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WWII Colossus Codecracker Outdone by a German
superglaze writes "The Colossus codecracker contest was a short-lived ordeal. Not only has it been outdone in a cipher-breaking challenge, but — irony of ironies — it was beaten by a German! From the story: 'The winner was Joachim Schüth, from Bonn, who completed the task using software he wrote himself. "[Schüth] cracked the most difficult code yesterday," said the museum's spokesperson on Friday. "We're absolutely delighted. He used specially written software for the challenge. Colossus is still chugging away, as we got the signals late. Yesterday the atmospheric conditions were such that we couldn't get good signals.'"
Now I just need a copy of the software on my laptop and a time warping wormhole to 1942.
Just have to remember not to ask for "pepsi, free"...
I could understand a stereotype tag, even a nationalism tag, but racism? Are the taggers implying that people from German are of different races than the rest of the world?
I RTFA and there is nothing racist in there. Just that a guy from Germany cracked the code using some software written in Ada.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Now I do not really believe this is illegal under german law.. but I am saying that I would not be suprised if someone tried to charge him.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
Also the sky is blue and I won't be having sex tonight.
What the hell does that have to do with anything?
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
The actual reality of the situation does not diminish the ironic juxtaposition in our minds of a Nazi helping the Allies.
And if irony is so misused, why isn't there a word to fill that gap? We have sarcasm and hypocrisy, (and, of course, bad luck and coincidence), so what is the word for something doing its opposite for dramatic or humorous effect?
Why irony to describe the result? irony: incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs. Here the expectation, even if misguided, is a historical one, not a nationalistic nor skill-based one. Since irony is based on expectation, it is as much an emotional process as an intellectual one. It is not necessarily a rational response; it CAN be just a sensation one gets. Obviously no one doubts Germans are technically capable of cracking codes, so expectation is not twisted around for that reason. From an earlier article on this: "Colossus was developed at Bletchley Park to decipher German messages during World War II...Two groups of amateur code breakers will be invited to crack transmissions encrypted by one of the original Lorenz cipher machines used by the German High Command during World War II." So I do think most people might find it justifiably ironic that in a blind test a German, who otherwise knows nothing about the original German code, is able to decipher it the fastest in a contest taking place over 60 years after the fact competing with the original machine designed to decipher it in the first place. In a naive post hoc sense, one might think "the result actually makes sense because perhaps there is something 'Germanocentric' about the code." But I seriously doubt this. The historical irony remains intact. However, again only after the initial glow of the ironic sensation fades do we realize our expectation was flawed: we should have guessed that a competent German was participating, so there was a pretty good chance a German would win from the start.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
Just saying that associating an amateur radio operator/programmer with the Nazi party is a bit on the delusional side.
There are some really weird misconceptions out there about Germany, both present and past.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
The atomic bomb. It's easy to forget that it was developed in response to fears that the Germans might develop one first (which makes it ironic that it was the Japanese that it was ultimately used against). It might be easy in retrospect to say that they weren't realistically close to having one during WWII, but this wasn't so clear at the time.
And even if this *had* become known towards the end of the (prolonged) war, the Americans would have had the bomb by then, and- I suspect- little tolerance for letting the Germans prolong the war and giving Stalin a chance to sweep further across Europe (never was the difference between "friend" and "allie" more clear)- even if Germany couldn't win.
If the Nazis had still stood a plausible chance of winning- or even "drawing"- the war by the time the bomb was ready, then it's near-certain that at least one bomb would have been dropped on the country. It's the kind of thing that some people would say is terrible in retrospect. However, given what Nazi Germany *did* do (with the support of most of their people) and what they would have done had they won the war, I'd personally have considered it morally justifiable (and imperative) to use as many atomic bombs as necessary to bring the war to a swift conclusion.
As I said, they were damn lucky.
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Well, lucky are the few with such moral certitude as you. It's not clear at all that the Allies would have ever dropped a bomb over Germany, given the proximity of so many Allied countries. They had no qualms dropping them on Japan because of its geographic isolation. Besides, obliterating Germany that way would have prevented much of the technological looting after the war. The US in particular made out like bandits so to speak, and the war ended up being a net economic gain in the long run, both in terms of technology gained and new markets established.