*A* Censored History of AA-83 😉

+1 ♥️ for the envoi.

Thanks.

Thanks, Mark

It's (still!) hypothetical but I'd guess that the organisation would be fundamentally reformed from above leaving the ethical middle- and lower-level staff to accept the new reality or move on. Their ethical product wouldn't get through the new filter at the top.

I think if a country was democratically backsliding, a reasonably apolitical intelligence agency would be the first thing to be undemocratically backslid into following the party line.

No. 'The School', maybe, just as GCHQ people today talk about 'The Department ' or (perhaps older, retired, people) 'The Office'. You'll sometimes see complicated 'Golf, Cheese and Chess Society' formations, but I've never seen them in anything contemporary and they aren't things people say.

I was surprised that it was written by a Norwegian.

Did Quex ever think he was subordinate to the Foreign Secretary?

Thanks, Frode.

Sid James's nephew.

… there's an awful lot of creative writing: imagined conversations and a neatness you don't get in real life. Tiltman *was* a fan; Marks *did* write poem codes; the Dutch Resistance was shamefully treated.

But it's a 'must read', perhaps the perfect introduction to cryptology for 14+ teens. (2/2)

I refuse to comment on that bl**dy pigeon: it blighted a couple of months of my life!

The Leo Marks book is an excellent read, and has brought more than one person to cryptanalysis as a career. It has a solid and historical foundation, but (you were expecting a 'but') ... (1/2)

It's you he'll bother, over there. He'll have been watching Clarkson's farm.

So it's just a £38 rosé?

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4437... shows the news that has provoked so much comment. Why it has happened is anybody's guess.