Diamond Geezer has a nice post about the aniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. He justly celebrates the British code breakers who, day after day, broke German codes during World War II:

"Hidden away at Bletchley Park, the cream of the UK's code-breakers were ready and waiting each morning to try to crack that day's code. There were little clues, like the fact that messages often started with a weather report, or the fact that Enigma never ever coded a given letter as itself. The code-breakers also used some impressive technology of their own, first a huge mechanical device called a Bombe, and then in 1943 a machine that was nearly the world's very first computer, called Colossus. Colossus was 5 metres long, 3 metres deep and 2.5 metres high, made from plugs, cables and valves, and worked using punched tape. Ten identical machines were built and, eventually, they were able to crack the German codes on a regular basis. One of the men behind the invention of Colossus was Alan Turing, a true genius and the father of modern computing."

These people absolutely made a difference to the war against Nazi Germany. In many ways, they're also part of the reason you're reading this on a computer screen right now. Diamond Geezer also features a whole slew of cryptography-related goodies and links. Theophrastus, who led me to this post, adds a fine pointer to more information about the code-breakers of Bletchley Park.