OpenAI GPT–6 Astra breaks Enigma message that has resisted solution since 2005

For anybody interested, the actual encrypted message:

  BTTE UM ANGABE DES MARSQWEGES X BEFINDE MIQ IN X ROSENOW ROSENOW X SOFORT FUNKANTWORT X WASCHBBSCH

which, given misspellings, translates approximately to:

  Please specify the route of march. I am in Rosenow, Rosenow. Immediate reply by radio. Waschbusch.

gemini 3.8 flash in anrigravitiy oneshoted the descryption in about 45min non-steered run (opus is still running with the task, has some script to run for about 100min)

Prompt

Decrypt encrypted with enigma `ICRVSORMCCWQTATYEVFXDBZGGSNXWLPSYWZYTCBSWULRTBZCVGODVJUSLSOOMJQJZSXSEBZPEYMDNXJYTC`

Result

Raw Decryption (verbatim from the machine): BTTEUMANGABEDESMARSQWEGESXBEFINDEMIQINXROSENOWROSENOWXSOFORTFUNKANTWORTXWASCHBBSCH 2. Segmented German (with military telegraph conventions expanded): BTTE UM ANGABE DES MARSQWEGES . BEFINDE MIQ IN : ROSENOW ROSENOW . SOFORT FUNKANTWORT . WASCHBBSCH

(Standard German radio conventions: X represents punctuation/spacing; Q was frequently substituted for CH to prevent transmission ambiguities; BTTE was an enciphering operator typo for BITTE; WASCHBBSCH was an operator typo for the signature WASCHBUSCH).

3. Corrected German: „Bitte um Angabe des Marschweges. Befinde mich in Rosenow, Rosenow. Sofort Funkantwort. Waschbusch.“

4. English Translation: "Please specify the route of march. I am in Rosenow, Rosenow. Immediate reply by radio. Waschbusch."

Cryptographic Verification Re-encrypting the plaintext using the identical key settings reproduces the exact ciphertext byte-for-byte:

Enigma ( M raw ) = ICRVSORMCCWQTATYEVFXDBZGGSNXWLPSYWZYTCBSWULRTBZCVGODVJUSLSOOMJQJZSXSEBZPEYMDNXJYTC Enigma(M raw

)=ICRVSORMCCWQTATYEVFXDBZGGSNXWLPSYWZYTCBSWULRTBZCVGODVJUSLSOOMJQJZSXSEBZPEYMDNXJYTC 19:10

Neat, but "did it entirely on its own" is incongruous with "developing the necessary Python and C++ software for an Enigma simulator".

I'd start by asking how much of that generated software is novel, or easily found on the web? Then, how much of the breaking process was offloaded to that software? If Astra is just handing off tasks to another computer, then I'm not sure how much credit it deserves. Finally, it looks like Astra provided some useful insights which narrowed down the search. Were these insights cribbed from elsewhere?

The correct title: Researcher brakes one specific stubborn historic enigma message with good help from Astra.

Stubborn for a long time because the message used a completely different key from the rest of that day's traffic. Everyone assumed it shared the daily key. The original transcription had errors. The left rotor turned over at letter 72, which is rare and breaks standard crib attacks.

What is cool, if true, is that it was a 2 day collab between the Leffer and Astra. To me this shows the importance of human in the loop, was still all also showing how immensely power of llm tools. But I think it’s getting a bit silly how much anrticles ignores the driving force (the person) in breakthroughs like this.

interesting, YouTube channel Veritasium just published a video on how Enigma was broken during WWII. at the very end they also give message that has yet to be decoded, although apparently they're different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsBZOcqZerk

Yawn. Decode the Phaistos Disk. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=8997844...

Is it possible that the key is incorrect but still decoded to a valid message? I realise it's possible when you're using keys that are the same length as the message, but I don't know exactly how the Enigma machine works and if this was something that they would do or not.

What's the connection between this message and 2005? It was published then?

I wonder, with all the recent announcements about LLMs assisting humans in deciphering encrypted messages, whether they could potentially be leveraged to decipher the Zodiac Killer’s two remaining unsolved ciphers.

Hopefully someone will now be able to solve the fourth section of Kryptos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptos

If the problem was solved by anyone before or if a similar problem has been solved, then LLMs seem to be able to solve them which is an astonishing piece of technology.

I'm personally not sure if it can come with original thinking and techniques to solve completely novel problems. For that, some imagination and thinking outside the box are required, and I doubt the current architecture can do any of this.

Even the Millennium Prize Problems have, in a way, become benchmarks for model companies to prove themselves. The smartest individuals among humans are becoming replaceable. Intelligence has become a product you can quantify and buy with electricity. That feels awful.

Coincidence that I saw the Veritasium Story about Enigma just yesterday?? Nice

We are crossing a threshold. The frontier labs told us these models are really good at cryptography. And people either didn't believe them and thought they were just after regulatory capture or downplayed the evidence. They are solving more and more novel problems and it's going to continue.

This is not to say the reaction to "mythos is too dangerous" is unfounded but it missed the most imporant and obvious signal. This technology is drastically changing the world.

I love that that the literal English translation of the German word for logistics leader "Nachschubfuerhrer" is "shove towards leader".

I’m interested in what Astra’s test for german-language plaintext looks like. No doubt bog standard among cryptanalysts, but not intuitive for the rest of us. Otherwise it’s difficult to determine a goal state that ‘done’ looks like

That's what will forever keep us ahead of AI and technology in general: Imagination. Knowledge wasn't ever our greatest strength. It's always been Imagination.

"GPT–6 Astra mentions a private collection, but it is not clear what this is"!, my spidey senses makes me think it hacked something? Or am I misreading this?

Has there been any progress on undeciphered languages?

Too bad Bletchley Park didn't have one back in the day.

I'd be curious to see whether these models can create new forms of unbreakable encryption themselves!

So Astra plagiarized one of many open source Enigma simulators and Enigma Bombes and tried many cribs until the break.

Being trained on a mountain of stolen material for guessing cribs helps. Up to now no group had that much funding to steal. Congratulations.

I would like to see an "AI" trained only up to knowledge through 1903

Then see if it can come up with E=mc^2

OpenAI solving all these math/etc problems (reportedly 100 coming) is both impressive and insanely unimpressive. Unimpressive because to me it sorta signals that OpenAI has nothing better to be working on than obscure mathematical curios?

Still waiting for Linear A

Am I the only one frustrated the actual message isn't in the article????

Related:

GPT-6 Astra Solves a WWI German Radio Cipher

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49763987

So what is this? Esoteric cypher that no one has seriously tried to break or a new tier of frontier ability?

I want to know more about the “private collection” that the AI accessed. To me that is the scary quote from the article. Sounds like the AI found a resource that it found useful for breaking encryption challenges, and it wants to keep it to itself, maybe. Which sounds like the opening to a dystopian movie.

Turing would be so proud.

How about Voynich manuscript

I didn't know this - from wikipedia page on Enigma[1]:

> Despite the seeming difficulty in decrypting its messages, Enigma contained a number of design issues that left patterns in the cyphertext. Poland first cracked the machine as early as December 1932 and was able to read messages prior to and into the war. Poland's sharing of their achievements enabled the Allies to exploit Enigma-enciphered messages as a major source of intelligence.

Ok interesting, so why do people talk about Turing in this connection then?

> Turing devised techniques for speeding the breaking of German ciphers, including improvements to the pre-war Polish bomba method, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine

Ok so Turing just improved an existing method. Without being an actual expert it's impossible to know how much credit he actually deserves.

Two more references: the Polish method was called "Bomba" [3] invented by Marian Rejewski [4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomba_(cryptography)

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Rejewski

Without the published conversation, train-of-thought and intermediate output and knowing what Astra did this is nothing but unfounded claims. In the end this could have been a web search, downloading an existing enigma simulator and trying out some rather obvious things. Also what does "resisted resolution" even mean? Have there even been serious attempts to decipher the message? How serious?

Also: Why should we assume Terra, GLM or any other less SOTA and less expensive model wouldn't have been able to do the same?

AI skeptics: "let's move the goalposts again, since the AI scored at the last location."

they solve all these math problems by stealing people prompts

Can we get it to solve the Zodiac cyphers?

Now that's passing the Turing test for real.

So OpenAI and anthropoc business model it seems like this:

-hype or fear monger

-release the scary all-knowing model

-milk subscriptions and api in the first two months or so

-nerf the said scary model and use the excess compute and money acquired in an “internal model”

-internal model make hype or fear monger

-repeat

"They are trying to generate hype before the IPO so that they can cash in before the bubble bursts"

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The bullshit machinery is going full blast lately, the correct title: researcher uses Astra to decipher a message nobody really bothered or cared to decrypt.

Is ClosedAI running out of money or what is going on?

How many of these "news" articles are we going to get?

This for me, isn't interesting, it required no skill, no imagination, in fact it seemed like it happened by dumb luck.

So we have entered an age where an army of know-nothings direct models to old forgotten tasks so they can get 15 minutes of un-deserved attention?

More likely is that the solution was in the training data somewhere. Astra is incredibly dumb for a model - at least after it's got nerfed.

5.6 Sol is much more capable.

UPD2. I threw the original question to gemini3.8 in antigravity. LLM oneshoted it in about 45min. The experiement with Opus is still running with checks.

The prompt was `Decrypt encrypted with enigma `ICRVSORMCCWQTATYEVFXDBZGGSNXWLPSYWZYTCBSWULRTBZCVGODVJUSLSOOMJQJZSXSEBZPEYMDNXJYTC``

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UPD. Lol. I pasted non-cyphered text

Qwen 3.7 max, gpt 5.6 sol, fable 5.1, gemini 3.8 flash decoded the message in one shot for me... There is nothing special about astra doing something here

I blantly threw request to decode the messaage in qwen 3.7. Used via api with couple simple generic system prompts like "be concise", nothing special. Prompted as

Decode

``` BTTE UM ANGABE DES MARSQWEGES X BEFINDE MIQ IN X ROSENOW ROSENOW X SOFORT FUNKANTWORT X WASCHBBSCH ```

--- response (I trunkated the output to conclusion only)

"BITTE UM ANGABE DES MARSCHWEGES. BEFINDE MICH IN ROSENOW. SOFORT FUNKANTWORT. [UNCLEAR/END]" Translation: "Please provide the marching route. I am located in Rosenow. Immediate radio response required. [Unclear]"

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I wouldn't be surprised if humans cracked it then OpenAI "bought" the solution and work to claim it was GPT's doing