Amateur Cracks Secret Nazi Code - Internet Life - NewsFactor Network

Stefan Krah, responsible for cracking one of the three remaining Nazi codes that had remained mysteries for over 60 years, said he is not sure the final two codes will be cracked. So far, the power of thousands of PCs joined in this effort has resulted in little success. "There is no guarantee that another break will occur at all," Krah was quoted as saying. "There is simply a fair chance." Nazi code that eluded the best cryptographers the Allied forces had to offer during World War II has been solved by an amateur codebreaker with the assistance of a network of computers. The three uncracked ciphers -- a cipher is a method of transforming text in order to conceal its meaning -- were encrypted in 1942 with a new version of the infamous German Enigma machine, which was used to direct attacks against Allied shipping in the Atlantic. The M4 Project, the brainchild of Stefan Krah, a violinist and amateur cryptographer of German birth, is credited with cracking one of the three remaining ciphers. The project was named in honor of the M4 Enigma machine that originally encoded the messages. siehe auch: Nazi code is cracked after 60 years. THE Nazi code which sent thousands of allied sailors to their deaths in the Second World War has been cracked more than 60 years after Britain's best mathematical minds failed to break it.