By Cory Doctorow on Science

The National Lottery has awarded Bletchley Park — the site of the invention of modern cryptography and a key piece of computer history — a £460,500 grant as a start on the £10m worth of desperately needed preservation spending. There’s some indication that they’ll come up with more money in the future, too.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m overjoyed to see Bletchley saved from ruin, but isn’t it kind of ironic that the funding to preserve the institute that demonstrated, once and for all, the power of randomness and the dangers of statistical innumeracy is coming from a state-sponsored scam that preys on innumeracy and bad intuition about randomness? I suspect that Turing and co would have sensibly looked at the lotto and said, “Pssht, I have a higher chance of dying before the balls are drawn than I have of winning the jackpot. No thanks.”

A bid to save Britain’s computing heritage has been given a $100,000 (£50,000) boost by a joint donation from hi-tech firms IBM and PGP.

The donation will help curate and restore exhibits at the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park, Bucks.

The two firms said they hoped the money would kick-start further donations from the technology industry to make up an estimated £7m needed to run the museum.

Exhibits include Colossus, thought by many to be the world’s first computer.

Andrew Hart, head of privacy and security services for IBM in the UK and Ireland, told the BBC that the technology held at Bletchley was a crucial part of the UK’s national heritage.

“CNET reports that PGP, together with IBM and other technology firms, is mounting a fundraising effort to benefit the ailing Bletchley Park, home of the Station X codebreaking efforts in World War II. ‘We’re calling attention (to the fact that) Bletchley is falling into disrepair, and that, probably, the world owes a debt of gratitude to that place,’ said Phil Dunkelberger, chief executive of PGP.”

In Technology

UK computer scientists sign a letter criticising the ongoing neglect of Bletchley Park – home of the wartime codebreakers.

By Cory Doctorow on Old school