Hacking Enigma (Ljubljana)

A fascinating illustrated talk on the breaking of the Enigma ciphers, with a hands-on demonstration of an original, iconic Enigma machine, which dominated the events of WW2.

… and a less known innocent Barbie branded toy typewriter made in Slovenia.  Along with a range of typesetting features, such as letter-spacing and underline, this children’s toy was capable of encoding and decoding secret messages, using a built-in cipher mode.

What?

One hour talk on the Enigma Machine; the fascinating history, technical explanation and human story behind one of the world’s most important hacks.

Followed by half an hour long live demonstration of Dr Baldwin’s personal Enigma Machine, where the audience can not only get up close but actually touch, photograph and play with a real, genuine Enigma Machine, and ask further questions.

Who?

​​Dr Mark Baldwin (aka Dr Enigma) is a world expert on the Enigma machine and professional speaker with 20 years’ experience. Together with his genuine Enigma machine, he has delivered more than 700 presentations and demonstrations, to over 60,000 people globally including some of the biggest names in tech (Facebook, PayPal, Dropbox, CNET etc).

The Computer History Museum’s own Head of Laboratory, Marko Štamcar, a veteran demonstrator and lecturer himself, will bring to life and testing the peculiar toy item from our own collection and open up a discussion of how innocent was it really, considering  the time and context in which the cipher capability typewriter was marketed. The contrasting devices will make us reconsider how we approach the topic of cryptography on an everyday basis in a world where our lives are more informationally exposed than ever before.

Testimonials

“Everyone at Facebook loved having Dr. Baldwin come with the Enigma Machine. It was hands down one of the best speakers we’ve had” Brooke Pearson, Cyber Security, Facebook HQ, Menlo Park, USA

“Dropbox has been blessed to have some terrific speakers the past few years, but the session with Dr Enigma and the machine was truly exceptional. I got an avalanche of thanks for arranging the event.” Scott Joaquim, Security Team, Dropbox HQ, San Francisco, USA

“Thank you for coming to CNET HQ in San Francisco and telling us the fascinating history of the world’s greatest hack — and for letting us all touch and play with your Enigma machine! So amazing!” Connie Guglielmo, Editor-in-Chief, CNET News HQ, San Francisco, USA