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.'"

Comments

wait wait wait.

[moogied]

I thought germans weren't allowed to have hacking software on there computers?

"user disabling or circumventing computer security measures to access secure data," http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_portal_view.aspx?s=latestnews&id=1830

Perhaps because they wanted him to "crack" it?

Re:wait wait wait.

[moogied]

Sure! :) The section of the law(if you want to look it up) is Section 202c StGB. The law basically say it is illegal to possess, distrubute, sell, or *create*, any software which has the ability to displace security. Such as cryptography.. he "uses his own program" to decrypt the message. Which in turn displaced its security..

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.

Vee Haf

[Anonymous Coward]

Vee haf vays uf makink you drink more Ovaltine!

Irony?

[SnoopJeDi]

It's not irony! :(

Time travel hero wannabe

[magarity]

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"...

Re:Time travel hero wannabe

[kliklik]

Just as you surround yourself with the most important scrolls and start scanning, the battery in your laptop decides to explode, starting the fire.

source code

[Anonymous Coward]

He posted the source code on his hompeage at http://www.schlaupelz.de/SZ42/SZ42_software.html.
Most of it is written in Ada.

racism?

[RingDev]

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

get that man a time machine quick!!

[Some_Llama]

oh wait..

What was that about secret svcs?

[mattr]

Heise security article says, "...British and German secret services initially had reservations about the cipher challenge."

I'd like to know more about what they said. Are they worried it will encourage kids to get interested in crypto? Where do they expect to pick up talented cryptographers anyway?

Achtung!

[dkleinsc]

Das encryptmachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy wrecken der secrets, schnatchendatas und breakensecurity mit grossembrassen. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.