[HN Gopher] Forgotten heroes of the Enigma Story (2018)
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       Forgotten heroes of the Enigma Story (2018)
        
       Author : mrtedbear
       Score  : 32 points
       Date   : 2021-08-03 09:39 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
        
       | throwaway81523 wrote:
       | Link is to a book review of Dermot Turing's book about Polish
       | contributions to cryptanalyzing the WW2 Enigma cipher. I heard
       | about this book and have been wanting to read it sometime, but
       | the authoritative book on this subject is probably still Enigma,
       | by Wladyslaw Kozaczuk. HN readers will want the 1984 edition
       | since the 2004 reissue/revision chopped out all the technical
       | parts, though the war stories left over in the paperback were
       | likely still interesting. Kozaczuk's wikipedia biography has some
       | more info on this.
        
       | fmajid wrote:
       | They were not forgotten. It was inconvenient for the British to
       | acknowledge their debt to the Polish who did all the theoretical
       | lifting that turned cracking Enigma into a challenging, but
       | pedestrian engineering effort.
        
         | RachelF wrote:
         | They were never forgotten. Even the earliest 1977 BBC account
         | "Still Secret" in "The Secret War" series credited them
         | greatly.
         | 
         | Later simplifications, especially Hollywood movies simplified
         | the story for mass-consumption.
        
       | sizzzzlerz wrote:
       | The NSA Cryptological Museum at Ft. Meade in Maryland has a
       | functioning Enigma machine (the Army version, I think) on
       | display. It actually saw battle during WWII. As part of the
       | display, they do acknowledge the efforts of the Polish
       | codebreakers in their efforts in understanding how it worked and
       | how to decrypt messages. Fascinating bit of history!
        
       | fiftyacorn wrote:
       | I don't think it would have been safe for their families or
       | themselves if it was known the poles had cracked enigma in the
       | early days? This follows from the german-ussr pact all the way
       | the post war period
       | 
       | Anyway there are so many contributions to cracking enigma that
       | the story is full of forgotten heroes
        
         | [deleted]
        
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         | [deleted]
        
         | EliRivers wrote:
         | Although the Polish contribution is by no means forgotten; it's
         | one of the least forgotten "forgotten heroes" stories I know
         | of.
        
       | dougmwne wrote:
       | This is a good time to throw out a recommendation for Bletchley
       | Park and the Computer History Museum, two museums next door to
       | each other and not far from Luton Airport outside London.
       | Bletchley Park is for the masses and focuses a lot on the
       | history, the people and the impact on the war. The Computer
       | History Museum has tours of working replicas of the codebreaking
       | machines and very knowledgeable docents who love talking with a
       | fellow geek. It's a must for anyone in our industry with some
       | historical inklings.
        
         | tpmx wrote:
         | It's ~50 minutes away from central London by train from Euston
         | station. It's a fantastic way to spend half a day away from
         | London.
        
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