New to the PBS schedules for the UK is a documentary entitled The Codebreaker which outlines the life of an unsung heroine. The programme would have done her more justice if it had explained clearly the difference between substitution codes, relatively simple to crack, and ciphers where no one symbol in the encrypted message represents a character in the original. If Betty Friedman really was able to crack the output from an Enigma machine, even if an early version of the encryption device, without the electronic aids developed at Bletchley Park, then she truly was a remarkable woman.
The wikipedia entry is more illuminating and for a great explanation of codes and ciphers (together with some exercises!) I recommend Simon Singh's The Code Book.
No comments:
Post a Comment