Dorothy Blum

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Dorothy T Blum 1924 1980.jpg

Dorothy Toplitzky Blum (born February 21, 1924 in New York City ; died October 1980 ) was an American computer scientist and cryptanalyst . She worked for the National Security Agency and its predecessor institutions from 1944 until her death in 1980 .

life and career

Dorothy "Dottie" Toplitzky was born in New York City in 1924 as the daughter of Austro-Hungarian immigrants. After graduating from Brooklyn College in 1944, she joined the US Army's cryptology department . She stayed with the organization after World War II , when it became the United States Army Security Agency and later the National Security Agency (NSA). In 1950 she married the NSA mathematician Joseph Blum, with whom she had a son.

In the 1950s Blum worked in the internal organization of the NSA with the mission "to meet the latest advances in the field of data processing" and recommended computer technologies for cryptanalysis and communications intelligence ( communications intelligence could be adapted, COMINT). She wrote computer software for the NSA and led efforts to teach NSA staff to write cryptanalytic programs. It began using the Fortran programming language three years before its official publication in 1957 .

During the 1960s and 1970s, Blum continued to work in the field of computer science, helping design the NSA's computer systems and automating processes. In 1972 she became head of the NSA's Computer Operations Organization (C7). At the time, she was the only woman in the entire NSA management team. In 1977 she was appointed Head of the Plans and Projects Development Organization (T4) in the Telecommunication and Computer Services Organization . She also participated in the Women in NSA group (Women in the NSA, WIN).

Blum died of cancer in October 1980 at the age of 56. In 1983 the Women in NSA achieved that an internal award was named after Blum, the Dorothy T. Blum Award for excellence in employee personal and professional development (award for outstanding achievements in the personal and professional development of employees). In 2004, she was inducted into the NSA Hall of Honor . An official NSA biography states that in her 36-year career, Blum "has significantly changed the way NSA conducted cryptanalysis". She was voted one of the 100 "Most Outstanding Women in Government".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c The Lady from the NSA. In: Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum. January 22, 2016, accessed October 15, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c NSA: Dorothy Toplitzky Blum: A Pioneer Computer Scientist. ( Memento from October 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: Cryptologic Almanac 50th Anniversary Series . February 24, 1998, accessed October 15, 2019.
  3. ↑ Dorothy Blum. In: National Security Agency. January 15, 2009, accessed on October 15, 2019 : "keep [ing] abreast of the latest advances in the field of computing"
  4. ↑ a b c Dorothy Blum. In: National Security Agency. January 15, 2009, accessed October 15, 2019 .
  5. ↑ 1954: Dorothy Blum: Computer Analytics Innovator. In: National Intelligence. Retrieved October 15, 2019 .
  6. ^ Dorothy T. Blum: 2004 Hall of Honor Inductee. In: National Security Agency. 2004, accessed October 15, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Dorothy Blum. In: National Security Agency. January 15, 2009, accessed on October 15, 2019 : "Blum significantly shaped the architecture of computer systems and automation of processes at the Agency"
personal data
SURNAME Blum, Dorothy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Toplitzky, Dorothy (maiden name); Blum, Dorothy Toplitzky
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American computer scientist and cryptanalyst
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH October 1980