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COLOSSUS
Colossus Cracks Codes Once More
By Mark Ward
Technology Correspondent, BBC News Website
Thursday, 15 November 2007

For the first time in more than 60 years a Colossus computer is cracking codes at Bletchley Park.
The machine is being put through its paces to mark the end of a project to rebuild the pioneering computer. It is being used to crack messages enciphered using the same system employed by the German high command during World War II. The Colossus is pitted against modern PC technology which will also try to read the scrambled messages.

WAR WORK

Colossus is widely recognised as being one of the first recognisably modern digital computers and was developed to read messages sent by the German commanders during the closing years of WWII. It was one of the first ever programmable computers and featured more than 2,000 valves and was the size of a small lorry (truck).

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Colossus in operation during wartime. (Photo via BBC News)
THE REBUILT COLOSSUS

The re-built Colossus will be put to work on intercepted radio messages transmitted by radio amateurs in Paderborn, Germany that have been scrambled using a Lorenz SZ42 machine - as used by the German high command in wartime. German participants in the code-cracking challenge will transmit three enciphered messages - one hard, one very hard and one ultra hard.

Speaking to the BBC, Andy Clark, one of the founders of the Trust for the National Museum of Computing, said radio problems had stopped the challenge getting under way on time. "The radio path has not been particularly good between Germany and here," he said. "We are at a bad point in the sunspot cycle." Signals had improved throughout the day, he added, and he hoped to get 100% of the ciphertext - the code - through soon.

The Colossus machine will be pitted against modern computer technology that will also be used to decipher and read the transmitted messages. Tony Sale, who led the 14-year Colossus re-build project, said it was not clear whether the wartime technology or a modern PC would be faster at cracking the codes.

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The rebuilt Colossus - what a work of art! (Photo via BBC News)