Today one of the world’s first digital computers, Colossus has been restarted at Bletchley Park after 14 years of reconstruction.
Colossus was designed and built in the 1940’s to crack German wartime codes. The restart is being given added atmosphere by German radio amateurs who will transmit authentic messages from Germany using an original German Lorenz SZ42 machine. Colossus will try to crack the code.
Apparently, anyone with their own computer who can receive the signal can join in the code-breaking fest. There are three levels of challenge based on the wheel settings of the Lorenz machine in Germany. First up is what could be considered the easier option (which I’d call extremely difficult if not impossible), then medium (which I’d call impossible) and finally “the Killer” (a challenge that could be compared to racing a wheelbarrow against a highly tuned Ferrari). Anyone who fancies having a go can find the transmission details here.
According to Tony Sale the leader of the rebuild project, “a virtual Colossus written to run on a Pentium 2 laptop takes about the same time to break a cipher as Colossus”. The Colossus team are expecting a result sometime tomorrow.
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