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Codes/cryptography

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The Secure Hash Algorithm Directory - MD5, SHA-1, HMAC and other Cryptography Resources. TrueCrypt - Free Open-Source On-The-Fly Disk Encryption Software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X and Linux. Unbreakable: Kryptos, a monument to CIA secrecy - physics-math - 27 May 2011. Read more: "Unbreakable: Eight codes we can't crack" At the US Central Intelligence Agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, there is a monument to secrecy that has vexed both professional and amateur codebreakers for over two decades. Erected in 1990, the Kryptos sculpture is a copper artwork bearing 1735 coded letters.

Its creator is American artist James Sanborn, who received cryptography training from a CIA code expert. The sculpture's code is divided into four sections. Sanborn has hinted that the clues to unlocking it lie in the first three sections, which a Californian computer scientist named Jim Gillogly announced he had solved in 1999. Colossus computer. Colossus was designed by the engineer Tommy Flowers to solve a problem posed by mathematician Max Newman at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park.

Alan Turing's use of probability in cryptanalysis[1] contributed to its design. It has sometimes been erroneously stated that Turing designed Colossus to aid the Cryptanalysis of the Enigma.[2] Turing's machine that helped decode Enigma was the electromechanical Bombe, not Colossus.[3] The prototype, Colossus Mark 1, was shown to be working in December 1943 and was operational at Bletchley Park by 5 February 1944.[4] An improved Colossus Mark 2 that used shift registers to quintuple the speed,[5] first worked on 1 June 1944,[6] just in time for the Normandy Landings. Ten Colossi were in use by the end of the war. Purpose and origins[edit] The Lorenz SZ machines had 12 wheels each with a different number of cams (or "pins").

Design and construction[edit] The main units of Flowers' design were as follows.[19] SZ42. A brief history of codebreaking: can you crack it? Keith Harrison, contributor Read more: "Unbreakable: Eight codes we can't crack" Nothing is more beguiling than a secret. It's why codebreaking has always fascinated us. The use of codes and ciphers goes back centuries: they have helped to build empires and divert the path of wars.

To mark the 70th anniversary of the capture of an Enigma codebreaking machine, New Scientist has devised four dastardly ciphers. If you have the smarts to crack them, the answers will reveal a brief history of codebreaking. Puzzle 1: Caesar cipher Puzzle 2: Substitution cipher Puzzle 3: Transposition cipher Puzzle 4: Time to phone a friend? Unbreakable: Eight codes we can't crack. Cookies on the New Scientist website close Our website uses cookies, which are small text files that are widely used in order to make websites work more effectively. To continue using our website and consent to the use of cookies, click away from this box or click 'Close' Find out about our cookies and how to change them Log in Your login is case sensitive I have forgotten my password close My New Scientist Look for Science Jobs Unbreakable: Eight codes we can't crack (Image: Time Life Pictures/Getty) The capture of the Enigma code machine 70 years ago changed the course of the second world war.

Somerton Man's poetic mystery A well-dressed man found dead on an Australian beach in 1948 wrote an indecipherable scribble in a book of Persian poetryRead more Beale's buried treasure Three coded messages published in 1885 hold the location of treasure buried in Virginia – or was it a hoax? The MIT time-lock puzzle Kryptos, a monument to CIA secrecy What is the secret of a sculpture at CIA headquarters?