PGP Leads Corporate Efforts To Save Bletchley Park 83
blake182 writes "CNET reports that PGP, together with IBM and other technology firms, is mounting a fundraising effort to benefit the ailing Bletchley Park, home of the Station X codebreaking efforts in World War II. 'We're calling attention (to the fact that) Bletchley is falling into disrepair, and that, probably, the world owes a debt of gratitude to that place,' said Phil Dunkelberger, chief executive of PGP."
Dunkelberger (Score:5, Funny)
That's Dunkin' Donuts answer to the Hamburgler, right?
WWII (Score:4, Informative)
We owe lots of stuff to lots of things from the second world war. Nice to see corporations like this getting involved; then again, this is part of PGP's history.
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I agree. IBM were instrumental in the holocaust.
Re:WWII (Score:5, Informative)
I hate to say it, considering the Godwinism, but the parent's right. It's pretty ironic that IBM should be putting in to save Bletchley, when during the war they were directly involved with Nazi Germany [guardian.co.uk].
"Offtopic" is not the same as "I'm annoyed by this comment"...
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its f**king disgusting that this Labour "tax and spend" government will happily blow huge amount of cash in useless hair brained scheemes in order to move further and further left but wont spend a tiny fraction of it to preserve a huge piece of world history. Brown should hang for thing alone
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Maybe the GP thinks they've gone so far to the right that they're wrapping around.
Re:WWII (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WWII (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps they're still embarrassed by the Alan Turing fiasco, and don't want to ever bring it up again?
Seriously, there's no reason to ignore this chapter in their history. It was certainly one of Britain's finest, and this from a country that prides themselves on their many fine contributions to history.
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Perhaps they're still embarrassed by the Alan Turing fiasco, and don't want to ever bring it up again?
I think you've nailed it there.
Bletchly Park was the best British minds triumphing over the the best German minds.
Why else would they want to bury it, but for shame of Turing's treatment?
Every time this comes up, I am compelled to recommend The Code Book [amazon.com] by Simon Singh.
It has a gripping account of Turing's life and the cracking of Enigma.
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Not actually read that book, but I've heard well of it and of Simon Singh's writing in general.
Just setting the record a little straighter, and not denigrating the work of Station X in the slightest. I've put my money where my mouth is -
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I think the problem is that a lot of people not interested in computer science or cryptography view Bletchly Park as just another one of the thousands of military installations Britain utilised during World War 2.
The estate itself is relatively unremarkable compared to many in the area and has always had structural problems (it was actually soon to be demolished before war broke out and the code-breakers were stationed there).
I have been to Bletchly Park and it is a great place, I've heard they even have a
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They do - it's amazing. I was there a couple of weeks ago. The guy who maintains the Colossus gave me a used valve from it. It's beautiful, and now one of my prized possessions :)
One of the biggest problems the place has is the lack of interactivity. They need to restructure and reorganise, and get things for people (especially kids) to play with. The experience is great if you're already a bit nerdy, but I can imagine for younger children it's quite boring when it could be made absolutely fascinating with
How much? (Score:3, Interesting)
But at least I know that there's a problem and two separate foundations have turned them down for grant money. I guess that's a start.
Re:How much? (Score:5, Informative)
There's no price-tag because this isn't the sort of thing you buy off a store shelf. The first thing they'll need is a budget to do is a museum-grade architectural survey.
Have you seen Bletchley Park? It's not just the main building but the remaining temporary WW2 structures.
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/locations/bletchley-park/bletchlypark-l-lewin/index.html [digibarn.com]
The survey can produce a series of restoration & upkeep senarios, based on how much activity & cost can be devoted over what periods of time, and how much each year of delay will add to the costs and losses. Till that (expensive) survey is done, no one can quote remotely realistic figures.
Another detail: when I was a renovation carpenter it was a firm requirement that any time a project required a wall to be opened, the client MUST have 60% over budget in the bank to deal with unpleasant surprises. Most of the houses I dealt with were less than 100 years old. Even houses built in the 60s regularly had surprise structural problems. About three of those required immediate work that was a good deal more than 60%.
Getting a complex like Bletchley Park surveyed and a reliable maintenance schedule put in place is going to be a major work in itself. Then the costs and compromises (yes, the sheds will probably have to be let go. or replaced by replicas.) are going to be frankly enormous compared to what the place can draw in revenue. No wonder the usual sources have shied away. A serious influx of cash from special-interest groups as proposed is really the only chance the place has of getting to a (still expensive) maintainable state.
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They need £7million (that's around $14million in funny money). Apparently IBM and PGP have donated $100,000 which will help, but is a fraction of what they need.
Bletchley Park is well worth visiting. I've been twice recently with friends, as we couldn't see it all in just one day.
Good (Score:1)
I'm glad that they're helping out. It's not about the war... but keeping history alive. Especially being about the history of computing with it being /. and all (naturally).
Pretty Good Privacy Corporation (Score:2, Interesting)
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Gates Foundation Said No (Score:2, Informative)
In May 2008 it was announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation turned down a request for funds because the foundation only funds Internet-based technology projects.
Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:5, Insightful)
IBM's future would be built on top of key advances made at Bletchley Park, but they probably didn't know BP even existed at the time. BP, on the other hand, probably wouldn't have pissed on IBM to put out a fire. So the upshot is that, now that BP is irrelevant to IBM's future, IBM is offering aid to them, but back when BP was laying the foundation for IBM's future, IBM was completely oblivious to their existence. On top of that, had IBM known what was going on at BP and tried to invest in their own future, BP wouldn't have *wanted* anything to do with IBM!
Somebody at IBM really appreciates irony.
Re:Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:5, Insightful)
And? There was a lot of this going on, not just IBM. Coca Cola invented Fanta so they could continue to sell soft drinks in the European market during the War, Nissan were working with Nazi Germany to build their own V1/2 rockets. There are no doubt more examples.
Businesses do this, that's because they are businesses, not governments. To be frank, they probably realise that more than a few wars are started for less than honest reasons, and they likely see no reason to stop doing what they do because of it.
Re:Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:5, Informative)
Nissan were working with Nazi Germany to build their own V1/2 rockets.
That would be Nissan the Japanese company, based in a country which was allied with Nazi Germany?
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You misunderstand the mentality of little minds :-) :
In the little mind, IBM=USA=bad. Nissan=Japan=victims of atomic attack by evil U.S.
Little minds don't comprehend reality or facts, just left wing propaganda. Critical thought has been conditioned out. (Bell rings, college students protest reality.)
Re:Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:5, Funny)
Working with their allies? Ruthless bastards...
rj
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No. It was this guy!
nissan.com [nissan.com]
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Or the manufacturers of the famous Nissan huts?
Canadians, always playing both sides.
/sarc
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You forgot Coca Cola, the American company, based in a country which fought against Nazi Germany :-P
Re:Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:5, Interesting)
Today when two countries are fighting it is most certain that Coca-Cola is present on both sides. Somehow nobody has a problem with that - it's not common sense that selling soft-drinks to the enemy is going to hurt anyone.
Nevertheless I agree that IBM's role in WWII is not particularly evil. Hollerith punch cards were on the market since 1928 and were used for all kinds of legitimate administrative purposes. Since the public on both sides fighting was mostly unaware of the holocaust until around '43 (in Germany sometimes even '45) it is not very realistic to assume that IBM was knowing about the purpose of orders from nazi-Germany before the US entered the war. And after the US joined the war they can't be held accountable because the German subsidiary DEHOMAG got expropriated.
Given the unique efficiency and cruelty of this genocide I even doubt they could have foreseen it.
Re:Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:5, Informative)
I think you underestimate. The book "IBM and the Holocaust" [wikipedia.org] details how the CEO of IBM was closely involved with Nazi Germany, even receiving a medal. These systems were not off the shelf, but custom-built for the Nazis' needs. After the war, when everyone was aware what had happened in the concentration camps, IBM insisted on recovering its profits from the machines used at the camps. They have subsequently refused to apologise for the company's role.
And just because the allies did nothing to stop the holocaust, that doesn't mean that it wasn't being reported. It was known about, especially at higher levels, but generally ignored.
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Nissan were working with Nazi Germany to build their own V1/2 rockets
Damn, those nips miniaturize everything!
Re:Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:4, Informative)
Not exactly. The company's german arm, isolated from the american one, invented it to keep the plant in operation during the war, when they could not get the Coca Cola syrup.
* http://xroads.virginia.edu/~class/coke/coke2.html [virginia.edu]
* http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/fanta.asp [snopes.com]
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Actually that's what I was referring to, only I worded it badly.
I knew it was done because they needed a new product to sell to keep things going during the war years, and there were no Nazi affiliations. I didn't say Nazi though, I said Germany.
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As well as the point about Nissan being in a country that was Germany's ally, I also think there's a difference between making weapons for the army (which is something that both sides are doing in a war, it's kind of necessary), and helping out with concentration camps.
Indeed, I would consider that sort of thing to be unethical even if it was a German/Japanese company.
And am I missing some fundamental point about the evils of Fanta?
Re:Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:5, Interesting)
IBM was merrily outfitting the Nazis with equipment to help them manage their concentration camps (completely ignorant of their application, naturally) while Bletchley park was breaking Nazi codes.
It was also manufacturing M1 rifles for the Allies. (Along with such companies as Rockola - the jukebox maker - and Saginaw Steering Gear. It's handy to convert a factory to guns when it already has equipment for drilling holes the long way down several feet of steel rod and other machines for building small and complicated devices composed of mechanical moving parts.)
(Back when I was buying an old M1 carbine for participating in the Civilian Marksmanship Program training I picked an IBM-branded one just out of nostalgia. The rangemaster was impressed when I qualified with a carbine, rather than a full-length M1, on the first try. Shorter barrels make for less accuracy. B-) But I could have used a Field Engineer: While the steel parts worked fine, the wooden barrel cover kept popping off during recoil. B-( )
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The American arm of IBM was probably prohibited from "trading with the enemy" from the point that the USA entered the war.
As for BP - they had a big punched-card data centre (The Freebornery) in hut 7, equipped with the sorters, collators, duplicating punches and tabulators typical of any big 1930's office automation effort. Much of this would have been IBM equipment, the rest was from ICT in Letchworth, the same company that built the Bombes.
BP's "Freebornery" played a vital role in running Banburismus ag
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Who built the American-made high-speed bombes? Some were built by the Post Office telephone engineers (as were most of the early British models) in Britain, but many were outsourced to the USA.
the big problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do they have so few visitors? Because the site is presented in what I have to say is a very boring fashion. Yes, I have been there.
If you know your history, and if you can carry your own commentary round in your head, then it rocks seeing a place that's so important historically, but if not then its not even slightly appealing as a location for a day trip.
When I was there I saw a lot of extremely bored kids. If they'd added in some enthusiastic guides with a flair for storytelling they would have been able to draw on enough information to keep those kids engaged, but there was only a very sedate and, to be honest, bland, tour on offer.
I'm not denying that its important to preserve this historical location, but what they really need is to make it more interesting to visitors.
Historical importance alone is not enough, it has to be fun too if they want to survive as a tourist location.
Re:the big problem (Score:5, Informative)
I preferred the really techy stuff - particularly seeing electronic commponents that I worked with when I first started making electronic projects. Unfortunately for me (but fortunately for the exibits) you could not touch them. Probably a good thing otherwise I might have been taking the Bombe apart to get a better idea how it worked.
Perhaps they need different color coded streams:
Children, young geeks, wives (or non-geek husbands), old farts.
I hope they get funding sorted. This place is real history. More than almost any castle or birthplace tourist "adventure".
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I agree. I was there recently with friends and we loved it, because we knew some of the history and understood what we were looking at. In fact, we went twice because we didn't get to see everything the first time. My wife refused to come along with us and she would have been really bored if she had.
I'd guess that the majority of schoolkids wouldn't really be that interested either, though a few might.
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For the opposite experience, if you ever get the chance, take a tour of the United States' Cryptologic Museum, just outside of Fort Meade and the NSA's headquarters.
My wife and I received a personal tour from one of the docents that had retired from the NSA (and was old enough to have been there at its founding.) While there was certainly a lot he couldn't tell us, the parts he could were absolutely enthralling to both of us. (And my wife's neither a crypto geek nor a history buff -- he was simply an o
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They do have guides, or at least they did two years ago. I was shown around by one of the women who worked there during the war as a bombe operator.
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I would have to say that perhaps the reason it is so boring is that the very buildings were designed to look boring, so the germans wouldn't think anything military was going on there. I would love to tour Bletchley Park with the audio book version of Cryptonomicon playing on my headphones. Why don't they let Neal Stephenson write the tour? That would seriously rock.
Use it as location for Indy III and half! (Score:4, Funny)
This way the site will be saved AND we will not see another Indy-against-the-Russians film. Plus, maybe, maybe, it would erase Indy IV from our memory. I would pay for that. A lot.
We can help as well (Score:5, Informative)
Consider purchasing a pocket enigma [bletchleypark.org.uk], or making a donation (link from their home page [bletchleypark.org.uk] or as part of order).
The Independent has a campaign already (Score:5, Informative)
The British newspaper The Independent started a campaign to save Betchley Park [independent.co.uk] on 20 August 2008. I wonder if these are connected ?
Sounds like a great cause - it should definitely be preserved.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
> The British newspaper The Independent started a campaign to save Betchley Park on 20 August 2008.
On 29 May 2008 a friend started a petition on the Downing Street site to shame the Government into acting to save this element of World history. It is now the sixth largest petition on the site with over 14,000 signatures:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/BletchleyPark/ [number10.gov.uk]
If you are a UK citizen please consider taking five minutes to sign the petition. Since it was started we have seen a lot of media i
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It's probably a bad sign that to get into the top ten we only needed 10 thousand signatories.
For most of the time the petition has been live we've been equal standing in the public consciousness with Making Brucey A Sir [number10.gov.uk].
Current number one is angrily demanding that an event occurs which was always going to occur anyway [number10.gov.uk].
It got half a million signatures. Talk about national priorities...
Oh the shame of it .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Little point in asking the govt for funding - they are too busy pouring cash into a 3 week sports festival in 2012 -- a complete waste of money.
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There *is* an outcry in the press. The Independent started a 'Save Bletchley Park' campaign and the BBC news website (news.bbc.co.uk) has been full of articles about it this summer.
So let me get this straight (Score:1)
A company who provides security by cryptography is trying to maintain a monument to an organisation that tried to break crypto?
I laughed.
Re:So let me get this straight (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll also add that it's a national disgrace that such an important site can be ignored in favour of arts projects.
Bletchley Park not only paved the way for computing and helped win WW2 but also helped the telecoms industry in the hands of the Post Office, which became Post Office telephones, which became British Telecom. Thousands of engineers who built the UK's telephone network trained there.
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OK, I'll feed the troll.
VR sims are nowhere near ready for prime time. If the best we've got is exemplified by a 360 degree quicktime tour of a house like on most realty sites, there's no reason to bother at all. Those blow like a $2 Bangkok streetwalker.
If you're going to take that particular attitude, at least make an effort to preserve it until decent virtualization recording equipment exists.
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What constitutes "important" and "worth saving" is a matter of nostalgia and self-aggrandizing for those who engage in it.
I don't know about "worth saving" but it's hard to overstate how "important" that location is historically. Not only did the work done there have a major effect on the outcome of the war (those U-Boats weren't screwing around,) but they also built a lot of the foundations of computer science and engineering that stand to this day.
Good that they werent next to University of Dayton (Score:3, Interesting)
...as they demolished a historical building after railroading about every obstacle in town, and putting some remains in an obscure spot.
Had Bletchley Park been in the US(and next to the named university), they'd have let a local university [udayton.edu] just roll the town over and demolish it after buying the land from NCR for $1.
It's a shame that PGP, IBM, and friends couldn't have come sooner to save NCR's Building 26.
They also served... (Score:3, Insightful)
PGP owes Bletchly Park more than you might think (Score:2)
The portions of the international arms control treaties of the postwar era dealing with encryption (the same ones that Phil Zimmerman violated when he first released PGP to the world) came about because the allies saw firsthand how encryption can change the face of war (and how they need to make sure that the new breed of computer based encryption was something THEY had but the bad guys did not)
PGP's site is up now (Score:4, Informative)
IBM is rich, so... (Score:1)