William Tutte
Tutte’s reconstruction of the Lorenz cipher from intercepted traffic is a classic example of extracting a system’s structure from its outputs—the central intellectual move of cryptanalysis and security analysis.
William Tutte was a British mathematician and wartime cryptanalyst at Bletchley Park. Working from intercepted ciphertext, he deduced the logical structure of the German Lorenz SZ40/42 cipher machine, known to British analysts as Tunny.
Lorenz and mechanised analysis
Tutte’s analysis enabled the later mechanisation of attacks on Lorenz traffic. That work formed part of the setting in which Colossus was developed and used for high-speed cryptanalytic processing.
In memoriam
Tutte died in 2002. He is remembered both for cryptanalysis and for major contributions to mathematics.
Timeline
- 1917Born in Newmarket, England.
- 1941Joins Bletchley Park.
- 1942Deduces the structure of the Lorenz cipher machine from traffic.
- 1943Mechanised work against Tunny enters operation at Bletchley Park.
- 1948Emigrates to Canada and continues a mathematical career.
- 2002Dies in Ontario, Canada.
William Tutte
- Type
- Person
- Era
- 1940s-2002
- Born
- 1917
- Died
- 2002
- Known for
- Lorenz/Tunny cryptanalysis; Statistical methods; Colossus context; Graph theory
- Tags
- cryptanalysis, colossus, tunny, mathematics, bletchley-park
Created by Joas A Santos · Something wrong or want it removed? Open an issue.