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Monday 10 June 2013

The vicar has lost his bike (in which I share a cunning plan)

So now we know for sure that the US government spies on facebook, e-mails and all the rest.  The UK
London has posted the video of the kitten playing
with a printer, comrades.  It's time to act.
government has been trying to pass a snooper's act for some time.  So here is my cunning plan to respond to this.

Many of you may know that during WWII the BBC World Service used to end its news broadcasts with 'and now some personal messages'.  There would then follow a series of random statements: the vicar has lost his bike.  Susan is looking forward to the holiday.  Mr Jones has gone to evensong.  Johnie played well in soccer today.  Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.  [Some of the items were lines from plays or poems.]

The point was that none of these could be decoded.  Most was gibberish.  But in amongst them were lines that the resistance had been told to expect, and when they heard them, that meant that something pre-arranged would happen that night (or whenever).  Before D-Day (if I remember correctly) a line of a poem was broadcast; when the next line was read out, that meant, the invasion is coming tonight/tomorrow, etc.  German intelligence apparently guessed this one right but the supreme command refused to believe it.

So my cunning plan is to jam the e-airwaves with gibberish, have our own codes for what they mean, or not even that. Just clog the system up with things that don't make any sense.

And now some personal messages:
The vicar has lost his bike.
Etc.

...

P.s.  My mate asks, 'isn't this just what Twitter is anyway?'  I fear he has a point.

Freddie has gone for pizza.