Public Invited to Try Their Luck Against Old Cipher Tech

Stony Stevenson writes to tell us that in celebration of the opening of the National Museum of Computing, members of the public are being challenged to take on a rebuilt version of Colossus, the world's first programmable digital computer. The Cipher Challenge will take two groups of amateur code breakers and pit them against one of the original Lorenz cipher machine used by the German High Command during World War II. "The encrypted teleprinter message will be transmitted by radio from colleagues in Paderborn, Germany, and intercepted at Bletchley Park by the two code-breaking groups, one using modern PCs and the other using the newly rebuilt Colossus Mark II."

Comments

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[hypermike]

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+++ Spoiler +++

[Anne_Nonymous]

Drink more Ovaltine.

Re:01000110 01101001 01110010 01110011 01110100 00

[Neon Aardvark]

How dare you say that about my mother, she was a saint!

Old school

[Quiet_Desperation]

thisi sstil ltheb estan dmost unbre akabl ecode

Re:The abacus is greater then the sword

[king-manic]

Isn't it a shame that the treatment of Alan Turing after the war drove him to suicide though, as though all of his contributions meant nothing to the people. All that mattered to them was that he was a homosexual. He is truly the father of modern computing and he achieved a lot in his short life. He was monumental to the Allied war effort and a once in a generation math genius. It's really too bad the people of his time couldn't look past his sexuality.

On a side note: I'm straight but I'd do Turing for the geek cred :D