86 JANUARY2021|COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE395
N
estledinanoldtown swallowed up
by the newtown ofMilton Keynes
sits anoldmansionhousethat’s
sufferingfromyears ofneglectand
alack of funds. In manyways, it’ssimilar to the
hundredsofother places thatoccupy theBritish
landscape. Butthis particularplaceisn’t just
another crumbling country estate of theonce
rich andfamous –it’sasite that’s valuable on a
global scale.
We’re talkingabout Bletchley Park:home to
Station X, wherethe Government Code and
Cypher School was movedfor safety during
World WarII. It washereanincredible collection
of mathematicians brokethe Germans’ Enigma
and Lorenz ciphers, giving the Allies incredibly
detailed intelligence that helped to plan and
shapethe war effortand –ultimately –end the
war. Indeed, the work at Bletchley is credited
with cuttingshort thewar by two years and
saving millions of lives in theprocess. So
importantwas theworkdonethat when the war
had ended,Winston Churchill referred to the
Bletchley Park staff as “my geese that laid the
golden eggs,and never cackled”.
Beyond the incredible work of breaking the
Germans’ciphers,the staff at Bletchley managed
to inventthe world’sfirst computer and create
astaggeringtechnological leap forwardthat
continues to propel our society today.
themessages were ciphered insuchaway itwas
impossible, withoutdecodingthem,totell what
information wasimportantandwhat was just
backgroundchatter –the Alliesweredeaf tothe
Germans’communications.
Invented by Arthur Scherbiusat the endof
World WarI,theEngima machine had been in
commercialoperationsince theearly1920s,
whenitwas adopted by the German military and
modified to suit life in military service. The
beauty of this machine was thatitwas cheap to
produce, simple to use and statistically hard to
breakifyou didn’t have theinitial configuration
settings. Despite this, the actual workings of the
Enigma machine were simple.
In essence, alettertypedonthe keyboard
produced an electrical signal that passed through
the machine’s internal wiring and lit up the
cipher character on the lampboard. Engima,
then, was asubstitutioncypher whereone letter
was replaced with another (A for D, for example).
The critical factor was that the reversewas
alsotrue(Dwas A, for example);typing in the
cypher text would reveal the plain-text
originalmessage.
Simple substitution cyphersare incredibly
easy to break, since language hascertain rules
thatcan be exploited.For example, the letter E
is the most common in the English language, so
whentrying to break asubstitutioncypher one
After thewar,BletchleyPark wasclassifiedas
asecret until the 1970s.It wasn’t until1992 –
afterthe site hadpassed through several hands,
neglected ateach turn,and thebuildingswere at
risk ofdemolition–thatMiltonKeynesBorough
CouncildeclaredtheParkaconservation area
and saved it. Since then, ithas been run bythe
Bletchley Park Trust,whosegoalhasbeen to
repair the buildings and improvethe museum so
that the world can understand the importance of
the code breakers.
Shoppertook atrip to the sitetofind out
all about its history, what needstobedone to
preserve itsheritage, and howwecan allplaya
part in its survival.
UNDERSTANDINGTHE ENIGMA
To understand theimportance of BletchleyPark,
it’s necessary to understand theimportance of
code breaking in World War II. Fromthe very
beginning, the Germans had resolved that every
communication, fromthe lowest to the highest
level, hadtobesecureand impossible to
decipher. They decided on the Enigma machine
for themajority of troops, while highcommand
used the more complex Lorenz cipher.
The Enigma wasakindofportabletype
writer that turned plain-text messages into
ciphertext thatlooked like nonsense to anyone
who interceptedthe transmission. Because all
Save BletchleyPark!
One of the most cherished computing sites –and defender of lifeasweknowit–wasunder
threat in 2010.InShopper272,David Ludlowreminded us whyitneeded to be saved
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