I've recently watched the movie: "the Imitation Game". I know its historically accurate but I don't understand how the Nazis knew each morning to witch settings to configure the enigma machines? Did they post a message each evening saying :"tomorrow set the machines to these and these settings"? And if they did, then the allies wouldn't need the Turing computer after the first time, or am wrong and missing something here?
The Enigma cipher operators were issued a key sheet for the month, that indicated the setting for each day. This would be similar to a one-time pad, in that, U-Boat Sub X would have a key sheet, and the home radio base they were reporting to would have a key sheet. The difference from a normal one time pad was that only the listing of daily settings was required, rather than sufficient cipher data to encode a who day's worth of data.
Here's a video (two parts) of a little more about the background of Enigma
Maybe this would be better for an encryption/math/science sub?
