Cryptanalytic Relief

Bletchley Park arguably shortened World War II by two years. Or was it World War 2 by II years? No matter. Its existence was secret, its cryptanalysis, code-breaking and pioneering computer development classified for thirty years. The work of Alan Turing and others was as important to the war effort as anything achieved by men in khaki with pointy sticks and the other primitive weaponry of you puny humans. (Of course, Britain repaid Turing by making his life hell and eventually causing him to kill himself, but that’s another rant.)

Bletchley Park is a museum today, run by a charity, the Bletchley Park Trust. It receives no money from the government or the Heritage Lottery Fund at present. It’s started a Save Bletchley Park petition webchez Gordon Brown, which will I’m sure result in platitudes but no actual, hard cash.

So I’ve donated directly. It’s a manky system and you need to make an account with them to actually part with electrocash, but hey.

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1 Comment

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One response to “Cryptanalytic Relief

  1. Anonymous

    Still working?

    Apparently their purpose built systems from back then crack the codes just as fast as a general purpose computer would today. Given the doubling every 18 months per Moore’s observation (it is not a law dammit) that shows just how incredible it was.

    If the machines still work you better hope they aren’t working out your pin number and all your passwords behind your back :-)

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