Queen Elizabeth Sets a Code-Breaking Challenge

mikejuk writes "Queen Elizabeth II has made her first ever visit to Bletchley Park, the home of the UK's World War II code-breaking efforts and now a museum. To mark the occasion, the Queen has issued a code cracking challenge of her own — 'the Agent X Code Book Challenge' — aimed at getting children interested in cryptography. Perhaps a royal programming or general technology challenge is next."

Comments

Recruiting?

[Chrisq]

Everyone knows that the Royal Family has close links to Torchwood. Perhaps this is a recruitment drive. (count me out, I'll be buggered if I work with Captain Jack)

Re:Recruiting?

[2muchcoffeeman]

Yeah, you and everyone else that works there.

Re:Recruiting?

[stupid_is]

errr - that's not a tardis (hope this isn't a "swoosh" moment, it's a regular old-style public phone box (booth). You don't see them about much, although a while back an enterprising sculptor put a dozen together like this and flogged it to my local council for several tens of thousands of quid.

The tardis is supposed to be a police telephone box, which has a different design and colour like this. These boxes also contained equipment other than a phone - such as a first aid kit and an incident book.

On a last pedantic note, there were red police boxes in Glasgow, Scotland, for a time.

the intellectual side of WWII

[G3ckoG33k]

Bletchley Park appears to be safe for now. Here are some previous Slashdot headlines:

2011
Queen Elizabeth Sets a Code-Breaking Challenge
Tunny Code-Breaker Rebuilt At Bletchley Park
Campaign Saves Unique Turing Archive
EDSAC Computer To Be Rebuilt

2010
Fight Begins To Secure Turing Papers For Bletchley Park Museum
'Retro Programming' Teaches Using 1980s Machines
UK Gov't Spending Details Now Online

2009
Bletchley Park WWII Staff Finally Recognized
No Museum Status For UK Home of Enigma Machine
Old Computers Resurrected As Instruments At Bletchley Park

2008
Cash Lifeline For Bletchley Park
PGP Leads Corporate Efforts To Save Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park Faces Financial Rescue
Bletchley Park Facing Financial Ruin

While I realize one cannot have every building associated with victory in WWII saved, it is nice to see recognition of the intellectual side of it. Are there more dedicated sites of this kind around the world?

Re:the intellectual side of WWII

[Nursie]

It is good to hear isn't it?

Finally the old place is getting some attention. I've been there a couple of times now. it's a great old place, it was important for the war, and it's something of a spiritual home for the computer.

Colossus may not have been the very first (there was a german machine?) and it was certainly kept secret for far too long after the war, but some lasting good leaked out of it through Turing's papers. It was one of a series of false starts that slowly, eventually led us here.

Of course the pioneer, the early bright light of our field was hounded to death for being gay, a man who had saved many lives and sped the end of the war. If there is one thing that should tell us homophobia is *bad* this is it.

Re:Credit where credit's due...

[Psychotria]

How lovely. Has she paid her respects to Alan Turing yet?

Umm yes. In the linked video.

Good news!?

[Aceticon]

In the middle of the recent fallout from the discovery of the abuses that happened during the credit bubble years (banker bonuses, press abuses, police corruption, cozy relations between politicians and the press), the Royal Household seems to be one of the few institutions that's coming out as squeaky clean.

So with a bit of luck, actions by the Queen might have a little more impact in public opinion than they would during the "time-of-excesses".

So even though I'm neither a royalist nor a british citizen, I welcome and applaud anything that might portray to kids the notion that technology is cool - they've been too long enthralled by dreams of being footballers or TV celebrities.

Re:Such a pity

[dave420]

It was the government. The monarchy had nothing to do with it.

Prince Philip has cryptography connections

[nickovs]

I had the pleasure of meeting HRH the Duke of Edinburgh at an event once and, upon hearing that I worked in cryptography, he told me about his time working signals in the British navy during the second world war. He said he had always been fascinated by the operation of the British TypeX equipment that he used back then. I don't suppose that he did any code breaking but he certainly was using codes well before the Cypherpunks came along.