PC beats Second World War British computer in cracking Nazi code

[old medic]

November 16, 2007
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON - A rebuilt Second World War code-cracking computer developed to intercept Nazi messages has lost to a desktop computer today in a contest to decipher an encrypted radio message.

The challenge marked the first time the Colossus machine had been used since former Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered models of the top secret computer destroyed. That according to Britain's National Museum of Computing, which organized the contest.

Churchill had feared Britain's national security would be threatened if the state of the art computer's technical details ever leaked out.

However, not only was Colossus beaten by a home computer, but by one in Germany.

Bonn-based software engineer Joachim Schueth deciphered the message, which was encrypted by a Nazi-era Lorenz cipher machine and transmitted by radio from Paderborn, Germany.

It took him two hours yesterday, using ham radio equipment and a computer program he wrote especially for the challenge.

Schueth paid tribute to Colossus and those who used it during the Second World War at the Bletchley Park code-breaking centre, outside London.

He said their work was important to Germans because "it helped to shorten the lifetime of the Nazi dictatorship."

But Colossus, the world's first programmable computer, was no match for its electronic descendants, he said.

"Putting Colossus in a competition with modern computers may be a bit unfair," Schueth wrote on his website.

Colossus eventually completed the challenge at 1:15 p.m. Friday, local time, taking three hours and 35 minutes, after overcoming difficulties intercepting the distant radio signal and repairing a blown valve*.

"We've lost appreciation of just how hard it was to intercept signals, interpret them and put them on Colossus and run them," said Andy Clark, director of the Bletchley Park-based computing museum.

"The past two days have brought into sharp focus just how hard they had to work," he said.

Experts spent 14 years rebuilding the Colossus using stolen design plans and by gleaning information from those who helped create the original.

Ten Mark II Colossus machines enabled code breakers at Bletchley to decipher top-secret communications sent by the Nazi high command, and have been credited with shortening the war by months and saving thousands of lives.

The rebuilt computer will continue to operate as the museum's centrepiece, Clark said.

* You don't often see that in computer repair.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

November 16, 2007
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

* You don't often see that in computer repair.

For the young'uns here: Before transistors, and the like, we used tubes to operate TVs, radios and other electronic devices. Like a car trunk is a boot to the Brits, a tube is a 'valve'.

repairing a blown valve = replacing a blown tube

 

[geo]

That a modern PC was able to beat Collosus to the puch is quite the no brainer.

you're dealing with 60+ years of advance in technology.....

 

[Fishbone Jones]

It took JS 2hrs with modern equipment and special programming. It took Collosus only 1 h 35 m longer, including changing out parts (how long did that take?) and trying to yank in the signal. Given our leaps in technology, I'd say that wasn't bad at all.

I'll bet the geeks equipment wasn't a regular desktop and his radio didn't come from Radio Shack either.

 

[FullMetalParka]

No surprise here. A 1999-era Gameboy has more power than the Apollo landing craft. Pitting a vacuum-tube computer against a modern, dual core computer capable of making billions of calculations per second isn't really a fair competition. But, it is pretty interesting nonetheless.