14 DAY TRIAL // War is not much of a healthy passion for anybody, or at least I wouldn't like it to be so for our own safety. However, history is, and a group of enthusiasts set up a code-breaking contests that aimed at cracking one of the encryption keys used to hide World War 2 messages.
A German cryptographer managed to beat the world's first programmable digital computer Colossus during this contest. Equipped with minimal knowledge of cryptography and the average computing hardware we can grab nowadays, Joachim Schueth managed to crack the message in a record time of just 46 seconds. The event took place at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, that hosts a rebuilt version of that time's most powerful machine - the Colossus. If Schueth's computer solved the "mystery" in just 46 seconds, it took the Colossus more than three hours and 35 minutes to beat the algorithm.
"It was unfair because I was using a modern PC, while Colossus was created more than 60 years ago," Schueth told after the contest. "It really is astonishing and humbling that the world's first programmable digital computer was created in the 1940s."
The cracker said that the record achievement was possible due to the technology he used. The message was encoded with a Lorenz S42 machine, a common tool that was used by German high command during the war.
"As well as recapturing the excitement that the Bletchley Park code breakers must have felt, the Cipher Challenge has more importantly highlighted the magnitude of their achievement, their tenacity and their ingenuity," added Tony Sale, one of the many enthusiasts that contributed at the recreation of the Colossus. "Joachim really showed how things have advanced from the days of Colossus," he added.
The recreated Colossus can be seen at The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire. It is one of the ten machines built during the World War 2, and played an extremely important role in shortening the conflict.