‘We need to fight for a world that Alan Turing would have wanted to live in’
Alan Turing’s legacy has been thrown into sharp focus as the UK defends against cyber attacks from autocratic regimes.
The gifted mathematician was at the nucleus of protecting a democratic nation from a tyrannical power during World War Two.
His expertise and ‘boundless curiosity’ is still inspiring data research being used to guard the nation’s systems in the digital age.
But it’s not just the codebreaker’s work that provides a common thread.
As a gay man, he would still face repression if he lived under the foreign powers trying to undermine Britain today.
Seventy years after his death, malicious, China-affiliated hackers continually target British institutions and individuals important to democracy — including MPs and parliament.
Russia-affiliated actors such as the Cozy Bears have also been carrying out cyber attacks against the interests of Western nations.
China, Russia and Iran — the three biggest known cyber-attackers — have also all carried out repression of LGBTQ+ rights according to Western campaign groups.
Turing’s life and work have now been thrown into sharp relief, including through a partnership between MI5 and The Alan Turing Institute, which specialises in data science and artificial intelligence.
Even though he lived in the dawn of computing, the need to recognise his life and contributions are arguably more important now than at any time since the Second World War.
The cryptologist’s great-nephew James Turing, founder of The Turing Trust, told Metro.co.uk: ‘Much of what Alan was working on in World War Two was related to different technologies but the challenges were very similar.
‘Obviously the threats are different nowadays; for instance people can turn off electricity networks by shutting off the power online rather than having physical entities go and do the damage, but it can all be traced back to the codebreaking work that Alan did.’
Born in 1912, Turing laid down the groundwork for a programmable computer and the development of the earliest machines.
The Cambridge graduate joined the war effort in 1939, teaming up with other mathematicians at Bletchley Park to develop the Bombe, which was capable of breaking Nazi Enigma messages on an industrial scale.
He headed the Hut 8 team of cryptographers who played a critical role in the Allies winning the battle of the Atlantic by cracking the German submarine communication system. Their work is credited with shortening the war by between two to four years.
Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School, a forerunner to GCHQ, which is currently partnering with the Institute, MI5 and Ministry of Defence in the field of data science and artificial intelligence research to provide real-world benefits to society.
Also regarded as a philosopher and theoretical biologist, he turned his post-war attentions to what he sometimes called ‘the electronic brain’, as well as establishing the Turing Test of computer versus human intelligence.
But he is most famously associated with breaking the U-boat Engima codes, which led to 84,000 messages being cracked every month as early as 1943.
Turing’s genius helped protect British North Atlantic shipping convoys from being torpedoed by the Germans, a threat which was said by Winston Churchill’s analysts to have put Britain at risk of starving.
His life was given Oscar-winning form in the 2014 film The Imitation Game, where Benedict Cumberbatch played the mathematician.
The innovator, however, met an end far from befitting his status as one of Britain’s foremost wartime figures. He was arrested for homosexuality in 1952 and found guilty of ‘gross indecency with a male’.
A man who should have been a national hero took the option of chemical castration rather than prison, with the injections rendering him impotent and sending him on what one of his biographers termed a ‘slow, sad descent into grief and madness’.
He died from cyanide poisoning two years later, 16 days before his 42nd birthday. An inquest ruled that it was suicide.
Even in the decades after his death, national security and social norms kept much of Turing’s life and work secret or unspoken.
It was not until 2013 that he was given a posthumous royal pardon.
In Pride month, which also marks the anniversary of Turing’s death on June 7, 1954, one of the enduring questions is what might have been.
‘We should recognise that Alan left behind an amazing legacy and needs to be celebrated but also acknowledge other aspects of his life which are perhaps less recognised,’ James says.
‘It’s important to recognise the role that homosexuality played in his life and the fact that his life was made much harder than it needed to be.
‘If he had been able to live longer he may have achieved much more in his lifetime and maybe come up with some ingenious solutions to some of the problems we are facing at the moment.’
GCHQ has made strides in becoming an inclusive workplace, being recognised as a top global employer by Stonewall in 2020.
In sharp contrast, the tyrannical powers seeking to disrupt and spy on the UK’s most sensitive and critical information systems exercise the kind of repression and persecution blamed for curtailing Alan’s life.
James, 33, who is originally from St Albans but now lives in Edinburgh, says: ‘The kind of people who are anti-LGBTQ+ are using it as a way to control people who might be accepting of lots of ideas.
‘It’s not about right or left wing, or even about people’s sexual preferences at all, but having a weapon to divide people with.
‘We need to start with our own society and keep fighting to help bring about the world that Alan would have wanted to live in.’
Turing also broke establish norms while working as a professor having gained a maths PhD at Princeton University.
‘One of the things I have found fascinating recently was that Alan supervised the first female PhD in computer science in his professorial capacity,’ James says. ‘To me that is astounding as it was one of the first PhDs in the field and it happened to be a woman who Alan happened to be supervising.
‘From Alan’s perspective, it was all about talent, and nothing to do with gender. It makes you question, if that’s the starting point, then why is the IT industry so male-dominated today?’
Whether fully realised or not, Turing’s life and work now span myriad reaches of British society and much further afield.
The annual Turing Award is considered the highest accolade in the computer science industry while the Trust carries out charitable projects towards the aim of a technological-enabled world.
The Edinburgh-based charity wants to make sure disadvantaged regions do not fall behind Western nations in digital take-up, and its work includes providing quality IT and training to schools in sub-Saharan Africa.
The biggest programme lies 7,400 miles from Bletchley in Malawi, where donated computers have been supplied to 81% of all secondary schools in the country’s northern region.
When the Trust first began supporting the south-eastern African nation in 2016, only 3% of schools had access to IT.
‘No matter what society you live in, the digital world is interacting with you on a daily basis, whether you choose it or not,’ James says.
‘Having those skills can be so fundamental in so many industries.
‘The Malawians know that these opportunities are immense and you don’t have to convince the students whatsoever that IT skills are worth learning, they grab them with both hands. We want to make sure that all schools in Malawi have access to IT equipment that is so fundamental to students being able to learn those skills.’
One of the 334 schools supplied even recorded a video of pupils joyfully singing and clapping in unison by their desktop computers in an IT class, to say thanks for the British donations.
James believes that his famous ancestor would approve of the scene.
‘Alan was a person with boundless curiosity, which was one of the main drivers motivating him to work in all kinds of fields with all kinds of people and to build on the work of others,’ he says.
‘This was something that Bletchley Park in particular enabled, and the famous sheds became incredible sources of innovation.
‘If we trace this through to today, we can see so much opportunity through technology in spite of adversity.’
As the democratic world finds itself under increased threat, Turing’s legacy continues to light the way for freedom and equality.
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