Just to give a little more info…
Three German ciphers unsolved since World War II are finally being cracked, helped by thousands of home computers.
Does anyone have a specific report on how it was cracked?
This could bring loads of new information from German transmissions during the war. Good news!
Not all that much - very few intercepts were left uncracked, and the Germans would presumably not have kept copies of the original encrypted messages. I’ve seen figures of a few dozen messages, some of which we have the original cleartext for from German archives anyway. That apparently applies to the message decryped recently for instance.
Not all that much - very few intercepts were left uncracked, and the Germans would presumably not have kept copies of the original encrypted messages. I’ve seen figures of a few dozen messages, some of which we have the original cleartext for from German archives anyway. That apparently applies to the message decryped recently for instance.[/quote]
You really never lnow, One of those few messages could have something important on it. Or be worth some historical value.
As I understand it they are all from the same place and are admin messages. I think its just a project to see if they can and how easily it could be with new kit.
Enigma project cracks second code
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4808882.stm
The messages were encoded using the German Enigma machine, and outfoxed wartime experts at Bletchley Park. The three messages were unearthed by amateur historian Ralph Erskine, who submitted them to a cryptology journal in 1995 as a challenge for codebreakers. They were sent in 1942, during a period when the Allies were unable to crack German codes because of the introduction of a new code book and a more complex version of the Enigma machine. Project leaders have already failed to crack the last remaining message, but insist it can be broken.
The first code was cracked on 20 February, and was confirmed as a message from the commander of a German U-boat, Kapitanleutenant Hartwig Looks. The second resolved code was less dramatic than the first, which detailed the aftermath of a clash with an Allied vessel.
THE UNSOLVED CIPHER
HCEY ZTCS OPUP PZDI UQRD LWXX FACT TJMB HDVC JJMM ZRPY IKHZ AWGL YXWT MJPQ UEFS ZBCT VRLA LZXW VXTS LFFF AUDQ FBWR RYAP SBOW JMKL DUYU PFUQ DOWV HAHC DWAU ARSW TXCF VOYF PUFH VZFD GGPO OVGR MBPX XZCA NKMO NFHX PCKH JZBU MXJW XKAU OD?Z UCVC XPFT
SOLVED CIPHER #2
Found nothing on convoy’s course 55°, [I am] moving to the ordered [naval] square. Position naval square AJ 3995. [wind] south-east [force] 4, sea [state] 3, 10/10 cloudy, [barometer] [10]28 mb [and] rising, fog, visibility 1 nautical mile
while most enigma encrypts were read on a regular basis, I don’t know how effective we were on the Gehiemschreiber which was used by OKW and Hitler using encryption that was was several orders of magnitude more complex than the widest enigma machine, and was ‘computationally inefficient’* to decrypt.
the signals were transmitted at very high speed, so recording them coherently became more difficult
Nb this latter is still typical.
- these days this term means you would need at least one Kray, for a good while.
MY FIL was in MacArthur’s Central Bureau in WWII, his HQ’s own special int and sig-int mob, mostly Aussies.
And I was an Infantry/Tac.Int. guy through the Vietnam period.
Timbo
Welcome mate and thanks for the info.
Henk