Feature: Brute force or intelligence? The slow rise of computer chess

When you visit the History of Computer Chess exhibit at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, the first machine you see is "The Turk."

In 1770, a Hungarian engineer and diplomat named Wolfgang von Kempelen presented a remarkable invention to the court of Maria Theresa, ruler of Hungary and Austria. It consisted of a mechanical figure dressed in (what Europeans saw as) Oriental garb, presiding over a cabinet upon which a chess board sat. Full of gears ostentatiously placed in a front side drawer, The Turk was cranked up by hand, after which an opponent could sit down and play a game against the dummy.

Well, all of the above—or below, actually. In the rear bottom interior of the box sat a flesh-and-blood operative (by necessity a small one) who followed the human contender's moves from below and maneuvered The Turk's right hand across the table board. Nonetheless, the machine became "the most famous automaton in history," Standage notes, commented on by Charles Babbage, Edgar Allan Poe, Benjamin Franklin, and Napoleon Bonaparte.

More importantly, The Turk whetted the West's appetite for real devices that could do such things. Over two centuries later, this project culminated in Deep Blue—the IBM computer that bested Russian chess champion Gary Kasparov in 1997.

But what's most fascinating about "Mastering the Game," the Computer History Museum's computer chess exhibit, is that it frames the rise of the automated chess playing as a debate between two philosophies of computing. One emphasized the "brute force" approach, taking advantage of algorithmic power offered by ever more powerful processors available to programmers after the Second World War. The other has foregrounded the importance of teaching chess computers to select strategies and even to learn from experience—in other words, to play more like humans.

"Make a plan"

The Second World War saw breathtaking innovation in mechanical calculation engines both in Britain and the United States. Code-breaking machines like Britain's Colossus and trajectory calculators like Harvard's Mark I gave theoreticians a new sense of the possible.

Brute Force Create Calculator - News


IBM Reveals Chip That Acts Like Human Brain

Despite having already outperformed humans at Jeopardy using brute force computing, IBM researchers see something worth emulating in the human brain. Hoping to make computer chips more adept at tasks at which the human



Feature: Brute force or intelligence? The slow rise of computer chess
Feature: Brute force or intelligence? The slow rise of computer chess

One emphasized the "brute force" approach, taking advantage of algorithmic power offered by ever more powerful processors available to programmers after the Second World War. The other has foregrounded the importance of teaching chess computers to



There is always new technology. When should we care? How do we take advantage ...

Take huge databases, putting them together to make real-time maps, so if you happen to glance it will show you where you are. That's brute force using lots of CPU, being very clever about using memory and stuff like that. [cough] There's also new modes



Summary of the American and International Press on the Libyan Revolution ...

Could a strategy of brute force work in a purely military sense? Could the rebel columns of pick-up trucks with machine-guns in the back advance to capture Tripoli behind a creeping barrage supplied by NATO firepower? The Libyan capital is increasingly




The Risk Report - Password Haystack (Brute Force Calculator)

&Quot;This calculator is designed to help users understand how many passwords can be created from different combinations of character sets (lowercase only, mixed case, with or without digits and special characters, etc.) and password lengths. The calculator then puts the resulting large numbers into a real world context of the time that would be required to exhaustively search every password up through that length, assuming the use of the chosen alphabet."

in the example above, the 8-character, mixed password "S4it$tem" is calculated to withstand 18 hours of concentrated brute force attack before it cracks. 

What this site can do: Settle arguments about two password relative susceptibility to concentrated brute force attack.

What this site doesn't do: Measure password strength.  As noted on the web site, this calculator is security awareness tool not secure password generator.


Brute Force Create Calculator - Bookshelf

Brute, The Life of Victor Krulak, U.S. Marine

Brute, The Life of Victor Krulak, U.S. Marine

Coram explores the 34-year military career of Victor "Brute" Krulak, who displayed a remarkable facility for applying creative ways of fighting to the Marine ...

Brute, The Life of Victor Krulak, U.S. Marine

Brute, The Life of Victor Krulak, U.S. Marine


Development with the Force.com Platform, Building Business Applications in the Cloud

Development with the Force.com Platform, Building Business Applications in the Cloud

This is the eBook version of the printed book.Build Cloud-Based Enterprise Applications Fast--and Drive More Value at Lower Cost!

TI-89 graphing calculator for dummies

TI-89 graphing calculator for dummies

Get up to speed easily with your TI-89 Titanium Use advanced science and math applications, PDA functions, and more Your TI-89 Titanium graphing calculator is ...

CrEATe, eating, design and future food

CrEATe, eating, design and future food


Casual Walkthroughs Directory


Brute Force Calculator finds your password's staying power
Back in March, Brad told you about Password Meter, a web app designed to help you create strong passwords. Want to know how long it

spreadsheet
simple -- the calculator tries to approximate what L0pht crack algorithms take advantage ... to start the brute force attack -- the logic is -- the in brute force mode you are ...

Brute Force Calculator: See How Strong Your Password Is
Brute Force Calculator is an online calculator that can tell you how long your password will last against sustained attack. Just enter the number of characters

Brute Force Calculator
Have you ever wondered how long it would take for a typical computer bought in 2008 to brute force your passwords? Now you can find out with the Brute Force

Brute-force attack - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In cryptography, a brute-force attack, or exhaustive key search, is a ... Brute-force attacks can be made less effective by obfuscating the data to be ...