Talk:Rotor machine

message: Someone recently added the following:
:A method and apparatus anticipating these disclosurses, Nikola Tesla's 1898 patent US613,809 which refers to the "Art of Individualization", would have not even allowed a signal above the average noise floor for a code breaker to decipher. The method encrypted the content of the message, but also encrypted the order, duration, frequency and amplitude of the carrier signal. Tesla's system was designed to be non-interfering and non-interfere-able and was publicly demonstrated before the turn of the century and widely reported in his lectures, patents, and many articles in New York's popular press. A simple embodiment of the transmitter with ten elements grants a "spy" one chance in roughly three million of even registering a signal on their receiver, let alone deciphering an intelligent message.
Was this method a rotor machine? — Matt Crypto 07:45, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A copy of this patent can be found here. (The 613,808 at the top of the page is a typo; you can double-check at http://www.uspto.gov if you like, but it's much harder to give USPTO links). This patent is about remote control; it not only does not concern ciphers, it is totally unrelated to whatever the anonymous editor was talking about above. That stuff seems possibly to be a reference to patent 725,605, "System of Signaling", which Teslaphiles interpret (in their usual manner) as being about spectrum spreading. Having read it I would say that is a very long bow to draw, but in any case it also certainly has nothing whatever to do with ciphers. Securiger 16:55, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for looking into this one. It's amazing what tenuous connections people will dream up, and then dump into Wikipedia articles :( — Matt Crypto 17:32, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: I suggest you stretch your own education. This is an article on rotor machines — a very specific class of cryptographic equipment. Your addition was off-topic. — Matt Crypto 00:41, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: Goody. What's this got to do with rotor machines? — Matt Crypto 00:41, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: I would quite happily have removed results attributed to any of Einstein, Einstien, Tesla or even William-bleeding-Friedman if they weren't on the topic of rotor machines. — Matt Crypto 00:41, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Tesla patent

message: Some references
(such as, for example,
"Crypto Museum: Schlüsselgerät 41"
)
draw a distinction between
"SG-41 is ... based on ... the pin-and-lug principle of the C-machines, developed by Boris Hagelin"
which are purely mechanical,
vs.
"rotor machine [such as] the Enigma"
which require electrical contacts on the mechanical wheels.
However, currently some Wikipedia articles (including this rotor machine article and the Schlüsselgerät 41 article)
seem to be saying that those pin-and-lug machines are a kind of rotor machine.
I feel like it would be reasonable for someone to use the term "rotor machine" for both kinds of machines,
since both kinds of machines have rotating wheels,
but what terms do our sources use?
Should Wikipedia (a) continue to use "rotor machine" for both kinds of machine?
If so, what more-specific terms should Wikipedia use for the 2 main subsets, specifically electrical-contact cipher wheel machines vs. specifically purely mechanical pin-and-lug cipher machines?
Or should Wikipedia (b) use "rotor machine" only for electrical-contact cipher wheel machines?
If so, what more-specific term should Wikipedia use for the non-electrical (and therefore not rotor machine) purely mechanical pin-and-lug machines,
and what more-general term should Wikipedia use to refer to both kinds of cipher machines?
--DavidCary (talk) 06:16, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  pin-and-lug vs rotor machines