding permutations. Let’s label them A,B,C,D,E,F.For example, permutation A could be (letters in the 1st row were turned into the corresponding ones in the 2nd row)This permutation be written in terms of characteristic sets.A = (admqzb)(c)(enpvjhrt)(fiwoy)(glksxu)Although Marian did not know the individual permutation, he did know the results of the pairwise products of the permutations A,B,C,D,E,F.Specifically,AD = characteristic sets of the (1st, 4th) pair.BE = characteristic sets of the (2nd, 5th) pair.CF = characteristic sets of the (3rd, 6th) pair.Marian came up with and demonstrated a number of theories about permutations. I will present only the most relevant theory.Given a permutation composed of an even number of disjoint circular chains, then this permutation can be expressed as a product of two permutations of the same degree, where each permutation also consists of disjoint cycles.Let’s look at a concrete example. Suppose that Marian found the following characteristic sets from the many intercepted messages:AD = (lwpmv) (tzeqn) (arh) (kiu) (sfj) (gxy) (b) (c) (o) (d) (number of disjoint cycles = 10 so degree = 10)BE= (ohfrlt) (qsyizj) (amceu) (ndxpv) (kb) (gw) (number of disjoint cycles = 6 so degree = 6)CF= (cqelbosptnfkj) (uhzaydxvrgwim) (number of disjoint cycles = 2 so degree = 2)It was possible to determine individual permutations A,B,C,D,E,F using Marian’s Theorem. For the sake of simplicity, let’s demonstrate this with a simpler example:AD = (adf)(bef)(c)(g) (degree = 4)One possible solutions is[math]A = (ah)(de)(fb)(cg)[/math] and [math]D = (hd)(ef)(ba)(cg)[/math](A and D each had degree = 4)(a->h (in A), h-> d (in B) => a->d (in AB). d->e (in A), e->f (in B) => d->f (in AB). This completes the cycle: (adf)Another solution is:[math]A = (ae)(db)(fh)(cg)[/math] and [math]D = (ed)(bf)(ha)(cg)[/math]Cool huh?Marian applied the above procedure to figure out all possible solutions for A,B,C,D,E,F. You can imagine that at the beginning, he had to manually calculate everything - a tedious process until he invented a machine that automated this process.The next two crucial insights Marian had that came of painstaking scrutiny of the characteristics sets and from trying various rotor settings were:the cycle structure of the characteristic sets depended entirely on the rotor setting AND not the plugboard.The characteristic sets AD, BE, CF produced by a specific rotor setting were nearly unique.(The cycle structure = the sequence of chain lengths where a chain length = number of characters in a cycle. So this characteristic set (ohfrlt) (qsyizj) (amceu) (ndxpv) (kb) (gw) has the following cycle structure (6)(6)(5)(5)(2)(2))As regards the 1st discovery, this makes sense because the plugboard only swapped letters so it could not have any effect on the number of links. This was a very consequential discovery because the permutation by the plugboard has the largest value when 10 swapping cables were used (the standard number used during the war): 150,738,274,937,250: > 150 trillions.By contrast, the permutation associated with the rotor setting was only 6 x 26 x 26 x 26 = 105,456 (6 = 3! = number of ways of arranging the 3 rotors and 26 = number of letters (or numbers) on each of the 3 rotors)The implication? Marian only had to examine the characteristic sets produced by each of the 105,456 rotor settings. Although that was still a fairly large number, it was at least manageable and certainly within the bound of manual labor!!! With this crucial insight, the seemingly insurmountable challenge now became solvable.The second insight was very telling because it implied that from the characteristic sets we could identify the rotor settings. It followed that if Marian could create a catalogue that mapped a rotor setting to a cycle structure, then he would be able to uncover part of the key setting for the Enigma.So Marian and his colleagues set about cataloguing the characteristic sets produced by each of the 105,456 rotor settings. This endeavor took about 1 year to complete: laborious but certainly worth the time and effort.The biggest challenge was finally solved. But there were still other parts of the daily key that Marian need to figure out.One was the internal wiring of the rotor. Thanks to Hans Thilo Schmidt, Marian was able to deduce the wirings of all three rotors from the documents the German traitor had given away. Marian fully recognized the enormous value of Hans’s documents through his remarkAsche’s documents were welcomed like manna from heaven, and all doors were immediately opened.(Asche was the codename of Hans Thilo Schmidt. Due to the need for absolute secrecy, Hans’s identity was never disclosed to anyone).The next piece of the puzzle was the static wheel that stood between the plugboard and the rightmost rotor:This drum also had 26 pins for 26 letters each of which was connected to a letter on the keyboard. Now, 26 letters so the number of possible permutations was 26! = 403,291,461,126,605,635,584,000,000 (27 digits) - a huuuuge number. Which permutation did the Germans choose for the drum?Incredibly, Marian found the permutation through a combination of reasonable guess + luck. First, Marian tried the permutation used for the commercial Enigma. It did not work. He tried other permutations but to no avail.Then he thought:The wiring of the keyboard to the entry fixed drum. Initially I assumed that the wiring on the machine matched that of the commercial Enigma. I was wrong. Once I realized my mistake I spent considerable time trying to deduct the order of the letters on the fixed drum. Then I recalled my time at the German-speaking school. My German teachers were always ordered and logical. So I thought to myself - if I possessed a German mind, how would I set out the order of the letters? I guessed the order of letters was alphabetical(i.e: a is connected to a, b is connected to b, … z is connected to z)IT WORKED!!! Much to the surprise of Marian.So the only unsolved piece that remained was the plugboard. Surprisingly, determining the swapping pairs was very easy. After determining the rotor settings for a certain day, Marian would set the rotors accordingly and typed in the ciphertext without any swapping cable. The resulting plaintext message would obviously be gibberish composed of misspelt words caused by the letters not being swapped.Being fluent in Germans could, Marian could see which letters needed to be swapped to correct the words. For example: the phrase “akkact ak dawn” was “attack at dawn” meaning that letters k and t needed to be swapped. So a cable connecting k and t needed to be plugged in. Eventually, Marian would be able to figure out all the swapping and the plaintext message would be revealed.And that - ladies and gentlemen - was how Marian Rejewski broke Enigma. Although several members of the Polish Cipher Bureau (and ironically: Hans Thilo Schmidt) deserved credit for this success, Marian was the genius who deserved the greatest credit. It was only through his ingenuity and mathematical talent that the supposedly unbreakable Enigma was broken. With the catalogue mapping rotor settings to cycle structure completed, the Cipher Bureau began uncovering large numbers of German military messages on any given day. When a German miltiary delegation led by Hermann Göring visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers next to the building of the Cipher Bureau, Marian looked down at them, delighted in the knowledge that he could read their most secret communications.I will conclude this section with one very interesting fact. In several meetings with Major Gwido Langer - the Cipher Bureau’s chief, Hans Thilo Schmidt gave him not only operating instructions for the Enigma but also the key books. This exchanged lasted almost 7 years. But Langer never gave the key books to Marian Rejewski and his colleagues. This begs the question: why didn’t he share the keys with the codebreakers? It would have saved them a lot of effort and time.The answer was: the astute Langer had foreseen that one day Schmidt might no longer be able to help for whatever reasons. If that happened, the Poles could count on no one but themselves. Without the keys, Marian Rejewski would be compelled to exercise his ingenuity to deal with new cryptographic challenges in the future. In other words, Langer wanted Marian and his colleagues to be challenged so that they would become self-sufficient. Marian Rejewski had overcome that challenge brilliantly: he broke Enigma ciphers without the daily keys held by Langer.Mechanical Decryption of the EnigmaAlthough Marian’s cataloguing method worked, it was too time-consuming and tedious. Since time was of the essence, Marian recognized the need for a faster method to find the rotor setting. This motivation led to the next breakthrough in the cryptanalysis of the Enigma.Marian designed an electromechanical contraption now referred to as the Bomba. The design was realized by Antoni Palluth - owner of the AVA radio company and a member of the Cipher Bureau.Each Bomba constituted an Enigma with a specific rotor arrangement. Since There were six arrangements of the rotors (3! = 6), the Poles built 6 Bombas. The machine operated on the principle formulated by Marian: exploited the doubly-enciphered indicator. According to Marian, it worked in the following manner:using group theory of permutations from mathematics, we were able to build up a catalogue of all possible keys. This machine will search the key code message for patterns then stop automatically as soon as the pattern is found in the stored catalogue. Once we have the key codes, the Enigma can then be primed to read the message.The bomba significantly reduced the amount of time taken to find the rotor setting to 2 hours. It was an ingenious and arguably unprecedented advance in codebreaking: the mechanization of decryption in response to the mechanization of encryption.In consideration of his accomplishment and service, Marian Rejewski was awarded the Silver Cross of Merit in 1936 and the Gold Cross of Merit in 1938.The Poles Hit Dead EndIn December 1938, the Germans made significant changes to the Enigma that made the cipher vastly more difficult to break for the Poles.One change was made on the increase in the number of swapping cables from 6 to 10. This greatly raised the number of ways a message could be enciphered (from 100,391,791,500 (6 cables) to 150,738,274,937,250 (10 cables))Another change was the instruction for Enigma operators to use a new ringstellung for every message. Prior to this, the German operators were either lazy or inexperienced and kept using the same and easy-to-guess ringstellung for many messages (Such as AAA, XYZ, or BER (Berlin) or even the first 3 letters of their girlfriend’s name LOL). These stupid mistakes was of great aid to the Poles because it allowed them to sometimes deduce correctly what the message keys were without having to find the characteristic sets. This advantage went out of the window starting in December 1938 and thereafter.The other change, far more damaging to the Poles, was the introduction of 2 new rotors, increasing the number of available rotors from 3 to 5. This meant that the number of possible rotor arrangements was 5x4x3 = 60 - a 10-fold increase. This posed two challenges to the Poles:They needed to determine the internal wiring of the 2 new motors.They would need 60 bombas for the 60 possible arrangements of the 5 rotors. The cost for all of those machines far exceeded the available budget of the Cipher Bureau at the time.Remarkably, the Poles managed to solve the first problem. Back in September 1939, despite the Wehrmacht High Command’s order to use a new ringstellung for every new message, the Sicherheitsdienst - one of the Third Reich’s numerous security agencies - continued to use the same ringstellung for every new message well after the 2 new rotors were introduced in December 1938. It was a fatal and stupid mistake that enabled Marian to deduce the wiring for the 2 new rotors.Despite this success, the other problems - building 60 bombas - remained unresolved. The Poles simply could not afford all 60 machines.The consequence? Starting since the early 1939, the Cipher Bureau was confronted with an intelligence blackout. Their success rate dropped drastically from 70% in the previous year to a mere 10%. Finally, the Germans had outpaced the Poles.The Polish cryptanalytic success had come to an end - much to the disappointment and apprehension of the Poles.Intelligence Sharing with the French and BritishIn desperation, the Poles decided to ask the French and British for help. They intended to disclose their breakthroughs on the Enigma with their allies in exchange for any material aid that would enable them to continue their work.This set the stage for a secret meeting in a forest near Warsaw on 25th-26th July 1939. Prominent representatives of British and French intelligence services were invited to the meeting. The British delegation consisted of Dilly Knox, Alastair Denniston, Wilfred Dunderdale. The French delegation consisted of Gustave Bertrand, Henri Braquenié.The French and British interacted with prominent members of the Cipher Bureau, including Gwido Langer, Maksymilian Ciężki, Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski, and Jerzy Rozycki.The British and French were excited. They were keen to see what the Poles had to offer.Langer set the meeting in motion.Langer: “So we are all in agreement so far as the sharing of information is concerned. Good. Then, gentlemen, I am delighted to inform you that we at this bureau have enjoyed considerable success in deciphering messages sent by the Germans by virtue of the Enigma machine. We have prepared certain information which we can make available to your departments if we can be assured of your assistance.”Langer paused and observed the reaction of the British and French.Dilly Knox was incredulous: “I don’t believe it! It is impossible to decipher messages sent with the Enigma machine.”Langer gauged the atmosphere and asked: “Am I to gather from your reactions that neither of your departments have had any success in decoding the Enigma?”“That’s correct. We have had our top minds working on this for years without success.” - Knox responded in a tone that smacked of embarrassment.Captain Bertrand: “Yes, my department has not had any success with this code and has considered it unbreakable.”Langer was disappointed:“Very well, gentlemen. It would appear that this meeting, which was specifically convened for the purpose of sharing information, falls short of my expectations. If my understanding is correct, you have no intelligence that can be of use to my department. Which leaves my bureau in the position of simply giving your departments top-secret information in good faith. Forgive me, gentlemen. I have to consider the implications of that.”Langer left the room to confer with his colleagues. He expressed his disappointment openly:We had expected that some intelligence could be provided to ourselves. You must understand — I am concerned about the security risk which extended knowledge of our position could present. We have successfully managed to maintain the extent of our advancement on decoding the Enigma securely within our unit. I do not need to emphasise to anyone present the importance of maintaining the utmost secrecy with this information.This is an unmitigated disaster... The risk to our organisation and to Poland is unquantifiable if it becomes known we can decipher the messages from Germany. Giving them information in return for nothing is an enormous risk with no advantage to ourselves.Jerzy responded:“If only it were that simple. We have no choice. We must share the information with the Allies. We need sixty Bomba machines and sixty of Zygalski’s sheets to enable us to continue to decode the messages rapidly. We do not have the resources to construct the machines required. The danger to Poland increases with each hour that passes. Never has our need to decode the German messages been more urgent. We must secure an undertaking from the Allies that they will supply equipment in return for our knowledge. It is vital we are able to continue our work.”Marian agreed with Jerzy:“The messages must be decoded speedily. It is vital we have more equipment. We are never going to have the funding necessary here for the production of the equipment needed. We cannot maintain our previous levels of codebreaking without either the machines and sheets, which the British can presumably provide. Not now the Germans have introduced the five rotor system.”Henryk added:“Now that Poland has a promise of assistance from Britain in the event of attack and the treaty with France, surely our providing assistance will assist Poland and demonstrate we are operating in good faith?”After soliciting their colleagues’s opinions, Langer telephoned General Waclaw Stachiewicz to obtain his his approval to share their knowledge on Enigma with the Allies.Meanwhile in the meeting room, the British and French were getting anxious.Dillwyn Knox said to himself: “Well, it looks like there isn’t going to be much information sharing. Do you really think they have been able to advance with breaking the code for the Enigma machine?”Alastair Denniston shook his head: “I don’t believe they have. We have the best minds working on this day and night with no progress.”Captain Braquenié: “They whisper it is the unbreakable code in my department.”Captain Bertrand: “I happen to know that they have exceptional mathematicians working on this. I am hoping they just may be able to surprise us, gentlemen.”Captain Braquenié: “Well let’s see, I have to confess my ignorance. I had thought Poland a land of peasants.”Dillwyn Knox added: “Well it will be interesting to see if they are going to trust us. Personally, I don’t think they will have much choice.”You could perceive a sense of snobbery and condescension in the conversation (land of peasants). The French and the British appeared to think that since the British and French could not break Enigma, then the uncultured and unsophisticated Poles could not do it. Little did they know, they were sorely mistaken.Then Langer returned, looking much more relaxed than when he left.“Good news, gentlemen. I have been authorised to let you witness our Bomba in operation. As I explained earlier, our cryptologists have been working day and night to reach this stage of development. In view of Germany’s aggressive behaviour and the recent treaties between our nations, we are delighted to share our information. Given that, at present, you are not able to disclose any advances to ourselves, we are insistent on a condition that you provide assistance in providing equipment to decypher the Enigma. I will explain in more detail as we progress. Gentlemen, please be seated. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by what you are about to witness.”The British and French representatives were incredulous but returned to their places at Langer’s suggestion. Marian began the demonstration by showing an intercepted coded message to everyone in the room.“This is a message which our radio interceptor team traced. It is passed immediately to our section and to our team here.” - said Langer.Marian, Jerzy and Henryk unveiled a machine - it was a Bomba. They proceeded to operate the machine to decipher the sample coded message.The guests watched quietly in suspense, and then started with shocked surprise as the Bomba started making lots of tickling noise.Marian: “It’s quite noisy. The machine is electrically powered and systematically works through the 17,576 possible different positions for the rotors. When it finds the right one it stops. It can take up two hours to work through all the possible permutations. That means, in a maximum of two hours, we will have the daily keys which were being used by the Germans on the day the message was sent. Once we have the daily keys in operation for a particular day, we can decode all the messages sent that day without further requirement of the Bomba. We can use the Enigma machine, which we have here.”.While waiting for the Bomba to find the key, Marian unveiled a replica of the military Enigma that he had designed (without having ever seen an actual machine).Dillwyn Knox was astonished. He asked: “How on earth did you discover all of this?”Marian replied: “I was fortunate to have some assistance. I was given some manuals and codes relating to the Enigma machine. I understand that I have you to thank” - Marian turned to Captain Bertrand (recall that he got the document from Hans Thilo Schmidt)Dillwyn Knox: “Yes. I myself worked extensively on the documentation you (Bertrand) provided, but I came to the conclusion that it was impossible to decipher the Enigma with that information alone. Although I made some progress developing a formula to ascertain the daily setting of the keys, eventually I concluded it was impossible to ascertain the wiring of the rotors.”Marian stood proudly before the Bomba. “I reconstructed the internal wiring of the military Enigma.”“What? You discovered the internal wirings for the drum. How?” - Dillwyn Knox jumped to his feet.(Note: The drum Dilly Knox was referring to was the static drum between the plugboard and the rightmost rotor.)Marian laughed. ‘You won’t like this. Initially, I worked through a number of methods which I considered probable. None of those worked. So I guessed.Knox asked in disbelief: “How could you guess?”Marian crossed his arms, enjoying the attention riveted upon him. ‘It just came to me one day as I worked through all the possible complex combinations. I stopped. I thought “what would my German teacher at school have done?” I remembered the German love of order. Then it was simple. I knew without any shadow of a doubt that I had searched too hard for a solution. The keyboard of the military version displayed the letters in alphabetical order, the letters round the rims of the rotors were ordered in alphabetical order. What could be more simple?”There was a resounding thump as Dillwyn Knox’s fist pounded down on the table. “I can’t believe it. How simple. Why didn’t I think of that?”At this point, the Bomba stopped making noise. It had found the ringstellung for the sample coded message. Jerzy set the rotors to the resulting ringstellung and typed in the coded message which yielded the plaintext message:“Section 4 U Boats head to Gdansk 1400 hours 19th”At this point, the astonishment felt by the British and the French reached its climax. Dilly Knox stood up to give a round of applause. The other attendees followed suit.“Absolutely first rate work!” - said Knox.The British and French were fairly embarrassed for underestimating the Poles. Whatever doubts they had with regards to the success and ability of the Poles vanished following the demonstration. The British who had given up on Enigma now realized that the supposedly unbreakable Enigma could be broken. The Polish achievements revived their hope in the cryptanalytic battle with the German ciphers in the imminent war.In September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. The Cipher Bureau’s systematic codebreaking effort had come to an end.SummaryThe Poles indeed had broken the Enigma cipher for many years before the British did. It was an achievement that attested to the intelligence, talent and ingenuity of the Polish codebreakers, especially Marian Rejewski who single-handedly came up with the mathematical theory to find the permutations that produced the indicator, who discovered the characteristic sets and the crucial relationship between cycle structures and the rotor setting, and who devised the method to find that rotor setting. This achievement became even more remarkable in light of the fact that British and French were convinced that the Enigma was invincible. Although this success would be highly unlikely without the treachery of Hans Thilo-Schmidt who supplied the materials needed to deduced the wirings of the rotors, and without luck (the guessing of the mapping between the static drum and the keyboard), those facts did not diminish the worth of Marian’s accomplishment.Much respect to the achievements of Polish codebreakers.I hope the readers find this a compelling read. (I am delighted to complete this answer in fulfillment of a longstanding promise to a friend :D)Reference(s)1/ The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography - Simon Singh.2/ X, Y & Z: The Real Story of How Enigma Was Broken - Dermon Turing, Arkady Rzegocki.3/ The Cypher Bureau - Eilidh McGinness

((This is probably more than you ever wanted to know about NSA but I can almost guarantee that most of it you have never heard before.)In electronics, there is a device called an optocoupler. It is used when you want to connect one circuit to another with no possibility of feedback. Circuit “A” feeds its signal into an D-to-A converter and then into one half of the optocoupler which is an LED light. This LED is encapsulated into a small can or epoxy box that also contains a photoresistor - a device that changes resistance as the light on it changes - which is then read by Circuit “B”. These two devices are sealed in a light and air tight enclosure about the size of a pea but there is no physical or electrical connection between the two.Circuit A makes the LED flash which is read by the photoresistor which is then read by Circuit B. The signal (data, audio, control signals, etc.) is passed in a one-way transmission from A to B with no chance of any kind of feedback. Also if circuit A is hacked, burned up, shocked by a power surge or an EMP, then it cannot affect circuit B. This is called optical isolation of data or of an electrical circuit.NSA has perhaps the most extensive and complex network of computers in the world BUT most of it has no connections outside of the NSA campus.NSA uses similar but obviously much more complex technologies like the optocoupler to completely isolate its networks from the outside world. Inside their isolated networks, they can use whatever they want to use - including Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint and other common office productivity programs.There are, in fact, several networks within NSA and only two of them are actually linked to the internet. One is a massively buffered and one-way isolated data collection system to read in all the collected data from the internet, phones, radio, satcom, text messages, etc into their system. It is filtered and screened on several levels before being moved behind foolproof firewalls and into isolated and indexed storage banks. From there is it selectively pulled, filtered and screened again and then used by their search and pattern recognition analysis programs.The other network is an unsecured network that can be used to access the internet. These are terminals that go through a central server that monitors all traffic and has the best firewall there is. These terminals are in specially marked areas, are specially marked units and are physically, electrically and data isolated from all the other internal networks.The entire computer operation is designed with multiple layered levels of security, firewalls, user verification and embedded isolation on multiple levels and against multiple access mechanisms including the electric grid, the phone lines, window-laser reflections, cell phones, etc. in addition to bug sweeps and the best data encryption in all data transfer lines.Bottom line - they use ordinary word processors on extraordinary networks.It occured to me that your question might not be asking about just the software to actually create the reports themselves but also to analyze, find and create the content of those reports. Such as how or what to use that screen the big data of what they have collected to find something to write about. Here is an edited article I wrote for another publication that you might find interesting:Primarily as a result of the paranoia that followed 11 Sept 2001 (9/11) that caused Cheney and Bush to mandate the ability to track and monitor every person in the US, there were immediate efforts to do this with the so-called Patriots Act that bypassed a lot of constitutional and existing laws and rights – like FISA. They also instructed NSA to monitor all internet, radio and phone traffic, which was also illegal, and against the charter of NSA. Lesser known monitoring that began soon after was the hacking into existing computer databases and monitoring of all emails by NSA computers. They now have computers that can download and read every email on every circuit from every Internet user as well as every form of voice and data communication.The idea of tracking everyone came out of the “connect the dots” problem. A heavy criticism that came out of 9/11 was that the intelligence agencies had not connected the dots of numerous indicators that it might happen. It was clear only in retrospect that a real threat was developing. The idea developed that real-time data analysis was simply not possible on the scale needed. By collecting everything from everybody, they can go back and look at previous communications after finding a suspicious suspect. So, if suspect A pops up because of other intelligence or he says something suspicious, he is moved over to a watch list. They can then go back and look at past collected data and see where and when he communicated with others. They can then look at those people and who they communicated with and so on. In this manner, they can sometimes identify an entire network of cohorts that have been quietly working as a hidden and secret terrorist cell for a long time.However, the claims of being able to track everyone, everywhere have been made before and it seems that lots of people simply don't believe that level of monitoring is possible. Well, I'm here to tell you that it not only is possible, but it is all automated and you can read all about one of the earlier tools that started it all online.Look up "starlight" in combination with "PNNL" on Google and you will find references to a software program that was the first generation of the kind of tool I am talking about. This massive amount of communications data is screened by a program called STARLIGHT, which was created by the CIA and the Army and a team of contractors led by Battelle's Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL). It does two things that very few other programs can do. It can process free-form text and it can display complex queries in visual 3-D infomatic outputs.The free-form text processing means that it can read text in its natural form as it is spoken, written in letters and emails and printed or published in documents. For a database program to be able to do this as easily and as fast as it would for formal defined data records and fields of a relational database is a remarkable design achievement.Understand this is not just a word search and OCR – although that is part of it. It is not just a text-scanning tool; it can treat the text of a book as if it were an interlinked, indexed and cataloged database in which it can recall every aspect of the book (data). It can associate and find any word or phrase in relation to any parameter you can think of related to the book – page numbers, nearby words, word use per page, chapter or book, words near other words, phrases, etc. By using the most sophisticated voice-to-text messaging, it can perform this kind of expansive searching on everything written or spoken, emailed, faxed, texted or said on cell phones or landline phones or sent as images in the entire US and for all communications going out of or into the US.The visual presentation of that data is the key to being able to use it without information overload and to have the software prioritize the data for you. It does this by translating the database query parameters into colors and dimensional elements of a 3-D display.To view this data, you have to put on a special set of virtual reality (VR) glasses similar to the ones that put a tiny TV screen in from of each eye. Such eye-mounted viewing is available for watching video and TV – giving the impression you are looking at a 3-D image suspended in space.In the case of STARLIGHT, it gives a completely 3-D effect and more. It can sense which way you are looking so it shows you a full 3-D virtual environment that can be expanded into any size the viewer wants. And then it adds interactive elements. You can put on a special glove that can be seen in the projected 3-D image in front of your eyes. As you move this glove in the 3-D space you are in, it moves in the 3-D computer virtual images that you see in your binocular eye-mounted screens. Plus this glove can interact with the projected data elements. Let's see how this might work for a simple example:The first civilian application of STARLIGHT was for the FAA to analyze private aircraft crashes over a 10-year period. Every scrape of information was scanned from hard copy accident reports, FAA investigations and police records – almost all of this was in free-form text. This included full specs on the aircraft, passengers, pilot, type of flight plan (IFR, VFR) etc. It also entered geospatial data that listed departure and destination airports, peak flight plan altitude, elevation of impact, distance and heading data. It also entered temporal data for the times of day, week and year that each event happened. This was hundreds of thousands of documents that would have taken years to key into a computer if a conventional database were used. Instead, high-speed scanners were used that read in reports at a rate of 500 double-sided pages per minute. Using a half dozen of these scanners completed the data entry in less than one month.The operator then assigned colors to a variety of ranges of data. For instance, it first assigned red and blue to male and female pilots and then looked at the data projected on a map. What popped up were hundreds of mostly red (male) dots spread out over the entire US map. Not real helpful.Next he assigned a spread of colors to a halo or outline around the pilot dots to all the makes aircraft – Cessna, Beachcraft, etc.. Now all the dots have halos that change to a rainbow of colors with no particular concentration of any given color in any given geographic area.Next he assigned colored lines to hours of the day – red for the 12 hours – Midnight to Noon and then blue from Noon to Midnight. Each colored line pointed to the hour of the time of the accident. Using a blinking or flashing notation, the operator could flach the lines for each hour to highlight them among all the other symbols.Now something interesting came up. The lines assigned to 6AM (red) and to 6PM (blue) and the hour or two before and after that time were dominant on the map. This meant that the majority of the accidents happened around dusk or dawn.Next the operator entered assigned frames or background shapes around the pilot dots to represent distances from the departing airport – a red triangle being within 5 miles, orange square was 5 to 10 miles…and so on with a blue circle being the longest (over 100 miles). Again a surprise in the image. The map showed mostly red triangles or blue circles with very few in between. When he refined the query so that red triangles were either within 5 miles of the departing or destination airport, almost the whole map was covered by red triangles. This kind of visual representation of different aspects of the data continued as the operator analyzed the data further.Using these simple techniques, an operator was able to determine in a matter of a few hours that 87% of all private aircraft accidents happen within 5 miles of the takeoff or landing runway. 73% happen in the twilight hours of dawn or dusk. 77% happen with the landing gear lowered or with the landing lights on and 61% of the pilots reported being confused by ground lights.This gave the FAA information they needed to target specific research into the visual aspects of approach and departure portions of the flight plans and how the rising or setting sun may affect the pilots. This led to improvements to flash rates and colors used for approach lighting and navigation aids in the terminal control areas (TCAs) of private aircraft airports.This was a very simple application that used a limited number of visual parameters at a time. But STARLIGHT is capable of so much more. It can assign things like direction and length of a vector, color of the line or tip, curvature and width and taper to various elements of a search. It can give shape to one result and different shape to another result. This gives significance to "seeing" a cube versus a sphere or to seeing rounded corners on a flat surface instead of square corners on an egg-shaped surface. Everything visual can have meaning. It can also overlay a map onto the visual data or have linked lines to mapped locations.Having 20+ variables at a time that can be interlaced with geospatial and temporal (historical) parameters can allow the program to search an incredible amount of data. Since the operator is looking for trends, anomalies and outliers, the visual representation of the data is ideal to spot this data without actually scanning the data itself by the operator. Since the operator is visually seeing an image that is devoid of the details of numbers or words, he can easily spot some aspect of the image that warrants a closer look.In each of these trial queries, the operator can, using his gloved hand to point to any given dot, call up the original source of the information in the form of a scanned image of the accident report. He can also touch virtual screen elements to bring out other data or query elements. For instance, he can merge two queries to see how many accidents near airports had more than two passengers or were single engine aircraft, etc. Someone looking on would see a guy with weird glasses waving his hand in the air in an empty room but in his eyes, he is pressing buttons, rotating knobs and selecting colors and shapes to alter his 3-D view of the data.In its use at NSA has also added another interesting capability. Pattern Recognition. It can automatically find patterns in the data that would be impossible for any real person to find by looking at the data. For instance, they put in a long list of words that are linked to risk assessments – such as plutonium, bomb, kill, jihad, etc along with all of their common code words. Then they let it search for patterns. Suppose there are dozens of phone calls being made to coordinate an attack but the callers are from all over the US. Every caller is calling someone different so no one number or caller can be linked to a lot of risk words. STARLIGHT can collate these calls and find the common linkage between them, and then it can track the calls, caller and discussions in all other media forms.Now imagine the list of risk names, words and phrases to be tens of thousands of words long. It includes code words and words used in other languages. It can include consideration for the source or destination of the call – from public phones or unregistered cell phones. It can link the call to a geographic location within a few feet and then track the caller in all subsequent calls and all subsequent contacts (using geofencing). It can use voice print technology to match calls made on different devices (radio, CB, VHF, cell phone, landline, VOIP, etc.). This is still just a sample of the possibilities.As I mentioned, STARLIGHT was the first generation and was only as good as the data that was fed into it through scanned documents and other databases of information. Later versions were created that used advanced data mining and ERP (enterprise resource planning) system architecture that integrated the direct feed from information gathering resources. For instance, the old STARLIGHT system had to feed recordings of phone calls into a speech-to-text processor and then the text data that was created was fed into STARLIGHT. In the newer versions, the voice monitoring equipment (radios, cell phones, landlines) is fed directly into the system as is the direct feed of emails, telegrams, text messages, Internet traffic, etc.The exact nature of the NSA computer system is top secret but there have been numerous references and indicators of its content and capabilities that insiders and watchful analysts have observed over the past decade. A system description has emerged that many aware insiders agree is a very likely setup of what NSA now has. This is not classified because it is speculation, extrapolations and guesses but it is based on a lot of circumstantial and indicative data, budget requests, contracts awarded and congressional testimony.The massive bank of Panther Cray computers at NSA is by far the most advanced network in the world.A NSA supercomputer known as the Cray Panther with its performance of 74 petaflops was developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as a follow-on to the Blue Gene/Q system that they named the Vulcan. Panther has 26,000 nodes, each with two Intel Xeon Ivy Bridge processors and three Xeon Phi processors plus an array of other nodes to manage input and output for a combined total of 11,137,000 computing cores."A petaflop represents one quadrillion floating point operations per second, or a million billion. This is fast but when it is banked with 4 others just like it, it functionally becomes a massively parallel, single central processing unit and computer system that can divide and distribute the processing and analysis of data among an entire network of similar computers. There are five Panher’s that form a single unit that NSA calls “Mother”. The five Panther’s (Mother) sit in a room in a pentagon arrangement with an outer layer of 21 additional super computers whose sole function it is to manage massive memory and the input and output of the data to Mother.As an indicator of how much they have tried to improve efficiency and processing speed, one of the things that put limits on the speed of processing was simply that the data traveled too slowly through the wires – at a speed close but not at the speed of light but sometimes thru hundreds of feet of wire. In the late 1990’s, a major redesign moved all the computers into the same room and got them closer together to shorten the wire lengths. That helped but then in 2006, they began integrating laser beams to replace the wires. Now the 21 feeder computers connect with Mother by millions of beams of laser light over much shorter distances. The end result is processing speeds and analytical power that is really hard to comprehend.This entire system is kept in a “clean room” which is kept cleaner than an operating room and colder than a refrigerator. Cryo-cooled components and boards are powered by AC systems the size of a school bus. A look at the roofs of the NSA buildings on Google Maps will give you some idea of the massive amount of plumbing needed to manage this array of heat-producing computers located in the underground levels.