http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20060303/bs_nf/41894

Nazi code that eluded the best cryptographers the Allied forces had to
offer during World War II has been solved by an amateur codebreaker with
the assistance of a network of computers. 
The three uncracked ciphers -- a cipher is a method of transforming text
in order to conceal its meaning -- were encrypted in 1942 with a new
version of the infamous German Enigma machine, which was used to direct
attacks against Allied shipping in the Atlantic. 
The M4 Project, the brainchild of Stefan Krah, a violinist and amateur
cryptographer of German birth, is credited with cracking one of the
three remaining ciphers. The project was named in honor of the M4 Enigma
machine that originally encoded the messages. 
To solve the puzzling mystery, details of which had been published in a
cryptography journal in 1995, Krah wrote a codebreaking program and then
went online in January to post information about his project and ask for
assistance. 
In an interview with the BBC, Krah, a resident of Utrecht, The
Netherlands, said it was "basic human curiosity" that prompted him to
attempt to break the code. "Clearly, the project is from the
'because-we-can' department," Krah wrote on a bulletin board online. 
Super Sleuths Unite 
Krah was not looking for additional brain power when he posted his
request for help online. Rather, he was trolling for more computer
power. The program Krah created required the might of a series of
connected computers to process his mathematical codebreaking formula. 
When the response to his request for help came, Krah said, he was
astonished by "the exponential growth of participants." 
On January 9, when the project began, Krah counted himself as the only
participant. After his announcement online, another five or so people
joined and became regular participants. 
That number expanded to some 2,500 computers whirring away as they ran
through the 150 million permutations of each letter to crack the Enigma
cipher, the top priority for Allied codebreakers at the vaunted
Bletchley Park complex in Buckinghamshire, England. 
Amateurs One, Pros Zero 
Success for Krah came on February 20, when a jumble of 196 letters
became a legible message once again after 63 years. In its encrypted
form, the message appeared as follows: 
NCZW VUSX PNYM INHZ XMQX SFWX WLKJ AHSH NMCO CCAK UQPM KCSM HKSE INJU
SBLK IOSX CKUB HMLL XCSJ USRR DVKO HULX WCCB GVLI YXEO AHXR HKKF VDRE
WEZL XOBA FGYU JQUK GRTV UKAM EURB VEKS UHHV OYHA BCJW MAKL FKLM YFVN
RIZR VVRT KOFD ANJM OLBG FFLE OPRG TFLV RHOW OPBE KVWM UQFM PWPA RMFH
AGKX IIBG 
The unencrypted message has been translated into English and verified
using existing records from Hartwig Looks, commander of the German
submarine U264, that was later sunk in the North Atlantic in February
1944. The message, sent on November 25, 1942, reads: 
"Forced to submerge during attack. Depth charges. Last enemy position
0830h AJ 9863, [course] 220 degrees, [speed] 8 knots. [I am] following
[the enemy]. [barometer] falls 14 mb, [wind] nor-nor-east, [force] 4,
visibility 10 [nautical miles]." 
Krah said that he is not sure the remaining two codes will be cracked.
So far, the power of thousands of PCs joined in this effort has resulted
in little success. "There is no guarantee that another break will occur
at all," Krah was quoted as saying. "There is simply a fair chance." 
To volunteer your computer's processing power to crack the final two
codes, 
go to www.bytereef.org/m4_project.html

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