Questions (a) Was it really necessary to keep the Navajo and Bletchley Park secret for 20+ years? What benefits were associated with keeping these secrets classified? (b) What benefits would releasing the information have had for the Navajo people and for the code breakers at Bletchley park? (c) Which were more important: the right of the state to classify the encryption secrets or the rights of the individuals to raise their status in society?
Questions (a) Was it really necessary to keep the Navajo and Bletchley Park secret for 20+ years? What benefits were associated with keeping these secrets classified? (b) What benefits would releasing the information have had for the Navajo people and for the code breakers at Bletchley park? (c) Which were more important: the right of the state to classify the encryption secrets or the rights of the individuals to raise their status in society?
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Transcribed Image Text:the American military. Their efforts won Iwo Jiwa (a key battle
in the Pacific) and were instrumental in winning the last half of
the war.
The Navajo code is one of the few that weren't broken in the
war. The head of Japanese intelligence later admitted that they
had broken all of the other American codes, but they had no
idea how to break the Navajo code. Like the cryptanalysts at
Bletchley Park, the Navajo's role in the war was classified. It
took until 1968 for the American government to declassify it.
Questions
(a) Was it really necessary to keep the Navajo and Bletchley
Park secret for 20+ years? What benefits were associated with
keeping these secrets classified?
(b) What benefits would releasing the information have had for
the Navajo people and for the code breakers at Bletchley park?
(c) Which were more important: the right of the state to
classify the encryption secrets or the rights of the individuals to
raise their status in society?
Transcribed Image Text:Topic A. Unsung Heroes of WII
Many traditional histories of WII contain only records of
battles and generals. However, recent discoveries and
declassification of information have meant that increased
attention has been given to the code breakers and encoders
who kept the allies' messages safe and broke the Japanese and
German messages. A huge portion of fighting a war is knowing
what the other side is planning while at the same time keeping
your own army organized with encrypted messages. Thousands
of encrypted messages were passed on each front of WWII on
each day of the fighting.
One of the reasons that the allies won the war is that British
and Polish broke the German Enigma code, and that the
Americans developed an unbreakable talker's code for use on
the Pacific. The Germans had a machine called the Enigma,
which they used to encrypt messages. Before the war started,
the Polish intelligence (with help from French intelligence)
developed a partial crack of the Enigma machine. This method
was developed by Hans-Thilo Schmidt. After the war started,
(through a move of great stupidity) Schmidt was put to work
doing useless work for the war effort. His work was passed
onto the British team at Bletchley Park. Alan Turing, one of
the pioneers of programming, was part of this team.
Alan Turing was already doing research into computing. A few
of his papers are considered classics in the history of computer
science and Turing is generally acknowledged as one of the
greatest computer scientists to have ever lived. Using his own
and Schmidt's research, Turing developed machines called
'bombes' to decrypt messages produced by Enigma. These
decryptions won the Battle of the Atlantic and were very
important in winning the war against the Germans.
Sadly, after the war was over, Turing and all of the people at
Bletchley Park (who had built the first computer) were not
allowed to even admit that they had helped in the war effort.
One code breaker remembers that people insulted him for not
fighting on the front during the war and for being useless
during the war - and he could do nothing to defend himself.
Even their own families were unaware of what they had done
to help. Most of the people at Bletchley Park died before their
work was declassified. Alan Turing, himself, was persecuted
for being a homosexual and was forced to take 'hormones' to
cure him. He became very depressed and committed suicide.
Also, during WWII, the Americans needed to develop a secure
code that couldn't be cracked by the Japanese. A man who had
been raised on a Navajo reservation, Philip Johnson, suggested
that a Native American language be used as a code. Native
American languages are radically different from all other
language groups in the world and are often very complex. The
Navajo were selected because very few foreign anthropologists
had studied them. Altogether, 420 Navajo were recruited into
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