The British could not have done it without some Polish mathematicians
who did a lot of the original donkey-work. Mechanising the process was
the British achievement of that era.
IIRC, the Germans cracked the British naval codes, but to less effect.
BTB, the Germans made the first programmable computer, Z3 back in
1941. Again, they did not realise it's full potential.
Enigma ... aren't we it's child?
Roger
On 6/27/08, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I'm very aware about poetry as code, Doug, what's increasingly
> worrying me is that code might be an Enigma.
>
> (we Brits cracked that years ago)
>
> Yrs
>
> Illuminatus
>
> 2008/6/21 Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>:
> > Actually, the first thing I want to 'share' with you all I found only by
> > happenstance; the friends we were traveling with brought along a recent copy
> > of Utne Reader, with a review of this new book, Poems from Guantanamo,
> > edited by some of the lawyers representing the detainees. Who had a lot of
> > trouble even getting permission to translate & publish the poems, having to
> > vet every one of them with the Pentagon. As the article said, 'The US
> > government contends that poetry presents a "special risk" to national
> > security, since the form lends itself to coded communication.'
> >
> > Now we know, we poets.
> >
> > On the loose,
> >
> > Doug
> >
> > (you can imagine what these poems actually say...)
> > Douglas Barbour
> > [log in to unmask]
> >
> > http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> >
> > Latest books:
> > Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
> > http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
> > Wednesdays'
> > http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
> >
> > A nation that expects to be ignorant and free, and in a state of
> > civilization, expects what never was and never will be. --
> > Thomas Jefferson
> >
>
>
>
> --
> David Bircumshaw
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>
--
My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
"I began to warm and chill
to objects and their fields"
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
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