Barton on Sea Probus – Codes and Ciphers
Leonard Dickson,Chairman of the Spitfire Society, gave a fascinating talk on codes and ciphers which he defined as simply a means of enabling A to talk to B without C hearing – it's so simple that GCHQ have over 10,000 people working on them!
He covered the history and development of codes, illustrating his talk with examples where the breaking of the enemy's code has changed the course of history – had Walshingham not broken the code being used by Mary Queen of Scot's followers, we would now be a catholic country – to the fact that Germany might have won the war had we not broken the Enigma machine code.
Leonard has the uncanny knack of being able to explain complicated ideas simply, and showed how the Americans had been able to break the Japanese codes used during the war in the Pacific and how that led to the ending of WWII.
He finished with examples of modern day encryption enabling financial transactions world wide, including the dreaded Pin number.
Our September meeting will be a joint luncheon at Shorefield when the speaker will be Stephan Marshall on the history of Lymington and New Milton.
Leonard Dickson,Chairman of the Spitfire Society, gave a fascinating talk on codes and ciphers which he defined as simply a means of enabling A to talk to B without C hearing – it's so simple that GCHQ have over 10,000 people working on them!
He covered the history and development of codes, illustrating his talk with examples where the breaking of the enemy's code has changed the course of history – had Walshingham not broken the code being used by Mary Queen of Scot's followers, we would now be a catholic country – to the fact that Germany might have won the war had we not broken the Enigma machine code.
Leonard has the uncanny knack of being able to explain complicated ideas simply, and showed how the Americans had been able to break the Japanese codes used during the war in the Pacific and how that led to the ending of WWII.
He finished with examples of modern day encryption enabling financial transactions world wide, including the dreaded Pin number.
Our September meeting will be a joint luncheon at Shorefield when the speaker will be Stephan Marshall on the history of Lymington and New Milton.
