Key board

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This key table contains key settings for the Enigma key machine that change daily and was valid for one month. The days were sorted in descending order. This made it possible to cut off and destroy the keys that had been used up in the past few days.

Key panel is in the cryptology a secret and mostly tabular directory called that clearly valid in a given period and thus to be used cryptographic key indicates. After that, these keys are considered "used" and may no longer be used.

With symmetrical methods (both manual and machine methods ), the same key is used for encryption and decryption . Here it makes sense and is usual that both the sender and the recipient of the encrypted message (s) - and if possible nobody else - are in possession of the same key table. This is usually exchanged in advance between the sender and recipient or distributed to both by a central key point. In the latter case there is a third party who knows the secret key, which in principle can be detrimental to security.

Often there is also secret communication between more than two participants. For such a "key network" several copies of the key board can be made and one each can be distributed to each of the parties involved. It must always be ensured that not a single specimen falls into "enemy hands". In this case, the encrypted message traffic in the entire network would be compromised , which means that the messages could then be " read " by unauthorized persons .

An example from the Second World War is the Triton key network , which the German Navy used for secret communication between the commander of the submarines (BdU) and the submarines operating on Allied convoys in the Atlantic .

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