Cryptologic Bytes

On 1 November 1919, the Government Code & Cypher School (GC&CS) was founded as Britain's first integrated cryptographic agency with Alastair Denniston as its operational head. An article published 1 November 2019 in The Guardian describes how the GCHQ celebrates this monumental anniversary - by highlighting lesser-known wartime eavesdropping and decoding efforts that took place in five secret locations, from the Kent cliffs to the Derbyshire countryside.

Don't forget to also visit the recently added exhibit at the National Cryptologic Museum - celebrating the GCHQ's 100th Anniversary. Learn more in the National Cryptologic Museum section of this website.

On 16 October 2019, the Center for Cryptologic History (CCH) announced that Code Girls author, Ms. Liza Mundy, will be the NSA/CSS Scholar-in-Residence for 2019-2020. Ms. Mundy is no stranger to in-depth research. Her book Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II (published in 2017) reveals the major, untold story of 10,000 American women who decrypted signals intelligence during World War II.

As author Dr. A. Ray Miller put it, this monograph "derives...the exact number of theoretical cyptographic key settings and machine configurations for the Enigma cipher machine. Click to learn more and to read the publication.

The building looks like an Enigma machine! This unique traveling exhibition is dedicated to those who made a successful attempt to break the cipher, which was thought impossible to break. The success was based on the genius, talent, work of some extraordinary people, and began in 1929 in Poznań with three very talented individuals, Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Różycki. Click to learn more.

By the end of 2021, people will begin to see mathematician Alan Turing featured on the Bank of England's newest 50 pound note. The bill will include a quote from the man who helped to lay the foundation for computer science....: "This is only a foretaste of what is to come and only the shadow of what is going to be." Click to learn more.

US Navy Senior Chief Cryptologic Technician Shannon M. Kent was honored on 28 Feb 2019 at a ceremony at NSA during which her name became the 177th on the Cryptologic Memorial Wall. Kent, an Arabic linguist with Fort Meade's Cryptologic Warfare Activity 66, was killed during a suicide bombing in the Syrian town of Manbij on 16 Jan 2019.

This podcast by author Payne Harrison of "The SIGINT Tableau" includes thumbnail reviews of "The Good Listener" by Fin Kennedy on BBC Radio Drama, "Pine Gap" an Australian TV show available on Netflix, and "The Third Reich Is Listening: Inside German Codebreaking 1939-45" by author Christian Jennings. Check out Harrison's "Black Cipher." Click to learn more.

The NCMF's social media community responded to our request for book recommendations from their own cryptologic libraries. Check out their suggestions and see what you might add to your library. If you have books to add to the list, please email webadmin@cryptologicfoundation.org

Edward Rothstein of "The New York Times" provides a thorough review of the NSA's fascinating "public face," the National Cryptologic Museum.