The Cryptology Expert's Tales

摘要

The last few years have witnessed five films, a television series, and several books centered on the breaking of the German Enigma cypher machine, many of which have centered on the personality and achievements of Alan Turing. The film The Imitation Game has been widely praised as a "historically-" based account of his development of computers to break the Enigma, and his persecution as a gay man. The movie and its leading man may well have deserved Oscar nominations, but the film deserves only a "Gentleman's C" for historical accuracy. Yet, the film is very likely to be what the general public knows of the role of signals intelligence (SIGINT) in World War Ⅱ.