How These 20th Century Hackers Saved The War

Long before the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice were helping take down a notorious international computer hacking forum and malware marketplace, some of the very first hackers were helping the allies defeat the German Enigma machine during World War II.

Invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius after World War I, German military and government officials used the Enigma machine to encrypt and decrypt secret messages. It was incredibly complicated code that changed daily, and it could only be deciphered by total genius.

Cracking The Code

Three Polish mathematicians were the first to break the Enigma machine’s code by developing a semi-automatic machine that could recover the daily key of the German’s code due to a flaw in the system. Allegedly, the Poles used their ‘Bomba’ machine up until 1939, but chose not to share it with allies.

But, the Germans caught their flaw in 1940 and made the Enigma even more difficult to decipher.

Fast forward to 1941:

A British team of codebreakers were the next at bat to try to break the code during the war. Alan Turing was among the team who created an electro-mechanical machine called ‘The British Bombe’ that cracked the code.

The story of Turing’s invention during the war was portrayed in the Academy Award winning movie, "The Imitation Game." The ‘Bombe’ was the world’s first digital computer made with the most basic of materials and information.

If you’re interested in learning more about how Turing’s machine broke the code, check out this video.

The information from the decrypted code gave the British a nice advantage in naval war, allowing British fleets to dodge further destruction from German U-Boats.

This example is likely the first government-sponsored hack attack of sensitive information. Still today, state-sponsored hackers battle sophisticated software in search of foreign governments’ secrets.

The Father of Computer Science

Alan Turing’s code-cracking machine paved the way for intelligence machines and computation.

He is now known as the father of computer science.

It goes without saying that computer science has revolutionized our world and government systems – leading to technological innovations like smartphones, but also to dangers like the fear of cyber attacks.

It’s lead us to take extra cautious measures – like when Mozilla Firefox completely blocked all versions of Adobe Systems Incorporated ADBE's Flash from its browser when news of system vulnerabilities were revealed earlier this week.

Investors can’t ignore the growing need for cybersecurity, which is why the sector is worth taking a look at.