Hecke 🐺🇪🇺📯Dec 29, 2022
Sheril Kirshenbaum

Alan Turing was a mathematician & cryptographer who was a leading code-breaker in the team that decrypted Nazi Germany’s Enigma machine during WWII. He inspired modern computing & what became AI.

Instead of being hailed as a genius & hero, Turing was convicted as a homosexual & forced to endure chemical castration. He died by suicide at 41 in 1954.

The British government didn’t apologize until 2009 & Queen Elizabeth II finally pardoned him in 2013. #history #science #HistoryRemix

Dec 28, 2022 at 10:42pmMetatext
Show threadK35k1ld1Dec 28, 2022
@Sheril Better late than never. But one half century it’s quiet long…
Show threadJamie Howarth Dec 28, 2022
@Sheril I happened to be having tea in the House of Lords the moment the bill pardoning him was voted on & approved for Royal Assent. Was very proud to have been there for a part of the process.
Show threadJamie Howarth Dec 31, 2022

@Sheril shortly after the bill was passed to pardon Turing (this was a law passed for one person's pardon & expungement), another bill was passed - the following year - to collectively pardon & expunge the record of anybody convicted of a "homosexual crime".

Baby steps that turned into an avalanche.

Show threadJamesBl4cDec 28, 2022
@Sheril shocking when he saved so many lives. Forced to commit suicide. Without him the world would be a completely different place.
Show threadLeicester WorkerDec 28, 2022
@Sheril He was gay - "a homosexual" is a rather outdated expression
Show threadEric KarnowskiDec 29, 2022
@leicesterworker @Sheril well he was convicted in the 50s. I think “gay” didn’t become the preferred term until the 60s but I could be wrong. But even so, his conviction would have said “homosexual” not “gay”
Show threadFubaroqueDec 28, 2022
@Sheril Remember him each time you answer a Captcha… because that is what the T means, Turing. 🥴
Show threadundead enby of the apocalypseDec 29, 2022
@Sheril @fubaroque remember him every time you use a computer, Turing did so much more groundbreaking work in computer science and the field would have not been the same without him
Show threadEssjay 🏳️‍🌈  Dec 29, 2022

@enby_of_the_apocalypse @Sheril @fubaroque

Yep, he is often described as 'The father of modern computing'.

Show threadViking60Feb 12, 2023
@Sheril @fubaroque That’s cool! I didn’t know that. But what do the other letters stand for, if anything?
Show threadFubaroqueFeb 12, 2023
@bandersona1 @Sheril https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA
CAPTCHA - Wikipedia

Show threadViking60Feb 12, 2023
@fubaroque @Sheril Thanks for the link. I just thought it was a form of ‘capture’.
Show threadFubaroqueFeb 12, 2023
@bandersona1 @Sheril Well it is a bit contrived, just as they say on the Wikipedia. ;-)
Show threadPhoenixSerenityDec 28, 2022
@Sheril Watched a documentary about this incredible man a couple of months ago.
Show threadbignoseDec 28, 2022

Thanks @Sheril, it's always important to note how delayed the institutional acknowledgement of these atrocities can be.

The message should be clear: raise hell about awful institutional behaviour, until they give in, because that's the only way they will ever improve.

Slowly and mealy-mouthed and likely not the same people who committed the atrocity. But better than never having it acknowledged: only then can we hold the institution to account in future.

Show threadJulia TDec 28, 2022
@Sheril 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤬
Show threadChris SansburyDec 28, 2022
@Sheril The system of pardoning has always bugged me. Surely it should be the British government asking for a pardon for their behaviour.
Show threadundead enby of the apocalypseDec 29, 2022
@Sheril @notnixon very true.
Show threadcaitilinDec 29, 2022
@notnixon @Sheril
… on target, Chris 🎯
Show threadHannah AlmeidaDec 29, 2022
@notnixon @Sheril preach.
Show threadFeral ThoughtsDec 28, 2022

@Sheril
To me, the queen pardoning Alan Turing has always felt like adding cruelty to injustice. Aww, look how kind and forgiving the queen is!!!

Shouldn't she have been made to repent and ask forgiveness for the crime committed by her regime? Shouldn't her successor now be made to do that?

Show threadlord pthenq1Dec 29, 2022

@feralthoughts @Sheril

Indeed. She should apologized to him.

Show threadSteve Moore Dec 28, 2022
@Sheril
Just imagine if Turing, and others like him, hadn't been subjected to hatred and bigotry, and had lived another 40 years. So much wisdom lost to ignorance.
Show threadJohnMasheyDec 29, 2022
@Sheril
And the Association for Computing Machinery’s highest award was named after Turing, starting in 1966:
https://maturing.acm.org/byyear.cfm
Show threadmkbDec 29, 2022

@Sheril Seeing Turing’s office at Bletchley— even though I knew the objects in the room were props and not his stuff —was quite moving.

What an amazing man.

Show threadEmily M-O 🏃🏼‍♀️Dec 29, 2022
@mkb @Sheril I've visited there too--very cool place. I don't usually go in for hypotheticals but I find the idea that his work shortened the war by several years, saving millions of lives, pretty awe-inspiring to consider. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18419691
Alan Turing: The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives'

Alan Turing's codebreaking activities in the Second World War may have saved millions of lives.

BBC News
Show threadWestTexasJesusDec 29, 2022
@Sheril F the Queen and their phony construct.
Show threadPhoenixSerenityDec 29, 2022
@westtexasjesus @Sheril F the monarchy in general.
Show threadHannah AlmeidaDec 29, 2022
@westtexasjesus @Sheril I mean, it's still technically a crime in Texas. It's unenforceable now, but still in the books. All it takes is another SCOTUS ruling that this should be left to states and Texans will be all set to be convicted of gayness. Punishable by fines/jail time and having to register as a sex offender. Still not a bad as Massachusetts. There it's a crime against nature, under the same statute that prohibits sexual activity with minors and animals, and could get as many as 20 yrs
Show threadHannah AlmeidaDec 29, 2022
@westtexasjesus @Sheril and there are a handful of states that still require people convicted of sodomy to register as sex offenders, even if they move out of state, even though it's not a punishable crime anymore. Will all the consequences that entails. How often do you think people bother to find out the details of a sex offender's conviction? How does it look on a job application? How utterly devastating do you suppose it is, to report to law enforcement every 90 days?
Show threadWestTexasJesusDec 29, 2022
@gwenwifar @Sheril which could lead us into a grand discussion of why one group of people always feel the need to control the lives of other groups of people.
Show threadSteve LovellDec 29, 2022
@Sheril Thank you for this "toot". We need to be reminded of these horrors so, hopefully, they will not happen again
Show thread💿🌈🌻Alexander Worthington🌻🌈💿Dec 29, 2022
@Sheril Oh my gosh, every time I think about what happened to Alan Turing I want to burn the UK to ashes. Every Single Time I think about him it hurts my heart and then makes me angry. The man deserved so much better than he got.
Show threadLstn2urmamaDec 29, 2022
@Sheril
Very sad when people find out how wrong they were in the first place...😔
Show threadSensible CroneDec 29, 2022
@Sheril
RIP Alan Turing.
Show threadTom J. BrennerDec 29, 2022
@Sheril
Britain should be embarrassed of it's self. Had they not had Truing they & the world may have very well been bowing to Hitler.
Show threadFreakinboxDec 29, 2022
@Sheril Sometimes it's hard not to see how the Germans and the UK going at it was just bad guy vs other bad guy.
Show threadMariuszDec 29, 2022
@Sheril except his team didn't decrypt Enigma. He just continued work done by Rejewski, Rozycki and Zygalski who were first to decrypt it.
Show threadBannedalotDec 29, 2022
@mks @Sheril "just continued" is a bit of a stretch. The Polish mathematicians had a mathematical model but It would have been impossible to calculate the answers with their machinery. Turing was well aware of his debt to them... He even called his machine "bombe"
Show threadMariuszDec 29, 2022
@bannedalot @Sheril Bombe was first created in Poland. Get your story straight.
Show threadBannedalotDec 29, 2022
@mks @Sheril my message makes it quite clear to anyone with a decent understanding of English {which is not clouded by ridiculous nationalism) that Turing was giving credit to the Poles by calling his machine the same name.
Show threadMariuszDec 29, 2022
@bannedalot @Sheril Have I said that Turing did not give them credit? My response was to the OP and my claim is that his team didn't decrypt enigma, but they only continued work started by someone else. Only recently the British started admitting that there was another group who did all the initial work. Isn't that the definition of ridiculous nationalism when you can't admit that someone else was successful before you?
Show threadBannedalotDec 29, 2022

@mks @Sheril there is not one Enigma code.

Probably the Polish made an even bigger contribution by hiding the fact they'd started to break it. True bravery. A lot of work went into cracking Enigma and it would have got nowhere near as far without Turing., as he would have got nowhere near as far without the earlier Polish work

If you want to be a proud Pole, rather than a nationalistic nicompoop, you can talk about the Polish work without demeaning Turing.
--

Show threadMariuszDec 29, 2022
@bannedalot @Sheril "The British bombe was developed from a device known as the "bomba" (Polish: bomba kryptologiczna), which had been designed in Poland at the Biuro Szyfrów (Cipher Bureau) by cryptologist Marian Rejewski, who had been breaking German Enigma messages for the previous seven years" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe
Bombe - Wikipedia

Show threadBannedalotDec 29, 2022

@mks @Sheril and then the Germans made it harder.

Might help to learn a bit before you go round patronizing people who know more than you. Especially if it's for no other reason than to steal credit from Turing to falsely assign it to Poles who were stumped.

Turing called it the Bombe in credit to the Polish work.

You need to understand that there was not a single "Enigma code" that could be cracked as one and done. It is a family of ciphers.

Show threadMariuszDec 29, 2022
@bannedalot @Sheril I'm not stealing anything from him. The fact is that the Enigma was first decrypted by Poles. The Bombe was developed by Poles. And all that information was given to British so they didn't start from scratch. They weren't stumped they just had to evacute because of the war. British are trying to take all the credit for decrypting the enigma when the Poles were decrypting it way before British even began working on it.
Show threadBannedalotDec 29, 2022

@mks @Sheril

One again, slowly, for the hard of thinking.

Everybody knows that the Polish came up with the mathematical model of the Enigma machine and cracked some of the first enigma codes.

Nobody here is trying to take away credit for that. Turing didn't, I'm not and you... Well, actually you are. "just continued" my arse.

Then, in your DK bliss, telling others to "get their facts straight". .

Show threadBannedalotDec 29, 2022
@mks @Sheril By the way, if you think the British are "taking credit" for Enigma, don't watch U-571. Your braincell will explode.
Show threadMariuszDec 29, 2022
@bannedalot @Sheril yeah, well Yanks learned from Britts how to take credit they don't deserve.
Show threadBannedalotDec 29, 2022
@mks @Sheril you are my first Mastodon block.
Show threadMariuszDec 29, 2022
@bannedalot @Sheril glad I could help
Show threadLadyWillowDec 29, 2022
@Sheril #bletchleypark Just finished “The Secret Lives of Codebreakers … “ by Sinclair McKay. Interesting details about Turning. /;)
🐝🌺🦋🌸🌿🐕‍🦺
Show threadMysticalWolfDec 29, 2022

@Sheril Has anyone seen the movie about him?

It's breathtaking and still... Teaches us that regardless of what accomplishments were taken... That because of whatever is in THEIR bedroom... Is more important than what THEY DID...

How twisted is that?

Show threadAlicePaulDec 29, 2022

@Sheril

Apology and pardoned still doesn’t equate to honoring and celebrating Turing’s gift that enabled freedom for most of the entire damn world. How hard is this?

Show threadchrisDec 29, 2022

@GoAskAlice

Well, he *is* the face of the new £50 note.

The others on the shortlist were Mary Anning, Paul Dirac, Rosalind Franklin, William Herschel and Caroline Herschel, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, Stephen Hawking, James Clerk Maxwell, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Sanger.

Show threadNatalia KerrDec 29, 2022
@Sheril
The great movie The Imitation Game tells his sad story. A great film.
Show threadMkeenoDec 29, 2022
@Sheril brilliant man. Great loss to all of us. Can you imagine, I think not.
Show threadCharDec 29, 2022
@Sheril Society’s stupidity and fears have robbed the world and humanity of so much genius, beauty and treasure