Title: Between Silk and Cyanide
Description: The Special Operations Executive (SOE), a British WW2 group infiltrating Reich-dominated Europe, had during the War's early and middle years a continuing problem in certain parts of France.  They would train new agents, drop them into French territory, note their contact with a local agent... and they were lost, presumed captured or killed.  Two things needed to happen fast: first, a new network had to be built so fresh agents would not be compromised by the older, discovered network.  And second, a code generation method must be implemented that did not give a field agent knowledge of how other field agents generated similar messages into encrypted form (knowledge that could be extracted by torture).  The answer to the second problem was called a "one time pad", a method still in use today and which had life-saving results almost immediately in the Allied war effort.
Subjects: Biography, British Personal narratives, Cryptographers, Cryptography, Great Britain, Personal narratives, British, Secret service, World War, 1939-1945, Special Operations Executive, Gro©britannien, Erlebnisbericht, World War (1939-1945) fast (OCoLC)fst01180924, Weltkrieg (1939-1945), Kryptologie, Autobiographie, New York Times reviewed, World war, 1939-1945, cryptography, World war, 1939-1945, secret service, great britain, World war, 1939-1945, personal narratives, british, Great britain, biography, History, Geheime diensten, SOE, Geheimschrift, Tweede Wereldoorlog, Great Britain. Special Operations Executive, Fiction
Places: Great Britain
People: Leo Marks
Time periods: 1939-1945