Back to the Future or Where is Cryptocellar.org?

I knew it would happen one day but I always pushed the thought away, always propelled it into the Future. What I don't have to do today I can do tomorrow or perhaps next week, next month, next year, ... The Future is endless.

Since I left CERN I knew that my Web pages at cryptocellar.org, which have been hosted free on a number of CERN Web servers since I started it in 1995, were hanging in a thin thread. When I retired in April 2012 I lost access to all CERN computers and servers including the Web server hosting my CryptoCellar Web pages. This meant I could no longer maintain the site, add new material or correct stale links. The pages lived their own life outside my control, however I knew the pages were still serving a purpose. They were still being visited by people and on 10 September 2015 the Web counter showed 779514 visits.

On 23 October 2015 I received an e-mail from a friend, he wrote:

I just went to look at something on your site, but it appears to be down. Is this a temporary outage?  Or did CERN kick you off their servers?

Sadly it is the last of his questions that can be answered with a Yes. CERN has now got their own Internet domain, .cern, and in the process of moving all their Web servers to the new domain they are also changing their Web hosting policies. From now on only persons actively engaged in CERN activities can host Web pages and the content of these pages will from now on also have a much narrower profile than previously. Cryptology is no longer seen as a subject connected with CERN and its core activities.

So my Web pages has disappeared down the drain and into the dark Internet void of deleted Web pages and closed Web servers. It means I must now start in ernest the work of finding a new hosting service for my CryptoCellar Web site and perhaps also let the pages get a new look and feel.

However there is a immediate saviour, The Wayback Machine, which has archived a complete copy of my Web pages. While you wait for me to get my new CryptoCellar up and running you can access the archived copy here: CryptoCellar Archive

Urgent Warning to Enigma Owners

Enigma Corrosion Alert

Tom Perera, the owner of the Enigma Museum — a company devoted to locating, restoring, preserving, and trading German Enigma machines as well as antique cipher, telegraph, scientific, and communications devices — has just issued an urgent warning about a serious case of corrosion in some Enigma machine. The source of the corrosion seems to be coming from one type of the plastic light filter that these particular machines are fitted with. The light filter is usually fitted in the lid of the machines and it is strongly suspected that these filters are generating Acetic acid vapours that will build  up within the case when the lid is closed and then attack all close by nickel and copper parts.

I hope this photo will convince you of the seriousness of this corrosion problem and that it will make you visit Tom Perera's Enigma Corrosion Web page for more detailed information and how you can prevent this happening to your own Enigma machine(s). 

Crypto Cellar Tales is NOT Dead

Many of you probably are wondering what has happened to Crypto Cellar Tales. A Blog that does not publish anything must be dead. This is usually the case but it is not the exactly true for Crypto Cellar Tales. I warned you in my first posting that I probably would post in an erratic fashion or to say the truth: only post when I really had something to tell. Cracking jokes I usually do on Twitter. That it would take me more than a year to make my next posting was neither intended nor wanted, but when you lead a busy life with many interests and many commitments and on top of that you are someone who is rather slow, the outcome is given.

The important thing is that I am now back and I hope to be able to post somewhat more regularly. I know now that I have things to say that cannot be said easily on Twitter so in the next months or so I hope there will be more tales to tell.