Colossus has been Rebuilt

Max Driver writes "In celebration of D-Day, "Colossus", one of the earliest electronic code-breaking machines, has been rebuilt after ten years of effort by computer conservationists. Colossus was used to break the Lorenz cipher. This story is being reported by the BBC. Remarkably, the use of parallel processing (five tape channels) and short gate delay time (1.2 microseconds) allows the Colossus to match the speed of a modern PC."

Comments

good design

[millahtime]

Remarkably, the use of parallel processing (five tape channels) and short gate delay time (1.2 microseconds) allows the Colossus to match the speed of a modern PC."

This definitely shows you what a good design can do. WIth all the advancement I expected that thing to be slower than my TI-89 calculator.

Re:Free information.

[meringuoid]

If information about this machine had been made public in the years after the war, we may now have been a good few megahertz ahead of our selves in computer technology.

I seem to remember hearing that a lot of Third World countries carried on using the German cryptosystems for a long time after the war, and that was why all the Bletchley technology was kept black - we rather liked being able to read everyone's mail. Don't know how true that is, though...

IIRC, GCHQ also invented the RSA cipher years before it was discovered in the civilian world. Damn shame we didn't get to cash in on that one :-)

Go and visit Bletchley Park!

[salmacis2]

Colossus, and indeed the rest of the Bletchley Park operation was a tremendous example of war-time ingenuity.

I would urge all UK-based \.ers to go and visit Bletchley Park as soon as possible. It's an amazing day out. It's just sad that the UK government doesn't appear to recognise the historical significance of BP and spend whatever is required to restore the site. Hut 6 and Hut 1, where most of the decoding was done are practically falling down these days.

Re:Free information.

[ezzzD55J]

I seem to remember hearing that a lot of Third World countries carried on using the German cryptosystems for a long time after the war, and that was why all the Bletchley technology was kept black - we rather liked being able to read everyone's mail. Don't know how true that is, though...

Well, there is something related here; Dennis Ritchie dabbles in cryptography. He talks about cryptanalysis of the hagelin m-209b crypto device (I bought one on ebay :)). They submitted their findings for voluntary review by the NSA before publishing, and Ritchie was visited by a "Retired Man" from the NSA. The relevant bit:

He got a bit more specific about two things: the agency didn't particularly care about the M-209. What they did care about was that the method that Reeds had discovered was applicable to systems that were in current use by particular governments, and that even though it was hard to imagine that these people would find the paper and relate it to their own operations (which used commercially-available crypto machines), still... perhaps we should exercise discretion? It was certainly legal to publish, but publication might cause difficulties for some people in the agency.

Full story in the first link.

So, even though this has nothing to do with the UK and colossus/enigma/lorenz directly, it still is a similar story.

Re:Wait! Wait! there's a pattern here

[Moraelin]

Really? I thought it was the millions of Russians who died. The Americans got anywhere _near_ the war after the Russians were already stopping the Germans.

And those strategic bombings never did much damage either. In fact, it cost the US far more to bomb Germany, than it cost Germany to rebuild the odd factory that got hit by a bomb and replace/repair the fighters.

Now I'm not saying that US didn't help, and we're all grateful for that. (If nothing else, otherwise the whole Europe would have ended up communist.)

But, no offense, claiming to basically have singlehandedly won the war is a tad shameless. Without the USSR to hammer the Germans from the other side, and without the UK as a base, the US wouldn't even have made it onto the European mainland. Much less beatten Germany.

Brit RSA encrytion

[BlightThePower]

For more information see "The Code Book" by Simon Singh.

It was developed by the superbly named Clifford Cocks, a at GCHQ in 1973 (IIRC thats three years before Rivest et al.) Apparently he thought it no big deal (completing an implementation of Ellis' original proof-of-concept practically overnight) and filed it away for further reference. End of story. Cocks is now chief mathematician at GCHQ; and given that he's probably intercepting this communication as I write, I dare say he will pop-up if what I've said is inaccurate!

The true tragedy is obviously that RSA is called RSA, rather than the far more amusing "Cocks Encryption" or similar. The sheer weight of punnage (e.g., "Hard Cocks Encryption" anyone?) is a tragic is a loss to humanity IMHO.

Re:Let the british have their moment in the sun

[garyok]

I would have added

7. Inalienable human rights (Magna Carta)
8. Liberal democracy (John Stuart Mill, John Locke, etc., etc...)

but the Americans don't seem to be using them any more. Can you send them back to Britain please if you're finished with them please?

Re:A tragedy

[PapayaSF]

You're almost right. They did get tons of silver (not all of it) to make electromagnets (not just wire), which were so huge and powerful that when turned on, people standing many yards away could feel the pull on the nails in their shoes and on their belt buckles!