C4 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2019LONDON — The laptop — or what’s left of it —
is a mangled carcass: Its innards have been
ripped out, and only a few strips of metal
and plastic remain. This was the MacBook
Air that The Guardian used to store files
leaked by the United States intelligence
contractor Edward Snowden. Guardian em-
ployees destroyed the computer with power
tools in July 2013 after the files on it were
deemed a threat to British national security.
The destruction order came from the
Government Communications Headquar-
ters, or GCHQ, a 100-year-old intelligence
and security agency tasked with keeping
Britain safe. The organization, which usu-
ally prefers being under the radar, is cele-
brating its centennial with “Top Secret:
From Ciphers to Cyber Security,” an exhibi-
tion of more than 100 objects at the Science
Museum in London.
In addition to the laptop, the items on
show include an encryption key used by
Queen Elizabeth II to make sure her phone
conversations weren’t tapped and a brief-
case containing a clunky brown handset
that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
used for top-secret calls.
The agency is one of Britain’s most secret
and secretive organizations: It wasn’t offi-
cially acknowledged in law until 1994. So
why has it decided to appear in a London
museum?
“We needed to tell our story, to be able to
show the British people that this is what we
do on their behalf,” said Tony Comer, the or-
ganization’s official historian. Part of the
aim, he added, is to convince “those who re-
ally like solving problems that perhaps a ca-
reer in GCHQ is the right thing for them.”
He said that the agency was “radically”
rethinking how it could attract the intelli-
gence operatives of tomorrow.
“It’s up to us to persuade them how cool it
would be to work in a place like GCHQ,” Mr.
Comer said.
“Top Secret” is cleverly crafted to appeal
to audiences of all ages. Adults can learn
about the everyday business of communi-
cations-based espionage and counterespi-
onage, and children have a play area full of
word and number games.
The exhibition’s richest sections, which
are devoted to World War I, World War II
and the Cold War, showcase the unwieldy
contraptions used for espionage that could
now be replaced by a desktop computer, a
laptop or a smartphone.
One section focuses on the first downing
of a German airship over Britain, which
killed 16 crewmen, in September 1916. A vi-
trine displays the cutting-edge technology
of the time that was used to spot the airship:
a radio device fitted in a wooden, glass-
fronted box, with knobs on top. Also on view
are pieces of metal and fabric from the skin
of the airship; and a cap, badge and boot
that belonged to some of the German air-
men.
A section about how British intelligence
services dismantled a Soviet spy network in
1961 recreates a home in suburban London,
complete with period floral wallpaper. It in-
cludes a radio transmitter that two spies
from the ring concealed under their kitchen
floor, and a cigarette lighter with a secret
compartment for encryption codes.
Other sections allude to the use of satel-
lites and online hacking in intelligence gath-
ering.
The exhibition is “not necessarily dealing
with a lot of stuff that’s contemporary,” said
Elizabeth Bruton, curator of communica-
tions at the Science Museum. The agency
was “still a secret organization,” she added,
“so even though we’ve worked closely with
them for this exhibition, there are still
things that they do that are kept secret.”
Stuart McKenzie, now a vice president at
the Mandiant consulting arm of the cyber-
security company FireEye, worked for the
British government for 11 years. He said thebusiness of intelligence had not changed
drastically since World War II. “People are
still trying to break codes; people are still
trying to get in and steal secrets,” he said.
“Some of the tools have changed.”
As the world moves toward an “intellec-
tual and thought-based economy, where in-
tellectual property is the key,” Mr. McKen-
zie said, “protection of state secrets and or-
ganizations’ secrets is going to be the most
important thing.”
In the modern-day cyber landscape, he
said, Britain needs more than “a few people
who’ve gone to Oxford and Cambridge,” so
it made sense for the agency to reach out to
a wider pool.
But were the show’s young visitors eager
to join a cloak-and-dagger world?
Jake Drexler, 12, visiting from Los Ange-
les with his father, a gaming-industry exec-
utive, was busy solving a scrambled word
puzzle on the exhibition’s opening day. He
said the show was “fun” and that he liked
the wartime displays.
“They had to keep telling each other
codes, but without letting the other side
know what was happening,” he said. “It was
interesting how they figured out how to do
that, and how they broke the codes on the
other side.”
Did he want to become a spy when he
grew up? “A spy, maybe not so much, but a
code breaker, that would be cool,” he said. “I
mean, it’s less risky.”
Colin Pilat, 11, visiting from Vaires-sur-
Marne, France, with his parents and three
siblings, voiced similar concerns.
There is “action and logic” in espionage,
he said, but “it’s pretty dangerous — that’s
the problem.” As a spy, he said, one could
“get arrested for a long time, and there
could be enemies, because you’re spying on
someone, and these are dangerous people.”
He greeted the prospect of a future in es-
pionage with a shrug. He said he’d rather be
an architect.Revealing Some Spy Secrets, but Not All
A British intelligence agency
celebrates its centennial with a
gadget-filled exhibition.
Above and far left, visitors at the “Top Secret”
show about the British intelligence agency
known as GCHQ. Left, instructions for using a
Pickwick telephone, which provided secure
lines for British officials. Bottom, an
encryption machine used by the United States
during World War II.JODY KINGZETT/SCIENCE MUSEUM GROUPBy FARAH NAYERITop Secret: From Ciphers to Cyber Security
Through Feb. 23 at the Science Museum in
London; sciencemuseum.org.uk.
THE SCIENCE MUSEUM, LONDONJODY KINGZETT/SCIENCE MUSEUM GROUP THE SCIENCE MUSEUM, LONDONAIN’T TOO PROUD
“PRETTY CLOSE TO PERFECTION!”- Ben Brantley, The New York Times
AIN'T TOO PROUD
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