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."

where was the cream filling!?

[blhack]

TFA didn't really explain the colossus that well:

Wiki link [wikipedia.org] for those who are interested.

Cipher Challenge Site

[markg11cdn]

More details on the challenge (and Colussus) can be found here : http://www.tnmoc.co.uk/cipher1.htm [tnmoc.co.uk]

At the same time as the international team receives the enciphered messages, radio amateurs around the world will be able to receive the same radio broadcasts and try their hand at decrypting it. It will be fascinating to see who completes the job first!

Re:where was the cream filling!?

[Ash Vince]

Why would they do this after the war? Wouldn't they want to explore the technology for other uses, and profit further from the leadership in this field they developed? I mean, what's the reason for hiding (and, worse, destroying!) their code-breaking machine after the war has ended?

The main reason for the destruction was that we no longer needed the same number of machines. We did keep two though I believe which were moved to GCHQ (General Communications Head Quarters - Our eavesdropping department). We certainly did not destroy them all but much of what they did after the war will still be classified.

Re:01000110 01101001 01110010 01110011 01110100 00

[Anonymous Coward]

perl -le 'print chr(hex) for qw(46 69 72 73 74 20 50 6f 73 74 21)'

Museum of calulating machines

[ockegheim]

If mechanical calulators and computers interest you I highly recommend the Arathmeum [uni-bonn.de] in Bonn, Germany. There are machines from the 17th-20th centuries and you're allowed to try some of them yourself. Even my wife enjoyed it.