Bletchley Park in peril

CBS Nightly News

Reported in a news report the evening of 7 Dec 2008. Follow the link to see video, and our friend Tony Sale!

This Blog Lives!

I took an unplanned, unexpectedly long mid-winter vacation but I'm now back. Soon I hope to make this blog public. Please keep checking in--there'll be lots of news in 2009.

Debbie

Reflections on Math and People

I found a good observation on the evolution of modern mathematics in the book I'm currently reading:

Mathematics is like a game. It has rules, and to enjoy playing or watching it, you have to know and understand the rules. Mathematicians make up the rules as they go along. There is sometimes an extrinsic benefit, because mathematics is used for many practical things, starting with counting and telling time, and including theoretical physics and constructing computers. Even number theory has extrinsic benefits nowadays, coming mostly from the theory of codes and ciphers, but also in acoustics, radar, and other areas. But even when no applications are immediately apparent, playing the games can be satisfying.

Many people believe that all of mathematics has already been discovered and codified. Mathematicians (they think) do nothing except rearrange the material in different ways for different types of students . . . The facts are laid out in the cleanest logical order. Little attempt is made to show how someone once had to invent it all, at first in a confused way, and that only later was it possible to give it this neat form.

Fearless Symmetry: Exposing the Hidden Patterns of Numbers
Avner Ash and Robert Gross
p. 29

Threats to privacy through cryptography weakness

The New York Times reported Dec. 6 an enormous increase in the success of malicious software, known as malware, which can invade personal computers, actually take over their operation, and invade day-to-day operations. " 'Right now the bad guys are improving more quickly than the good guys,' said Patrick Lincoln, director of the computer science laboratory at SRI International, a science and technology research group."

The internet depends upon pioneering use of cryptography for the ability individual users enjoy today to have privacy in the conduct of the communication of information exchange, commerce and recreation. More than ever, advances in information theory and cryptography are desperately needed.

Beyond the billions of dollars lost in theft of money and data is another, deeper impact. Many Internet executives fear that basic trust in what has become the foundation of 21st century commerce is rapidly eroding. “There’s an increasing trend to depend on the Internet for a wide range of applications, many of them having to deal with financial institutions,” said Vinton G. Cerf, one of the original designers of the Internet, who is now Google’s “chief Internet evangelist.”

Read more at Thieves Winning Online War, Maybe Even in Your Computer

7 Dec: NSA revisits the "Winds Execute" message

Historians at the NSA made headlines on Sunday, Dec. 7th (the 67th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor) by publishing a re-examination of the significance, if any, of the "Winds Execute" messages from December, 1941. To briefly cite the article from the NY Times:

Specifically, who heard or saw a transcript of a Tokyo shortwave radio news broadcast that was interrupted by a prearranged coded weather report? The weather bulletin signaled Japanese diplomats around the world to destroy confidential documents and codes because war with the United States, the Soviet Union or Britain was beginning...But after analyzing American and foreign intelligence sources and decrypted cables, historians for the National Security Agency concluded in a documentary history released last week that whatever other warnings reached Washington about the attack, the “winds execute” message was not one of them.

There is more at the Times, including images of the message documents, links to more news related to Pearl Harbor

Iris Bryant, aka "Flash"

Recently I've heard from Iris Bryant (aka "Flash") of Mississippi. Iris writes that she is enjoying "disgustingly" good health and trying to organize her letters and photos from her time in Dayton. We've been comparing notes on what she remembers, and what I have pieced together, of life at Sugar Camp and work in Building 26. This caused me to dig through the wonderful photos and letters from the First Reunion (1995) and I found some beautiful but tiny photos Iris took of Sugar Camp in October 1944. Even though they are in black and white I could swear I saw autumn colors in the photo of the Sugar Maples around the front gate on Schantz Road. Since we are currently enjoying a gorgeous Indian Summer here in Dayton I thought I'd share that pic.
     If anyone would like to get in touch with Iris, please let me know.

I couldn't resist:

Seen Oct. 30 on a rear windshield:

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world: 

those who understand binary, and those who don't.