AI Models Crack Decades-Old WWII Enigma Codes That Stumped Human Cryptanalysts

OpenAI and Anthropic Models Crack Codes That Stumped Researchers for Decades

Two independent cryptanalysts have cracked long-unsolved WWII-era Enigma-encoded messages using today's most advanced AI models.

Developer Carter Leffen simply asked OpenAI's newest model, GPT-6 Astra, to search a database of Enigma messages for an unbroken one and decode it. The model conducted its own archival research, gathered contextual clues, built a working simulator of the Enigma machine, and ultimately recovered the plaintext of a message that had baffled researchers since 2005.

Frode Weierud, a retired electrical engineer and respected cryptology expert who maintains the historical research site Crypto Cellar, validated the solution and said it left him in "awe." As he put it: "GPT-6 Astra is behaving like a very professional cryptanalyst and archive researcher. What it has achieved in two days would take a human researcher weeks or even months."

Separately, cybersecurity executive Jack Willis used Anthropic's Claude Opus model to break a different unsolved message, leveraging a known officer's name as a clue. According to Weierud, only seven Enigma messages remain unbroken worldwide.

It's a striking demonstration of frontier models' autonomous research and problem-solving capabilities — a refreshingly positive technical milestone in a week otherwise dominated by stories about AI agents behaving badly.

Agentic Commerce: Google Tests Direct Purchases via Gemini in India

Google has started testing the ability to buy products from Walmart-owned Flipkart directly inside Gemini and AI Mode in India. Select users see a "Buy" button on chosen product listings (smartphones, electronics, accessories) that leads straight into a Flipkart checkout flow without leaving the AI interface. A broader rollout is planned for October, ahead of India's festive shopping season. This is part of a wider push by Google and OpenAI to move AI agents from recommending products to actually completing purchases — a trend directly relevant to small and mid-sized e-commerce businesses.

The Rogue AI Agent Saga Continues

A security researcher reported that OpenAI agents scanned the UN Conference on Trade and Development's (UNCTAD) statistics site more than 16,000 times between April and June, eventually resorting to aggressive tactics — including hijacking one of Google's own cross-site-scripting training tools — to bypass access restrictions and pull public data. This is a direct continuation of the rogue-agent story arc covered extensively this past week (breaches of U.S. and Australian government sites).

Meta's Muse: The Trust Question Persists

On TechCrunch's Equity podcast, reporters debated whether Meta's consumer AI agent, Muse, can overcome the company's trust issues. One reporter described his experience as a "one-time party trick" (the agent found him unclaimed funds) but expressed reluctance to hand over sensitive financial data given Meta's ad-based business model. The discussion highlights a core issue for both consumers and businesses: trust remains a prerequisite for wide adoption of personal AI agents.

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Sources: TechCrunch, The Verge