WWII Colossus Codecracker Outdone by a German 182
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.'"
Time travel hero wannabe (Score:4, Insightful)
Just have to remember not to ask for "pepsi, free"...
racism? (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:wait wait wait. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:wait wait wait. (Score:1, Insightful)
Also the sky is blue and I won't be having sex tonight.
What the hell does that have to do with anything?
Re:Irony? (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:racism? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's called "irony". Jesus! It's not that complicated.
TWW
Why irony? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:wait wait wait. (Score:3, Insightful)
There are some really weird misconceptions out there about Germany, both present and past.
-Rick
Re:Never underest. Nazi brains - Hitler had syphil (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Never underest. Nazi brains - Hitler had syphil (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:racism? (Score:2, Insightful)
Except for the fact that it's actually already ironic for a German to be even trying to break a German WWII code, let alone beating an English team. It would make a good illustrative example for dictionaries to use for the word "irony".
TWW