|
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_TuringDuring the Second World War, Turing was a main participant in the efforts at Bletchley Park to break German ciphers. Building on cryptanalysis work carried out in Poland before the war, he contributed several insights into breaking both the Enigma machine and the Lorenz SZ 40/42 (a teletype cipher attachment codenamed "Tunny" by the British), and was, for a time, head of Hut 8, the section responsible for reading German naval signals. Since September 1938, Turing had been working part-time for the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS), the British codebreaking organisation. He worked on the problem of the German Enigma machine, and collaborated with Dilly Knox, a senior GCCS codebreaker.<7> On 4 September 1939, the day after Britain declared war on Germany, Turing reported to Bletchley Park, the wartime station of GCCS.<8> The Turing-Welchman bombe
Replica of a bombe machineWithin weeks of arriving at Bletchley Park,<8> Turing had devised an electromechanical machine which could help break Enigma: the bombe, named after the Polish-designed bomba. The bombe, with an enhancement suggested by mathematician Gordon Welchman, became the primary tool used to read Enigma traffic.
The bombe searched for the correct settings of the Enigma rotors, and required a suitable "crib": a piece of matching plaintext and ciphertext. For each possible setting of the rotors, the bombe performed a chain of logical deductions based on the crib, implemented electrically. The bombe detected when a contradiction had occurred, and ruled out that setting, moving onto the next. Most of the possible settings would cause contradictions and be discarded, leaving only a few to be investigated in detail. Turing's bombe was first installed on 18 March 1940.<9> Over 200 bombes were in operation by the end of the war.
Hut 8 and Naval Enigma
In December 1940, Turing solved the naval Enigma indicator system, which was more complex than the indicator systems used by the other services. Turing also invented a Bayesian statistical technique termed "Banburismus" to assist in breaking Naval Enigma. Banburismus could rule out certain orders of the Enigma rotors, reducing time needed to test settings on the bombes.
In the spring of 1941, Turing proposed marriage to Hut 8 co-worker Joan Clarke, although the engagement was broken off by mutual agreement in the summer.
In July 1942, Turing devised a technique termed Turingismus or Turingery for use against the "Fish" Lorenz cipher. He also introduced the Fish team to Tommy Flowers, who went on to design the Colossus computer.<10> A frequent misconception is that Turing was a key figure in the design of Colossus; this was not the case.<11>
Turing travelled to the United States in November 1942 and worked with US Navy cryptanalysts on Naval Enigma and bombe construction in Washington, and assisted at Bell Labs with the development of secure speech devices. He returned to Bletchley Park in March 1943. During his absence, Hugh Alexander had officially assumed the position of head of Hut 8, although Alexander had been de facto head for some time, Turing having little interest in the day-to-day running of the section. Turing became a general consultant for cryptanalysis at Bletchley Park.
Turing was a homosexual during a period when homosexual acts were illegal in England and homosexuality was regarded as a mental illness. In 1952, Arnold Murray, a 19-year-old recent acquaintance of his<16> helped an accomplice to break into Turing's house, and Turing went to the police to report the crime. As a result of the police investigation, Turing acknowledged a sexual relationship with Murray, and they were charged with gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885. Turing was unrepentant and was convicted. He was given the choice between imprisonment and probation, conditional on him undergoing hormonal treatment designed to reduce libido. In order to avoid going to jail, he accepted the oestrogen hormone injections, which lasted for a year, with side effects including the development of breasts. His conviction led to a removal of his security clearance and prevented him from continuing consultancy for GCHQ on cryptographic matters.
In 1954, he died of cyanide poisoning, apparently from a cyanide-laced apple he left half-eaten. The apple itself was never tested for contamination with cyanide, and cyanide poisoning as a cause of death was established by a post-mortem. Most believe that his death was intentional, and the death was ruled a suicide. His mother, however, strenuously argued that the ingestion was accidental due to his careless storage of laboratory chemicals. Biographer Andrew Hodges suggests that Turing may have killed himself in this ambiguous way quite deliberately, to give his mother some plausible deniability.<17> Because Turing's homosexuality would have been perceived as a security risk, the possibility of assassination has also been suggested.<18>
end of quote
Oh and the man ran marathons too.
He likely helped shorten the European theater of the war by 2 years. Yet he was literally hounded to death. He deserved better. We all did. We all still do.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
