Code Breakers and Makers

1. Code Breakers and Makers Name

2. Does Secrecy protect Peace?

3. Where did CODE BREaking start? Since humans beings were able to communicate they have attempted to obscure information from one another in order to keep things secret. One way to do this is code. Those making codes are called Cryptographers.They give the cipher or way to solve the code to the person receiving the message. Without the cipher, messages remain unbroken and therefore hidden until someone ‘cracks’ the code. People who use logic/intuition and complex mathematical systems to ‘crack’ the codes are called cryptanalysts or code breakers. The Greeksand Romans were some of the first civilisations to use sophisticated ciphers to communicate secretly. Polybiuscreated a system whereby each letter on a grid would be replaced with a letter from the alphabet in a 5x5 grid. (A = 1x1 = 2 or N = 3x3 = 9) Caesar invented a cipher that shifted the letters of the alphabet by a certain number of letters or numbers i.e. (A=2 B = 3, C = 4 or A = B, B = C, C = D). These two systems have formed the basis of many codes throughout history!

4. Codes continued to advance in a similar way until the invention of the telegraph machine and Morse Code. This allowed nations to transmit codes across large distances to each other easily in times of war. However, these codes could be listened into by anyone and therefore needed to be more complicated. As technology improved, codes made by machines became popular because as these codes needed more complicated ciphers to decipher the messages. One of the oldest decipher machines was the Alberti Disc, which used two discs on top of each other which would be turned to find the corresponding letter. Alberti Disc

5. The Enigma Machine

6. Gordon Welchman Alan Turing

7. Located in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England and is now a heritage attraction. • Bletchley Park was the central site for Britain’s codebreakers during WWII. Run by the Government Code and Cypher School – it worked to crack secret communications – In particular, the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. • It was here where Alan Turing and his team, cracked the German Enigma and Lorenz code. • Because of the importance of code-breaking, Bletchley was Britain's ‘Top Secret’. Security was paramount and few outside of Bletchley knew its mission. All staff signed the Official Secrets Act (1939). • Historians claim that because of the intelligence at Bletchley Park – the war was shortened by 2-4 years, and the outcome of the war would have been uncertain.

8. Code Breakers in the COLD War • GCHQ, Mi5, Mi6 and their counterparts in America, the Central Intelligence Agency were very active in the Cold War attempting to uncover secrets transmitted and communicated between the USSR and its allies. • Intelligence gathering is now related to multiple aspects of their work, and the data gathered from both codes and satellites images led to the escalation in the Cold War of the Cuban missile crisis. • Mixed messages and a lack of clear communication resulted in some misunderstandings that could have potentially led to the end of the world as we know it. • The internet and ‘The Cloud’ that we use today are a result of the work that mathematicians like Gordon Welchman carried out during the Cold War. • Cryptographers and cryptanalysts still work to make and break codes but now have the ability to use complex computer programmes to assist. They would say that there is no unbreakable code, just codes that have yet to be broken.

9. CAN you Break The CODE?

10. Create Your Own Code to conceal events during the CUbAn MISSILE CRISIS Your task: In teams, choose one of the Key events below and create a code and cipher for it.

11. What do you think is the legacy of the code breakers in today’s world? • Do you think codes still exist? • How do you think codes can be used? • Are the use of codes a good thing? • What do they think could be some of the problems with secrecy and intelligence gathering?

12. QUESTIONS?