Nice initiative I just came across to. From the "M4 Message Breaking Project" :
The M4 Project is an effort to break 3 original Enigma messages with the help of distributed computing. The signals were intercepted in the North Atlantic in 1942 and are believed to be unbroken. Ralph Erskine has presented the intercepts in a letter to the journal Cryptologia. The signals were presumably enciphered with the four rotor Enigma M4 - hence the name of the project.
This project has officially started as of January 9th, 2006. You can help out by donating idle time of your computer to the project. If you want to participate, please follow the client install instructions for your operating system:
Unix Client Install
Win98 Client Install
Win2000 Client Install
WinXP Home Client Install
WinXP Pro Client Install
The first message is already broken as a matter of fact, and looks like that :
Ciphertext :
nczwvusxpnyminhzxmqxsfwxwlkjahshnmcoccakuqpmkcsmhkseinjus
blkiosxckubhmllxcsjusrrdvkohulxwccbgvliyxeoahxrhkkfvdrewezlx
obafgyujqukgrtvukameurbveksuhhvoyhabcjwmaklfklmyfvnrizr
vvrtkofdanjmolbgffleoprgtflvrhowopbekvwmuqfmpwparmfha
gkxiibg
Deciphered and in plain text :
From Looks:Radio signal 1132/19 contents:Forced to submerge during attack, depth charges. Last enemy location08:30h, Marqu AJ 9863, 220 degrees, 8 nautical miles, (I am) following(the enemy). (Barometer) falls (by) 14 Millibar, NNO 4, visibility 10.
You no longer need the NSA to assist in here, still they sure have contributed a lot while "Eavesdropping on Hell", didn't they?
Distributed Computing is a powerful way to solve complex tasks, or at least put the PC power of the masses in use. It's no longer required to hire processing power on demand from any of these jewels, but download a client, start participating, or find a way to motivate your future participants. In my previous post "The current state of IP spoofing" I commented on the ANA Spoofer Project and featured a great deal of other distributed projects. Meanwhile, the StartdustAThome project also started gaining grounds, so is it ETs, Space dust, global IP spoofing susceptibility, or unbroken Nazi's ciphers - you have the choice where to participate!
Technorati tags :
Security, Cryptography, Enigma, Distributed
