many encoded ways of indicating what procedure you must use whilst embedding the code in a feasible phrase or sentence: the word âaboutâ will inform you that you must work out an anagram of what comes next, though there is an alternative use telling you that the word preceding âaboutâ will be split up and positioned around (i.e. âaboutâ) the following word. So, âBoss about tearfully (4)â is âsobsâ but âBoss about one trying to be a scary gangsta (7)â is âboonessâ. There are at least twenty other procedures like these to make crosswords, some of which involve codes â substituting parts or all of words, and some of which involve ciphers which, like anagrams, involve substituting one letter for another. Together, these methods can be called âencryptionâ.
In June 2013, as Iâve been writing this book, and indeed this particular chapter, an event has had a devastating impact on our ideas about the secrecy of encryption. The first decades of the internet have seen new literacies emerging. These are not simply matters of how we configure letters, words and phrases but are also about the nature of who participates in conversations. Using the instruments of instant messaging, emails and social networks, weâve created worldwide interest groups, people who want to write on the internet about things theyâre interested in. I am an avid âuserâ of these. Alongside that, I buy train tickets and secondhand books, and spend hours searching and researching anything from family history to the weather details at our holiday destination. Edward Snowdenâs revelation was that not one single part, not one tiny jot of it, is secret. It is all available to the security services ofone country. It has all been stored and this too is available to the security services.
In other words, our communications can be analysed in two key ways: instantaneously and historically. Put another way, we can be âspottedâ saying or doing something at a given moment, or the pattern of our existence over time can be captured and described. However, this isnât truly public knowledge. I donât have the technological skills to do this myself, nor do I have one of the few jobs which would enable me to get into any of this spotting and storing. The knowledge and the jobs belong to only a tiny number of people, the security services of one country, who choose whether to share what they find with their elected representatives or, indeed, with anyone at all from other countries. Or not.
In one sense, this is no different from Elizabeth Iâs team of spies collecting knowledge about plots against the Crown, and, for example, deciphering messages between Mary Queen of Scots and her conspiratorial chums. The regime defended itself by finding out what people who endangered that regime were saying to each other. Picture Mary confined in Chartley Hall, Staffordshire. A Catholic supporter called Gilbert Gifford smuggles letters to her by the ruse of arranging with a local brewer for them to be concealed in the bung that plugged a barrel of beer. Mary herself didnât splosh around in the beer, her servants did that for her. In March 1586, in the Plough, near Temple Bar, a dashing young blade of the same religious persuasion, one Anthony Babington, gathered together six conspirators suitable for planning the springing of Mary from her prison, the assassination of Queen Elizabeth, inciting a rebellion and raising support from abroad. All they needed was for Mary to agree to this Shakespearean plot.
Mary heard about this from her French supporters and wroteto Babington indicating that she looked forward to hearing from him; Gifford was the courier. Surely all that needed to be done now was for Babington and Mary to communicate via the beer-barrel bung. Yes, but Babington made doubly sure of concealment by encrypting his letter, using twenty-three
In June 2013, as Iâve been writing this book, and indeed this particular chapter, an event has had a devastating impact on our ideas about the secrecy of encryption. The first decades of the internet have seen new literacies emerging. These are not simply matters of how we configure letters, words and phrases but are also about the nature of who participates in conversations. Using the instruments of instant messaging, emails and social networks, weâve created worldwide interest groups, people who want to write on the internet about things theyâre interested in. I am an avid âuserâ of these. Alongside that, I buy train tickets and secondhand books, and spend hours searching and researching anything from family history to the weather details at our holiday destination. Edward Snowdenâs revelation was that not one single part, not one tiny jot of it, is secret. It is all available to the security services ofone country. It has all been stored and this too is available to the security services.
In other words, our communications can be analysed in two key ways: instantaneously and historically. Put another way, we can be âspottedâ saying or doing something at a given moment, or the pattern of our existence over time can be captured and described. However, this isnât truly public knowledge. I donât have the technological skills to do this myself, nor do I have one of the few jobs which would enable me to get into any of this spotting and storing. The knowledge and the jobs belong to only a tiny number of people, the security services of one country, who choose whether to share what they find with their elected representatives or, indeed, with anyone at all from other countries. Or not.
In one sense, this is no different from Elizabeth Iâs team of spies collecting knowledge about plots against the Crown, and, for example, deciphering messages between Mary Queen of Scots and her conspiratorial chums. The regime defended itself by finding out what people who endangered that regime were saying to each other. Picture Mary confined in Chartley Hall, Staffordshire. A Catholic supporter called Gilbert Gifford smuggles letters to her by the ruse of arranging with a local brewer for them to be concealed in the bung that plugged a barrel of beer. Mary herself didnât splosh around in the beer, her servants did that for her. In March 1586, in the Plough, near Temple Bar, a dashing young blade of the same religious persuasion, one Anthony Babington, gathered together six conspirators suitable for planning the springing of Mary from her prison, the assassination of Queen Elizabeth, inciting a rebellion and raising support from abroad. All they needed was for Mary to agree to this Shakespearean plot.
Mary heard about this from her French supporters and wroteto Babington indicating that she looked forward to hearing from him; Gifford was the courier. Surely all that needed to be done now was for Babington and Mary to communicate via the beer-barrel bung. Yes, but Babington made doubly sure of concealment by encrypting his letter, using twenty-three
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