“The Imitation Game” and Alan Turing’s Real Contribution to Computing

It was still much more of a team effort than usually presented though. It does irritate slightly the way that people concentrate on the code cracking and Turing as it seems unfair in to directions: it forgets the other people who also contributed significantly, and pretty much ignores the significant work that Turning did do largely solo.

My father was a child in central Italy during WWII. He was about 8 years old when the Americans pushed the German line north of his home town in 1944.

My father tells a story about how after the Germans were safely gone, he and his friends raided an abandoned German supply depot near his home. Inside, they found an unusual typewriter with built-in rotary dials. They had no idea what it was, and eventually they carried it to a nearby field and blew it up with explosives that they also stole from the depot. I have no idea if it was an Enigma machine, but it kind of fits the description.

Also, this is a tremendous story that took place near his hometown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Sasso_raid). Unfortunately, the bad guys pulled off the daring raid.

*edits for clarity and I think the year was '44, but I don't recall clearly anymore.

EX: The Edward Snowden 'leaks' of NSA collecting phone record information was treated as a 'new' leak. However, such spying was common for other parts of the government to the point where apparently a drug lord used a one such database to clean house internally. So, phone records might be useful for finding terrorists, but there clearly useful for finding snitches.

Yes, but without Gordon Welchman (the person who brought her on board), they needed some other story to explain how she was involved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vincent_Atanasoff

These kinds of criticisms seem little more than trying to jump on an SEO bandwagon. It's important that the true accomplishments, history and acknowledgements are understood by the writers and others working on a production like this, but it does not matter so much that the film portrays exactly these. Just like SciFi writers should understand what is and is not possible, but are free to relax those limits in their stories.

Firstly, it is not a documentary, it is a work of fiction which is "based on a true story". Secondly, we're not watching presenters telling us what's going on; we're watching actors playing characters. With that in mind, when I watched the film I not only enjoyed it immensely, but I also found it completely clear that the writers had their facts straight. I didn't once cringe at the presentation, which I often do when non-experts describe something technical which I understand.

As for your individual points:

1) The intention of having Turing write to Churchill was to establish the (partially subconscious) arrogance of the Turing character, and his logical approach to solving problems. Mentioning Churchill's involvement at all gives the audience a clue to the importance of the work, which might otherwise be seen as conscription-dodging. This was more important for the film than making a realistic portrayal of the process of resource aquisition in wartime Britain.

2) There was definitely the feeling that nobody understood Turing's exact approach when he was designing the Bombe, but during the construction phase the only sense of confusion I got was whether their time was better spent on Turing's unproven machine or on their known, but inefficient manual approaches.

The character of Joan guesses at one point that Turing is trying to build a Universal Turing Machine. There is no mention whether the Bombe itself is or is not such a machine, but as the film progresses, we see post-war Turing working on another machine which is most likely universal (presumably the Manchester Mark 1 or one of its successors). The Bombe was clearly a stepping-stone to get to this later machine, just as Turing hints that this machine is just a stepping-stone to some later, "smarter" machine. There is a strong implication that Turing's character doesn't regard these machines as distinct devices, but as the continual "upgrade" of the same core concept. That his first iteration wasn't universal doesn't matter.

3) Artistic license. The audience mustn't be bombarded by too many encryption concepts early on, but the story much march ahead, so why not use each one as a plot device?

4) It makes the film more interesting though. Again, it's not a documentary. It does give a sense of the paranoia of the period, and the double/triple/quadruple bluffs work very well to portray the intelligence of the characters, especially that Turing can't just think his way out of his problems (which is important, given how much Turing's intelligence had been put across earlier). This changes the character of the film from superhero Turing saving the day with his super brain, to a dangerous and intricate game between very capable people.

5) The fact it was mentioned at all shows that the history was known. The theatrical intension is clear: Turing's character needed the help of his team, even if he would not admit it. This minor plot point could be established without bringing in a new character for the audience to keep track of, so the attribution was shifted on to an existing character. Again, not a documentary.

6) That scene works well in his home, and benefits from the presence of the machine. It would be awkward to interrupt the conversation while they pop down the road to the University where it would have been in reality.

7) How else could it be told to the audience? Should Turing have been talking to himself while out on a run? The police interrogation provides a context for telling the story in the first place, as well as an impending darkness that it's not all going to end well (else he wouldn't be getting investigated). Having a bunch of eminent historians and scientists doing talking-head sequences interspersed with CGI infographics only works for documentaries.

8) The crosswords are a useful plot point, can be related to by the audience (using competitions to recruit secret spies would be especially effective at inspiring children) and are a nice little piece of trivia. The fact that they weren't very useful kind of ruins it though; hence they invented a use by recruiting the Joan character that way. Also, this allowed the contemporary marginalisation of women in computing to be projected into the film; she is forced to prove herself to the doubtful men.

I think it is an excellent film, and it spreads knowledge of the nature and importance of the work done by early computer scientists, and hopefully gives some people the inspiration to carry on that work (Computer Science, not GCHQ!). It is not a reference book; very few will even remember the kind of minutiae pointed out here. It's better to bring a lot of people most of the way to the truth, in a way that they enjoy; than to squabble over the last few mm, alienate almost everyone, present the field as toxic and jaded and make those few who stick around miserable.

She wasn't treated so much as a love interest as an intellectual interest and a close friend. Having been to Bletchley Park some years ago, the tour guide pointed out the spot where the two of them would picnic together, so there was some truth to it. His orientation is mentioned infrequently and in hushed tones as it would have had to have been back then - it was criminal after all.

I'm not saying it's an accurate movie, but it's no U-571 where hollywood decided it would be better if the Americans were the ones that captured the U-Boat and the enigma machine because it would play better to a US audience that way...