Friday, March 03, 2006

Amateur Computer guy Cracks German Enigma Code

This is a pretty interesting result of shared computing power.

The M4 Project, the brainchild of Stefan Krah, a violinist and amateur cryptographer of German birth, is credited with cracking one of the three remaining ciphers. The project was named in honor of the M4 Enigma machine that originally encoded the messages.

This is the ciphered text:

NCZW VUSX PNYM INHZ XMQX SFWX WLKJ AHSH NMCO CCAK UQPM KCSM HKSE INJU SBLK IOSX CKUB HMLL XCSJ USRR DVKO HULX WCCB GVLI YXEO AHXR HKKF VDRE WEZL XOBA FGYU JQUK GRTV UKAM EURB VEKS UHHV OYHA BCJW MAKL FKLM YFVN RIZR VVRT KOFD ANJM OLBG FFLE OPRG TFLV RHOW OPBE KVWM UQFM PWPA RMFH AGKX IIBG

And this is what it means when translated to english:

"Forced to submerge during attack. Depth charges. Last enemy position 0830h AJ 9863, [course] 220 degrees, [speed] 8 knots. [I am] following [the enemy]. [Barometer] falls 14 mb, [wind] nor-nor-east, [force] 4, visibility 10 [nautical miles]."

I kind of wanted it to say that Nazi gold hidden in bottom of abandoned salt mine or something like that but oh well. Here is a picture of an Enigma Machine. It looks a little like an early build- it-yourself computer.

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