Technology & The Enigma Machine

The Enigma machine is actually one of the best thing I ever seen in my life... I know now is just an antique, but at the time it was one of the most incredible devices ever builted for its complexity, the extreme safeness of its encrypted messages and its handiness.

Exploded structure of a rotor

Let's dig a little bit deeper into this machine: the principal compontents of the first machine presented by Arthur Scherbious consisted of  a keyboard, a plugboard, 3/4 rotors, a reflector and a lamp display pannel.
The machine workedpretty much in the following way: the operator press a character in the typewriter starting an electric impulse that is going to follow a certain pattern which is swapped when it passes into the plugbloard, then it goes trough the rotors, come back thanks to the reflector and it light a lamp wich corresponds to a certain letter (result). Explained in that way it may looks that it is an easy code to break, but there is a lot more going on in that machine... in fact the rotors are not fixed in that position, but they change at each pression like the odometer does, meaning that the first rotors moves each   time, meanwhile the second one makes a step only after the first one has done an entire cycle, and the third one does the same with respect to the second one, moreover the plugboard disposition could have been changed and the first position of the rotors choosed freely. To sum up with all those basilar elements the machine already disposed of a number of possible combinations way big to be discovered in useful time.

Schematic representation of the classic enigma operation

And that it was just the classical machine, if we also consider the additional complexity given by the appendix devoloped later in time (which you can find in the previous post Secret Services & Patents: The Enigma Machine)  the number of possible combinations increases exponentially..

Here you can find other information about what was new in each evolution of the machine:

http://www.cryptomuseum.com/crypto/enigma/

And in this one a programme that simulates the operation

http://enigmaco.de/enigma/enigma_it.html

And now a little bit of humor...

The argument of this post is related to the one contained in Secret Services & Patents: The Enigma Machine

Sources:
[The Code Book, Simon Sing];
http://ciphermachines.com/enigma;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine;
http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/content/machines.rhtm;
http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/enigma/;

Entire Collection of Chipher and Other

As it is well known secret services are a very well diffused practise, especially useful during war, or more generally in periods of international tension.. In the link below you can find an interesting collection of photos of devices used by various agencies in the world during the 20th century, such as chiper machines, spy equipement, radio, telegraph machines etc...

http://ciphermachines.com/photos/index.php




The argument of this post is related to the ones contained in Secret Services & Spy Sets, Secret Services & Patents: The Enigma Machine, Secret Services & The Enigma Machine, Secret Services & Radio, Secret Services & Cracking Enigma: The Bombe, Secret Services & Bombe 2.0, Telegraph & Morse Code, Minicameras 2.0 and in Minicameras...micro optics at the service of the spies

Secret Services & Patents: The Enigma Machine

The patent I chose to represent my blog is the one about the Enigma Machine, because in the field of Cryptography is the first form of mechanization of this long process of encrypting messages, for its internal complexity, involving both mechanical and electronic circuits, that makes it a real artwork. The images below are taken from the first Enigma-related Patent, the one presented by Arthur Scherbius the 23 February 1918 and released the 8 July 1925.

 

 Later in time other patents were filed, most of them proposing implementations to the original machine: for example the possibility to use tubes fulfilled with water instead of electric wires, or to change the letter circuit with a multi-switches pannel (number of possible swaps incresing in time from 6 to 10), to remove rotors and  trade their places (UKW), to add a ring that make the rotor, on which it is applied, to do an additional movement after a key-press....

There are also two evolutions of the machine: the Enigma A and the Zahlwerk Enigma (or Enigma G), respectively filed on March, 26th, 1924 and on November, 9th, 1928. There were more developpements of the machine depending on the branch of the German army in which it was used.





Following: a family tree of the Enigma evolution created by Paul Reuvers & Frode Weierud (second link between sources for further informations) and here on the right the legend to better understand how it has been organized by the autors.
Enjoy...

Continues....

Sources:
http://www.cryptomuseum.com/crypto/enigma/patents/
http://www.cryptomuseum.com/crypto/enigma/tree.htm

Secret Services & Postage Stamp

The challenge this time is: choose a stamp that talks about the blog theme... and what's better than The British bombe?
It was a wonder of mechanical and electrical engineering. It's function was to figure out the rotors settings for each day's keys, and it was capable to perform that operation in at most 12 hours. From that point, all messages could be read in real time. In all, 210 British bombes were built during the war and all were destroyed at the end of the war, but few of their american evolution, used for analysing all combinations generated by 4 rotor Naval Enigma, in all 121, are still intact and they are still here, remebering us of what a great step toward artificial intelligence it has been done during that period thanks to these machines.

 

The argument of this post is related to the ones contained in Secret Services & Patents: The Enigma Machine, Secret Services & The Enigma Machine, Secret Services & Cracking Enigma: The Bombe, Secret Services & Bombe 2.0

Secret Services & National Oganizations

The page of the link contains an (incomplete) overview of the various intelligence and law-enforcement agencies in the world. If possible, a link to their website is provided.

http://www.cryptomuseum.com/intel/index.htm


This argument is connected to the contents of a previous post (SIS, aka MI6...A little bit of History)

Secret Services & Spy Sets

Spy sets...I think that they're, actually, one of the most significant evidence of the technological progress of the time spell considered, which in this case is the second world war, because a spy,or more generally speaking a secret agent, doesn't have any certainty about what is going to happen to him, so he needs the best stuff to help him face all the possible scenarios and to work and report even in the most unprobable conditions...I know that now all these problems would make us laugh because of the incredible advance in tech in the last 20, but, at the time still they were a quite compelling issue to solve.

1. Spy Radio and Receiver Sets: once again the main problem was to permit spies abroad to comunicate safely and as frequently as possible...To achieve this result all nations developed their own radio, like the RSZ, developped by US Navy around 1943, a small self-contained receiver with an external battery pack in a similar housing, that could be carried on the chest in a canvas case with two pockets; or the URSS Elektron Radio Set, characterized by a output power of 50W, suitable for ranges up to 3000 km and one of the first true spy radios to used a burst encoder in order to minimize the risk of interception and detection by the enemy (LPI). Other examples are: from UK, the Type A Mk. III (A3), a small spy radio set, manufactured by the Marconi Company in the UK in 1944, close towards the end of WWII. It was intended for clandestine operations on occupied territory, by agents, special forces and resistance units (S.O.E); or from Japan the incredible 94-6, a miniature single-valve portable transceiver that was used during WWII, as part of a series of Army radios.
   
2. Covert Cameras or Minicameras: we've already spoke about this item in the posts  Minicameras...micro optics at the service of the spies and Minicameras 2.0, but if you wanna go further go on and check the web page in the crypto museum dedicated to them
3. Covert Recorders:
   
   high-precision portable minature wire audio tape recorder, which could have been easily hidden under everyday cloathing. As a matter of fact this kind of Covert Equipement, like recorders and, especially bugs, belong more to the post WWII period, around 1950 and following decades, in fact their structure is much different from their precedent, because there were different needs and purposes which must had been considered during their fulfilment. Two  exemplar models are the Nagra SN (in the photo), introduced in the 1970, used by both CIA and Stasi and capable of recording in sync with a videocamera, and the Protona Minifon Attaché, a miniature tape recorder, using a magnetic tape which was organized into cassetes produced by the Protona GmbH, since the Philips Compact Cassettes weren't yet available.
4. Burst Encoders: device that allows messages to be stored on a recording medium first. The pre-recorded message is then sent over the air at very high speed using a play-back device. Many solutions were developed, using a variety of media, such as paper, audio tape, metal tape, mechanical drums and even photographic film.   Messages that are sent this way often sound like a short tone or burst, which is why it is called a Burst Transmission.
   
5. Bugs: Once again we're making a step forward in history, of 15-20 years more or less, but still its important to define them as a foundamental element of the spy set. One of the earliest sample of this incredible piece of technology is the KBG bug, a small radio bug, introduced around 1964 , with dimensions 72x23x10 mm, so  really small, as it can be inferred by the photo below... but there were smaller and more sophisticated prototypess such as the PS-006, a bollpiont bug developped in the 80's and with a small radious of action, only 25 m due to the small voltage
   

Click on the light blue words to link with pages where you can find more specific description about each single prototype and examples of others similar devices.

Sources:
http://www.cryptomuseum.com/spy/index.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_probability_of_intercept

Secret Services & Radio

Then at the fall of Paris, a radio transmitting station was set up on the cliff, antennas aimed at the Continent, themselves heavily guarded and their landlines back mysteriously over the downs to the house patrolled night and day by dogs specially betrayed, belted, starved into reflex leaps to kill, at any human approach.


With funding available for all manner of radars, magic 

torpedoes, aircraft and missiles, where was Pointsman in the scheme of things?

"Tides, radio interference, damned little else. There is no way for changes out there to produce changes here."

On the other side of the arch is a Russian jeep with a couple officers, one talking earnestly into the mike of his radio set, and the air between quickens with spoken Russian at the speed of light weaving a net to catch Slothrop.


At first he helped out in the propulsion group. No one was specializing yet. That came later, when the bureaus and paranoias moved in, and the organization charts became plan-views of prison cells. Kurt Mondaugen, whose field was radio electronics, could come up with solutions to cooling problems.


The Russians even had a guard posted on board for a while, till the Anubian ladies vamped them off long enough to single up all lines—and so the last long reprise of Polish homeland was on, across these water-meadows of the north, radio messages following them in clear one day and code the next, an early and shapeless situation, dithering between executioner's silence and the Big Time.

Russian transmissions come crackling out of ship's radio, and the static blows like sheets of rain.


The idea was always to carry along a fixed quantity, A. Sometimes you'd use a Wìen bridge, tuned to a certain frequency A{, whistling, heavy with omen, inside the electric corridors while outside, according to the tradition in these matters, somewhere a quantity B would be gathering, building, as the Rocket gathered speed. So, up till assigned Brennschluss velocity, "v ," electric shocked as any rat into following this very narrow mazeway of clear space—yes, radio signals from the ground would enter the Rocket body, and by reflex—literally by electric signal traveling a reflex arc—the control surfaces twitch, to steer you back on course the instant you'd begin to wander off.


But the blacks don't know what else Närrisch knew:
(a) there was a radio link from the ground to the S-Gerät but not the other way round,
(b) there was an interference problem between a servo-actuator and a special oxygen line running aft to the device from the main tank,
(c) Weissmann not only coordinated the S-Gerät project at Nordhausen, but also commanded the battery that fired Rocket 00000.
Total espionage. Bit by bit this mosaic is growing. Tchitcherine, bureauless, carries it around in his brain. Every chip and scrap belongs. More precious than Ravenna, something goes erecting against this starch-colored sky. . . .
Radio link + oxygen = afterburner of some kind.


The tail-section group has been on the radio all morning, trying to get a position fix, if the skies will only clear. So the assembly of the 00001 is occurring also in a geographical way.

[Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon]


Werner had been only fourteen years old then, but he was now eighteen, he worked at the Air Ministry, he hated the Nazis even more, and he had a powerful radio transmitter and a code book. He was resourceful and courageous, taking dreadful risks and gathering priceless information. And Volodya was his contact.


On his desk was a decrypt from the radio section, the German words pencilled letter by letter under the code groups. The message was from Werner.


Anticipating the outbreak of war, Volodya had long ago equipped his Berlin spies with clandestine radios and code books. Now it was more vital than ever that the handful of brave anti-Nazis should continue to pass information to the Soviets. Before leaving he had destroyed all records of their names and addresses, which now existed only in his head.


At home, Chuck had not said much about the navy, no doubt because their parents were still angry with him for not going to Harvard. But alone with Woody he opened up a bit. ‘Hawaii is great, but I’m really disappointed to have a shore job,’ he said. ‘I joined the navy to go to sea.’
‘What are you doing, exactly?’
‘I’m part of the Signal Intelligence Unit. We listen to radio messages, mainly from the Imperial Japanese Navy.’
‘Aren’t they in code?’
‘Yes, but you can learn a lot even without breaking the codes. It’s called traffic analysis. A sudden increase in the number of messages indicates that some action is imminent. And you learn to recognize patterns in the traffic. An amphibious landing has a distinctive configuration of signals, for example.’


We can also figure out where the signal originated, by triangulation. Given locations and the call signs, we can build up a pretty good picture of where most of the ships of the Japanese navy are, even if we can’t read the messages.’
‘So we know where they are, and what direction they’re taking, but not what their orders are,’ said Gus.
‘Frequently, yes.’
‘But if they wanted to hide from us, all they would have to do is impose radio silence.’
‘True,’ said Vandermeier. ‘If they go quiet, this whole operation becomes useless, and we are well and truly fucked up the ass.’
[...]
Gus frowned. ‘Radio silence. Has that ever happened before?’
‘Yes. Aircraft carriers go quiet when they return to home waters. So we assume that’s the explanation this time.’


Chuck was assigned to the radio room, a sensible posting that made use of his experience in
handling signals.

[Winter of the World, Ken Follet]

As it appears from the quotes extracted from the books radio had a great importance during World War II under multiple aspects, like checking enemies position (triangulation and radar) and actions (traffic analysis and signal configurations), controling the coasts, comunicating with other meber of the army or with a Soviet spy in Berlin and to control a missile and keep it on the route. There where though few problems about interferences and the fact that it can be easily tracked down.

If you wanna know more about history and functioning of Marconi's creature  check the links below:
http://s194214.blogspot.it/2013/05/la-radio.html (italian version by Alessia Rosace, 'Tecnologia e Comunicazione' blog)
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio (english version - Wikipedia page on the radio as a technology feature)



About triangulation...in the link below you can find a video about triangulation method and its aplications in time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYBbVNpMlUU


The image presents the general idea if this tracking technique










In the links below you can find more info regarding the Traffic Analysis:
http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/tech_journals/intro_traffic_analysis.pdf (NSA introduction document)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_analysis (Wikipedia presentation of its applications in the military field during WWI and WWII)

Woman radio Operator during war times

Maps & Secret Services

Our professor Vittorio Marchis  suggested to find a carthography which was coherent with our blog theme and so I've founded not one but three maps, two of which are complementary, that in my opinion are a resumè of what my blog represents:

The first map describe the Organization of the buildings in Bletchley Park in different operating areas, meanwhile the second one depict the pattern followed by not yet analyzed messages

In the link below you can find a google map which illustrates the different positions assumed, in the course of time, by the SIS' Headquartes, the neuralgic centre of all inteligence operations. Londonhttps://maps.google.it/maps/ms?msid=210910011879806218578.0004dc6e3a581c0ae61ba&msa=0

64 Victoria Street - 1909

Ashley Mansions - 1909 'till 1911

Whitehall Court - 1911 'tll 1919

Melbury Road - 1919 'till 1926

Broadway Building - 1926 'till 1964

Century House - 1964 'till 1994

Vauxhall Cross (HQ) - 1994 'till present day

Curiosity: SIS HQ features in several Bond films, like GoldenEye, The World is Not Enough, Die Another Day and Skyfall.  The production company, Eon Productions, filmed several sequences outside Vauxhall Cross in cooperation with SIS.  The most impressive involved an explosion which causes a large hole in the side of the building and a speed boat launching into the Thames, this was actually filmed using a 50 foot high model of Vauxhall Cross constructed at Pinewood Studios.

The argument of this post is related to the ones contained in The Art in the Agency and in SIS, aka MI6...A little bit of History.

Source:

https://www.sis.gov.uk/our-history/buildings.html

Spy Stories about Silk

If  anyone thought industrial espionage was only for the recent times, since industry actually started in the 18th century, heed the story of John and Thomas Lombe, two english men, an engineer, John, and his  half brother Thomas, an apprentice weaver, capable of turning their life upside-down by stealing ideas for their silk mill from the Sardinia Kingdom, the biggest and stongest italian realm,  economically flourishing at the time, mostly thanks to the silky production.

Also the proto-industrial story of the Piedmontese silk is a great tale. It all starts in the 1662 in Bologna, where the production of silk was already quite advanced and blooming; it is just Bologna that the kingdom sent its emissaries to to convince someone to bring his technological knowledge to Turin to help start a new industry based on hydraulic energy. The mission was completed with succes with the arrive of a "master spinner": Gian Francesco Gall
eani.

Central element of the Bolognese Spinner

Between the 1664 and the 1665, Galleani Organize and direct the building of the first hydrauilic spinner in Piedmont,  and five years later the constsuction of the second one, creating new machines more evoluted with respect to their bolognese correspondant, since these were improved with some features thanks also to Leonardo Da Vinci sketches.

For the Sardinia Realm the silky production was really a form of industry given that a census from 30 years later documents 27 active spinner in the city for a total of 2525 workers, and hal of a century later 33 spinner and 4000  workers  and a record production at European level.

Piedmontese silk spinner building

in Racconigi 

The extraordinary evolution and efficiency of the mill was so incredible that Diderot and D'Alembert couldn't help but include it in their Encyclopédie.

But before that, the echoes of the incredible Piedmontese silk mill had already reached the coasts of England, and John Lombe, which knew that the only way to keep up with them an to smite the competition was to get the projects of that mill, decided to travelled to Piedmont in Italy. He arrived to Racconigi, got hired, studied how the Italians managed to make exquisite silkand, secretly made drawings of their machines and  then smuggled them back to Derby.

Silk mill of the Lobe's brothers in Derby

Based on the drawings, machines were set up throughout Derby and half-brother Thomas applied for a patent on the machines, ensuring they could only used at a factory in Derby that was set up where the present day Silk Mill stands and houses Derby's industrial museum.

The original mill took three years and £30,000 to build and stood five storeys high, making it the first factory in the world with a complete process on one site. It was rebuilt following a fire in 1910.
John Lombe remained in Derby and died in 1722, it is rumoured as a the result of a slow poison administered by the Italians he stole the plans from originally.
A bas relief sculpture may be found of John Lombe on Exeter Bridge in Derwent Street.

This is actually a case of industrial espionage...but since Thomas Lombe received public akwnoledgement for his brother robbery (lord title, money for the patents and the production and state recognition for the employement created )...it kinda becomes a state and international matter


If you wanna dig deeper into the silky world you can check these links
http://stec-172318.blogspot.it/ (italian version)


Here you can fnd a very peculiar way to produce paintings...by sewing silk...
http://www.artofsilk.com/
http://machine-history.blogspot.it/2013/05/some-silk-machine-patents.html
http://machine-history.blogspot.it/2013/05/the-silk-encyclopedie.html
http://machine-history.blogspot.it/2013/05/the-silkworm-life-cycle.html
http://machine-history.blogspot.it/2013/05/silk-natural-industry.html


Sources:
http://www.visitderby.co.uk/things-to-do/wayfinding/stories/the-lombe-brothers
http://www.cis.unibo.it/bslc/tesori/canali/home.html
http://www.visitterredeisavoia.it/it/guida/?IDR=1719
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lombe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombe%27s_Mill

The Art in the Agency

Few paintings, by James Hart Dyke, from Art Exhibition about SIS entitled "A Year with the MI6" is held in the Mount Street Gallery in London

Battersea Power Station

Street scene in Kabul

The HQ

Entrance Hall

Waiting in the hotel room

Contrasts

Going for a meeting

Early orning view over Kabul

Line Drawing

Station

Mansfield CUMMING (1st SIS Chief)

The argument of this post is related to the ones contained in Maps & Secret Services and in SIS, aka MI6...A little bit of History.

Source:
https://www.sis.gov.uk/our-history/centenary/a-year-with-mi6-art-exhibition.html

SIS, aka MI6...A little bit of History

As I've already said in the post Secrecy...Pro & Con cryptography departements have a story that dates back in ancient times...but if it's of proprer organizations, meaning agency, that we're talking about, the're first appereance is way more tardive....In particular, in the case of the SIS, the foundation year, as reported by the agency itself, is the 1909 with the Name of Secret Services Bureau, as a response to the continuous and threatening expansion of the German military and naval army, but its exhistance hadn't been revealed until the 1994 even if rumors were already spread by the publication of the literary succes of the James Bond Series by Ian Flemming.

Actually there were already multiples sign of activity since the late 15th century, at the time of  Tudors: there were infact powerful names like Cromwelles, which was intercecting messages in the country and abroad for Henry VIII, and Sir Francis Walsingham, Private Secretary for Elizabeth I, which discovered the conspiracy against the Queen directed by Mary the queen of Scots...
(further description about this episode can be found in the first chapter of The Code book, by Simon Singh)


The SIS is a the military inteligence section 6 (MI6), and it is divided its self in braches in which  the S.O.E. (Special Operations Executive) was included and that still includes the G.C.H.Q, the unit responsible for Signal Inteligence (SIGINT) and information insurance, and the G.C.&C.S., the code-breacking division creating during the WWII.

If you want to discover all the incredible men who took the lead of this incredible department:
https://www.sis.gov.uk/our-history/previous-chiefs.html

It is possible to find more information about the Historical Events affected by the work of the SIS checking the two links below:
https://www.sis.gov.uk/our-history.html
http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=3683
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Intelligence_Service

Or in alternative in the book
MI6: The history of the Secret Inteligence Service from 1909-1949, by Prof. Keith JEFFERY,  [click on the title for a preview]

The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)...Books' Point of View

Following a list of quotes from both books but all regarding the same argument: the SIS organization, also known as S.O.E., or MI6 or The Firm (just in Pynchon's book)...Enjoy...

Pirate Prentice is a strange talent for—well, for getting inside the fantasies of others: being able, actually, to take over the burden of managing them, in this case those of an exiled Rumanian royalist who may prove needed in the very near future. It is a gift the Firm has found uncommonly useful: at this time mentally healthy leaders and other historical figures are indispensable. What better way to cup and bleed them of excess anxiety than to get someone to take over the running of their exhausting little daydreams for them ... to live in the tame green lights of their tropical refuges, in the breezes through their cabanas, to drink their tall drinks, changing your seat to face the entrances of their public places, not letting their innocence suffer any more than it already has ... to get their erections for them, at the oncome of thoughts the doctors feel are inappropriate


So of course when Pirate makes the mistake of verifying the fantasy with Loaf, it's not very long at all before higher echelons know about it too. Into the dossier it goes, and eventually the Firm, in Their tireless search for negotiable skills, will summon him under Whitehall, to observe him in his trances across the blue baize fields and the terrible paper gaming, his eyes rolled back into his head reading old, glyptic old graffiti on his own sockets. . . .
The first few times nothing clicked. The fantasies were O.K. but belonged to nobody important. But the Firm is patient, committed to the Long Run as They are.


Novi Pazar, anyhow, was still a croix mystique on the palm of Europe, and EO. finally decided to go to the Firm for help. The Firm knew just the man.


Early in 1939, he was discovered mysteriously suffocated in a bathtub full of tapioca pudding, at the home of a Certain Viscountess. Some have seen in this the hand of the Firm.


It's as useful to him as he is to the Firm—who, it is well known, will use anyone, traitors, murderers, perverts, Negroes, even women, to get what They want. They may not've been that sure of Pirate's usefulness at first, but later, as it developed, They were to grow very sure, indeed.


His best guess is that Mexico only now and then supports the Firm's latest mania, known as Operation Black Wing, in a statistical way—analyzing what foreign-morale data may come in, for instance— but someplace out at the fringes of the enterprise, as indeed Pirate finds himself here tonight, acting as go-between for Mexico and his own roommate Teddy Bloat.


There's now been no word of Slothrop for nearly a month, since the fumbling asses in military intelligence lost him in Zurich. Pointsman is a bit browned-off with the Firm. His clever strategy appears to've failed


No  one has ever left the Firm alive, no one in history—and no one ever will.

The Firm know perfectly well that you've come here. They'll expect a full report from you now. Either voluntary or some other way.

They will not understand, the gently bred maniacs of S.O.E. ah very good, Captain rattling sitreps, shuffling boots, echoes off of Government eyeglasses jolly good and why not do it actually for us sometime at the Club. . . . Pirate wants Their trust, the good-whisky-and-cured-Latakia scent of Their rough love.

Well: he guesses They have euchred Mexico into some such Byzantine exercise, probably to do with the Americans.

Like every young man growing up in England, he was conditioned to get a hardon in the presence of certain fetishes, and then conditioned to feel shame about his new reflexes. Could there be, somewhere, a dossier, could They (They?) somehow have managed to monitor everything he saw and read since puberty . . . how else would They know?

Everybody was waiting around for a Captain Prentice from S.O.E. (those
prickly bastards take their time about everything), who does presently show up. Slothrop
gets a glimpse— windburned face, big mean mother. Prentice takes the cylinder, drives
away, and that's that.

Pirate Prentice of the S.O.E. came back with the first hard intelligence that
there were indeed in Germany real Africans, Hereros, ex-colonials from South-West
Africa, somehow active in the secret-weapons program

Squalidozzi did show up again though, in Bremerhaven. He had just been chased
across what was left of Germany by British Military Intelligence, with no idea why.


For some reason now, she who never laughs has become the top surface of a deep,
rising balloon of laughter. Later as she's about to go to sleep, she will also whisper,
"Laughing," laughing again.
He will want to say, "Oh, They let you," but then again maybe They don't. But the Katje
he's talking to is already gone, and presently his own eyes have closed.

[Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas PYNCHON, ]


Also there, to Lloyd’s surprise, was Major Lowther, who had been in charge of the intelligence
course at Tŷ Gwyn, and had been snootily disapproving – or perhaps just envious – of Lloyd’s
friendship with Daisy. 
Lloyd knew that Lowthie had been posted to the British Embassy in Madrid, and guessed he
worked for MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, but he would not have expected to see him this far from the capital.

[Winter of the World, Ken FOLLET]


The argument of this post is related to the ones contained in Maps & Secret Services, The Art in the Agency and in SIS, aka MI6...A little bit of History.

Comics & Spies

Spy Stories is actually a collection true spy stories published in the 1929 and 1935

Spy Stories, 3/1929                                 Spy Stories, 5/1935

  

Time - The Spy Scandal Grows, June 17th 1985.            Time - The New Spy, October 11th 1971.

    Was Superman a Spy: and Other Comic Legends          Green Lantern (1960), #17 

                   Spy vs Spy: The Complete Caseboook            Spy vs Spy II:The Island Caper

  

                        Spy Smasher #1                                 Spyman #3

Showcase #104 

Wired-Italia, #42  Agosto 2012