Cryptographic history hit-and-run.
Someone in Italy has a real German Enigma machine from World War II up for auction on eBay. The Enigma machines were the mechanism used to implement the famous cryptosystem that protected German radio communications up until Allied cryptographers were able to figure out how it worked. With today's technology (in particular, programming languages) it isn't too difficult to implement one yourself once you know the principle, but if this is legit, it's a real piece of World War II and crypto history. Not many Enigma machines survived after the war was over; the few that are left are in …
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