MI6

Or the British Secret Services in general. Seriously, they got away with some fucking amazing scams. My favorite was the Enigma Machine.

These days, we all know that we'd cracked the Enigma machine during the WW2 - we could read anything sent using those ciphers. But the rest of the world (apart from the Yanks), didn't know that the Enigma machine was fallible. They still believed that it was uncrackable. Anything encoded with the Enigma, couldn't be read by anyone else.

So the war ends, the Allies are victorious, and Britain is feeling magnanimous. So what do we do?

We give all of the captured Enigma machines to our Commonwealth allies. Australia. New Zealand, all of our African allies and any other nation that we could scam into accepting our "gift".

From 1945 until about 1972 we had a merry time reading the take on all of these messages. It gave us a *huge* advantage in negotiations.

But I just love the sheer sneakiness of it....

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Tue 21 Apr 2009, 14:49, 8 replies)

I bet that went down well when they finally found out

( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Tue 21 Apr 2009, 15:02, closed)

They deserved it.
I mean, who in their right mind would trust a spy?
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 21 Apr 2009, 15:45, closed)

Is that true?
Great story if it is, but I thought they'd destroyed them all, together with the equipment they used to break the codes.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Tue 21 Apr 2009, 15:29, closed)

It'sTrue

( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Tue 21 Apr 2009, 15:56, closed)

OK
Ergo, great story!
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Tue 21 Apr 2009, 16:20, closed)

You were upset just before about the way Turing, who did so much for the war effort, was mistreated post war, and fair call. But you admire the sneakiness of this treatment of the allies who sacrificed so much?
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Tue 21 Apr 2009, 20:16, closed)

I Know
Sad, aren't I...

Well - I never claimed to be consistent...

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Wed 22 Apr 2009, 7:04, closed)

:) No, I'll give you that. Fair play.
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Wed 22 Apr 2009, 10:09, closed)