Whoever stole the rare, World War II secret decoder known as the Abwehr Enigma is going to have a tough time selling it on the online black market.
That’s what cryptology enthusiasts are saying after the famous decoding machine used during the war to protect German secret messages was taken from its home in a glass display case at Bletchley Park Trust in London on April 1.
"We hope that if the Internet community gets behind it, it will be impossible to sell the machine on the public market," said Christine Large, the trust's director.
Because the machine was stolen on April Fool's day, trust officials say its theft may have been a prank.
"If it was just an April Fool, we hope our Abwehr Enigma turns up soon," Large said.
But as long as the decoder remains at large, active cryptologists who revere the analog antique are getting the word of its disappearance out over the Web, hoping to catch a thief who might try and sell the item online. Leading the effort is the Crypto Simulation Group, a small group of cryptologists who specialize in the Enigma machines.
"In addition to our normal activities in cryptologic research, we have set up Web pages ... to broadcast to as large a base as possible the features of this rather unique piece of historical cipher equipment in the hope that the thieves will be caught in the act of attempting to dispose of it," said David Hamer, one of the group's members.
Hamer, a retired historian living in New Jersey and one of the world's foremost Enigma experts, said it's important to rescue the machine because it is one of only two of its kind known to still exist. The other one is housed in the National Cryptologic Museum at Fort Meade, Maryland.
According to a spokesman at the museum, 200 "G" Enigmas were issued to the German army high command during World War II for an unknown "special purpose." But no one seems to know where most of those have ended up, making the stolen machine all the more valuable.
"This Abwehr Enigma is a close to unique variant," and it's likely to be worth quite a sum of cash, Hamer said. "Even standard service Enigmas are rare enough to command prices in the tens of thousands of dollars," he said.
Since the announcement of the theft, several sites dedicated to cryptology have added a link to this urgent message about the machine's theft. Message boards have been frenetic with hundreds of postings about the machine's theft.
The decoder, which looks like little more than an old-fashioned typewriter with a counter above the keyboard that resembles a car odometer, was given to the museum in 1998 by Britain's intelligence agency, the Government Communications Headquarters.
According to the U.S. National Security Agency, cryptology was key to the success of the Allies in World War II.
"Information from decrypted Enigma messages (not necessarily the Abwehr) was used time after time to outmaneuver German forces," said NSA spokeswoman Judi Emmel.
"Losing this Enigma is a significant loss to the historic record of World War II cryptology."
