Talk:Cipher Bureau (Poland)

Printing problems?
When I try try to print this article, whether to "Preview" or to PDF, Firefox hangs. Since Firefox has become a highly-desirable browser, this is a major problem. And no, using IE is not a "solution," even though it works.

Jordansmith 06:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)jordansmith
 * You could file a bug report for Firefox. &mdash; Matt Crypto 08:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Terminological inexactitude (two versions)
The differing inappropriate terminology in English (codes are sloppily used to mean both code and cypher, while the reverse is true in Polish) and Polish is fascinating, but perhaps doesn't belong here. I think it is a worthwhile thing to retain in the English WP as so many readers will have no sense of the oddities of other languages. perhaps it should be rather in cryptography where such confusions have been noted in the introduction. Very interesting however, as two advanced nations' languages should be each wrong and misleading, but inversely so. ww 21:02, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Missing discussion
I seem to recall that, before this article was moved here (to a closer approximation of the Polish), there had been some discussion on the talk page. If those comments could be recovered and transferred, it would improve the combination of article/talk. Worth doing if anyone understands the underlying nuts and bolts sufficiently. ww 21:02, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I looked at the history of the article, but it seems that it has never been moved (maybe it was merged?). If you could recall the name of the other, older article, you may find the comments (I can copy the comments the talk page in the unlikely event it was deleted).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:27, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
 * If I recall correctly, this was once called Polish Cypher Bureau and then Bureau Syzfrow sithout the accent mark. Does this give enough hint? ww 10:57, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
 * There are two redirects (Biuro Szyfrow, Cipher Bureau), neither of which has a talk page. There never were articles Polish Cypher Bureau or Bureau Szyfrow, so we are back to square one.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:15, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Piotrus, If you're familiar with the writing of the recently late Hunter S Thompson, you will also be familiar with the off-hand observation -- after an extended analysis of something outrageous or another -- that "on the other hand, it may have been the drugs". Since my drugs are all legally prescribed unlike many of htose Thompson was concerned with, perhaps I should talk to the doctor about hallucenogenic issues that haven't, somehow, come up before....
 * I distinctly remember at least two discussions, with non-native speakers of English, about the contrast between the way their language used words akin to crytography and cypher and code and such and the way English does. One of those discussions, I'm almost sure, was in the talk page for a prior version of this article. But, as I note above, it may be the drugs, ...
 * What I'll do is go through my contributions list, as far back as it goes, and try to winkle out something helpful. But the relevant entires may be more than 500 edits ago, however, so anyhting halpful may have already gone up with the flapping shade.
 * At this point, having successfully dodged learning anything about the backroom operations of WP (eg, finding redirected pages, as in this case) since 2001, I think I'm beginning to see that an exclusive concentration on article content for my spare time WP participation has its disadvantages.
 * Let this be a lesson to others. ww 15:25, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
 * What about checking talk pages for articles related to this one? I do recall seeing your contribs on Enigma machine talk page as well. Still, going through (talk) contribs may be useful - and you never know what useful tidbits of info you can dig up (like answers to some old questions).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 05:51, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

There are some possibly pertinent discussions on the Ultra and Bomba (cryptography) discussion pages, and there may also be some on other related discussion pages. logologist 08:06, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

1942?
What happened in 1942? This article could benefit from some conclusion, summarizing the fates of its personnel.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:27, 21 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Done, a couple of days ago. Further details are available in articles on individual members of the Polish cryptological team.  logologist 08:06, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Retitle as "Cipher Bureau"
Since there currently is no Wikipedia article titled "Cipher Bureau," I propose that this "Biuro Szyfrów" article be retitled — "moved to" — "Cipher Bureau." logologist|Talk 05:41, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Particularly as the templates relating to the Bureau already are Englished to "Cipher Bureau." logologist|Talk 06:14, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Is there any reason to prefer the Englished name? We typically use the name of organisations in their own language: Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, B-Dienst, Bundesnachrichtendienst etc... &mdash; Matt Crypto 07:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm with Matt here. And there's a further point for English speakers. Cipher Bureau is blandly innocent of any additional informatino. Biuro Szyfrow (w or w/o accent marks) is mildy exotic and carries the useful information that we're not dealing with standard English use here, watch for curves. ww 15:06, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Date(s) of July 1939 conference
My source for saying 25 and 26 July is John Herivel's book "" which gives details of the pre-meeting on 24th in Warsaw and the two days of meetings at Pyry. He cites "". He also details the Paris meeting of January that year. --TedColes (talk) 17:56, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Władysław Kozaczuk, Enigma (1984), pp. 59–60 — relying on Gustave Bertrand, Enigma (1973), pp. 59–60 — indeed gives the pre-meeting date as 24 July 1939, but the Pyry (aka Kabaty Woods) meeting as having taken place on only one day, 25 July.
 * If Denniston and Herivel give detailed accounts, perhaps the Kabaty conference deserves a separate substantial article? Certainly it must rank as one of the most seminal and important conferences, of any kind, in history.  Nihil novi (talk) 20:05, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Does Kozaczuk say explicitly that there was no meeting after 25 July, or does he just not mention any such?
 * I find Herivel's evidence reasonably convincing. He cites Hugh Foss's 1949 paper as saying that at the tripartite Paris conference of 9 and 10 January, the brilliant, but eccentric cryptanalyst Dilly Knox (who in September 1937 had broken the unsteckered Enigma used by the Italians and Spanish during the Spanish civil war), was bored by Maksymilian Ciężki's lengthy talk, and was so brusque in his response to the French cryptanalysts' description of their methods, muttering "But this is what Tiltman did", that Foss and Denniston had to "rush in with conciliatory remarks".
 * In his description of the July conference, Herivel cites both Denniston and Bertrand. He is quite specific about Knox being offhand almost to the point of rudeness on 25th after Ciężki's 3-hour talk. In the car back to the Hotel Bristol, Knox had said that he thought that the Poles had, as in Paris, mis-represented the situation and had not worked out Enigma, but must have "bought it or pinched it". That evening Bertrand, Sandwith and Denniston discussed Knox's "bloody-minded and intrangisent mood" and decided to make a quick exit the following day. However, by the morning of the 26th Knox was "his old bright self again", and the day ended with promises of mutual co-operation. --TedColes (talk) 06:47, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know what to make of Knox's comment that the Poles had, in Paris, "misrepresented the situation": they had specifically made a point of not revealing their achievements if the British and French had themselves made no substantial headway with Enigma.
 * Kozaczuk (Enigma, 1984, p. 59) says:
 * "Bertrand writes:
 * "'...On July 24, 1939, we all arrived in Warsaw, some of us by Nord-Express (Braquenié and myself), some by plane (those coming from London), and all anxious about the morrow.'
 * "That same evening, Langer informed his French colleague [Bertrand] that the efforts expended had not been in vain and that not only had Enigma's secret been plumbed, but the machine itself had been reconstructed. The French would receive one copy, the British another.


 * "The next morning, the [French and British] were driven to the B.S.-4 facility in the Kabaty Woods [south of] Warsaw. [A] reconstructed Enigma was shown.... Cmdr. Alastair Denniston and Alfred Dillwyn Knox were 'left speechless...'...


 * "Upon seeing the Polish Enigma double, Denniston and Knox wanted to contact London at once and have mechanics and electricians sent down to draw up plans of the machine. They did not believe their own ears when Langer told them that there would be a machine each for Paris and London.


 * "The next day, Bertrand and Braquenié took a Polish flight to Cologne, where they transferred to a French airliner..."


 * Again, why not start an article on the "Kabaty conference"? It would provide a site for details such as you cite above and a venue for clarifying some aspects of the conference, including its dates.  Nihil novi (talk) 08:12, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for these details. I'm afraid that, at present, I have other priorities than starting a Kabaty conference article. --TedColes (talk) 09:04, 23 May 2011 (UTC)


 * There were a number of meetings, the 'most important' being the 24th of July 1939 one. The three British members present were Denniston, Knox, and Menzies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.220.248 (talk) 16:06, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

'Decipher' or 'decrypt'?
'Decipher' is a more precise word to describe what was done to Enigma messages, and it is a word that is commonly used in day-to-day English. See, for example, John le Carré's The Constant Gardener: " ... My handwriting is very bad but you will decipher it." Why then use the less familiar and less precise 'decrypt'? --TedColes (talk) 05:41, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The distinction that I have seen drawn is that decipherment is the reading of a message by its legitimate recipient, using a known key; whereas decryption is the "breaking" of an intercepted message by an unauthorized person. The distinction seems a useful one.  Nihil novi (talk) 06:36, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Not a distinction that I was aware of, and one that isn't implied by the etymology.--TedColes (talk) 09:16, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * For one, Władysław Kozaczuk, in Enigma (1984, p. xi), refers to decryption as "the 'breaking,' or 'reading,' of secret correspondence by a third party".
 * Don't you think it may be confusing to refer, as you do, to the Enigma cipher as a "code"? The two terms, "cipher" and "code," have quite specific meanings in cryptology.  Nihil novi (talk) 09:23, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I accept your points. Cipher and code are indeed different. Where have I referred to the Enigma ciper as a code?--TedColes (talk) 10:07, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * "Gordon Welchman has written: 'Ultra [Allied intelligence from decryption of Enigma and other codes] would never have gotten off the ground if we had not learned...'"  Perhaps a satisfactory replacement for "codes" here would be "crypto-systems"?  Nihil novi (talk) 05:17, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I find "crypto-system" rather alien. The Glossary in gives the following definition of Ultra:
 * British cover-name, from June 1941, for all high-grade signals intelligence, derived not only from Enigma but from Fish and hand ciphers; later adopted, with some variants, by the US.
 * So I think that I would prefer "Gordon Welchman has written: 'Ultra [Allied high-grade signals intelligence] would never have gotten off the ground if we had not learned...'"--TedColes (talk) 06:22, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. Thanks for keeping an open mind, and for all your contributions to this subject field.  Nihil novi (talk) 06:44, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Citations needed
The article is not properly referenced; refs need to be added for this article to maintain its GA status. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 22:38, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Update. I see references have been added, a GAR is not necessary any longer. Good job! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 16:07, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Setbacks or challenges
The Oxford English Dictionary gives the following definitions:
 * Setback: a reversal or check in progress;
 * Challenge: a call to prove or justify something.

The whole task of breaking the Enigma cipher was a huge challenge and the successes of Biuro Szyfrów in achieving this deserve great praise. However, the succession of changes that the Germans made to increase the security of the system, meant that by the summer of 1939 they were decrypting only a small proportion of messages that that were being intercepted. To my mind the word 'setbacks' is much more appropriate than 'challenges' to describe this situation, so I am going to undo the recent change.--TedColes (talk) 07:21, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

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Requested move 2 August 2020

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

Biuro Szyfrów → Cipher Bureau (Poland) – It's the English Wikipedia, use English terms when possible. Proposed new title lets the user see what the article is about when they access it or see it in a list.

An earlier informal discussion in 2006 ended in a 2-2 tie, but one editor argued that "We typically use the name of organisations in their own language: Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, B-Dienst, Bundesnachrichtendienst etc...", but two of those three articles have seen been renamed to English, so that argument doesn't appear to apply anymore. I suppose things have changed since 2006, which was a long time ago.

This Google Ngram seems odd since use of either term seems to start only in 1970. I suppose nobody wrote about the organization in English til the Ultra info started to come out. Anyway, if the Ngram is accurate, it shows "Polish Cipher Bureau" usually ahead of "Biuro Szyfrów" and "Biuro Szyfrow" combined, by a bit. And that's not considering how many of the generic "Cipher Bureau" references are to the Polish Cipher Bureau -- surely some, and maybe a lot.

(We could rename the article to just "Cipher Bureau" since there's no article by that name. However, that's silly; the single additional word "Polish" places the entity in much better context when encountered here or in a list, and is thus a service to the reader. Template EnigmaSeries names the link to this article this way, rather than the head-scratcher "Cipher Bureau". "Polish Cipher Bureau" would be OK too. Count me out of supporting any rename to just "Cipher Bureau".) Herostratus (talk) 13:36, 2 August 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. OhKayeSierra (talk) 20:55, 12 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Note: Edited to change suggested target to be "Cipher Bureau (Poland)" rather than "Polish Cipher Bureau" per points made below – Herostratus (talk) 18:06, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

AGREE. I've thought from the beginning that the title should be "Polish Cipher Bureau", and I think so now. If the subject of this article were a Chinese Cipher Bureau, would we insist on spelling it in Chinese characters, which few outside China can read? If it were a Russian Cipher Bureau, would we spell the name in Cyrillic script, which few outside Cyrillic-writing countries can read? Thank you! At last, some common sense. Nihil novi (talk) 22:55, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Strange analogies, given that Polish uses the Roman alphabet and therefore we can all read it. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:29, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
 * In other words, Poland should be discriminated against for its poor judgment in having elected to use the Roman alphabet!
 * Nihil novi (talk) 22:21, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
 * "Reading" without the ability to pronounce correctly and to understand on sight, is not really reading.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 10:21, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

AGREE Sensible for English Wikipedia.TedColes (talk) 09:40, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The ngram clearly doesn't show that "Polish Cipher Bureau" is used much more commonly than "Biuro Szyfrów" and "Biuro Szyfrow", so the original term should be preferred. Incidentally, if it is moved then Cipher Bureau (Poland) would be more appropriate. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:29, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment: Since the U.S.'s "Black Chamber" (1919–29) is also referred to as the "Cipher Bureau (United States)", use of "Cipher Bureau (Poland)" may be justified for disambiguation.
 * Nihil novi (talk) 22:17, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Alright. That makes sense, I'll make that change. 18:06, 12 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose, I don't think I've seen enough evidence to decide it's the WP:COMMONNAME, even in English.--Ortizesp (talk) 02:20, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment: "Cipher Bureau" is what it's called in Władysław Kozaczuk, Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher was Broken, and How it was Read by the Allies in World War Two, edited and translated by Christopher Kasparek, Frederick, Maryland: University Publications of America, 1984, which outlines the Polish Cipher Bureau's history and is probably the definitive history of the fundamental Polish contributions to what became Ultra in World War II. Nihil novi (talk) 00:23, 14 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Support per WP:UE. Srnec (talk) 00:39, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Support either Cipher Bureau or Cipher Bureau (Poland). We use English wherever possible and it's the exception, not the rule, that foreign entities like this one are referred to by native name when there is an obvious translation. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  09:20, 24 August 2020 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.