One Honest Indie

“Reject the tyranny of picked. Pick yourself.” ― Seth Godin, Poke the Box

  • Home
  • About Me
    • Privacy Policy
    • GDPR Privacy Policy
  • What is Dystonia?
  • My Novels and Short Fiction
    • The Sam McRae Mystery Series
      • Identity Crisis
      • Least Wanted
      • Riptide
      • Deep Six
      • Law Can Be Murder
    • The Erica Jensen Mysteries
    • My Other Novels
      • Invisible Me
      • The Planck Factor
    • Short Stories
  • For Writers
    • Indie Publishing
    • Blogging
    • Screenwriting
    • Writing Advice
    • Marketing
  • Podcasting
  • Hang Onto Your Work-Life
    • Frugal Living
    • Health and Wellness
    • Recipes
    • Organizing
    • Photography
    • Travel
  • Online Courses
    • Learning for Life
  • Book Reviews
  • Food for Thought
    • Bits and Bobs
  • Videography
    • My Videos
  • Contact Me

My Visit to the National Cryptologic Museum

12/20/2016 by Debbi

Tweet
Share
Pin

I had the most awesome opportunity recently to visit a lesser-known, but great tourist attraction. I got to visit the National Cryptologic Museum, which is practically a stone’s throw from where I live in Columbia, MD.

I joined a group that I found through an online meetup that had arranged for a guided tour.

Here are some of the highlights of our visit, in the following photos.

A cipher disc!

This was in the lobby. By the time I figured out how it worked, the tour had started! 🙂

George Washington was, apparently, a true cipher and code enthusiast. The colonies’ win at Saratoga convinced the French to back us during the American Revolution.

The Zimmerman letter

Here’s a description of how the US of A got involved in World War I. It got cut off at the bottom. Sorry about that.

But the Zimmerman telegram essentially was a deal Germany tried to strike with Mexico. Except that the British decoded the message and revealed its secrets to the US. So … our former “owners” (so to speak) became our allies. And we entered World War I, because Imperial Germany was trying to help Mexico steal back the land we’d stolen! 🙂

This guy was a cryptographer, who founded and led a cryptographic organization called the Black Chamber. Yardley was concerned about weaknesses in our country’s coding practices. He ended up writing a memoir of his experiences that revealed a lot about his work. The American Black Chamber became hugely popular. This caused our government no small amount of concern, although Yardley claimed to have written the book for benign reasons.

I thought of asking the guide when they planned to put up the Snowden exhibit, but thought better of it.

The Enigma Cipher

The Enigma Cipher wasn’t entirely broken by Alan Turing. Apparently, Turing’s work was based on earlier work done by three Polish men. Even so, the man was a genius (Turing, that is). Next time I go to London, I’ll have to see Bletchley Park and Churchill’s underground WC.

More Enigma

I never knew that the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) built this great big deciphering machine. They worked at NCR (National Cash Register) on the machine, then labored 24/7 at some place on Nebraska Ave. doing the deciphering. Their jobs were top secret and, if they told anyone else, they would be shot as traitors. Wow!

And here’s another Enigma machine.

Enigma!

So … after World War II and before the Cold War Age, a group of Soviet children gave the US ambassador to the USSR a replica of the Great Seal of the US, because we’d been such great pals during WWII.

The Great Seal!

But, oddly enough, the diplomat’s people noticed that some strange guy was hanging out in a car outside the ambassador’s office building, where the gift was hung. He’d follow the ambassador when he left the office, too.

Well, it turned out that this awesome gift contained a bug. The office had been swept for bugs, but this was a bug like no other. It only activated when radio waves were focused on it. In that way, it eluded discovery.

Upon its discovery, they not only had to go through every bit of conversation the ambassador had for the previous seven years (since he’d received the gift), but Kruschev was trying to persuade the third world to turn against the US, because we were spying on them (this was after a famous incident in which a pilot in a U2 plane flew too close to the ground over the Soviet Union and got shot down).

Ah ha!

Kruschev planned to blindside us with a call to arms against the US at the United Nations, but our ambassador brought the Great Seal to the UN and showed the bug to Kruschev — that took the wind out of his sails.

Finally, here’s an awesome T-shirt from the gift shop.

And here’s a really cool video I took! 🙂

Tweet
Share
Pin

Filed Under: Travel Tagged With: Crypotography, History, Maryland, Museums, Tourist Attractions, Travel

Meet Debbi

Welcome to my writers' corner of the Internet. I'm a novelist, who also writes short stories and screenplays. I hope to share the benefit of my experiences as an indie author with dystonia since 2009. I also post a lot of book reviews, because I love to read and learn new things. I hope to share that knowledge with you.

Click on the cover for a free copy!

Beginner’s Guide to Mystery Writing

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Follow

Categories

  • Accountability
  • Accountability
  • Announcement
  • Bits and Bobs
  • Blogging
  • Book Reviews
  • Commentary
  • Creative Entrepreneurship
  • Curated Links
  • Film Review
  • Food for Thought
  • For Writers
  • Frugal Living
  • Fundraising
  • Hang Onto Your Work-Life
  • Health and Wellness
  • Indie Author Guide
  • Indie Publishing
  • Law for Writers
  • Learning for Life
  • Life Update
  • Marketing
  • Memoirs
  • My Story
  • My Videos
  • Online Courses
  • Online Marketing
  • Organizing
  • Photography
  • Podcasting
  • Poetry
  • Print Publishing
  • Producing
  • Random Thoughts
  • Recipes
  • Screenwriting
  • Serialized content
  • Social Media
  • Summaries
  • Tech Talk
  • Towel Day
  • Travel
  • Videography
  • Vlog
  • Writing Advice

Tags

Amwriting Authorpreneurs Blogging Book Publishing Book Review Book Reviews BookTube Branding Business Content Marketing Crime Fiction Dystonia Entrepreneurship Fiction Filmmaking Health History How-To Indie Authors Indie Publishing Marketing Memoirs Mindfulness Nonfiction Online Marketing Organizing Productivity Productivity Random Crap Random Thoughts Recommended Reading Self-Care Self-Publishing Self-Publishing Guide Seth Godin Social Media Travel Video Videos Vlog Wellness Work-Life Balance Writing Writing Tips YouTube

Grow Your Readership with BookSweeps

Support Indie Bookstores

indiebound

Recent Posts

  • Things I Find on the Internet
  • My Book Review of ‘Organized Enough’
  • Quiet on the Set!
  • You Can Write Anywhere
  • You Don’t Need a Computer to Write

Recommended Web Services

Build Your Website with Namecheap - Get Privacy Protection Free Forever

Web Hosting

Monthly Archives

Copyright © 2023 · Beautiful Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in