New Scientist - July 27, 2019

27 July 2019 | New Scientist | 31

Exhibition

Top Secret: From ciphers to
cyber security, Science Museum,
London, to 23 February 2020

HOW’S this for a cool recruitment
campaign? In 2015, people on their
way to work at tech companies in
London paused, drawn by a curious
message pressure-washed into the
paving stones outside their offices.
“GCH-WHO?” the message ran,
“TECHNICAL OPPORTUNITIES”,
with a website address.
It was the work of GCHQ – the
UK’s Government Communications
Headquarters (before 1946, the
Government Code and Cypher
School). It is, and always has been,
quite unnervingly on-trend. During
the second world war, it wove
recruitment adverts into crossword
puzzles to attract the sort of people
who could break the German
Enigma and Lorentz ciphers.
Today, among other duties,
cryptanalysts and other specialists
help foil terrorist attacks (20 since
the beginning of 2017), and still
find time to tinker with Lego
(their model of the Doughnut,
GCHQ’s main building in
Cheltenham, resembles a
souped-up Millennium Falcon).
Only officially acknowledged
since 1994, GCHQ is 100 years
old this year and a new exhibition
called Top Secret is a sort of
celebration. It isn’t a history of
GCHQ, but a series of snapshots
which, while putting a positive
spin on the work of the country’s
intelligence agencies, still manages
to ask pointed questions about
cryptography, privacy, espionage
and the right to know.
A map of trench communications

lines and telephone points from the

first world war introduces us to the

messy world of communication in

wartime. GCHQ was born out of a

need to build a safe, coordinated

system comprising electronically

secure Fullerphones, ordinary

telephones, telegraph signals,

Morse and semaphore signalling,

messenger dogs, carrier pigeons,

lights, message-carrying rockets

and dispatch messengers.

This daunting task hasn’t got

any easier. But it has vanished from

sight, as communications were first

electrified, then digitised, before

vanishing into a near impossible-

to-comprehend cryptographic cloud.

During the second world war,

GCHQ’s Bletchley Park base played

a leading role in the development

of information technology. Here

the story is reduced to fascinating

essentials: a copy of a German

Lorentz machine, one of the few

surviving components from an Alan

Turing decoder known as a bombe,

and, most evocative of all, a set

of homemade rod-and-spindle

calculating devices, used by human

“calculators” early on in the war.

The story of UK-based Soviet

agents Helen and Peter Kroger and

the activities of the frighteningly

effective Portland spy ring in the

1960s (they stole plans for the UK’s

first nuclear submarine) stand in for

the whole cold war. The couple’s

elaborate equipment for hiding and

transmitting secret messages is

exhibited in a loose mock-up of

their dreary suburban living room.

Volunteers are on hand to flesh

out the stories. But don’t expect

anything after 1983 to make sense.

That was the year the internet was

invented, scrambling our notions

of privacy, anonymity and public

interest. Now, every time we search,

chat, date and shop, we feed vast

data sets, from which commercial

companies, states and rogue actors

extract many kinds of profit.

There are now more internet-

connected devices in the world than

people, some almost as terrifying

as the My Friend Cayla doll on show,

condemned in Germany in 2017 as

an “illegal surveillance” device. Look

into its dead eyes and remember: no

one can claim with confidence that

they aren’t being watched. ❚

Special phones and
ciphers made secure
communications possible TH

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Secrets and spies

The kid in you (and your kids too) will love this amazingly

detailed glimpse into the secret state, says Simon Ings

Don’t miss

Visit

Growing Underground

Explore a pink-lit former

air-raid shelter in

Clapham, London, and

glimpse the future of

sustainable food at what

is billed as the world’s

first underground farm.

Multiple dates this week.

Read

Am I Dreaming?

(Atlantic) James

Kingsland’s mind-

boggling journey of

exploration reveals how

altered mental states,

from hypnotic trances

to virtual reality, can

significantly boost

our well-being.

Listen

The Mechanisms of

Psychiatric Disorders

are explored by Carmine

Pariante in a talk at the

Bethlem Museum of

the Mind in Beckenham,

London, on 3 August.

What therapeutic tools

will help the troubled

souls of the future?

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Want to know more about cyberwarfare?

Check out New Scientist’s coverage

newscientist.com/article-topic/cyberattacks