Forget what you hear:Careless Talk, espionage and ways of listening in on the British secret state

As the covert and clandestine practices of states multiplied in the twentieth century, so did these practices' footprint in public life. This footprint is not just visual and material but sonic and aural, sounding the 'secret state' into being and suggesting ways of 'listening in' on it. Using multisensory methodology, this article examines Careless Talk Costs Lives, a UK Second World War propaganda campaign instructing citizens on how to practice discreet speech and listening in defence against 'fifth columnist' spies. This campaign reproduced the British secret state in the everyday: it represented sensitive operations as weaving in and out of citizens' lives through imprudent chatter about 'hush-hush' activities and sounds you shouldn't overhear. The paradox at the campaign's heart - of revealing to people the kind of things they shouldn't say or listen to - made the secret state and its international operations a public phenomenon. Secret sounds therefore became entangled within productions of social difference, from class inequalities to German racialisation. Sound and listening, however, are unwieldy phenomena. This sonic life of the secret state risked undermining political legitimacy, while turning public space and idyllic environments into deceptive soundscapes - for international espionage, it seemed, sounded like ordinary life

Quantum Cryptography

Quantum cryptography is a new method for secret communications offering the ultimate security assurance of the inviolability of a Law of Nature. In this paper we shall describe the theory of quantum cryptography, its potential relevance and the development of a prototype system at Los Alamos, which utilises the phenomenon of single-photon interference to perform quantum cryptography over an optical fiber communications link.Comment: 36 pages in compressed PostScript format, 10 PostScript figures compressed tar fil

Camp Followers, Nurses, Soldiers, and Spies: Women and the Modern Memory of the Revolutionary War

When asked of their memory of the American Revolution, most would reference George Washington or Paul Revere, but probably not Molly Pitcher, Lydia Darragh, or Deborah Sampson. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate not only the lack of inclusivity of women in the memory of the Revolutionary War, but also why the women that did achieve recognition surpassed the rest. Women contributed to the war effort in multiple ways, including serving as cooks, laundresses, nurses, spies, and even as soldiers on the battlefields. Unfortunately, due to the large number of female participants, it would be impossible to include the narratives of all of the women involved in the war. Thus, this paper compares the accounts of some of the lesser-known women to the recognized women in the memory of the Revolutionary War, and seeks to understand why the three women mentioned above overshadowed those that were forgotten

Code wars: steganography, signals intelligence, and terrorism

This paper describes and discusses the process of secret communication known as steganography. The argument advanced here is that terrorists are unlikely to be employing digital steganography to facilitate secret intra-group communication as has been claimed. This is because terrorist use of digital steganography is both technically and operationally implausible. The position adopted in this paper is that terrorists are likely to employ low-tech steganography such as semagrams and null ciphers instead

An Introduction to TEMEPEST (Classified), using ChatGPT

TEMPEST is a codename referring to spying on information systems through leaking electromagnetic emanations, either via cables or through electromagnetic fields. Nowadays it is considered as a part of cyber security. Most publications on TEMPEST are classified, and when a draft paper is being checked for classified information, many reviewers request that parts are being removed. Even if information can be retrieved from public channels like open publications or the internet, still reviewers have objections. ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot which is continuously being fine-tuned by gathering information from public resources, as well as human feedback. This article describes the information on TEMPEST provided by ChatGP

Before and After Snowden

This editorial for the Surveillance and Security Intelligence After Snowden issue provides a very brief history of National Security Agency whistleblowers and investigations before Edward Snowden, and sets the current wave of NSA whistleblowing in the context of a growing demand for openness, transparency and accountability opposing the renewed closures and secrecy of the War on Terror. It also provides some links for further research and reading

The Faculty Notebook, September 2016

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost

Encountering soviet geography: oral histories of British geographical studies of the USSR and Eastern Europe 1945-1991

This paper considers the history of British geographical studies of the USSR and Eastern Europe 1945-1991, presenting material from a research project which has included thirty-two oral history interviews. Oral history is an especially fruitful research methodology in this context due to the distinct issues of formality and informality involved in researching the Soviet bloc. After discussing the nature of the subdiscipline and the Cold War context, including the role of the British state in shaping the field, the paper considers the role of formal academic meetings and exchanges, and the place of unofficial spaces of encounter in the formation of an intellectual culture. The paper concludes by reflecting on the merits of oral history in studies of the production of geographical knowledge