OpenAI GPT–6 Astra breaks Enigma message that has resisted solution since 2005
- ID
- 27383
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 22 Sep 2026, 9:52 PM
- Fetched
- 24 Sep 2026, 4:22 AM
- Provider
- Hacker News
- Category
- dev-community
- Original URL
- https://www.cryptocellar.org/bgac/the-mvueh-break.html
- Source URL
- https://hnrss.org/best
Summary
- Score
- 7.0
- Created
- 24 Sep 2026, 4:23 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- ai_agent_usersai_ml_learnersdevelopers
What happened
OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra autonomously broke Enigma message MVUEH (Nr. 172, 10 July 1941, 82 letters), which had resisted all human attempts since 2005. The AI independently selected the target from a list of unbroken messages, hypothesized a relationship with a previously broken message (SIPVX/Nr. 173), wrote its own Python and C++ Enigma simulator and Bombe software, and used the repeated place name ROSENOW as a crib to recover the correct key (wheel order 253, differing from the daily key's 512) and plaintext. The break was complicated by transcription errors and a rare left-hand wheel turnover at the 72nd letter.
Why it matters
This is a concrete data point on autonomous AI agent capability: GPT-6 Astra performed the full pipeline—target selection, hypothesis formation, code generation for domain-specific tooling, and multi-step cryptanalytic attack—without human guidance beyond an initial prompt. If you build or use AI agents for hard technical problems, this suggests current frontier models can tackle multi-hour, multi-tool tasks that previously required specialist humans, including writing and debugging bespoke simulation code in multiple languages.
Discussion angle
What does it mean for agent design that GPT-6 Astra chose its own target, formed its own hypothesis about message relationships, and wrote its own tooling—versus the typical pattern of humans pre-specifying the task, tools, and strategy for an agent?