Cryptanalysis of the Enigma by the letters on the top row of the Enigma keyboard. So, "continuation of message sent at 2330" was represented as "FORTYWEEPYYWEEPY". "Cribs" were fundamental to the British approach to solving Enigma keys, but guessing the plaintext for a message was a highly skilled business. So in 1940 Stuart Milner-Barry set up a special "Crib Room" in Hut 8. Foremost amongst the knowledge needed for identifying cribs was the text of previous decrypts. Bletchley Park maintained detailed indexes of message preambles, of every person, of every ship, of every unit, of every weapon, of every technical term and of repeated
Enigma machine indicator procedures were two of the main weaknesses that made cracking Enigma possible. One of the earliest "indicator procedures" for the Enigma was cryptographically flawed and allowed Polish cryptanalysts to make the initial breaks into the plugboard Enigma. The procedure had the operator set his machine in accordance with the secret settings that all operators on the net shared. The settings included an initial position for the rotors (the "Grundstellung"), say, "AOH". The operator turned his rotors until "AOH" was visible through the rotor windows. At that point, the operator chose his own arbitrary starting position for the message he