5 ms·
The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives'
- dsirijus 14y agoIf this article piqued your interest, be sure to read Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.
- davidw 14y agoSpeaking of which, I recently read this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005LW5JL2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=dedasys-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005LW5JL2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005LW5JL2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... Which is about WWII in the Pacific, up to the battle of Midway. He talks about the code breaking efforts in Hawaii, and I immediately recognized one of the minor characters from Cryptonimicon - the guy in charge of the cryptanalysis efforts - who was apparently a bit eccentric, and not big on military formalities. I didn't realize that the character in the book was based on someone real. It's a very well written book, and I'd highly recommend it, as well, as, of course, Cryptonimicon. Edit - here's a link that talks about him some: http://www.worldwar2history.info/Midway/mission.html http://www.worldwar2history.info/Midway/mission.html
- dsirijus 14y agoWasn't aware that he was a real person either.
- sophacles 14y agoSeveral other characters in that book are also based on real people, albeit living (at time of writing anwyay) ones, so names and some details were changed, as well as adding some more speculation. For example the character Earl Comstock was pretty much Robert McNamara. A lot of the people in the 90's timeline seem to be based on real people Stephenson wrote about in his factual articles. (particularly the ones about cable laying in the pacific).
- xcallmejudasx 14y agoCryptonomicon is a long but very good read. There's enough technical details to keep us hackers intrigued without scaring away the non techie folks. My dad read it and even though he didn't get some of the more subtle crypto jokes he very much enjoyed it without having any history of computing or security.
- ajuc 14y agoWould be nice to mention the whole effort, not only Turing. Like the fact that Poles were reading Enigma encrypted messages before the WW2, and send all information they aquired to France and Great Brittain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma#Polish_breakthrough http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma#Pol... I mean - Turing was brilliant, but why everybody only tell the story from the middle ?
- m0nty 14y agoI have always felt that Tommy Flowers' incredible contribution (i.e. building the first electronic, programmable computer) is all-too-frequently overlooked. I suppose it just makes a better story to talk about a lone genius rather than a group of collaborators.
- monk_the_dog 14y agoI recently learned about Tommy Flowers and Colossus from this book: http://www.amazon.com/Colossus-secrets-Bletchley-code-breaking-computers/dp/0199578141/ref=sr_1_5 http://www.amazon.com/Colossus-secrets-Bletchley-code-breaki... The British kept Colossus secret for a too long and Flowers did not get enough credit (and von Neumann seems to get too much). BTW, I do recommend the above book. But we warned that it's a collection of essays by different authors so it can be uneven reading.
- m0nty 14y agoThanks, I'll take a look at the book. Sometimes essays are fine because you can cherry-pick the good ones.
- nicholassmith 14y agoWell it does say he was a 'key player', not the only person involved. Plus as it's a retrospective on Turing's contributions I think they're allowed to focus on a sole character. (But several other excellent Turing stories have mentioned the other players involved, Ars had an excellent article about it if I remember rightly).
- rmc 14y agoIt's a shame that even now, Alan Turing, since he was gay, wouldn't be allowed to get married in the UK.
- excuse-me 14y agoAlthough ironically he would in Germany
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoCould he? Germany only has registered/civil unions/partnerships, yes?
- excuse-me 14y agoYes, sorry I saw the law that civil partners had exactly the same rights but they did vote down the law calling it marriage
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoWe also have civil partnerships in the UK, with all the same rights and benefits.
- rmc 14y agoYes the UK has "civil parternship" which is legally the same as marriage (except you cannot get civil partnered in the offical state religion/church). Some countries (e.g. Ireland) have "civil partnership" laws which does not have the same rights as marriage. Still, "separate but equal" is not good.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoYup, hence the (anti-)same-sex marriage campaign.
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