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← 2012 Latest news 2014 →
This page contains some of our preview news clippings.
Please note that the information below has been written some time ago
and my have lost its relevance by now. The information is retained here
for historical reasons only.
➤ Click here for the latest news
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Alan Turing finally receives Royal Pardon
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27 December 2013
Alan Turing is probably one of the greatest mathematical minds
of the previous century. Not only did he achieve some major
breathroughs in breaking the
German Service Enigma cipher
and the German Naval Enigma,
he is also considered to be the father of the modern digital computer.
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Shortly after WWII, in 1952, Turing was arrested for being
openly homosexual; something that was illegal in the United Kingdom
at the time. He was prosecuted and forced
to accept chemical castration by taking female hormones.
As a result, he committed suicide in 1954 by eating a poisoned
apple. Turing was only 41 years old.
After an online petition in 2009, then-Prime Minister
Gordon Brown officially apologized for Turings treatment,
which he described as 'appalling',
on behalf of the British Government.
A small but nevertheless a significant gesture.
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Over the years, several streets have been named after Turing
and statues have been errected. There is even a prize in his name:
The AM Turing Award,
sometimes referred to as the Nobel Prize for Computing.
Nearly 60 years after his death in 1954, Turing has now received
a posthumous royal pardon, which has come into effect on
Tuesday 24 December 2013.
➤ BBC News, Royal Pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
➤ CNN, Alan Turing receives royal pardon
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Secret Communications great success
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18 December 2013
Last Sunday was the final opening day of our short exhibition
Secret Communications at the premises of the Foundation
for German Communication in Duivendrecht (near Amsterdam, Netherlands).
With a visitor count of well over 400, the exhibition was a great
success.
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The exhibition attracted the attention of people from all over
the country, from a variety of backgrounds: students, radio hams,
(former) users of cryptographic equipment, military personnel,
historians, hobbyists, developers, etc.
There were also some nice surprises: on the first opening day
one of the designers of the
FS-5000 spy radio set was present,
and on the last opening day there were three former users of this
highly secret modern radio station.
➤ Read the full review
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Extra opening exhibition Secret Communications
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In memoriam: Mavis Batey (1921-2013)
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15 November 2013
Today, we received the sad news that on 12 November 2013, Mavis
Batey (née Lever), one of the greatest female WWII codebreakers
of Bletchley Park, has died at the wonderful age of 92.
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Mavis was born on 5 May 1921 in Dulwich and
studied German at University College in London. When the war
broke out she was enlisted as a German Linguist at the
Government Code & Cypher School (GC&CS), where she worked on
civil codes an on coded messages hidden inside the private ads in the
London Times.
Once her work got noticed, she was selected to go to
Bletchley Park, were she started working for Dylwyn (Dilly)
Knox, a former World War I codebreaker who worked on difficult-to-break
ciphers such as the German Abwehr Enigma.
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In March 1941, at the age of 19, Mavis was the first to break
into the Italian Naval Enigma messages; a major achievement that
helped the Allies to win the Battle of Matapan.
Later that year, in December 1941, Mavis broke into the high-level
German Abwehr Enigma traffic.
Whilst working at Bletchley Park (BP), Mavis met her future husband
Keith Batey who was working in Hut 6 as a mathematician. One day
Mavis consulted him when she needed assistance with a mathematical
problem and the two fell in love immediately. The following year
they got married, with the consent of Knox. Her husband Keith Batey
passed away in 2010 at the age of 91.
In September 2009, we had the privilege of meeting Mavis for the last time
when she was signing her latest book Dilly: The Man Who Boke Enigmas.
And now we wonder: who will write a book about Mavis... ?
For more information, please read this well-written
obituary by The Telegraph.
➤ Obituary in The Telegraph
➤ Mavis Batey on Wikipedia
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The Clandestine Radio Operators
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A new book by Jean-Louis Perquin
From Peter van Kats (PA0RLM) we received a copy of a brand now book about the
Clandestine Radio Services during WWII. This beautifully illustrated
book 'The Clandestine Radio Operators' is written by Jean-Louis Perquin
and tells the story of the many
clandestine radio operators who,
during WWII, maintained contact with
the allied forces and with our governments in exile.
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Being a clandestine radio operator was not without danger in those days.
As an example: of the 455 radio amateurs in The Netherlands, 55 were
involved in resistance activities. 19 of them were captured and executed during
the war.
The book roughly consists of two parts. The first part explains the efforts
made by the Allied Forces and the resistance, to actually be able to
communicate with each other, including the various spy radio sets.
It shows the risks the
clandestine operator had to take, but also the German efforts to capture
these heros.
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It is even shown how the messages were encrypted by means of
One-Time Pad ciphers.
The second part of the book shows the technology
behind the whole operation. It is well illustrated with professionally
made full-colour photographs. A beautiful piece of history that matches
well with Louis Meulstee's well-known 'bible' of spy radio sets:
Wireless for the Warrior, Part 4'.
The book is well edited and has a beautiful full-colour layout.
It contains a large number of high-quality photographs from various
private collections, archives and films. An absolute 'must-have'
for anyone who is interested in the human factor of clandestine radio
and the many spy radio sets and accessories that were involved.
It is precisely what the technically-minded want: short but intreguing texts,
beautifully illustrated with many images of man and machine in time of war.
After all: one picture says more that a thousand words...
The book has originally been written in French, but has since been
translated to English. The normal retail price of the book is EUR 25,
but through Peter van Kats the English version can be obtained for EUR 22
(plus P&P). It can be ordered by sending an e-mail to radiobooks@kpnmail.nl
The book is also available at our short exhibition
Secret Communications.
Jean-Louis Perquin, The Clandestine Radio Operators.
111 pages (English), published by Histoire & Collections, Paris,
March 2001.
ISBN: 978-2-35250-183-1
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13 September 2013
A great new initiative has just been announced by a group of enthusiastic
mathematicians and engineers of the Department of Mathematics and
Computer Science of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan (Poland).
Following in the footsteps of great mathematical minds, such as Marian
Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki and Henryk Zygalski, who first
broke the
Enigma cipher machine
shortly before the start of WWII, they
would like to penetrate the inner secrets of the machine.
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The idea is to create a
website
that explains the working of the
Enigma machine in such a way that everbody can understand it.
As part of the initiative, they are currently creating a series
of hi-res 3D drawings and animations that will fully explain the
function of this inspiring machine as well as the underlying mathematics.
The website is a work in progress, which costs time and money.
In order to finish the work, the developers are therefore currently
looking for financial contributions.
If you like the initiative, please consider a donation
or a contribution.
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The image above shows a hi-res image that was rendered from their
3D drawings. More of these images can be viewed by following the
links below.
Eventually, when the work is finished,
you should be able to play with the virtual machine
yourself, using nothing but your web browser.
➤ The project's website
| Mission statement
| Inside Enigma on Facebook
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11 September 2013 - Sad day for Bletchley Park and its visitors
When Bletchley Park
first opened as a museum in 1993/94, much of the existing
buildings were in a deplorable state. As the Bletchley Park Trust didn't have
enough exhibits at the time to fill all the buildings, and -more importantly-
lacked the financial means to maintain them, space was offered to other
collections as well. It soon turned out to be one of the best decisions made.
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In the following years, more collections were added to the
impressive list of attractions
at Bletchley Park. Examples are the Toy Collection, the
Milton Keynes Model Railway Society, The Projected Picture Film Trust
and the Churchill Collection.
For many people, it made a family visit to the park really worthwhile.
One of the major attractions was the Diplomatic Wireless Service (DWS)
exhibit of David White. It was located in Hut 1, a former radio hut.
Over the years, former MI6
technician David White had built an impressive collection of spy radio
sets, teleprinters, cipher machines and other devices that were used
by MI6, the DWS and others.
Shortly before WWII, when Bletchley Park had just been acquired by the
British Government, Hut 1 was MI6's first radio shack before they moved to
the top floor of The Mansion. So, when David opened the DWS exhibition
in Hut 1, the circle was completed. Until now that is...
Following the latest policy changes by the Bletchley Park management
in 2012, more and more on-site attractions have been given notice and
were forced to close down. In July 2012, the Model Railway Society
left the park. 1
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In June of 2012, the Milton Keynes Amateur Radio Society (responsible for
demonstrating radio receivers and transmitters at the museum) were told
that they were no longer welcome. They left the park on 1 January 2013.
Earlier this year, the Churchill Collection was given notice.
According to BP's bosses, the wartime prime minister 'is not
synonymous with code-breakers' work'... 2
And now it is time for the Diplomatic Wireless Service (DWS) exhibit to
leave. Although the DWS is the continuation of MI6's wartime work at BP,
the Bletchley Park Museum management says it is not relevant to the history
of the park. And this is hard to believe. Every message arriving at Bletchley
Park started life as a radio transmission, and after decryption and analysis
it was sent to commanders in the field, again by radio. Radio is the
very reason for BP's existence.
For us, the curators of Crypto Museum, the DWS-exhibition in Hut 1 has
always been a great source of inspiration when it comes to building our own
collection.
Last Sunday, 8 September, at the end of the Enigma Reunion 2013,
David White closed the door to Hut 1 for the
last time. Although it was a nice and warm day,
it was a sad day for Bletchley Park, or rather for its visitors.
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30 May 2013
World renowned crypto-expert Frode Weierud, has just given his
internet blog CryptoCellar Tales a new lease of life.
Frode, who is an enormous source of information in relation to Enigma,
other cryptographic systems, WWII, history and codebreaking,
has recently retired from his job.
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For many years, Frode has been working as an electronics engineer
at CERN in Switzerland. After his retirement, he felt is was time
to leave Switzerland and spend more time with his lifelong passions:
cryptography and history.
He has now returned to his homeland Norway and has finally found the time
to finish the blog that he started back in 2008. Interesting stuff about
various Enigma models and the Railway Enigma in particular.
Highly recommended!
➤ Frode's blog
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Sending Messages in M-209 Code
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Sending Messages in Enigma Code
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Are you into social media and would you like to exchange messages with
your friends in Enigma code? Then Bruce Culp (USA) might just have the
solution for you. He has just launched a brand new website, called the
Enigma World Code Group,
where Dirk Rijmenants' Enigma Simulator
is used for sending each other Enigma-encoded messages.
Subscription is free and easy, and takes only a few seconds.
➤ Enigma World Code Group
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MIT researchers release JAVA-based KL-7 Simulator
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22 February 2013
Researchers at the Lincoln Laboratory of MIT (MA, USA) have just
released the first version of a KL-7 simulator written in the JAVA
language. As JAVA is largely computer-independent, in can be run
out of the box on virtually any platform, including Windows,
Apple (Mac), Unix and Linux.
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The simulator uses the graphics from the
KL-7 Simulator for Windows,
released by crypto-historian Dirk Rijmenants in 2011,
and the sounds and other info from our
KL-7 page.
The work on the simulator was started back in September of last year
and the first version was released today. An extensive 30-page manual
(in PDF format) is included with the software. The features and the
user interface of the simulator are largely
based on Dirk's earlier simulator for Windows, but there are some changes
and additional features, all of which are described in the manual.
The new simulator is hosted here.
➤ Download simulator
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New premises for Dutch Signals Corps Museum
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18 February 2013
Today, the new name of the Dutch Signals Corps Museum has been
anounced. On the 139th anniversary of the Signals Corps Regiment,
a placard with the new name: Historische Collectie Regiment
Verbindingstroepen (Signals Corps Regiment Historical Collection)
was revealed.
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The Historical Collection will be relocated in part of Building C,
one of the historical buildings at the Bernhardkazerne in Amersfoort.
Today the new premises was shown for the first time to the friends
of the museum, whilst the volunteers unfolded their plans
for a fresh new exhibition that is hoped to open sometime in 2014.
The building, that was formerly used for part of the collection of
vehicles of the Cavalry Museum, has been handed over to the Signals
Corps on 1 January 2013, and some of the adjacent rooms will become
available during the course of 2013.
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Although the building has now been allocated to the HCRV, the museum will
not reopen any time soon. Over the past months, detailed plans for the
refurbishment of the rooms and the layout of a new permanent exhibiton
have been prepaired by the volunteers, and they are currently waiting for
the plans to be carried out by the Department of Defence (DoD) and its
contractors. Crypto Museum congratulates the volunteers and will do
everything they can to help.
➤ Read the complete story
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Cryptography in The Netherlands
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New book under development
Dutch writer Marcel Metze (Metze Research) has teamed up with
Prof. Dr. Bart Jacobs of Radboud University Nijmegen, in order to
write a book about cryptography in The Netherlands in the 20th century.
Crypto Museum fully supports the effort and has put its archives at
the author's disposal.
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We are currently looking for people with in-depth
knowledge of the Dutch contributions in this field
or of the international cooperation, commercial activities,
or information exchange involving the Dutch crypto community.
If you are willing to share information, please contact the authors at the
addresses given below. Alternatively, you may
contact Crypto Museum.
Full confidentiality is guaranteed.
➤ Contact Marcel Metze
PGP Key 0xE2A3E9A4
➤ Contact Prof. Dr. Bart Jacobs
PGP Key 0x576B9C3F
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© Crypto Museum. Last changed: Wednesday, 20 January 2021 - 16:09 CET.
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