[Cryptography] [Crypto-practicum] An historical document.

Henry Baker hbaker1 at pipeline.com
Sun Sep 11 13:51:26 EDT 2016


At 09:47 AM 9/11/2016, Ray Dillinger wrote:
>> But it is possible that Turing may have seen this news and
>> taken it to heart.
>
>I don't think that was very likely.  The whole point of
>this memo was to make sure people *didn't* see this news
>and take it to heart.

I quote from your document:

"4.  In view of the ***extensive publicity*** given to the Coast
Guard cryptanalytical activities I believe that immediate steps
should be taken to inform responsible authorities of both the
Army and Coast Guard that the Navy considers information per-
taining to the application of machinery to cryptanalysis is a
matter of national defense and should be withheld from disclosure
under provisions of the Espionage Act of 15 June 1917.  It might
also be well to take similar action with respect to the Inter-
National Business Machine Company through their representative
here in Washington."

I merely suggested that Turing might have seen some of that
"extensive publicity".

I haven't searched the historical documents, but IBM would very
likely have made a big deal out of this use of their tabulating
equipment.

(Some wags might also have gone further and thought that IBM
would have been *proud* to have shipped its equipment to Germany
at that particular time.  Also Google "Edwin Black".  A number of
U.S. corporations--e.g., GM & Ford--were quite fond of Germany,
and did extensive business with Germany right up to the day that
war was declared by the U.S.)



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