starlionblue
Recovering Disney addict but still failing
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2006
- Messages
- 396
Even though I'm not English, I'm still a little angry that the media ignored the death of Tony Sale. If my fellow Americans don't know who I'm talking about, I'm not going to go into detail since they sometimes don't pay attention to history. Tony Sale was responsible for saving and restoring the Colossus, world's first true computer (It was NOT the Eniac as American "history" books would have us believe). The German Enigma cipher was what led to the creation of the very devices we use to communicate through this message board.
If Colossus had not existed, neither would disboards.com. I'll try to briefly explain but I strongly suggest one view the History Channel documentary on the Enigma Cipher. Someone put it up on Youtube. It's an excellent documentary.
The Germans created an encryption machine because a telegraph was the best way to send messages to and from the battlefield. This was vital in every field of operations from the wolf packs prowling the Atlantic to Rommel's famous Afrika Corps.
Because the airwaves were open to all, the messages could be heard by anyone so it was clear that something was needed to encrypt them, thus the Enigma machine was born. It was later replaced by another one called the Lorenz cipher. The first men to find out and start the battle to break it were two Poles named Marian Rejewski and Henryk Zygalski. Rejewski, incredibly, deduced that a machine was being used to scramble the messages and even worked out a diagram table to get an idea of how the machine worked. They passed their findings to the British. The British founded a team at Bletchley Park to crack Enigma.
It was such a daunting task that, even when they finally succeeded, the information was too old to be of any use. Therefore, a postal worker (I'm serious, a postal worker!) came up with the idea of having a machine rapidly scan the encrypted messages. It would then work out every possible combination used to scramble the messages.
The Germans suspected that Enigma had been broken so they secretly switched to another machine that the British called the Fish or Lorenz Cipher. This used a universal baudot code and once again, Bletchley Park lost its grip on the spy wars. Then, Alan Turing came along and helped them put together a prototype machine that would read and figure out the settings used to encode Lorenz. This was instrumental in helping carry out D-day because Bletchley Park sent phony orders, hoping the Germans would send some of their troops AWAY from Normandy.
It was a success because I probably wouldn't be sitting here some 67 years later typing this out. The original Colossus machines were all destroyed sometime around the outbreak of the Cold War but Tony Sale fought to preserve the history of this important device and had a working replica built. I personally thank him for his work and am ashamed that his passing was not mentioned. (I wonder if he would find it ironic that I learned about it through the Internet...). He deserves as much recognition as Churchill and remember, I'm not English either. Bletchley Park still stands because of his tireless efforts. Rest in peace and thank you Mr. Sale.
If Colossus had not existed, neither would disboards.com. I'll try to briefly explain but I strongly suggest one view the History Channel documentary on the Enigma Cipher. Someone put it up on Youtube. It's an excellent documentary.
The Germans created an encryption machine because a telegraph was the best way to send messages to and from the battlefield. This was vital in every field of operations from the wolf packs prowling the Atlantic to Rommel's famous Afrika Corps.
Because the airwaves were open to all, the messages could be heard by anyone so it was clear that something was needed to encrypt them, thus the Enigma machine was born. It was later replaced by another one called the Lorenz cipher. The first men to find out and start the battle to break it were two Poles named Marian Rejewski and Henryk Zygalski. Rejewski, incredibly, deduced that a machine was being used to scramble the messages and even worked out a diagram table to get an idea of how the machine worked. They passed their findings to the British. The British founded a team at Bletchley Park to crack Enigma.
It was such a daunting task that, even when they finally succeeded, the information was too old to be of any use. Therefore, a postal worker (I'm serious, a postal worker!) came up with the idea of having a machine rapidly scan the encrypted messages. It would then work out every possible combination used to scramble the messages.
The Germans suspected that Enigma had been broken so they secretly switched to another machine that the British called the Fish or Lorenz Cipher. This used a universal baudot code and once again, Bletchley Park lost its grip on the spy wars. Then, Alan Turing came along and helped them put together a prototype machine that would read and figure out the settings used to encode Lorenz. This was instrumental in helping carry out D-day because Bletchley Park sent phony orders, hoping the Germans would send some of their troops AWAY from Normandy.
It was a success because I probably wouldn't be sitting here some 67 years later typing this out. The original Colossus machines were all destroyed sometime around the outbreak of the Cold War but Tony Sale fought to preserve the history of this important device and had a working replica built. I personally thank him for his work and am ashamed that his passing was not mentioned. (I wonder if he would find it ironic that I learned about it through the Internet...). He deserves as much recognition as Churchill and remember, I'm not English either. Bletchley Park still stands because of his tireless efforts. Rest in peace and thank you Mr. Sale.
