Slashdot Mirror
Enigma
Ooops. Wrong generation and wrong spin. "Enigma" is about good codebreakers -- the mathematicians and clerks of Great Britain's Bletchley Park who helped the Allied cause during World War II by breaking the German coding machine known as "Enigma." It's a wonderful story that's been told as non-fiction several times before by serious historians. This time around, the former newspaper columnist Robert Harris created a thinly fictionalized novel filled with composite characters based on reality. While the result is not factually perfect, it is close enough to capture the dangerous era. Abandoning the literal truth also allowed him to build a richly plotted yarn that evolves cleanly and smoothly.
The film closely follows the novel, although it does eliminate a few of the more subtle complexities. It was wildly popular in Britain when it was released there last year, probably because the story is told with gorgeously detailed sets dressed with nostalgia for a time of British patriotism and success. The film's costumes are lavish, the extras are everywhere, and the look is close enough to reality that the best complaint one ex-translator stationed at Bletchley Park could offer was that the canteen in the film was much nicer. Even Mick Jagger, one of the film's producer, couldn't resist the spirit and gave himself a cameo appearance as an officer relaxing in a club.
This film could represent the cultural high point for codeslinging nerds and other Slashdot types. Jagger produced this film with another cultural icon, Saturday Night Live's Lorne Michaels. If you secretly spend your days dreaming of strutting around the stage like Mick Jagger, you can now take some pride in the fact that Mick Jagger spent at least a few days dreaming of playing a code geek. And why not? According to one of the characters, the women go weak in the knees when they get to talk to codebreakers like the protagonist, Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott).
This movie is about sex and mathematics and the crucial satisfaction that comes from understanding the depth of their power. The two main threads of the film track Tom Jericho's search for 1) a missing lover (Saffron Burroughs) and 2) a new way to break the Germans' four rotor, Naval Enigma system known as Shark. His lover may have been mixed up in Germany's sudden decision to abandon the old codes and all of this must be untangled or else the war could be lost. Tom Stoppard, the screenwriter also responsible for Shakespeare In Love, weaves these two threads together with car chases, kissing, train whistles, moonlit nights, illicit file swapping and a few other romantic chords.
It seems like a lot of things happen in four days, but we must remember that this plays out in an era when people weren't couch potatoes taught that ignoring advertising is forbidden. The pacing is the biggest problem with the film because there's too much action packed into 117 minutes, leaving some transitions a bit confusing. The jumps are often too quick and in some places it's hard to know when the flashbacks begin and end.
Despite that, there's much for a geek to love in this movie. Both the Enigma machine and the cryptanalytic attack developed by the British are described in fairly good detail. We learn, perhaps too quickly, that much of the game is finding a crib, a term the codebreakers used to refer to a word or phrase that must be somewhere in the scrambled message. A weather broadcast, for instance, would include the word "rainy" on a wet day and the codebreakers would examine the possible combinations that might produce that word. That was one weakness the folks at Bletchley Park were able to exploit before Jericho's girlfriend disappeared.
Some of the other mathematical details are accurate but not explained in enough detail to be easily understood. Once the crib was identified, the codebreakers relied heavily on the fact that the Enigma machine could not encode one letter into itself. This weakness allowed them to eliminate many of the potential cribs quickly. Then they spent their time looking for potential "loops" in the coding. In a simple case, a loop is formed when the letter A is encoded as an R and a few letters later, an R is encoded as an A. Most of the loops are a chain of several letters strung out in an odd combination. This pencil-and-paper work by the codebreaker is turned over to a big machine that uses the loops to eliminate many of the potential positions of the rotors. The rest are tested quickly with plenty of whirring and clicking. On a good day, and there were many of them, the right settings for the rotors popped out and let the Allies read the encrypted traffic.
You get to see all of this in action, although the film does not describe much of it in the hopes of sparing those unanointed with the knee-weakening, code smashing gene. It's not really fair for me to concentrate on the machines and ignore the actors because most of the movie revolves around the emotional battles for the characters and their conflicting desires. These passions are well-constructed and intelligently arranged. Dougray Scott plays the mathematician with enough dash and sophistication while Kate Winslet fills out the role of the mousey clerk and co-conspirator. The real star is Jeremy Northam, who plays a sophisticated Foreign Office spy with the right amount of oily charm. He, like everyone else in this movie, is fighting a private little war which may or may not fit in with the larger battle between the Allied and Axis forces.
Some of these battles are so crucial to the plot that it's impossible to comment on them without spoiling the ending. For this reason, I'm including several links for you to click after seeing the movie ( first, second, and third.) as well as a sentence encrypted with an Enigma simulator:
FBZ DDE NZA DJN PNI POH YBF NJR QFP DDZ TVP IHN YSJ IXX UAH YXF BZT ZXW BXS GES GYD IFO VXQ KHU LMA SYX YEG MGK
Using Enigma as a digital rights management device is not new-- Harris includes an encrypted dedication in the novel-- but it raises an interesting question: Is the movie and its detailed description of breaking the Enigma in violation of the DMCA? Is the extra detail in the movie just a cookbook for those who want to pirate the sentence I encrypted above? If so, should I be able to shut it down? While some reviewers may dream of writing something so powerful that it closes a movie immediately, I would hate to do it to this one. It's a pretty, nostalgic thriller that makes a good date movie--especially if you happen to be a knee-weakening, codebreaking type.
Peter Wayner's latest books are Disappearing Cryptography, an exploration about how to disguise information and Translucent Databases, a practical description of how to use encryption algorithms to protect sensitive information like credit cards and medical records. If they ever get made into a movie, he wants to be played by Keanu Reeves -- the one who played Ted "Theodore" Logan, not the one who played Neo.
... is, of course, Stephenson's much-loved Cryptonomicon.
I can't help thinking, though, that as much as many of us love to make the comparison, no court in America would accept that cracking enemy cyphers falls under the DMCA.
Peace,
James Vogel.
"I have spread my dreams under your feet, Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams." - W. B. Yeats.
In this case it is an irrelevent rant that needlessly attacks Hollywood studios. I would argue that this editorial content almost certainly does not belong in a movie review (which should be studio-agnostic, IMO), and without doubt should not be representing the review on the main page.
This doesn't even address the fact that comparing Gnutella users to the codebreakers in WW2 is a stretch, at best. Remember, those guys invented the computer in order to defeat Nazis. This is very different from sharing one's collection of Beck songs and downloading Simpsons episodes.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
So, what's the point of using a purposefully misleading intro paragraph? Slashdot is where I learned of the acronym "FUD" ("Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt," for those who do not know) but it seems like putting a misleading intro like this will help spread it, rather than help stop it.
How many people do you think will only read the main page, and go away thinking it's the truth? Yeah, it's their own fault for not reading the entire story, but everyone is guilty of this from time to time.
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
I was hoping Neal (Stephenson) would have been able to get Crypto made into a movie...perhaps it would be redundant now.
I just wanted to see who they would cast as America Shaftoe! (and maybe Glory too, except for the leprosy...)
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
You bet it is, I wouldn't be surprised if Hitler takes this to the courts!
JP
--- Worst tagline ever.
I can just imagine Hitler waving the DMCA at the British during WWII when they finally cracked the Enigma! Still interesting to think about how the NAZI's would of felt about the DMCA. Control of the flow of information and ownership of information (and everything else) is a basic principal of any fascist state. I don't think the NAZI's would look too lightly on any sort of circumvention devices.
I stole this Sig
no, actually that place is funnier, if a bit sick.
I think the PBS documentary on Enigma was probably more on the money, but not as viable for Hollywood type profit motives.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The fictional encomium to hacking (the Cryptonomicon) tries to draw a parallel, but let's not forget that the codebreakers of WW2 were trying to save their country. They didn't think "information wants to be free"-as a matter of fact, the fact that Enigma was broken was one of the most jealously guarded secrets of the war.
Today's hackers (or "crackers" if you prefer) are mostly motivated by challenge and ego. Although there is a mythological character called "the good hacker," he coincides with reality about as much as the "honorable thief."
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
This movie may dramatize the codebreakers as sex symbols and symbols of power but this was certainly not the case in real life. Consider the case of brilliant Alan Turing. He essentially led the effort to break the Engima code. How did society repay him? He was an outcast for being an "out" homosexual. He was harrassed throughout his life (read more). The British government let the professional and personal attacks on him continue because they didn't want to reveal his role in helping to crack the code, even years after the war was over. Unable to accept the fact that the same government he did an incredible service for now actively attacked him, he committed suicide. The "we need to keep his role secret" excuse is rediculous. No one raised a stink when Churchil published his memoroirs, which were filled with sensitive material.
I don't suppose the true story of Turing made it into this film at all.
GMD
watch this
If you're interested in cryptography, and you can get to Maryland (USA), visit the National Cryptologic Museum. Among other things, they have an Enigma there. If you can't go and visit yourself, here's their picture and a short description of the Enigma. They have lots of other exhibits too, and there's no entrance fee. Last time I visited, they even let you play with an Enigma, so you could encrypt and decrypt messages with it.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
I really, really wish you could moderate stories as well as comments.
Sex and mathematics?
I've heard good things about the film, and hopefully it will get to a screen near me. I would also highly recommend, if your interested in documentaries about the real story, Nova's excellent "Breaking the Code."
;-)
Its really amazing some of the details that people never hear about breaking the Enigma code. One quick fact/story that I remember (obviously paraphrased and correct me if I make any errors, its been a bit since I last saw it): One of the first versions of the Enigma code that the British were able to crack, was the Luftwaffe code. How? To set up the machine to decode the enigma code, you needed to base the rotors off a three letter unencrypted sequence and another three letters that were encrypted. Unfortunately for the Germans, the operators got lazy all too often. If the first three letters were HIL, any guess what the next three encrypted were? Yup, TER, spelling out "Hitler." Other operators would use their names or their girlfriend's. It wasn't that the code was flawed, it took the German operators, inadvertently of course, to help the British break their own enigma.
Its in many ways analogous to the great majority of system problems now, open ports, unpatched software, etc. Any system can be nearly perfect, until you add a human to run it.
forma3
My biggest concern about the movie, which I haven't yet had the chance to see, is that it seems to miss out the role of Alan Turing. Turing, for those who don't know, was one of the founders of computing. He lead the team that built one of the first digital computers and developed the theoretical foundation for all of modern computing. He is an absolutely key figure in 20th. century science, perhaps as important as Einstein.
He was also a leading figure at Bletchely Park and it is highly doubtful that Enigma would have been broken without him. If you were to single out one figure as the key to breaking the code it has to be Turing.
So its worrying that a film of this critical moment in world history seems to muddy the role of Turing. Andrew Hodges who wrote the review I link to, wrote an excellent biography of Turing that should be required reading for anyone who considers themselves even remotely a geek. Turing achieved more in his sadly shortened life than most of us could dream of. The fact that the story of Bletchley Park has been turned into a film that excludes Turing is truly sad.
Sailing over the event horizon
Writer: I know! We'll fictionalize it, then we can have a nice straight protagonist, the audience will like it, and we'll still get to tell a cool story!
Someone way down on the totem pole: But isn't that kind of dishonoring the memory of the genius who actually did the work?
Producer: (Hands over ears) LA LA LA LA I can't hear you...
We Brits often complain about how war films are slanted to play up the American involvement because that's where the money for the films comes from (cf Memphis Belle). After the British release I heard an interesting radio interview where a Polish veteran was complaining about how the Poles don't get a proper share of the glory in this story.
[minor spoiler alert] The point he was making was that not only did the Poles find the machine in the first place, but if they hadn't kept quiet about it for the duration of the war then Hitler would have abandoned Enigma much sooner, or at least have had an inkling that his communications were being intercepted. But the secrecy surrounding the codebreaking operation was so good from *all* parties that Rommel went to his grave cursing the spy who was giving away information from his signals back to Germany.
There was an excellent series on Channel 4 about the operation about three years ago, and I would assume that it has been aired on PBS (though maybe not because it isn't exactly complimentery towards our American allies). Enigma makes the whole subject into a story, but the subject also bears telling in a documentary style.
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
"While I am sure that this serves as a terrific attention-getting device, in the future try not to have such blatantly BS and non-factual headlines. Its deception for the purpose of getting hits, something I didn't think slashdot would stoop to. And its "Bait and Switch," kinda, in that you come expecting something, see the add, then actually read something else."
(shakes head) Funny... I actually found the intro paragraph *humorous*. Sure, it's bound to increase clickthroughs and pageviews (and bandwidth used by millions of
Was the humor factor really lost on that many people? Maybe this is just Monday Syndrome.
As established in court the computer was invented before WW II at Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts in Ames, Iowa
Seastead this.
Thanks, I didn't see the original comment, but I laughed out loud when I saw the response. Sadly, my guess is that too few will enjoy the irony in your posting.
Kudos.
Regards,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I agree; and the fact that he way gay probably had somthing to do with that. I think thats a shame, romance and gay still don't mix in Hollywood's minds.
There was a play on Turing though.BREAKING THE CODE I allways wanted to see it. Derek Jacobi rocks!
BTW I own a first addition American of the Hodges book.
"think of it as evolution in action"
The true story of Alan Turing (see my post below) is a fascinating, albeit disturbing story. Y'know, it's too bad that Hollywood would never make a movie about him and the battles that he faced. I mean, Hollywood is notorious for copying successful movies. When Star Wars came out, everyone was making space films and TV shows. Now that Spider-man is a big hit, there's going to be a slew of comic book movies. I wish that the success of "A Beautiful Mind" would convince Hollywood that there are some fascinating stories about brilliant scientists and the incredible challenges they faced. There are a lot of fascinating stories out there.
GMD
watch this
I agree; and the fact that he way gay probably had somthing to do with that. I think thats a shame, romance and gay still don't mix in Hollywood's minds.
I agree - the film makers were looking for a way to turn the story of the Bletchley Park codebreakers into a romance, so "obviously" the leading man had to go after the girl. It is a shame.
There was a play on Turing though.BREAKING THE CODE [turing.org.uk] I allways wanted to see it. Derek Jacobi rocks!
I was lucky enough to see Jacobi in Breaking the Code when I lived in the UK. He was, indeed, excellent as AMT. I was also lucky enough to meet Robin Gandy who was one of Turning's students and a major mathematician in his own right. Its a crime that Turing was harried into an early suicide; we can only wonder what he might have achieved if he had lived.
Sailing over the event horizon
At what point was the summary "blatantly BS" or "non-factual"? I don't even think it was that misleading. Just because it caught your eye and made you think something else doesn't mean it was wrong. I don't see the words DMCA or MPAA in that summary. It was your preconceived notions that filled in the rest of the story before reading the review. The "BS" is in your head.
I think the movie sounds a lot more exciting with that type of description. It was very poignant but still true to the plot.
-- My HARDWARE, My CHOICE.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
The Polish government in exile was based in Britain and their surviving pilots flew with the RAF and the Army Air Corps. Most of these guys were tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed, dashing and had "cute" accents. Needless to say, they got all of the girls when they happened to be around. The piqued American personnel started telling Polack Jokes........
I know that I keep bringing this up but perhaps the best history of military cryptoanalysis in print is The Codebreakers by David Kahn. It devotes about four novel length chapters to World War II cryptography alone and also describes the first cryptographic war for the airwaves during World War I.
it also points out that one of the big revolutions in military cryptography was the coordination of code making and code breaking. The only way to make a good code is to try to break it. Knowledge of practical code breaking was never intended to be distributed outside of military circles, even to the point where the National Security Agency attempted to block publication of The Codebreakers for even revealing obsolete historical details of World War II cryptoanalysis. As a result the comparison between military cryptoanalysts and copyright crackers is a bit overdrawn. Many of the codebreakers were also involved and creating and testing military codes to hide information from the public.
I thought it was pretty good, and I'm afraid to say that I was only mildly surprised to think that Hollywood might make a movie like that....
Anyway, it wasn't a purposefully misleading paragraph, it was making a very valid, and effective, point. Hats off to all involved.
Indeed, T and N are right next to each other on the Dvorak layout.
graspee
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I remember seeing this at the cinema last year, and thinking: "It had better have a lot of either codebreaking or Kate Winslet Naked".
Unfortunately, while codebreaking and Miss Winslet are present, neither is revealed in enough depth to be interesting.
The only thing that saved the film for me was the period detail.
graspee
Yeah... real creepy idea...
Don't forget -- Doug and Amy Shaftoe are 1/2 and 1/4 Filipino, respectively. The actresses playing them would have to at least be able to look Eurasian.
Doug Shaftoe would be a difficult call -- Keanu Reeves (part Chinese), maybe, if he bulked up a lot and had some aging makeup. (Dean Cain comes to mind as well, but even though he's part Japanese he doesn't look it.) Amy Shaftoe... maybe Sandra Bullock, even though she's not Asian at all. She could definitely pull the part off, though; unlike a lot of other actresses that get the kinds of comedic roles she goes after (Cameron Diaz and the like) she can be gritty enough for the part.
Unfortunately I'd have to reread Cryptonomicon for other ideas; Randy in particular has never really been a character I could picture.
/Brian
Wrong generation and wrong spin. "Enigma" is about good codebreakers -- the mathematicians and clerks of Great Britain's Bletchley Park who helped the Allied cause during World War II by breaking...
I thought Dante and Randal were in New Jersey...
Maybe I'm wrong.
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
Enigma broken without him? That might be a bit of a stretch. You can thank the Poles for doing most of the tough work. They spent a lot of time breaking Enigma codes before they were invaded, while France and Britian sat on their thumbs and looked worried.
The middle mind speaks!
If you're interested in Enigma you'll probably find this interview with Jack Good very interesting.
Miko O'Sullivan
I hate to nitpick and complain (well, I guess I don't or I wouldn't be doing this) but I can assure you all that the film was not "wildly" popular here in Britain. While it may not have been a flop exactly, it was as close to "straight to video" as you can get...
--- There's no place like 127.0.0.1
I found a decent page about his various works. A Tom Stoppard Bibliography
Enigma broken without him? That might be a bit of a stretch. You can thank the Poles for doing most of the tough work. They spent a lot of time breaking Enigma codes before they were invaded, while France and Britian sat on their thumbs and looked worried.
I don't think so. The mathematical analysis to break the code was largely a joint effort of which Turning was a part. But the important part was the ability to reproduce the crack in a mechanical way, given that the code rotated every 24 hours and effectively had to be rebroken each time. Even once you know the algorithm to break a code, it couldn't in practice be done in anywhere near real time without a computer. So Turing effectively built a computer to very quickly do the math and break a code.
Without the machine, codes would have taken months to break, making the unencoded information essentially useless. I think Turing's achievement, which also laid the foundation for most of modern computation, was indeed essential to the war effort. Without it the breaking of the Enigma code would have been an interesting academic exercise only.
Sailing over the event horizon
But that's not to say that a 14 year old can't be that responsible or carry adult status, while a 22 year old might still be immature and irresponsible
:P )
while that may be true, i think it's safe to say the vast majority of children have not yet developed both mentally and physically enought to be ready for sexual encounters. And by sexual encounters I don't mean being taught about sexuality in school, I mean actual physical encounters. "majority rules" is appropriate in this case - the simple fact is that most children are not ready for sex, they can't make the decision for themselves, so it should not be permitted.
Society is protecting the children in this case, and although in some cases the children don't need protecting, in most cases they do.
p.s. all this is coming from a queer. (that oughta keep the moderators at bay.
I believe this german coders were the same ones that afterwards were send to the famous "LCWC ESFN" battalion in the Russian Front. The "Lazy Coders Who Can't Even Spell the Fuher's Name" battalion were famous for its bright collored uniforms and its high turnover.
> The film closely follows the novel, although
The link here incorrectly points to:
http://www.enigmathemovie.com/
The correct link is:
http://www.enigma-themovie.com/
Thanks Google!
Machines to automate the code breaking process were developed, but most were mechanical and operated by humans who cranked away until one of them broke the code for the day. Sometimes the code fell quickly, other times it never was. Computers were developed during this time to aid in the cracking of the code, and Turing did play a large role in this.
For the most part, once the mechanics of Enigma were established (for the early Enigma codes, mostly the work of the Poles), cracking German codes was done by brute force.
The middle mind speaks!
Your lame, forced comparison cheapens the achievement of the Bletchley Park codebreakers and the Allied troops who risked their lives to capture Enigma material.
It also makes you look like a whining tosser who thinks his right to download an MP3 is as important as the rights and freedoms won in WWII.
I think the DMCA is bad too, but for fuck's sake, don't do this kind of thing again.
It isn't a factual account of Turing's experiences, nor of WW2 in general, but it's a well-written book set during WW2 (not entirely), with a heavy focus on cryptography. The reason I bring it up is tat it is so bent on cryptography (who'd have guessed?), and Enigma has a cameo.
Cryptonomicon is engaging, I had great difficulty putting it down, though the instructional detail used to describe various technical feats compelled me to set it aside for a minute to give them a go myself. Stephenson has a solid grasp on many technical concepts, even if he doesn't get all of them 100% correct (you'll get no spoilers from me!).
All of that, and he even observes Turing's professed sexual preference in a much more honest (read: less inverted) manner.
Maybe the reason so many stories seem to leave out Turing's role (Cryptonomicon is a wonderful exception) is the distasteful and appalling way he met his death. Turing was gay (and fairly openly so, for the time). The government put him through a number of disgusting "conversion therapies" (including electroshock, etc. if I recall correctly) and he eventually took his own life. It is an appalling abuse of human rights by the British government, and perpetrated against a man who single-handedly did an enormous amount to help end the war.
The British then set up the team to extend the work and deal with the increasing complexity of the Enigma machines. Yes, they made awesome breakthroughs, but the Polish did the basic work much earlier.
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
Hey--most of us are heterosexual. Guys don't want to see two guys falling in love; gals don't want to see two gals falling in love. Why waste money on such a thing? I want to see some a guy and a girl fall in love. And so do the vast majority of men and women.
Now, turning it into a romance in the first place is the bit I find dubious. Why bother? Why must every movie have a love interest?
Well, yeah, heavy makeup...
Bobby Shaftoe, yes. Doug Shaftoe is half-Filipino, though, so he would look quite Asian. Jennifer Tilly actually did come to mind, but she's so completely wrong for the part I didn't bother to bring her up myself; Amy comes off as being rather younger, to begin with, and probably a lot tougher-looking -- a few tats, IIRC, for one thing -- whereas Jennifer Tilly is a bit too curvy and bimboish.
/Brian
I thought he pointed out he wasn't INTERESTED in Keanu Reeves as Neo, dammit!
^_^
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
The only problem with the intro is that instead of being funny, it was misleading. Why? Because something like that would not surprise many of us. Well, not much more than the disney channel airing cartoons aimed at kids to explain why trading music is illegal. In fact, I'm kind of curious why they haven't done it. It seems like the perfect ploy, using their influence on the movies to bend everyone to their will. Oh wait, they're allready doing that...
Seriously though, look for something like this in the makings. Except that the file swappers and reverse engineerers will, of course, be the 50 year old villains who much be stopped by a group of pre-teen children.
For instance, I'm not sure I could bake bread very well, do I lash out at bakers?
I don't know, do you?
It's a normal survival instinct to fear/hate/fight what is alien.
a survival instinct? I could see how it might be normal to fear spiders or tigers or bears, but your average homosexual is not exactly life threatening. Humans are sentient animals and must use not just their emotions, but their thoughts, to see realize whether their fears are grounded in survival instincts, or for other reasons. People of different races/skin color might seem alien, is it normal to feat/hate/fight them? No, it's racist.
I feel absolutely no sexual attraction to any man.
It's interesting how often this pops up when conversing with someone about this, specifically with someone who is homophobic. They make it a point to point out that they are not attracted to men. Who are you trying to prove this to? Me? Or yourself? Did I ask?
I thought the theory was bullshit myself. Turns out my own life is a perfect example of the theory, though. In fact ask a bunch of gay men, and you'll see a lot of them initially "coped" with being gay by forcefully denying it, and by acting out against others. "The best defence is a good offence" does apply, I'm living proof.
I do wonder where you get your "average heterosexual man is sure of his own heterosexuality." Ever hear of Kinsley? His studies indicate that this ISN'T the case, that most people could be categorizied as bisexual, but with a heavier tendency towards one particular sex.
Your last paragraph is interesting and shows that you aren't the typical gay-basher. But I want you to realize one thing - my orientation isn't a "sexual habit". It's not something I saw in a magazine and thought I would do for fun in my spare time. It is something I fought with for many years. It is something I hid from myself, and from others. It is something that led me to contemplate suicide (although obviously I chose to not take that path, thankfully). It is something that made me very unhappy for the most part of my life, until I chose to accept who I am, and that I couldn't change that for the rest of the world. It is part of me, and one others go out of their way to bash homosexuality, they are bashing me.
...or we'd have the story transposed to an US setting, never mind history.
Just a black marker!
8 72 5919.html
http://www.chip.de/praxis_wissen/praxis_wissen_
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Hey--most of us are heterosexual. Guys don't want to see two guys falling in love; gals don't want to see two gals falling in love. Why waste money on such a thing? I want to see some a guy and a girl fall in love. And so do the vast majority of men and women.
:)
I think you're generalising wildly there.
I'd rather see an accurate rendition of history instead of having everything whitewashed into some heterosexual fantasy. And I'd hope that more people than you think are open-minded enough to believe that the love that exists between two men, or that between two women, is just as valid and worthy of portrayal as that between a man and a woman.
Heck, given societal attitudes towards homosexual relationships, there's probably more scope for dramatic incidents, tragedy, etc...
I do agree that a movie about codebreaking definitely doesn't need a romance, though.
deus does not exist but if he does
The official movie site link is here. The original left out the hyphen.
> In many ways, the the Tom Jericho character *is* based on Turing (in terms of character rather than actions)
- 00/art6.ht ml
In some ways, yes. But making him be the hero of a straight romance instead of being persecuted for his homosexuality is a _major_ difference.
Incidentally, Bletchley Park is now a museum. (The movie wasn't filmed there and doesn't recreate it (as you say, it's capturing the feel rather than trying to be a history)).
http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/
The secret they uncover in the film is real. I don't know how much was known at the time or whether it was mentioned in Enigma traffic.
http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/winter99
rant
More clueless moderators.
/.
Must be clueless moderator week on
Only 44 more karma points to go before you've wanked me to 0.
--Blair