Comment Re:Let the raging tardfight commence (Score 3, Insightful) 168
I only found out about the contest a couple of days before it began, and I was away at the time, so I
couldn't participate in "real time", but I used the
copies of the sent ciphertexts on the Bletchley
website.
I worked away on a lorenz breaker for the SZ42 stuff, written in C. I was able to break
ciphertext roughly an order of magnitude faster
than Joachims code. Joachim worked away on his code
for several weeks in advance of the contest. I had only a couple of days notice.
I think two things matter in a competition like
this:
o The *appropriateness* of the language
o The skills of the coder
Joachim got all the glory on this one, since he
was first to announce the breaks. But there are
probably a number of others who were "close"
when Joachim announced his break.
couldn't participate in "real time", but I used the
copies of the sent ciphertexts on the Bletchley
website.
I worked away on a lorenz breaker for the SZ42 stuff, written in C. I was able to break
ciphertext roughly an order of magnitude faster
than Joachims code. Joachim worked away on his code
for several weeks in advance of the contest. I had only a couple of days notice.
I think two things matter in a competition like
this:
o The *appropriateness* of the language
o The skills of the coder
Joachim got all the glory on this one, since he
was first to announce the breaks. But there are
probably a number of others who were "close"
when Joachim announced his break.
