The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives'

Re:The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' by ajuc on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @07:50AM (#4131294)

Would 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#Pol...

I mean - Turing was brilliant, but why everybody only tell the story from the middle ?

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Re:The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' by m0nty on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @08:12AM (#4131356)

I 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.

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Re:The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' by monk_the_dog on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @08:47AM (#4131479)

I recently learned about Tommy Flowers and Colossus from this book: 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.

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Re:The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' by m0nty on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @09:26AM (#4131641)

Thanks, I'll take a look at the book. Sometimes essays are fine because you can cherry-pick the good ones.

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Re:The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' by wildmXranat on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @08:44AM (#4131467)

Indeed, and without taking away anything form Turing, it was Rejewski, Różycki and Zygalski code-breakers working at the request of the Polish army that broke the Enigma codes. I believe they summoned numerous cryptologists, three of which were these guys.

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Re:The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' by pwaring on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @09:06AM (#4131559)

It would also be good to extend the mentions beyond just codebreakers, including the Royal Navy personnel who boarded damaged U-boats in order to retrieve code books and other equipment, not knowing if the vessel would sink at any minute.

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Re:The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' by excuse-me on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:50AM (#4132076)

Are you sure? All that was done by Americans - I saw the movie!

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Re:The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' by rmc on Wednesday June 20, 2012 @05:28AM (#4136223)

Hollywood History, about as reliable as Hollywood technology.

Quick! django the unix firewalls!

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Re:The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' by nicholassmith on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @08:17AM (#4131371)

Well 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).

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Re:The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' by jt2190 on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @09:53AM (#4131778)

I once went to a birthday party. When the cake came out and everyone was singing "happy birthday", I said, in a loud, authoritative voice: "You know who really deserves a party is..."

Needless to say I wasn't invited the following year. ;-)

[The above story is totally fictitious, in order to make a point.]

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Re:The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' by sixothree on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @01:12PM (#4132914)

Code Breakers of Blechley Park is a pretty nice one hour BBC documentary on the subject. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF48sl15OCg

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Re:The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' by rmc on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:00AM (#4131824)

I mean - Turing was brilliant, but why everybody only tell the story from the middle ?

Turing was English.

(also the allies of the UK & USA were occupying Poland.)

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Re:The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' by adventureful on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @08:21AM (#4131387)

It does note this:

"Turing helped adapt a device originally developed by Poland to create the bombe" - under the device caption

And as someone else said, this is about celebrating Turing's 100th birthday.

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Re:The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' by madaxe on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @08:45AM (#4131471)

It'd also be nice if they mentioned that the government orchestrated his death by castrating him for the sinful, heinous crime of... being gay.

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Re:The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives' by excuse-me on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @10:55AM (#4132103)

Also Bill Tutte made a much greater mathematical contribution to cryptography and broke the rather more complex Tunny code - between the guy with the bad moustache and his generals.

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