The 2014 movie The Imitation Game tells the story of Alan Turing, the UK coding genius who built the influential Turing Machine, helped defeat the Nazis, but who also accepted chemically castration as an alternative to being gaoled for homosexual offences.
Treated disgracefully by the establishment, he was finally pardoned by the Queen in 2013, following a public apology by then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009. The film was overdue recognition for the work Turing had done in computing and winning World War II for the allies.
During the War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park, an hour's drive north of London and while Turing died at the tragically young age of 42 and can't come back, Bletchley Park has since resurrected itself as a national monument for the work done there.
The Government bought the 581-acre site in 1938 and it was reopened in 1993 as a museum, but is now expected to play a vital role in the current coding threat of cybersecurity, not secret Nazi codes.
That coding legacy has now become an endowment that will be one of the major factors in the UK's battle against the ongoing threat of cybersecurity. Late last week it was announced that Block G of Bletchley Park would become the UK's first (not-for profit) College for Cybersecurity.
The enigma machine at Bletchley Park turned World War II for the allies. Credit: Katarzyna Stawarz... [+]
Set up by people in the UK cybersecurity industry and privately funded by a company called Qufaro, the College will provide a free cybersecurity education for those who have just left the Sixth Form (High School) and have the necessary coding skills. It follows initiatives such as the Cybersecurity Challenge UK, which has set up a number of competitions to interest young people in a cybersecurity career.
It offers a series of national competitions, learning programmes and networking initiatives designed to attract young people to become cybersecurity professionals and to boost the national pool of cyber skills.
This programme of activities is to bridge the skills gap and may perhaps become a conduit to those applying to work at the College in Bletchley Park. A similar pipe to employment at the government's intelligence and signalling agency GCHQ from the College will streamline this educative process.
The challenge is stark. According to Cisco, there is a global skills shortage of more than one million people and it is imperative that young talent is found at an early age and nurtured. The minatory nature of hackers is expected to increase and the College at Bletchley Park will not only maintain the achievements of the past, it hopes to match them in the future.
Like many other countries, the UK has finally woken up to the threat cybersecurity poses to corporations, cities that are more dumb than smart and even the individual whose home may be threatened by IoT vulnerabilities. The UK government recently announced a £1.9 billion ($2.5 billion) investment in cybersecurity over the next five years and more resources are expected to be deployed in countering the cybersecurity threat.
The first intake of students at Bletchley Park will be in 2018 and all involved will be delighted if a number of Alan Turings can be discovered to save this war.
That remains to be seen, but one certainty is that they will not face the treatment that Turing experienced after the war. Thanks in part to The Imitation Game, his work and genius will never be forgotten.
