Photos: Code makers and breakers of WWII era

This Enigma cipher machine, captured by the U.S. Army in World War II, was used by the Germans to encrypt messages that may land in enemy hands. The Enigma family of electromechanical rotor machines--first used commercially in the early 1920s, according to Bletchley Park researchers--used wired rotors and plugs to change each letter as it was pressed on the keyboard.

Photo by Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com

Caption by Zoë Slocum