Online amateurs crack Nazi codes

[lfcrule1972]

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4763854.stm

 

By Adam Blenford

BBC News website

 

 

The Enigma machine vexed Allied codebreakers for years

 

Three German ciphers unsolved since World War II are finally being cracked, helped by thousands of home computers.

 

The codes resisted the best efforts of the celebrated Allied cryptographers based at Bletchley Park during the war.

 

Now one has been solved by running code-breaking software on a "grid" of internet-linked home computers.

 

The complex ciphers were encoded in 1942 by a new version of the German Enigma machine, and led to regular hits on Allied vessels by German U-boats.

 

Allied experts initially failed to deal with the German adoption in 1942 of a complex new cipher system, brought in at the same time as a newly upgraded Enigma machine.

 

The advancement in German encryption techniques led to significant Allied losses in the North Atlantic throughout 1942.

 

The three unsolved Enigma intercepts were published in a cryptography journal in 1995 and have intrigued enthusiasts ever since.

 

Although assumed to have little historical significance, they are thought to be among just a handful of German naval ciphers in existence still to be decoded.

 

Exponential growth

 

The latest attempt to crack the codes was kick-started by Stefan Krah, a German-born violinist with an interest in cryptography and open-source software.

 

Mr Krah told the BBC News website that "basic human curiosity" had motivated him to crack the codes, but stressed the debt he owed to veteran codebreaking enthusiasts who have spent years researching Enigma.

 

UNSOLVED CIPHER #1

HCEY ZTCS OPUP PZDI UQRD LWXX FACT TJMB HDVC JJMM ZRPY IKHZ AWGL YXWT MJPQ UEFS ZBCT VRLA LZXW VXTS LFFF AUDQ FBWR RYAP SBOW JMKL DUYU PFUQ DOWV HAHC DWAU ARSW TXCF VOYF PUFH VZFD GGPO OVGR MBPX XZCA NKMO NFHX PCKH JZBU MXJW XKAU OD?Z UCVC XPFT

He wrote a code-breaking program and publicised his project on internet newsgroups, attracting the interest of about 45 users, who all allowed their machines to be used for the project.

 

Mr Krah named the project M4, in honour of the M4 Enigma machine that originally encoded the ciphers.

 

There are now some 2,500 separate terminals contributing to the project, Mr Krah said.

 

"The most amazing thing about the project is the exponential growth of participants. All I did myself was to announce it in two news groups and on one mailing list."

 

Nevertheless, in little over a month an apparently random combination of letters had been decoded into a real wartime communication.

 

In its encrypted form the cipher makes no sense at all, reading as follows:

 

Bletchley Park was thought to cut WWII by two years

 

"NCZW VUSX PNYM INHZ XMQX SFWX WLKJ AHSH NMCO CCAK UQPM KCSM HKSE INJU SBLK IOSX CKUB HMLL XCSJ USRR DVKO HULX WCCB GVLI YXEO AHXR HKKF VDRE WEZL XOBA FGYU JQUK GRTV UKAM EURB VEKS UHHV OYHA BCJW MAKL FKLM YFVN RIZR VVRT KOFD ANJM OLBG FFLE OPRG TFLV RHOW OPBE KVWM UQFM PWPA RMFH AGKX IIBG"

 

Unencrypted and translated into English, the message suddenly comes to life:

 

"Forced to submerge during attack. Depth charges. Last enemy position 0830h AJ 9863, [course] 220 degrees, [speed] 8 knots. [i am] following [the enemy]. [barometer] falls 14 mb, [wind] nor-nor-east, [force] 4, visibility 10 [nautical miles]."

 

A check against existing records confirmed that the message was sent by Kapitanleutnant Hartwig Looks, commander of the German navy's U264 submarine, on 25 November 1942.

 

Sophisticated

 

During the war, teams of codebreakers based at Bletchley Park, in the UK, scrambled to unravel German communications in an attempt both to undermine the German war machine and to save the lives of soldiers and seamen.

 

Frantic codebreaking work was carried out in plain-looking huts

 

Using early computers, Bletchley Park decoded thousands of intercepts in a knife-edge race to head off U-boat attacks.

 

German messages were encoded using the fearsome Enigma machine, which used a series of rotors, often augmented by a so-called "plugboard", to scramble transmissions not meant for Allied eyes.

 

The machines used ever-changing rotor wheel combinations and electrical currents to produce unique coded messages.

 

Plugboards further complicated matters by swapping pairs of letters over during the encoding process, greatly increasing the numbers of possible encryptions.

 

UNSOLVED CIPHER #2

TMKF NWZX FFII YXUT IHWM DHXI FZEQ VKDV MQSW BQND YOZF TIWM JHXH YRPA CZUG RREM VPAN WXGT KTHN RLVH KZPG MNMV SECV CKHO INPL HHPV PXKM BHOK CCPD PEVX VVHO ZZQB IYIE OUSE ZNHJ KWHY DAGT XDJD JKJP KCSD SUZT QCXJ DVLP AMGQ KKSH PHVK SVPC BUWZ FIZP FUUP

 

Stefan Krah's computerised codebreaking software uses a combination of "brute force" and algorithmic attempts to get at the truth.

 

The combined approach increases the chances of stumbling across a match by recreating possible combinations of plugboard swaps while methodically working through combinations of rotor settings.

 

Proud milestone

 

Bletchley Park and its codebreakers have been immortalised on television, in film and in best-selling novels.

 

Now a museum, staff at the site are not attempting to close the book on World War II by solving any remaining ciphers. That they leave to the enthusiasts.

 

But a spokeswoman said that Bletchley Park followed the M4 project with interest, describing Mr Krah's work as a "great tribute" to the achievements of the wartime codebreakers.

 

Ralph Erskine, who submitted the original intercepts to the journal Cryptologia in December 1995, told the BBC News website that cracking the German codes after more than 63 years would be an important milestone for amateur cryptologists.

 

"I think there is more satisfaction for people engaged in the project to know that they have been able to do something that Bletchley Park couldn't do," he said.

[????]

Although the Enigma was a masterpiece for cyphering purposes, I would prefer to see some online amateurs cracking some Nazi bones.

 

I wonder if CIA, NSA and all the other three-letter-agencies poo their pants, because in opposite to former times, everyone with a computer can decode anyones cyphered messages in about no time if it is "needed" for some reason. Sure, it gets very difficult and time consuming with high-bit cyphered content, but the hardware gets faster as well and in the end it's just an algorithm.

[Shamus_McFartfinger]

The Enigma machine vexed Allied codebreakers for years

 

Bloody interesting. Good find, LFC.

[Shamus_McFartfinger]

I wonder if CIA, NSA and all the other three-letter-agencies poo their pants, because in opposite to former times, everyone with a computer can decode anyones cyphered messages

 

Have a search for ?Phil Zimmerman and PGP? and see what the agencies mentioned above are capable of. I remember this particular clusterf*ck very well.

[lfcrule1972]

No worries Shamus - I like this stuff too and I am also damn sure I never thank you for all your finds....

[????]

Phil Zimmerman and PGP

Yes, thanks for bringing that back to my mind, I did a quick search on google and wikipedia and I remembered that I heard from that some time ago. I need to fresh it up a little.

 

Do I need to say hypocrites?

[cornholio7]

wasn't he greek?

[lfcrule1972]

[????]

 

No, that was him or most likely that guy.

 

Edited March 2, 2006 by ????

[cornholio7]

http://www.billandted.org/

 

 

nope - try here instead- oops no that was socrates

[????]

http://www.billandted.org/

 

I am sorry, I have never listened to that kind of music.

Edited March 2, 2006 by ????

[dbminter]

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4763854.stm

 

By Adam Blenford

BBC News website

 

 

In its encrypted form the cipher makes no sense at all, reading as follows:

 

 

 

Wow! Say what you may about the Nazis, but, those Germans were decades ahead of their time! 40 years before the creation of GIF's, etc. Germans were encoding secret messages as computer pictures! Who'd have ever though that

 

"NCZW VUSX PNYM INHZ XMQX SFWX WLKJ AHSH NMCO CCAK UQPM KCSM HKSE INJU SBLK IOSX CKUB HMLL XCSJ USRR DVKO HULX WCCB GVLI YXEO AHXR HKKF VDRE WEZL XOBA FGYU JQUK GRTV UKAM EURB VEKS UHHV OYHA BCJW MAKL FKLM YFVN RIZR VVRT KOFD ANJM OLBG FFLE OPRG TFLV RHOW OPBE KVWM UQFM PWPA RMFH AGKX IIBG"

is stored as

 

 

and means

 

"Forced to submerge during attack. Depth charges. Last enemy position 0830h AJ 9863, [course] 220 degrees, [speed] 8 knots. [i am] following [the enemy]. [barometer] falls 14 mb, [wind] nor-nor-east, [force] 4, visibility 10 [nautical miles]."

[polopony]

they had their act together when it came to airplanes and rocketry too

[dbminter]

Also, if it wasn't for Germans, interestingly enough, there would be no atomic bomb.

[Shamus_McFartfinger]

Also, if it wasn't for Germans, interestingly enough, there would be no atomic bomb.

Or a space race. Both the Americans and the Russians stole technology from the German V2 rockets to launch satellites and various other things in the ?50s.

[polopony]

Also, if it wasn't for Germans, interestingly enough, there would be no atomic bomb.

Or a space race. Both the Americans and the Russians stole technology from the German V2 rockets to launch satellites and various other things in the ?50s.

hell they just didn't take the technology they took the scientists too .The US grabbed Werner Von Braun to name one who is like the Godfather of the space program,I was watching Modern Marvels on the Discovery channel and the Germans had a plane that looked so much like the USAF Stealth it was scary

[dbminter]

Plus, by what I meant by the atomic bomb J. Robert Oppenheimer, who basically built it, was of partial German origin. As if his name wasn't clue enough. Plus, if it wasn't for Einstein, another German, the idea of energy to mass relativity wouldn't have been readily accepted to lead to experimentation in the conversion of mass to energy.

[polopony]

only thing preventing them from building an atomic bomb was The US bombing their hard water plants and leveling whole areas to be sure they got it it was called patern bombing

[dbminter]

That was a major blow, but, probably the biggest reason was Heisenberg had said it was impossible to build a working atomic bomb. Thus, research into offensive applications of atomic energy was, at his recommendation, drastically reduced. After all, he really thought it was impossible, so, why waste the effort?

 

 

There has been speculation from those who knew Heisenberg that, though he was not an outspoken opponent of the Nazi party, he also had little qualms about it. He heavily believed in the idea of a Germany that had naturally right to rule over Europe. But, maybe not necessarily in the Aryan dream. So, some have speculated that Heisenberg lied about the possibility of a working atomic bomb to prevent Germany from obtainining one.

[lfcrule1972]

Sounds like post war propaganda to me - make out that Heisenberg wasn't a proper Nazi, so its easier to make use of him afterwards.....

[dbminter]

It's been debated in many ways. There was also the most commonly used interpretation that Heisenberg was merely trying to come up with some way of saving his own neck when the Nazi regime fell. That, basically, he was trying to use the "Just doing my job" excuse with a twist. However, there are recorded documents where Heisenberg openly denied the viablity of an atomic weapon. Plus recorded instances of Heisenberg's stunned response to news of actual detonated atomic bombs in Japan.

 

 

Of course, like most things, the real story won't ever be known and is most likely a mixture of all stories. Most issues are gray in the end.

[lfcrule1972]

Mmm perhaps he did think it wasn't possible then ? Like you said we will never know... Like we will never know what the US Govt did with the Ark of the Covenant after Indiana Jones took it to America

[dbminter]

Oh, that one's easy. Indy opened it up and ate the mana inside. The Ark thus lost all its mystic power and was converted into a kitchen cabinet, above Dick Cheney's sink years ago.

[lfcrule1972]

What a waste....... and the holy grail ?

[dbminter]

Unfortunately after King Bush I drank from it and will live forever, he turned it into a little crown to wear on his head.