A rare one machine encryption M4 Enigma cipher του 1944, που θεωρούνταν μια από τις πιο δύσκολες προκλήσεις στην αποκρυπτογράφηση των Συμμάχων, πωλήθηκε σε δημοπρασία του Οίκου Christie για 347.250 £ (437.955 δολάρια USA).
The bid for the electromechanical encryption machine was just above the top των 300.000 estimate expected at the auction.
As Christie House reports, the M4 Enigma has a special place in the history of computers, as the Allies' attempts to crack their encryption led to the development of the first programmable computer, developed in Bletchley Park and used to break the M4, allowing the Allies to track every German navy. planning from the Battle of the Atlantic to their delivery in mid-1945.
M4 Enigma (with 4 rotors) are considered rare because they were made in smaller numbers by three-rotor machines.
After capitulating Germany, the country ordered the troops to destroy the remaining Enigma so that the allied forces could not acquire them. After the war, Winston Churchill also ordered that all remaining Enigmas be destroyed to help preserve the secret of the Allied decoding successes at Bletchley.
The M4 Enigma (with 4 rotors) was built on the orders of Admiral Karl Dönitz, the commander of the German U-boat fleet, who was concerned about the Allies' repeated successes against his submarines.
The M4 is done available to the U-boat fleet in May 1941, after keeping the Allies from knowing their location for nearly a year until Turing and Joe Desch in Dayton, Ohio developed the computer that broke the M4 encryption.
By mid-1943, most of the messages encrypted by the M4 Enigma were read by the Allies, but it was not until the 1970s that it became public that the Allies could read the encrypted messages of the Germans.
