The Week Junior UK – 24 August 2019

offeringabehind-the-scenes look at the history of its

work and how that work is changing for the future.

Theexhibition begins withatimeline that starts

in 405BC, with one of the very first knownexamples

of acipher (awaytocommunicate in secret).Walking

through theexhibition, youcansee how technology

has developed over the years, in both creating and

cracking top-secretcodes. Thereare morethan 100

objects on display,including some never-before-seen

artefacts from the GCHQ archives. These include

communication devices that wereused by former

British Prime Ministers and the Queen.

As well as these items, youcanlisten to stories

T

he ScienceMuseum inLondon has openedanew

exhibitioncalledTopSecret:From Ciphers toCyber

Security.Itwillexploretop-secretcommunication to

mark the 100th birthday of GCHQ.

GCHQ stands for GovernmentCommunication

Headquarters. Based inahuge circular building in

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, it is one of the UK’s

intelligenceand security agencies. Experts thereuse

the latest technology to identify threats to the

country and help stop them, and the work they do is

top secret. Although GCHQ is now 100 years old, the

UK Government didn’t even admit that itexisted

until 1994. However,inthisexhibition, GCHQ is

from GCHQ employees and find out how they’re

working to protect thecountry’scyber security,which

deals withcomputers and other devicesconnected to

the internet.To show how much information people

put online, an artwork in theexhibition prints out

tweets thatcontain words such as“argh”,“grrrr” and

“meh”.Youcanwatchamountain of paper pile up as

these tweets areprinted inreal time. Thereare also

interactive puzzle games for you to test your

code-breaking skills.

Theexhibition runs until 23February 2020. Tickets

arefree, but you need to book in advance. Visit

tinyurl.

Secretdevicesondisplay

5-UCO

The 5-UCO(pronounced 5-YOU-KO)wasone of th

first electronic cipher machines. Itwasused durin

the SecondWorldWartosend decrypted German

messages to the British military.Itwas once

thought that all versions of it had been destroyed.

GobehindthescenesofGCHQinanewexhibitionattheScienceMuseum.

Pigeons

used tocarry

messages.

Private phones used by

roya lty and politicians.

The exhibition title

reflected inamirror.

KEVIN BAKER

·JOD

YK
INGZETT

·BBC/LION TELEVISION

LTD/CHRIS POOLE ·

SCIENCE MUSEUM GROUP

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