8 ms·

Women who had high-level roles in breaking codes

110 points by sonabinu 9y ago

axonic 9y ago
Oh, because everyone else's story was told but theirs? Rly... 2017, year of the pro-female SEO and marketing. BBC is doing what about it? Flag this all you want, I'm a transgender female coder with a wife who also is a computer scientist. Silence me some more while you post headlines about women you hypocrites. Be sure to preach about freedom of speech too.
- dang 9y ago
  This breaks the HN guidelines, which ask you to avoid snark and flamebait. This was both. That's bad. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post like this again. Edit: it sounds like you have a rare perspective to share, and you're more than welcome to share it here. But you need to follow the rules like everyone else. Our idea here is to try to hold a container for interesting discussion. It's forever fragile, and snark and flamebait have the effect on interestingness that salt has on a slug. A nice additional effect of posting civilly and substantively is that then your perspective will more likely be truly received.
- axonic 9y ago
  My wife agreed with posting it, the original article is flamebait
- Boothroid 9y ago
  The BBC really are going a bit crazy with pro female stories lately. I've been tempted to make a FOI request to reveal the editorial policies behind this. Silly me, I thought they were supposed to be a nonpolitical news organisation, not an agenda pushing front. I hope the Tories eventually grow the courage to privatise them.
  - twobyfour 9y ago
    Why does it bother you so much that the BBC is reporting stories (and nearly lost history) that happens to be about women?
    - Boothroid 9y ago
      The BBC are supposed to be a non-political organisation and it seems clear to me they are pushing various trendy agendas, i.e. anti-Brexit, pro-EU, anti-Trump, pro-Islam, pro-feminist, pro-migration, pro-globalist, etc. I anticipate downvotes but I expect a scientific analysis would demonstrate above is true. The article doesn't just happen to be about women - it is part of a pattern that verges on propaganda. And it bothers me so much because I resent being forced to pay for a organisation, under threat of legal punishment for not paying, which pushes various political agenda which it is specifically supposed to avoid, and which I happen to disagree with - but I would complain just as vociferously if it were pushing agenda that I agreed with. If you cannot see that it's dangerous to have a publically funded broadcaster clearly dominated by a particular single political viewpoint then there's not much more to discuss. The BBC should stick to documentaries, nature, and science, which is what they do best, and keep their political opinions to themselves.
      - twobyfour 9y ago
        How is it pushing an agenda? Is any story that's about women doing intellectual work that has an impact on our world pushing an agenda? I just see an important moment in history that had been buried for years (possibly in part because of historical sexism) finally coming to light.
        Boothroid 9y ago
        Perhaps you missed this: The article doesn't just happen to be about women - it is part of a pattern that verges on propaganda.
        twobyfour 9y ago
masonic 9y ago
"Left out" is an odd way to put it, given that anybody who published these details would have violated the Official Secrets Act. An excellent series using characters in these roles is "The Bletchley Circle" (highly recommended, with great attention to historical detail).
- dang 9y ago
  What you and Mz both pointed out makes the article's headline (rather shamelessly) misleading, so I replaced it with language from the subtitle. Edit: I also turned off flags on the article, assuming that people were mostly flagging the (rather shamelessly) misleading title.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    Why not have a comment- or flag list-box so people can tell you why they flagged?
    - dang 9y ago
      It would be a step toward bureaucracy. I do think about it from time to time, but since the temptation with features like this is to grossly underestimate their cost, or maybe even not see it at all, I err on the side of paranoid aversion to them, and in this way achieve balance.
  - belorn 9y ago
    That assumption was wrong for me personally. I flagged since code breaking during the world wars was a massive collaborate effort, and this kind of article tries to distill it down to a few people in order to then complain about it and make a political piece about gender. Discussions resulting from that approach is designed to turn volatile in order to raise shares and clicks.
Mz 9y ago
And thanks to papers recently declassified, it is now known that during World War Two Elizebeth helped to smash a network of Nazi spies trying to foment fascist revolutions in South America – their ultimate goal being an attack on the US. Many of these spies were arrested as a direct consequence of her and her team’s work at the US Coastguard. However, for decades J Edgar Hoover and the FBI claimed more or less all the credit for this achievement. Elizebeth, sworn to secrecy and uninterested in publicity, stayed quiet. Kind of what I figured. It isn't very wise or practical to loudly advertise who does secret work during their own lifetime. I suspect we know as much as we do about Turing in part because he committed suicide at a relatively young age. When he was actually doing code breaking for the military and couldn't talk about it, other military units referred to his unit as "The Do Nothings" (IIRC).
- lostboys67 9y ago
  Its interesting that some of the volunteers in Belgium who worked with the Security Service in ww1 wanted and got recognition - unfortunately when ww2 happened the Germans rounded them up and sent many to the camps :-(
- wjnc 9y ago
  Agree. I recently visited Bletchley Park and one of the astonishing life stories was of Bill Tutte. He was as instrumental as Turing and became a professor in graph theory after WW2. Astonishing for me was that he had to 'restart' a career after the war in science, since nothing he did during the war counted as professional experience. Obviously he did very well, but I still felt for the people coming out Bletchley post-war. You had nothing of professional experience to show, while at least some did groundbreaking stuff. There must be untold stories of people whom did not become well-known.
  - lostboys67 9y ago
    This happened at los Alamos one famous music producer worked there but was unable to use what he had learnt to complete his PHD so he went and invented the modern recording studio set up and helped found Atlantic records
Animats 9y ago
Most of this is from NSA's historical website.[1] [1] https://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic-heritage/historical-figures-publications/women/honorees/ https://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic-heritage/historical-fi...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

110 points by sonabinu 9y ago

Oh, because everyone else's story was told but theirs? Rly... 2017, year of the pro-female SEO and marketing. BBC is doing what about it? Flag this all you want, I'm a transgender female coder with a wife who also is a computer scientist. Silence me some more while you post headlines about women you hypocrites. Be sure to preach about freedom of speech too.

dang 9y ago
This breaks the HN guidelines, which ask you to avoid snark and flamebait. This was both. That's bad. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post like this again. Edit: it sounds like you have a rare perspective to share, and you're more than welcome to share it here. But you need to follow the rules like everyone else. Our idea here is to try to hold a container for interesting discussion. It's forever fragile, and snark and flamebait have the effect on interestingness that salt has on a slug. A nice additional effect of posting civilly and substantively is that then your perspective will more likely be truly received.
axonic 9y ago
My wife agreed with posting it, the original article is flamebait
Boothroid 9y ago
The BBC really are going a bit crazy with pro female stories lately. I've been tempted to make a FOI request to reveal the editorial policies behind this. Silly me, I thought they were supposed to be a nonpolitical news organisation, not an agenda pushing front. I hope the Tories eventually grow the courage to privatise them.
- twobyfour 9y ago
  Why does it bother you so much that the BBC is reporting stories (and nearly lost history) that happens to be about women?
  - Boothroid 9y ago
    The BBC are supposed to be a non-political organisation and it seems clear to me they are pushing various trendy agendas, i.e. anti-Brexit, pro-EU, anti-Trump, pro-Islam, pro-feminist, pro-migration, pro-globalist, etc. I anticipate downvotes but I expect a scientific analysis would demonstrate above is true. The article doesn't just happen to be about women - it is part of a pattern that verges on propaganda. And it bothers me so much because I resent being forced to pay for a organisation, under threat of legal punishment for not paying, which pushes various political agenda which it is specifically supposed to avoid, and which I happen to disagree with - but I would complain just as vociferously if it were pushing agenda that I agreed with. If you cannot see that it's dangerous to have a publically funded broadcaster clearly dominated by a particular single political viewpoint then there's not much more to discuss. The BBC should stick to documentaries, nature, and science, which is what they do best, and keep their political opinions to themselves.
    - twobyfour 9y ago
      How is it pushing an agenda? Is any story that's about women doing intellectual work that has an impact on our world pushing an agenda? I just see an important moment in history that had been buried for years (possibly in part because of historical sexism) finally coming to light.
      - Boothroid 9y ago
        Perhaps you missed this: The article doesn't just happen to be about women - it is part of a pattern that verges on propaganda.
        twobyfour 9y ago

masonic 9y ago

"Left out" is an odd way to put it, given that anybody who published these details would have violated the Official Secrets Act. An excellent series using characters in these roles is "The Bletchley Circle" (highly recommended, with great attention to historical detail).

dang 9y ago
What you and Mz both pointed out makes the article's headline (rather shamelessly) misleading, so I replaced it with language from the subtitle. Edit: I also turned off flags on the article, assuming that people were mostly flagging the (rather shamelessly) misleading title.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  Why not have a comment- or flag list-box so people can tell you why they flagged?
  - dang 9y ago
    It would be a step toward bureaucracy. I do think about it from time to time, but since the temptation with features like this is to grossly underestimate their cost, or maybe even not see it at all, I err on the side of paranoid aversion to them, and in this way achieve balance.
- belorn 9y ago
  That assumption was wrong for me personally. I flagged since code breaking during the world wars was a massive collaborate effort, and this kind of article tries to distill it down to a few people in order to then complain about it and make a political piece about gender. Discussions resulting from that approach is designed to turn volatile in order to raise shares and clicks.

Mz 9y ago

And thanks to papers recently declassified, it is now known that during World War Two Elizebeth helped to smash a network of Nazi spies trying to foment fascist revolutions in South America – their ultimate goal being an attack on the US. Many of these spies were arrested as a direct consequence of her and her team’s work at the US Coastguard. However, for decades J Edgar Hoover and the FBI claimed more or less all the credit for this achievement. Elizebeth, sworn to secrecy and uninterested in publicity, stayed quiet. Kind of what I figured. It isn't very wise or practical to loudly advertise who does secret work during their own lifetime. I suspect we know as much as we do about Turing in part because he committed suicide at a relatively young age. When he was actually doing code breaking for the military and couldn't talk about it, other military units referred to his unit as "The Do Nothings" (IIRC).

lostboys67 9y ago
Its interesting that some of the volunteers in Belgium who worked with the Security Service in ww1 wanted and got recognition - unfortunately when ww2 happened the Germans rounded them up and sent many to the camps :-(
wjnc 9y ago
Agree. I recently visited Bletchley Park and one of the astonishing life stories was of Bill Tutte. He was as instrumental as Turing and became a professor in graph theory after WW2. Astonishing for me was that he had to 'restart' a career after the war in science, since nothing he did during the war counted as professional experience. Obviously he did very well, but I still felt for the people coming out Bletchley post-war. You had nothing of professional experience to show, while at least some did groundbreaking stuff. There must be untold stories of people whom did not become well-known.
- lostboys67 9y ago
  This happened at los Alamos one famous music producer worked there but was unable to use what he had learnt to complete his PHD so he went and invented the modern recording studio set up and helped found Atlantic records

Animats 9y ago

Most of this is from NSA's historical website.[1] [1] https://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic-heritage/historical-figures-publications/women/honorees/ https://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic-heritage/historical-fi...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]