Re: From today's TIMES ONLINE : Idling computers crack Nazi Enigma codes

See also the BBC's http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4763854.stm

John Pettifer

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Martin Postranecky" <mp-/[email protected]>
To: <BLETCHLEYPARK-0lvw86wZMd/[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 2:29 PM
Subject: [BPARK] From today's TIMES ONLINE : Idling computers crack Nazi
Enigma codes


> Times Online
> March 02, 2006
>
> Idling computers crack Nazi Enigma codes
> ----------------------------------------
> By Sam Knight
>
> An amateur's internet project is using idling computers to help crack
> three Nazi codes that eluded the Enigma codebreakers of the Second
> World War.
>
> Launched in January, the project has already broken one of the three
> messages, from a U-Boat commander forced to dive during an attack on
> November 25, 1942. The computers of 2,500 strangers are now whirring
> away, trying to decode the remaining two.
>
> Stefan Krah, a German-born cryptologist from Utrecht, in the
> Netherlands,
> started the network in January after writing a programme that combined
> the brute force of connected computers with a mathematical formula
> based
> on previous codebreaking work.
>
> He offered the software to readers of two online bulletin boards with
> the words: "Clearly the project is from the 'Because we can'
> department.
> Is it realistic to hope that anywhere between 10-100 people would take
> part?"..../snip/
>
> ....The remaining messages facing Mr Krah were first published in
> Cryptologia, an academic journal, in 1995 by Ralph Erskine, a naval
> historian from Belfast. The codes were among the thousands that sat,
> unbreakable, for ten months during 1942 as the Allies struggled to
> catch
> up with the M4 upgrade of the Enigma.
>
> To join Mr Krah's project, follow the instructions here :
> http://http//www.bytereef.org/m4_project.html
>
>
> see :
> -----
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2066177,00.html
> http://http//www.bytereef.org/m4_project.html
>