A Visit to America's National Cryptologic Museum

A Visit to America's National Cryptologic Museum 美國國家密碼博物館之旅 Today we visit a small museum in the American state of Maryland. It is called the National Cryptologic Museum. There you will find information that was once secret. 今天我们将会参观美国马里兰州的一个小博物馆，它被称作‚国家密码博物馆‛，在那里你将会找到一些曾经是机密的信息。 The National Cryptologic Museum is on Fort George G. Meade, a military base near Washington, DC. It tells the story of cryptology and the men and women who have worked in this unusual profession. 国家密码博物馆位于福特乔治米德，华盛顿特区附近的一个军事基地。它讲述了密码和曾在这个不寻常的岗位上工作过的人们的故事。 The word cryptology comes from the Greek "kryptos logos." It means "hidden word." Cryptology is writing or communicating in ways designed to hide the meaning of your words. “cryptology（隐语）”一词来源于希腊语"kryptos logos", 其意为‚隐藏的文字‛。密码术就是隐藏话语的意思来写作或交流的方法。 The museum has many examples of equipment that was once used to make information secret. It also has equipment that was developed to read secret messages. The method of hiding exact meanings is called coding. People have used secret codes throughout history to protect important information. 这个博物馆中有很多设备的样品，这些设备曾被用来加密信息。这里还有被开发出来读取机密信息的设备。隐藏确切意思的方法被称为编码。历史上，人们一直在用编码保护重要信息。 The National Cryptologic Museum celebrated 60 years of cryptologic excellence in 2012. One event there marked the sixtieth anniversary of the National Security Agency. Two former NSA workers shared their memories of operating a code machine called Sigaba. 国家密码博物馆在2012年的时候庆祝了卓越密码学六十周年，标志着国家安全局成立60周年。国家安全局的两名前特工分享了他们操作Sigaba编码机的记忆。 Many skills are needed to send and translate secret messages. The first and most important skill is knowing how to keep a secret. Helen Niebouar worked in Washington during World War Two and for the United States military in Japan after the war. 发送及破译机密信息需要很多技巧，最重要技巧就是知道如何保密。海伦·涅波尔在二战中曾在华盛顿工作过，战后又在日本为美国军方卖力。 "The officers in charge of the code rooms would remind us constantly to keep our mouth shut. Don't even mention one thing about where a message came from and certainly nothing it said. And they'd say, „Now when you have a top secret clearance that is what it means, top secret. Keep your mouth shut.' So we got reminded a lot." ‚编码室的长官不停地提醒我们要守口如瓶，对于信息的来源要只字不提，更不要说信息的内容。他们会这么说：‘现在你们有了最高机密的许可，意思就是最高机密。一定要守口如瓶！’我们经常被这样子提醒。‛ The Sigaba machine made plain information a secret language to those who lacked the equipment to understand it. The one that Helen Niebouar operated was a complex device. The National Cryptologic Museum displays both early and modern tools that have been used in secret communications. 对于那些缺少解码设备的人来说，Sigaba机可使简单信息变成加密语言。海伦·涅波尔曾操作的那台就是非常复杂的设备。国家密码博物馆展示了早期和当代用于加密交流的工具。 One display at the museum explains American attempts to read Japanese military information during World War Two. Japan's Navy used special machines to change its written information into secret codes. This coded information was then sent by radio to navy ships and military bases. The information included secret military plans and orders. 博物馆中的一个展品解释了二战中美国试图获悉日本军事信息的举动。日本海军使用特殊的机器把写好的信息变成密码，然后再把这些加密的信息通过无线电发给军舰和军事基地。这些信息包括秘密军事计划和命令。 The leaders of the Japanese Navy believed no one could read or understand the secret codes. They were wrong. Americans were working very hard to learn the Japanese code. The United States urgently needed to break the code to learn what Japan was planning. 日本海军的领袖坚信没人能够破译或理解这些密码，他们错了。美国人非常努力地工作来破译日本人的编码，他们亟需破解这些编码来了解日本人的计划。 In 1940, an American woman named Genevieve Grotjan found some information being repeated in Japanese coded messages. At the time, she was a civilian working for the government in Washington, DC. Her discovery helped the United States understand secret Japanese diplomatic messages. 1940年，一个叫吉纳维芙·格劳安的美国女人发现了一些信息在日本的加密讯息中反复出現。那时，她是一个为华盛顿特区政府工作的平民，她的这一发现帮助了美国破译日本的外交讯息。 After the United States understood the code, it was possible to study messages from the Japanese ambassador to Germany and to his supervisors in Japan. 美国破解了这个编码后，就有可能研究日本大使发给德国及其日本上级的讯息了。 Understanding these messages helped the United States prepare for a possible war in the Pacific with Japan. Yet, the United States was surprised by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Japanese military did not send coded military information to the country's diplomats. Military messages used different codes.