Boston Linux VIRTUAL Meeting Wednesday, May 20, 2026 - The Role of Code-Breaking in World War II

When: May 20, 2026 7:00PM EDT (6:30PM for Q&A) Topic: The Role of Code-Breaking in World War II Presenters:  Chuck Pross Location: Online: https://meet.jit.si/blu.org Meeting will be recorded, but not live streamed. Recordings will be posted: https://blu.org/video/ Summary: A historical retrospective of NSA code-breaking during World War II Abstract: It should be no surprise that your luck at poker will significantly increase if you peek at your opponents cards. What's true in poker is also true in war.s Chuck Pross presents a short, non-technical talk on how cryptanalysis (code-breaking) helped shorten World War II by as much as two years, and in doing so, saved millions of lives. Much of code-breaking during World War II was classified until well into the 1980's, long after most of the history of that war was written, so much of it's role is not well known. Chuck will share a brief history of the roles of codes and code-breaking, then discuss the significant events of World War II where cryptanalysis played a pivotal role in the allies final victory. The discussion will end with a short discussion of how today codes play a vital role in our modern society. Bio Chuck graduated from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute as an Electrical Engineer and did graduate work at Northeastern University. He worked at IBM's Advanced Development Laboratories, General Electric's Ordnance Division, and at NASA's Electronic Research Center in Cambridge, MA, before being recruited by the NSA to do several years of classified development work. He returned to NASA, where he served as Technical Director for the Earth Orbiting Satellite Data Information System and retired in 2001. For further information and directions please consult the BLU Web site: http://www.blu.org Our meeting recordings are found on the Video tab: http://blu.org/video/ -- Jerry Feldman<gaf.linux@gmail.com> Boston Linux and Unixhttp://www.blu.org PGP key id: 6F6BB6E7 PGP Key fingerprint: 0EDC 2FF5 53A6 8EED 84D1 3050 5715 B88D 6F6B B6E7 _______________________________________________ Announce mailing list Announce@lists.blu.org https://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/announce