Duke University researchers develop a novel method of encrypting text, harnessing the chaos of computer simulated bacterial growth. Expanding on their recent article in data science journal Patterns, the team summarizes their use of machine learning frame-by-frame analysis of organic reaction–diffusion system animations to en- and decode text strings. “These patterns in essence constitutes a new, digitally generated coding scheme, which we call Emorfi,” they write.

Danja Vasiliev announces that Vending Private Network (2018), an artwork he created with fellow critical engineer Julian Oliver, was banned from display at Moscow’s soon-to-open Cryptography Museum. The installation sets up a virtual private network (VPN) as publicly funded infrastructure (taking cues from condom vending machines). A way around government censorship and surveillance, VPNs are deemed illegal by the Russian state, Vasiliev explains on Twitter.

First unveiled in March, the Bank of England’s newly-designed £50 note featuring the portrait of Alan Turing enters circulation. Coinciding with what would have been his birthday, the note celebrates the computer pioneer and wartime codebreaker who helped accelerate Allied efforts to read German Naval messages enciphered with the Enigma machine, shortening World War II. The note also promotes diversity, recognising Turing’s appalling treatment by the state for being gay. After being arrested and convicted for gross indecency, he committed suicide in 1954.