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A 1941 Paper-and-Pencil Cipher

Posted by kdawson on from the sudoku-got-nothin' dept.

Schneier's blog links to a photo of a 68-year-old code being employed in wartime, with a plausible explanation of what is going on in it. (The photo is from the Life Magazine archive we discussed when it went live.) "What you see here is a photo that never should have been allowed to be taken, and one which provides an amazing, one-of-a-kind glimpse into the world of WWII espionage and counter-espionage. As far as I can tell, what is shown in this picture is an FBI agent in New York encrypting a message, passed from 'DUNN'... through Sebold, prior to transmitting that message to Germany via shortwave radio. ... [T]his appears to be real cryptology at work."

7 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Duh? by east+coast · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why didn't he just use a computer for this? I swear, those people were so dense.

    --
    Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
    1. Re:Duh? by bobdotorg · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why didn't he just use a computer for this? I swear, those people were so dense.

      They weren't dense, Windows DE (Depression Edition) kept crashing that day with repeated PCODs (Punch Cards of Death).

      Though now that I think about it, I've come to the realization that every version of Windows is Windows DE.

      --
      __ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
  2. Re:Human computers by Linker3000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wow - imagine if those people clustered around someone reading Beowulf!

    --
    AT&ROFLMAO
  3. Re:what's the big deal? by Tumbleweed · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't see what the big deal is. You guys have never seen someone doing a word search puzzle before?

    And the answer to today's word jumble is: "NORMANDY"

  4. Wait, I thought... by WED+Fan · · Score: 4, Funny

    Actually he was a computer - that's what they called people...

    I'm confused, I thought...

    Soylent Green == People

    Computers == People

    Soylent Green is edible.

    People are edible.

    Question: Will be Dell laptop work with a South Beach diet?

    --
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
  5. Re:Human computers by memristance · · Score: 5, Funny

    Of course, some methods were better than others...

  6. Re:Human computers by lysergic.acid · · Score: 5, Funny

    speaking of which, here's a screen shot of an early pre alpha build of the Folding@Home client.