Item #R425 Between Silk and Cyanide -- a Codemaker's War, 1941-1945. Leo Marks.
Between Silk and Cyanide -- a Codemaker's War, 1941-1945
Between Silk and Cyanide -- a Codemaker's War, 1941-1945

Between Silk and Cyanide -- a Codemaker's War, 1941-1945.

Free Press, Simon & Schuster NY 1998 later printing; 614 pages, index, photographs.

Condition: Good to very good overall, hardcover in dustjacket, titles in yellow on spine and cover; exlibrary with remains of label on spine and rubberstamps on front and rear pastedowns. The binding is sound and secure, pages clean, unmarked.

Categories: Biography and Company Histories, Computers and Society, Cryptanalysis, Cryptology, Computer Security, General Histories and References, Human-Computer Interaction, Mathematics

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Price: $8.00

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Item Description

soe (special operations executive) was created in July 1940 with a mandate from Winston Churchill to 'set Europe ablaze'. Its main function was to infiltrate agents into enemy-occupied territory to perform acts of sabotage and form secret armies in preparation for D-day. Leo Marks ingenious codemaking innovation was to devise and implement a system of random numeric codes printed on silk. Camouflaged as handkerchiefs, underwear, or coat linings, these codes could be destroyed message by message, and therefore could not possibly be remembered by the agents, even under torture... (from the jacket flap).