Gay Man Breaks Enigma Code Saving Thosands Can't Be Saved

[Manforallseasons]

Alan Turing, who broke Enigma code in World War II, pardoned by Queen over conviction for homosexuality.
Alan Turing died in 1954 after eating an apple laced with cyanide, two years after he was sentenced to chemical castration. Britain has granted a posthumous pardon to Alan Turing, the World War II code-breaking hero who killed himself after he was convicted of the then crime of homosexuality.


Turing is often hailed as a father of modern computing and he played a pivotal role in breaking Germany's Enigma code, an effort that some historians say brought an early end to World War II.

He died in 1954 after eating an apple laced with cyanide, two years after he was sentenced to chemical castration for the "gross indecency" of homosexuality. A coroner ruled that Turing killed himself, though this has since been questioned.

The Queen has now pardoned Turing for "a sentence we would now consider unjust and discriminatory", Justice Minister Chris Grayling said.
Homosexuality was decriminalised in Britain in 1967.

"A pardon from the Queen is a fitting tribute to an exceptional man," Mr Grayling said.

Prime Minister David Cameron said the code-breaker's work saved countless lives.

"Alan Turing was a remarkable man who played a key role in saving this country in World War II by cracking the German Enigma code," Mr Cameron said.

"He also left a remarkable national legacy through his substantial scientific achievements, often being referred to as the father of modern computing."

The Enigma code was used to encrypt communications between German U-boats in the North Atlantic ocean. Turing's efforts to break it were virtually unknown to the public at the time of his death, as his work was kept secret until 1974.

Turing also published pioneering work on early computers, writing in a 1936 paper of a "universal Turing machine".

Having told people he was trying to "build a brain", his theory was the first to consider feeding programs into a machine as data, allowing a single machine to perform the functions of many - just like today's computers.

He lost his job at Britain's electronic eavesdropping agency Government Communications Headquarter after he was convicted of homosexuality and poisoned himself with cyanide at the age of 41.

A GCHQ spokesperson said the agency was "delighted about the pardon".

The pardon is a victory for supporters, including leading scientists such as Britain's Stephen Hawking, who have long campaigned to clear Turing's name.

Britain's prime minister in 2009, Gordon Brown, issued a posthumous apology to the code-breaker, saying he had been treated terribly.

But the government rejected a call to grant an official pardon last year on the grounds that Turing was properly convicted of what was then a criminal offence.

More than 37,000 people signed an online petition last year calling for a pardon.

Pardons are usually only granted in Britain when the person is innocent of the offence and when it is requested by someone with a vested interest, such as a family member.

Turing's pardon is extremely rare in that it has been granted despite neither of these conditions being met.

AFP L-)

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[Mancs]

There was no toxicology test on the apple.

[cdnmatt]

Wasn't the Engima code mainly broken due to the US Navy stealing one of the machines?

[francois]

Wasn't the Engima code mainly broken due to the US Navy stealing one of the machines?

Engima machines were captured by British and Canadian forces but not the US Navy. There was a movie,U 571, which was a fictionalized version portraying the US Navy as capturing a U boat .

[cdnmatt]

Engima machines were captured by British and Canadian forces but not the US Navy. There was a movie,U 571, which was a fictionalized version portraying the US Navy as capturing a U boat .

Apologies, I didn't even know that. Why does it not suprise me though? I actually spent a year of high school in Texas, and according to what they teach, basically the premise is WWII didn't *actually* start until 1941/2 when the US entered it, and saved the world. Not much mention of UK, Russian, Canadian, or Australian troops of course.

Same as I remember my World History teacher saying the US actually won the Vietnam war, because after all, the US destoryed loads of Vietnamese land, but Vietnam didn't destroy any US land. According to him, that meant a win for the US I guess.

[Nirish guy]

Same as I remember my World History teacher saying the US actually won the Vietnam war, because after all, the US destoryed loads of Vietnamese land, but Vietnam didn't destroy any US land. According to him, that meant a win for the US I guess.

Just as well he wasn't comparing the number of helicopters flying emergency evacuation missions, non stop, night and day, from the roof of each Countries Embassy to get his result. Or which Country had to push their costly aircraft off the decks of their aircraft carriers decks just to make space for more fleeing "victors" or he might have had to rethink his overall score card there as I somehow don't remember seeing too many North Vietnamese aircraft departing the White House front lawn that I can recall !

And as has already been mentioned it was forces from HMS Bulldog who captured the German Enigma machine from a German submarine U-110 in May 1941 ( and not from U-571 as the film would have you believe as this was TOTAL fiction) and this all happened MONTHS before the USA even entered the war - but hey, lets not allow facts to get in the way of a good old (US) war story where they blatantly try to steal the credit for something they didn't do eh.

It should also be mentioned that the Polish were also instrumental in helping with a lot of work at the start of the war which went towards cracking the engima code.

[christianpfc]

Good cryptography is designed in such a way that acquiring the device is not sufficient to decrypt messages. Getting a pre-war enigma (device) - they were commercially available - and one from a German submarine during the war was a good start to understand how the encryption works, but a lot more work was necessary to actually break the code.

[cdnmatt]

Good cryptography is designed in such a way that acquiring the device is not sufficient to decrypt messages.

Not completely, but it definitely gave the algorithm away, which was a huge step in the right direction.

[Khor tose]

Engima machines were captured by British and Canadian forces but not the US Navy. There was a movie,U 571, which was a fictionalized version portraying the US Navy as capturing a U boat .

Actually there were several versions of the enigma machine. Turing did deserve a lot of credit, and yes, he did build what is the first real computer to break the code. Irish is right, the code on the earlier models was first broken by the Polish using a mathematical formula. Francois, 15 enigma machine were captured during WWII, we did get one off U505 in 1944

[Forky123]

Breaking the code was insufficient as the data contained in the messages is only useful for a certain amount of time. What Turing did exceptionally was to industrialise the code-breaking using a machine he devised, Bombe. Also note that the original Polish breaking was based on an error in German encryption which was repeated in each message. Once that error was eliminated, breaking enigma daily required a brute force approach in addition to certain messages, such as weather signals, were always in the same form.

No, the US did not capture enigma and much of the breaking work occurred prior to the uS entry into the war. Hollywood movies, enjoyable as they may be, are a very bad way to learn history.