Enigma, TypeX and Dad - Computerphile

This installment of the Bletchley Park series has a personal note for Professor Brailsford. He tells us what his dad did in the war.
Professor Brailsford's notes: bit.ly/ultrasecret
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This video was filmed and edited by Sean Riley.
Computer Science at the University of Nottingham: bit.ly/nottscomputer
Computerphile is a sister project to Brady Haran's Numberphile. See the full list of Brady's video projects at: bit.ly/bradychannels

[@gasgas2689]

You are very lucky to have got all this knowledge of what your dad did. Mine only told me about 3 years before he died that he was in North Africa, saw this crossword test advertised, passed it and was sent to England for Signals and Cypher training. He was then sent to the front lines to intercept the Enigma signals and he forwarded them on to England using the Type x machine. That is all he would tell me, and only in 2015 did he reveal that.

[@dafl00]

LOVED this! Nothing beats history as told by primary sources, and I am so happy that the professor shared this with all of us.

[@CodeAsm]

its kinda cute too.

[@RichUncleGhostMutt]

that's pretty patronising

[@CattoRayTube]

The professor isn't a primary source, but he's only one step removed from one who he was very close to so I get your point.

[@solderbuff]

11:51 - I loved the detail that F. Brailsford was pedantic enough to make a note on the Winterbotham's signature :) Seems like he was a nice guy.

[@SlideRulePirate]

R.V.Jones, author of "Most Secret War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939-1945". A good read

[@mediocrefunkybeat]

Wonderful. I'm not the patriotic type but I have utter, utter respect for yourself and particularly to your father for his work during the way. Absolutely phenomenal.

[@Nilguiri]

I could listen to Professor Brailsford for hours. Great stuff!

[@FriendlyNeighborhoodNitpicker]

I could listen to this guy tell stories all day! Computer history, the war, encryption, UNIX, doesn’t matter. Just brilliant.

[@tobortine]

Thank you so much for sharing this story. My father was also in the war, not in anything like the same capacity as yours but I feel it's important that the details of what these guys (and girls) sacrificed and contributed is not forgotten.

[@thomyhr]

This series has been great! Absolutely fascinating! We want more! :D

[@Soldier842]

Amazing story! Prof Balisford is such a great story-teller!

[@charlescushing1]

This guy is great to listen to. Crystal clear, an excellent speaker, able to convey complex information to the layman intelligently and entertainingly. I just started watching his videos on ENIGMA a few days ago.

[@Jaqen-HGhar]

My grandfather was stationed at Area 51 and also worked at NORAD he still can't talk about a lot of it but he was involved with transmissions. He actually worked on the U2 spy plane. He would love your video talking about ACC and DEC I think. He always talks about Enigma and Bletchley Park and what not. Great video.

[@kd1s]

In my case I come from a family full of engineers on my mom's side. My maternal great grandfather who sparked my interest in electronics had sons in engineering and was also the inventor of the mechanism to allow you to swap out patterns in a Jacquard loom on the fly without having to stop the machine.. And my interest in electronics lead me into information science and well to me influencing my nephew and so on.

[@wattage]

Great story professor! Thank you for sharing. Enjoyed every minute!

[@shayneoneill1506]

Fascinating story, Prof Brailsford. Thanks for sharing!

[@Vanguard6945]

lovely story, i like how it was both informative and had a little narrative weaved into it :)

[@KipIngram]

I just love this whole story about you and your dad. And I'm so very grateful to him for his contribution to that whole part of history. There were so many heroes that we usually don't get to hear about - I'm glad I got to hear about him. Thank you very much for sharing!

[@stevenjlovelace]

Hands down the best Computerphile video I've seen. Congratulations on a job well done!

[@juliandavis6028]

These are such amazing stories. Thank you for recording them for all of us.

[@michaelsommers2356]

I think the real trigger for allowing Winterbotham's book was that in 1973 Gustave Bertrand's book was published in France, which let the cat out of the bag, even though it didn't attract much notice in the English-speaking world.

[@profdaveb6384]

Hmm! Many thanks -- I didn't know that. What's the book called?

[@michaelsommers2356]

ProfDaveB "Enigma ou la plus grande énigme de la guerre 1939-1945", Paris, Librairie Plon, 1973. In case you don't know, Bertrand was high up in the French cipher service. He gave the Poles the stuff the French got from the German spy Hans-Thilo Schmidt. He was captured when France fell, slipped away, and spent most of the war in hiding. I have never seen his book, and have no idea whether it is available anywhere.

[@2adamast]

Gustave Bertrand kept his office on the move until 1944 and as a perfect spy slipped away after his capture. Meanwhile no one on Enigma captured or fleeing talked about it between 1940 and 1945, leaving Germany to its naive beliefs.

[@bencheevers6693]

This is like one of the best sagas on youtube closely matched by the second playlist on Colossus. Brailsford is a legend.

[@Karisigurd]

This has been an interesting series of videos and stories and I love how he wrapped it up and ended it on a personal note. Great job guys!

[@Syntax753]

Thanks for taking the time to make this series! I'm new to your videos but great style/mix of story telling and facts. I couldn't help but remember my early years listening to my grandad's stories about the war. A passionate view on a time which should never be forgotten. Thanks!

[@Christopher-yn3sk]

Professor Brailsford, you are a very good story teller, and that probably makes you a great teacher, I cannot wait for more videos with you

[@brianmessemer2973]

This is JUST. SO. VERY. LOVELY. My goodness he's lovely.

[@MrMikeexley]

Great video, fascinating.

[@colinowenuk]

I could listen to this guy for hours!

[@oafkad]

Jesus that intro scared the shit out of me. "This final episode."

[@donrobertson4940]

There a story about a couple who got married in the late forties. One day in the seventies when the Bletchley park story came out, one said to the other 'you know, dear, I was at Bletchley', and the other relied 'really? So was I'.

[@CrepitusRex]

What a wonderful story. Thank you so much for sharing.

[@fabslyrics]

fantastic story thanks for sharing ! thanks to your dad for his service and for our freedom he helped saving . we will remember and cherish !

I'm a teacher from Argentina. No at all related to computers (except that I love them) and I find all of the stories on this channel fascinating.

[@lewrawlings]

What happened to the audio near the end? Seems to be some sort of static electricity noise

[@Computerphile]

a fault on the mic :( >Sean

[@gasgas2689]

@@Computerphile No, it's not a mic fault, what you were saying is still secret so your speech was encrypted. . . . . . :)

[@james5353]

Great videos, so interesting to hear the details of how they went about it all

[@michealkelly9441]

Bravo, professor. You've made learning a subject I knew nothing about simply amazing

[@troyl1663]

Fantastic story. Thanks for sharing!

[@KlaxontheImpailr]

8:40 I wonder if any interviewee suffered terror induced fatal heart attacks from this procedure.

[@User36282]

Wow that 16 minutes went by fast. Great story, what an interesting man! I could listen all day!

[@pavelczyzynski7683]

My new favourite YT channel. Thankyou for my invitation

[@mattgibbs73]

Delightful series of information about this whole secret operation, brilliantly explained. Best wishes and thanks from Harrogate 👍🙂

[@MrSlowestD16]

Very interesting story - thanks for that!

[@bendtsen1]

Thank you for this very interesting story.

[@Ivankarongrafema]

"One of the silent men". Probably the best thing he could write.

[@malcolmgruber8165]

I love the series for the Enigma and all of the things that went on around it. Also, I've noticed during these videos my headset picks up some static noise that occurs while someone is talking. It's weird that I don't hear it in any other videos I watch.

[@123456twat]

awesome to hear all you had to say.

[@simoncutmore]

My Mum was a Cypher Queen. Uxbridge, Tripoli, Washington. Rare (apparently) Hi speed decoder. Typex. Drums made her go quite deaf. Sure you will understand. She died 2004 but told me many stories. S/O Swan. Assuming you are properly genuine, you will understand everything I have just said!

[@Valery0p5]

I remember while watching this series something really similar to distributed computing...

[@TheDarkerPath]

Just wonderful, thank you!

[@mnoxman]

The Swiss NEMA cipher machine was much more complex but did it suffer from the same crypt analysis issues that Enigma did? How did it compare to the Lorentz?

[@2adamast]

It had a reflector, makes it a 4 rotor Enigma like the M4 but it had a full set of rotors to make the rotors turn "randomly" instead of sequentially.

[@yrebrac]

Lovely story, thanks for sharing.

[@rogercroft3218]

This is marvellous. Thank you.

[@diggnuts4834]

How was the Typex machine able to encode a letter to itself? Seeing how the rotors, stators and the reflector worked on precisely the same principles as the enigma, I should not happen. I'm also unable to produce this on various Typex simulators. There is a difference in how the stackerboard and the two stators worked for extra security. The stackerboard being reciprocal would always connect two ways. If A was connected to Z, then Z was connected to A. The Typex stator solution did not have this and could patch A to Z and Z to Q. Perhaps this attribute is being confused with the inability to encode a character to itself, which I think both machines could not do. I'd love to be wrong about this one, so if I am and someone could explain to me how the mechanics of the TypeX managed to encode and A to an A, with what combination of rotors and settings, that would be fantastic.

[@soup2634]

Fascinating story!

[@gl1500ctv]

Excellent story! More!!!

[@polbecca]

Professor Brailsford could describe a book of carpet samples and I would still be hanging on every word.

[@eddiebergin741]

What a wonderful story,thank you.

[@diba4645]

Vigenère, Babbage, Painvin, Scherbius, Rejewski, Turing, Alexander, Ellis, Cocks, Williamson, Diffie-Hellman-Merkle, Rivest-Shamir-Adleman, Zimmermann - and many more - just a few names - I recommend Simon Singh: The Code Book - The Secret History of Codes ans Code-Breaking. My Number One Book of all times.

[@thierry9592]

i love this man so much.

[@maryclynch9356]

My papa, who brought me up, when asked, said to me that he built and designed planes. His name ( or maybe a relative)is in RAF files but no rank is beside it. Now, I do believe he was one of the five crossword people who were chosen. Sadly he was killed in a tragic accident in the 70s so I never found out the truth. Now I sort of remember him taking down four letter combinations and wondering what they were all about(This was after the war). Papa was a Christian who loved King and country. He could have gone to university, but gave his inheritance money to his mum. I ended up being the first of my generation, who got to University and college and I loved every minute of it. I whispered in the bus, ( to gran and papa)as I passed the university, I'm here !

[@sameyers2670]

Thank you for sharing this.

[@jeffdege4786]

It was my understanding that there were Warsaw Pact nations still using Enigma-type machines until the 1970s.

[@stephanc7192]

Great video!

[@TenguWolf]

I think that sounds like a good ending to the effects of the war for Prof Brailford's dad, carrying all that weight, for all those years, those big secrets. Finally, the man who put all that weight on him, breaks the silence and takes the weight off of him, no more need for secrets, finally moving on.

[@MrDebauch]

awesome story... really awesome.

[@chad7615]

Did the professor pop his collar out because of the commenters that were bothered by it on the enigma videos? If so, brilliant.

[@resonance2001]

What microphones do you use generally for the videos? How much are they?

[@mUbase]

What an amazing story.

[@PixelPhobiac]

Great story!

[@DeoMachina]

This is a hell of a story, I feel bad for his dad though :p

[@blipman17]

the professor maybe got the best answer possible. My grandpa said his daughter that he was a sharpshooter. Which he always regretted. The professors father did only do intelligence work. Which is important In war, but also in preventing deaths.

[@Neueregel]

hey guys do more videos on Alan Turing !!

[@Nilguiri]

11:40 Fred's "Silent" is actually more legible than his dad's annotation.

[@bborkzilla]

The SLUs had enough rank to be able to move around with little interference, but not so high that they attracted much attention.

[@ProperLogicalDebate]

Instead of saying "don't tell anyone of what happened" to bad they didn't say "you can only tell this archive. Only authorized people can see it. Your children might be told that what you did was so important that it must be kept safe."

[@trexsharktruck86]

I didn't know Wayne Rooney was a cipher sergeant

[@rolfjohansen5376]

this story should be identified as a national treasure

[@zubirhusein]

I'm surprised they didn't put like timed panic charges in these machines so they would self destruct if they were ever in threat of being captured

[@zubirhusein]

Ah okay, makes sense

[@thumbwarriordx]

great story

[@davidwilkie9551]

Definitely qualifies as a "Ripping Yarn" starring hush-hush scientists.

[@davidgillies620]

22 across is IMPALE

[@sp10sn]

From this experience, no wondering why professor chose math for his wonderful brain ❤

[@jwt242]

Great!!

[@peteranderson037]

A Typex AND a one time pad? They weren't messing around, were they?

[@bg954]

Aaawww touching story !

[@KipIngram]

I took typing in high school. I'd like to say I was prescient and foresaw the future importance of computers, but I'm afraid that is just not so - I just wanted to be in the same room with all the pretty girls for an hour every day. 🙂 But wow - as things turned out it was one of the most useful skills I ever acquired; I'm just completely comfortable with a keyboard in front of me. We use Slack heavily for collaboration at work, but some of my colleagues will always insist on a hone call or a WebEx or whatever - some kind of voice interaction - and I've speculated that these are the ones of us who never really got fully comfortable using a keyboard.

[@dannygjk]

Great stuff! Say no more...

[@richardrisner921]

It is a weird feeling that for all his wealth of knowledge, I can still type faster than the Professor.

[@FloydMaxwell]

Does Professor Brailsford ever mention his father's first name? So far I've got "F..."

[@sergioavila2720]

Fucking awesome!

[@brandondoty9887]

I can't stop looking at how dirty that screen is. Completely distracting from the topic.

[@007KayElleKay]

Brandon Doty - you need to get a life or help for OCD .

[@Bjowolf2]

Germans: "Ach, zo zhat iz vhy ve lost ze var?" 😂

[@PTNLemay]

So... wait. Is Bothans a play on the term Boffins?

[@angusm2271]

amazing. accept my knees.

[@0MoTheG]

I do not get why they were so tight about this for almost the full 30 years. Maybe the Soviets had done the same? No one would have used the enigma anyhow, because there were better ways.

[@ThermoMan]

I believe from reading elsewhere that many countries did use Enigma machines after the war, not knowing it had been broken, and could be read by the UK/USA.

[@DustinRodriguez1_0]

At the time, there was a great fear that the Axis powers would discover that their encryption had been broken. Looking back with the advantages of hindsight, we now know that these worries were pretty much nonsense. On the one hand, the Axis powers never even once considered the idea that Enigma might have been broken. They were far too arrogant to even entertain the idea. All the hoops they jumped through, the attacks they let kill people in order to not 'tip their hand', it was all unnecessary. Secondly, and one they really should have realized at the time, Enigma was the best they had. If they had publicly announced and proven that they broke Enigma, the Axis war effort would have been CRIPPLED. They wouldn't have been able to communicate anything of importance via radio. They would have had to resort to running messages by hand! With them reduced to that while the Allies could still use radio, we likely could have ended the war much sooner.

[@jam99]

Dustin Rodriguez Hindsight is a wonderful tool used to criticise past actions. I cannot see how anyone can say that they would definitely have not had the impetus or made the effort to create new cryptography having found out their existing method had become obsolete.

[@GeoffreyHuber]

Donald Ervin Knuth

[@huluvublue112]

i would like to take this comment to acknowledge his sweater

[@gasgas2689]

And don't forget the Prof's trademark: Left side shirt collar always sticks out over his jersey. . . . . Important details matter !

[@TheScooterNoob]

Carlisle is a city.

[@MrGoatflakes]

S..s..seven.. Rotors... o.O 6:07

[@woodywoodlstein9519]

Amazing dad. But dr D. You are smarter