Welcome to Cryptotourism, a sightseeing guide for cryptography and its history. As a wiki, everyone is welcome to start new articles, add or update information, correct mistakes, and so on!
Articles[]
- See Category:Cryptotourism for the list of all articles.
- See List of places by country for an index by country
- See Cipher machines for the index of encryption devices
Why start such a site?[]
One reason is that, in 2003, I visited Chicago and had the chance to briefly visit the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. I had no idea, however, that the museum housed the U-505 and other material of interest in the history of cryptography; I managed to miss these exhibits altogether! I was quite disappointed to find out about it only later after my return to the UK.
I hope that this site might help people with an interest in the history of cryptography to find out about things to see — things that they might never otherwise have heard about.
When complete, this guide should be able to answer question such as:
- I'm visiting Chicago; while I'm there, is there anywhere worth visiting with regards to cryptography?
- Where can I go to see an Enigma machine?
Currently, this wiki has not been publicised, although if you've stumbled across it, you would be very welcome to contribute. After I've done a little work seeding the wiki with a few basic articles and structure, I'll publicise the Wiki to a few groups and people.
Draft policies[]
Things to include:
- Articles on museums which either focus on cryptography (e.g. National Cryptologic Museum, Bletchley Park) or which include items of interest in cryptography, e.g. Smithsonian, British Science Museum.
- Locations of interest to cryptography; perhaps things like the birthplace of Alan Turing, memorials to cryptographers, current and past headquarters of crypto agencies, undeciphered inscriptions, and so on.
- Handy general information about a museum/location (how to get there, opening times, prices, etc.)
- Specific information about the cryptographic aspects of a museum/location.
- Photographs.
- "Index articles" — for example, an Enigma article should list locations of viewable Enigma machines; the United Kingdom article should list all the interesting locations within the UK, etc.
Things to exclude:
- Detailed information about cryptography or its history; this is better handled by linking to Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia. At the start of an article, a couple of sentences introducing the topic should suffice.
- Guides to places or museums outside of the scope of cryptography; this is better handled by Wikitravel, a free travel guide.
Style:
- If available, a link to appropriate Wikipedia or WikiTravel articles should be provided after the headword; such as: "United Kingdom (Wikipedia) (Wikitravel)..."
- We want to keep the wiki up to date, as, for example, a museum might move a collection into archive storage for a while and so on.
| Cryptotourism | ||
| This page is part of Cryptotourism, a collaborative project to build a guide about museums and other locations of interest for cryptography and its history. | ||
| All pages | List of places by country | Cipher machines |