code breakers – News Stories About code breakers - Page 1

Research Identifies Women Who Broke Nazi Codes at Bletchley

Research Reveals Women Who
Secretly Broke Nazi Codes

Apr 24, 2024 6:10 PM CDT

Research Reveals Women Who Secretly Broke Nazi Codes

Recognition was delayed by decades of secrecy

(Newser) - When Jane Monroe was asked what she'd done during World War II, her answer was "Oh, I made tea." Dulcie Klusmann later confessed, "We had to make up a bunch of lies." The reason is that the women spent the war breaking Nazi codes at...

Codes Contained in 1880s
Dress Are Finally Cracked

Codes Contained in 1880s Dress Are Finally Cracked

Wayne Chan reveals 'silk dress cryptogram' to be telegraph weather codes

(Newser) - Sara Rivers Cofield thought she was buying a pretty but unexceptional dress. In fact, she would soon discover the 1880s-era silk bustle dress, bought at a Maine antiques mall in 2013, had a secret pocket, inside of which was paper containing 23 handwritten lines of code. In a few cases,...

King's Secret Code Is
Broken 500 Years Later

King's Secret Code Is Broken 500 Years Later

Letter reveals Charles V's fears of French assassination plot

(Newser) - For the first time, researchers are reading about a rumored French plot to assassinate King Charles V of Spain in his own words—or symbols, rather. The information was only revealed after six months of "painstaking" work by codebreakers, per AFP . It's no secret that Charles V and...

51 Years Later, a 'Zodiac Killer'
Cipher Has Been Solved

Dec 12, 2020 6:00 AM CST

51 Years Later, a 'Zodiac Killer' Cipher Has Been Solved

Code-breaking trio solves one of the ciphers the killer sent to 'San Francisco Chronicle' in 1969

(Newser) - For 14 years, Virginia web designer David Oranchak has been toiling away on one of America's greatest mysteries: the "340 Cipher," a 340-character puzzle sent to the San Francisco Chronicle more than 50 years ago by the infamous "Zodiac Killer," who murdered at least five...

Man Behind
Secret Code
at CIA Offers
New Hint

Nov 21, 2014 8:15 AM CST

Man Behind Secret Code at CIA Offers New Hint

Kryptos' final secret message includes phrase 'Berlin clock'

(Newser) - Jim Sanborn punched four messages into his curved copper sculpture, which has sat outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., since 1990. The first three messages of "Kryptos" were decoded by NSA cryptographers in 1993, then by fans in 1999. The 97-character fourth message, however, has stumped code breakers for...

Coded Civil-War
Diary Dishes on
1st Lady's Race

Oct 13, 2014 4:15 PM CDT

Coded Civil-War Diary Dishes on 1st Lady's Race

Southern officer James Malbone pens diary behind the lines

(Newser) - A wounded Confederate officer found time for a little fun during the Civil War while working behind the lines—by gossiping in his diary, and in code no less. The diary of James Malbone, now at the New York State Military Museum, includes entries on the Confederacy's first lady...

Brit Who Cracked Hitler's Code Dies at 93

OBITUARY

Mar 27, 2014 11:20 AM CDT

Brit Who Cracked Hitler's Code Dies at 93

Raymond "Jerry" Roberts remembered

(Newser) - Britain has lost one of its last World War II code breakers, credited with shortening the war by at least two years and saving millions of lives. Raymond "Jerry" Roberts—who died at 93 after a short illness—served as a German linguist and cryptographer at Britain's premier...

100-Year-Old Hoax May Be 600-Year-Old Code

Jun 22, 2013 5:26 PM CDT

100-Year-Old Hoax May Be 600-Year-Old Code

UK researchers find new patterns in mysterious manuscript

(Newser) - Many people believe that the Voynich manuscript—a book found in 1912 written in an unknown language with images of plants and astronomy—is a hoax. Cryptographers, mathematicians, and linguists have been trying to decipher the supposedly 15th-century text found by book dealer Wilfrid Voynich in 1912 for 100 years,...

Mathematician
Finally Cracks
POW's Coded
Letters

May 1, 2013 7:15 AM CDT

Mathematician Finally Cracks POW's Coded Letters

Hidden messages inside letters sent during WWII

(Newser) - British soldier John Pryor sent letters home to his family from a Nazi POW camp for five years during World War II. Seventy years later, they finally know what he actually wrote. A mathematician at Plymouth University has deciphered the coded messages hidden inside the innocuous-looking letters for the first...

Students Crack
Shorthand of
Rhode Island's
Founder

Nov 30, 2012 5:24 PM CST

Students Crack Shorthand of Rhode Island's Founder

Brown University math major figures out notes of Roger Williams

(Newser) - The obscure book's margins are virtually filled with clusters of curious foreign characters—a mysterious shorthand used by 17th-century religious dissident Roger Williams. For centuries the scribbles went undeciphered. But a team of Brown University students has finally cracked the code. Historians call the now-readable writings the most significant...

FBI Wants You to Crack
Code in 12-Year-Old Murder

FBI Wants You to Crack Code in 12-Year-Old Murder

They're hoping amateur puzzle fans can solve notes found on St. Louis man

(Newser) - The FBI’s best cryptanalysts haven’t been able to crack a mysterious code found in the pocket of a murder victim 12 years ago—so they’re hoping you can do it. Ricky McCormick, 41, was found dead in a Missouri field in 1999, and the bizarre notes in...

How a Nerdy Double Agent Fooled Hitler

Jan 28, 2011 1:42 PM CST

How a Nerdy Double Agent Fooled Hitler

New document sheds light on spy saga behind Normandy

(Newser) - Juan Pujol Garcia didn’t look much like a secret agent. “He was no James Bond—he was a balding, boring, unsmiling little man,” one former associate says. Yet his double-agent exploits helped end World War II. A new document, published yesterday for the first time by the...

Spy Was Studying Bondage for New Undercover Role: Pal

Dec 27, 2010 2:04 AM CST

Spy Was Studying Bondage for New Undercover Role: Pal

It was only a ruse for his work, says friend

(Newser) - A British codebreaker spy who police believe may have been accidentally suffocated during bondage sex merely appeared to be into kinky sex for a new undercover identity he was taking on for his super secret work, a friend has told investigators. Gareth Williams of MI6 was studying bondage websites and...

Outside the CIA, a Secret Code Begs to Be Broken

Nov 21, 2010 5:30 PM CST

Outside the CIA, a Secret Code Begs to Be Broken

The man behind the Kryptos sculpture offers a clue

(Newser) - The CIA is home to many secrets, but perhaps none so tempting as those punched into a sculpture that sits in its courtyard. Erected in 1990, "Kryptos" features four undulating panels of copper that contain four secret puzzles, three of which were solved in 1999. But the fourth continues...