• Log in
  • About Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact us
Telecoms IT News - VanillaPlus
  • Home
  • News
  • Verticals
    • 4G
    • 5G News
    • Big data analytics
    • Bill & Charge
    • CEM
    • Companies
    • Digital transformation
    • Fraud prevention
    • Managed services
    • Network optimisation
    • NFV Hub
    • OSS
    • People
    • Policy
    • Revenue assurance
    • Revenue management
    • Service assurance
    • Service Provisioning
    • Test & measurement
  • Digital Edition
  • Events
    • Events diary
    • Webinars
  • Videos
  • VP Featured
    • Webinars
    • Podcast
    • Editorial advisory board
    • Expert opinions
    • Hot List
    • Operator View
    • Press releases
    • Reports & whitepapers
    • Special reports
    • Talking Heads
    • Troubleticket
    • Digital Talking Heads
  • Directory
  • Trending Tech
  • Subscribe
 

You are here:

  • Home
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • AI cracks Enigma Code ‘in record time’, beats 53bn password combinations in 13 minutes

AI cracks Enigma Code ‘in record time’, beats 53bn password combinations in 13 minutes

05 December, 2017 at 9:11 AM

Posted by: Zenobia Hegde

AI cracks Enigma Code ‘in record time’, beats 53bn password combinations in 13 minutes

DigitalOcean’s powerful Droplets (cloud servers) have been used by artificial intelligence (AI) experts, Enigma Pattern, to break the infamous Enigma code originally deciphered by the team at Bletchley Park in the 1940s in a live demonstration.

Enigma Pattern, a DigitalOcean client, used a range of modern machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques and methodologies to break the Enigma code in just 13 minutes and for a cost of only £10 (€11.31).

The team, led by Lukasz Kuncewicz, taught the artificial intelligence system to recognise the German language by feeding it Grimm’s fairy tales, and after long hours contemplating them, it started to be more and more confident in its classification.

They then recreated the most sophisticated version of Enigma (four rotors navy type, one pair of plugs), which has 15,354,393,600 password variants, in the programming language Python. Just like the bombe the Polish and British had used, they set it up to test all possible combinations of the password – the only difference being they didn’t limit the number of passwords.

The output of this bombe was connected to the artificial intelligence system, so if the simulator, testing all the possible password combinations, was sending something resembling the German language, the artificial intelligence signaled it as a properly decoded message.

Lukasz said: “Enigma code is a complex system and decoding the message takes time as does checking to tell if the decrypted message is German. When you have billions of possible passwords to try, it all adds up to days. If we had used the power of only one machine, it would have taken 2 weeks to go through all of the possible combinations.”

Enigma Pattern realised that they needed to shrink the time taken to decode the message and they turned to DigitalOcean, a cloud services platform designed for developers and businesses to build, scale and automate their infrastructure.

Lukasz Kuncewicz

Lukasz added: “There are a few cloud services providers that let you hire machines immediately and for the time you need, be that one hour, several days or longer-term. One of these is DigitalOcean, who we contacted and asked if we could spin our project on 2000 of their virtual servers. They gave us the green light, we prepared a parallel version of our bombe, and it worked!”

At the event in central London, by using DigitalOcean’s virtual servers, the entire Enigma machine decryption was finished in just 13 minutes, with 41 million combinations tested per second.

Alex Jaimes, head of Research and Development at DigitalOcean said: “Things have moved on massively since the original Enigma machine was decrypted, but the fascinating element to Enigma Pattern’s work is how they’ve used the power of AI and cloud computing to give a glimpse into the future of everyday computing. The simplicity and computational power of our platform makes DO the perfect partner for AI projects that require scale, speed, and execution at remarkably low costs.”

For the full technical specifications of the ‘Breaking the Enigma Code’ project, click here.

Comment on this article below or via Twitter: @ VanillaPlus OR @jcvplus


category: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Companies, News, People, Platforms & Applications

Tags: AI, computing, DigitalOcean, Machine Learning, password, programming

VanillaPlus Q4 Magazine
 

VanillaPlus Issue 4 2022: CSP focus turns to generating revenue from enterprises

As 5G arrives, private networks start to gather momentum and new applications enabled by artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and software-based network control transform telecoms. VanillaPlus caught up with Sam Barker, the head of analytics and forecasting at Juniper Research, to understand where the opportunities lie for communications service providers (CSPs).

READ NOW

Comments are closed.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • Subscribe
Relax time
Read the new novel by J.J. Cowan on Africa’s conflict minerals trade and forced labour. 5* Reviews on Amazon.co.uk Paperback & Kindle

Check out on Amazon

X

Be the first to know!

  • The top telecom IT news stories of the minute
    in your inbox
  • Exclusive offers for entry into hundreds of
    events worldwide
  • Free access to a huge selection of the latest
    analyst reports and whitepapers
Subscribe now so you don't miss out
Don’t show me this again
Please check your email
x
Vanillaplus - The Global Voice of Telecoms IT
The Global Voice of Telecoms IT

VanillaPlus is the world-leading resource covering digital transformation for the communications industry. VanillaPlus brings you exclusive News, Expert Views, and Event Reviews. See Interviews from CEOs, CTOs, and COOs who are successfully transforming their business today.

Connect

Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn

NEWS

  • Latest Telecoms IT news

DIGITAL EDITION

  • Latest Editions

OTHER

  • Newsletters [Archive]

KNOWLEDGE CENTRE

  • Webinars
  • Special Reports
  • Talking Heads
  • Editorial Advisory Board

COMPANY

  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy

PARTNERS

  • IoT News

© 2014-2022 VanillaPlus - The global voice for telecoms IT. All rights reserved.