Spain donates Enigma gear that kick-started Brit code-breaking A pair of historic Enigma machines used during the Spanish Civil War have been donated to Britain. The machines played a role in an untold chapter of British wartime code-breaking history: the early 20th-century kit encoded messages that, once intercepted, helped boffins crack German military encryption at Bletchley Park in …
Oh FFS, not everything is a slight against Turing. In terms of breaking Enigma, Turing was nowhere near the first to do it - he joined Knox's team (who was mentioned).
Presumably you're of the simplistic view that "Enigma" = "Bletchley" = "Turing". The initial cracks of a (weak) Enigma were done in Poland, the findings handed over to the Brits when it became clear Poland would fall to Germany and generically broken by Knox, as mentioned in the article. Turing helped to break Naval Enigma, and also designed the British Bombes that automated the cracking.
It's actually far more complex than what I've just wrote, so I suggest you stop seeing homophobia everywhere, go to Bletchley and learn about it - I'd also suggest looking at the memorial to Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Różycki.
I had the idea that it was more like the Poles cracked it (by brute force, but they did crack it), then built the bombes, then realized they were going to get 0wned when the Germans beefed up the Enigma scramblers and sent all their research to the Brits right before they got themselves 0wned.
Then GCHQ built up on this (enter: Knox), but the really damn good speed up was thanks to one Alan Turing who designed the bombes that didn't depend on the repeating day-key.
Oh yes, I've read a lot on this.
Sorry, but that is complete tosh. A "crib" is some plaintext that the cryptanalyst knows/believes to be widely used by the encryptor. The Poles knew that the |Germans stuck an X on the end of the word AN to avoid confusion (no spaces) so ANX was a 'crib'. An informed guess doesn't usually entail risk to life and limb.
I went to Bletchley Park, and thankfully didn't come across Colossus until after lunch. Otherwise I'd have starved my children. I've not done it before or since but was so impressed, that I gave all my money as a donation.
I met this guy there, it was like a scene from the Val Kilmer film, "Top Secret" where she describes building a rudimentary shelter from palm fronds and snot, except he built a Colossus, Tommy Flowers like, from the remains of BT's aging electromechanical telephone exchanges.
I truly recommend every adult go there, but don't take your kids until they're old enough to understand how close we came to losing.
It was the best day out I've ever had. Made Al Ambra look like a day out at burger king. We truly owe these people, and all those who provided the data, our entire existence.
(and it can be an historian, it depends on how you say it. If it's to be said "An 'istorian, gallic fashion then it is spelled "An historian." and you drop the aitch, and if historian is pronounced with a hard "H", then it's "A historian" - both are valid British English, so far as I'm aware.)
Reminds me of a story my father once told me about his wartime experiences. He was a young draughtsman, fresh out of college, doing "secret stuff" for the govennment. One day he was told to collect his draughting tools and accompany a soldier to a secret location. Then he was ushered into a room with armed guards at the door, and told to make full engineering drawings of the "thing" in the room. After finishing, he had to hand the drawings to one of the guards and then forget that the incident had ever occurred (on pain of death).
He described the "thing" to me as being a bit like a typewriter, but incorporating a series of numbered wheels. Even in the 1980's he was nervous about talking about it.
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