

Alan Turing papers on code breaking released by GCHQ - colinscape
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17771962

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IsTom
Did the Brits publicly apologize for what was done to him yet?

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winknudge
Nope. Would you excuse/apologise everyone who was prosecuted under that law or
just make a special case for Turing?

I too believe what happened was wrong but if you start apologising for some of
the old laws which now seem completely backwards... where does one stop?

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excuse-me
>A GCHQ mathematician said the fact that the contents had been restricted
"shows what a tremendous importance it has in the foundations of our subject".

It probably shows that nobody with the authority to clear them for release
understood them and it was safer/easier to just stamp restricted and let
somebody else worry about it in another 30years than admit it.

It's pretty much a safe bet that, even within GCHQ, anybody with any seniority
in the British civil service will have no technical background.

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DanBC
> _It's pretty much a safe bet that, even within GCHQ, anybody with any
> seniority in the British civil service will have no technical background._

A tricky question to answer. Most of what they do is secret, and people don't
talk about the work at all.

It's not necessarily a bad thing to leave people good at the job doing the job
and let people good at managing doing the managing.

But look at, for example, mathematician Clifford Cocks who (it's safe to say)
is a good mathematician and is in a position of seniority with GCHQ and
possibly other research partnerships such as the Heilbronn Institute.

(<http://www.maths.bris.ac.uk/research/heilbronn_institute/>)

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excuse-me
> leave people good at the job doing the job and let people good at managing
> doing the managing.

In my experience of UK military/security service there is a boffins + officers
divide attitude all the way up.

Above any level of required knowledge it moves into the Oxbridge/PPE/civil
servant mindset - it shouldn't take too much imagination to realise that these
people aren't necessarily hired for the brilliance in management.

