Cipher

On Tuesday 20th Sept, five bus loads of students and academics from @BCUComputing went on a 75 mile trip to visit Bletchley Park. A selection of photographs from the trip can be seen below, most being from the mansion, huts, cottages and museum (Block B). Some further images are available on flickr (online).

Around the same last year I attended two lectures organised by the BCS about Enigma (online) which gave some very interesting insight into the work of Bletchley Park. The post contains an embedded video from one of the lectures that is very much worthwhile to take a look at, as it gives a good deal of background to the Enigma, the Battle of the North Atlantic and the work undertaken at Bletchley Park.

We spent around four hours at Bletchley and really only managed a quick glimpse of the facility, which makes a lot of sense considering the many many thousands of people who were working their throughout the war. There is just so much to see, one could easily spend two full days having a quick look around. Will most certainly have to visit again as I didn’t visit all the huts and blocks or The National Museum of Computing.

Upon arrival at Bletchley Park around 11:00 the students had the opportunity to have a look around the estate before heading to the Teleprinter Hall at 12:00 for an hour long series of talks by Academics from BCU Computing. These talks included a general welcome, a talk on placement opportunities (as seen in the tweets below) and some discussion around keys / security.

Richard & Daniel discussing their placement years at Cisco & JWG Group with our new @BCUComputing students! pic.twitter.com/OZyZEBCPD4

— Rebecca (@itsRebeccaMG) September 20, 2016

Great turnout for the @BCUComputing talks at @bletchleypark! 😄 pic.twitter.com/IOXoNBDmjA

— Rebecca (@itsRebeccaMG) September 20, 2016

After this series of talks it was now around lunchtime so many ventured to the Canteen situated in Hut 4 located right next to the Mansion. With lunch sorted it was then time for some further exploration of Bletchley Park, taking in all the various Huts, Cottages, Garages and the Museum located in Block B. All attendees were provided with a very useful Multimedia Guide comprising of map, imagery and audio / video segments to help guide one around the parks and augment ones tour with some very useful information about the various locations and their function. Some staff and students also had the opportunity of getting in a few rounds of table tennis in the scenic grounds before climbing aboard the busses for the journey back to Birmingham.

In summary it was a really great day out, meeting up at 08:30, setting off a bit after 09:00, arriving a bit after 11:00 and eventually returning by 17:30. A huge word of thanks to all involved in organising this fantastic adventure.

One can visit the following websites for further information
https://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/
http://www.tnmoc.org/

Yesterday the Aberdeen branch of the BCS (online) hosted two lectures by Dr. Mark Baldwin about the Enigma machine titled “The Codebreakers: Enigma, Bletchley Park & the Battle of the Atlantic”. The first talk of the day was held at the Satrosphere Science Centre to an audience of about 25 persons mainly members of the BCS. The second public talk was held at the Sir Ian Wood Building, Robert Gordon University to an audience of some 65 persons. The talk began around 18:30 and concluded around 20:20 with the opportunity for questions and a viewing of some World War 2 Enigma machines and also a modern day simulation that one could build for around £120stg.

It was really quite fascinating to hear to story of its evolution beginning around the time of World War 1 and of its evolution over a twenty year period. In parallel was the story of what began in the early 1930’s on “breaking” the Enigma ciphers.

A very interesting graph was displayed during the a discussion on the Battle of the Atlantic showing the monthly merchant shipping losses in thousands of tonnes. One could see some key points in time that coincided with the acquisition of hardware / code books and the reduction in shipping losses shortly thereafter. In addition one could also see the increase in losses when the Enigma machine went from three rotors to four.

It was really interesting to learn about the inner workings of the machine focusing in on the wiring configuration and mechanical operations that allowed for a different encoded letter be generated every time you pressed the same input key. The mechanism by how it works is surprisingly simple, essentially just creating a simple loop through which current can flow – thereby illuminating a small bulb. It was really amazing to see that for all of its simplicity it could generate a huge number of possible outcomes – each rotor generating 26 factorial combinations which in turn was magnified by a front panel allowing one to wire up one particular letter with another.

It was also really great to see up close the actual Enigma machine that appeared roughly 10 minutes into the film “The Imitation Game” (imdb), (trailer). The following links may give you some further information about Enigma should you wish to know more: (online), (online), (online).

The images below may be found in the following flickr photo album (online).