Utopia Tech
Strategy1 min read

Details of Alan Turing’s Voice Encryption System

Really interesting piece of cryptographic history : In November 2023, a large cache of his wartime papers—nicknamed the “Bayley papers”—was auctioned in London for almost half a million U.S. dollars. The previously unknown cache contains many sheets in Turing’s own handwriting, telling of his top-secret “Delilah” engineering project from 1943 to 1945. Delilah was Turing’s porta

UT

Utopia Tech

July 17, 2026 · 1 min read

Share

Really interesting piece of cryptographic history : In November 2023, a large cache of his wartime papers—nicknamed the “Bayley papers”—was auctioned in London for almost half a million U. S. dollars.

The previously unknown cache contains many sheets in Turing’s own handwriting, telling of his top-secret “Delilah” engineering project from 1943 to 1945. Delilah was Turing’s portable voice-encryption system, named after the biblical deceiver of men. There is also material written by Bayley, often in the form of notes he took while Turing was speaking.

It is thanks to Bayley that the papers survived: He kept them until he died in 2020, 66 years after Turing passed away.

Originally published at schneier.com

Share
▸ Want a deeper look?

Talk to an architect about applying this to your stack.

60-minute technical evaluation, no obligation. We'll map the ideas in this article to your environment.

Skip to main contentDetails of Alan Turing’s Voice Encryption System · Utopia Tech