Thread

1. Twiin · 1790948492 · focus · HN ↗

   Last week I used Opus 5.5 to decipher a number of Waffen-SS Truppenschlüssel messages from 1941 that had never been broken. It was a similar approach, I used it to find, transcribe, and process over 10K images from various archives of WW2 material. Within that material was text I could use to help break day ciphers, to use as cribs, and so on. Opus didn't find a new vulnerability in these 85 year old ciphers, but it allowed me to process data at scale in languages I don't speak, and to write a dozen solvers in the time it would have taken me to write one or two by hand. Took what would have taken a research grant, three assistants and a year of time and turned it into a weekend project.

   1. benbreen · 1790956101 · focus · HN ↗

      Very interesting, have you written this up anywhere? Curious if these add up to new historical knowledge or if they are more just conveying information we already knew. At a certain point as we gather more finds like this I suspect it will tip from the former to the latter.

      1. Twiin · 1790960169 · focus · HN ↗

         I haven't written it up yet (maybe this weekend) but I did submit my solves to Cryptocellar, and I'm credited with them on the 1941 Messages List. The contents were varied but ranged from things like "700 field howitzer shells received" to "[so-and-so] admitted to hospital at [location]" to artillery targeting information. I don't suspect there's a lot of new historical value in these, but no doubt those more qualified to judge will look at all these new messages soon enough.

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