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
The Man That Was Used Up story seems to suggest that the war hero has nothing left but the injuries he has received in battle to make up his identity. According to Shawn James Rosenheim, Poe also is questioning technology, suggesting that it will soon be difficult to distinguish man from machine. The story also has minor critiques of racism; the war hero was taken apart by Indians but is put together by his "old negro valet" named Pompey (a name Poe also uses in "A Predicament"), arguably undermining the power of white male dominance. Poe may also have been reacting to the popular "subversive" humor