#secret intelligence

Idk who this Artyom guy is or if its his real name, but he deserves all the kudos in the world.

Russian investigators have questioned the drivers of the trucks from which drones were launched during a large-scale attack on military targets. From Russian media:

“One of the drivers, a 55-year-old man from Chelyabinsk named Alexander Z., said that the truck belonged to a 37-year-old man named Artyom. Some time ago, Artyom had received an order from a businessman based in the Murmansk region, who requested the transportation of four prefabricated houses from Chelyabinsk to the Kola District of Murmansk.

The two men agreed on a price, and Alexander loaded the "cargo" into the truck and set off. According to him, while en route, an unknown individual contacted him by phone and gave specific instructions on when and where to stop. The final stop was near a Rosneft gas station close to a military airfield in Murmansk. It was from that location that the drones were launched.

A similar story was shared by another truck driver, 61-year-old Andrey M., who said he also worked for Artyom. His task was to transport prefabricated houses to the Irkutsk region. However, when he parked near the "Teremok" café in Usolye-Sibirskoye, drones began to take off from the back of his truck.

Other truck drivers involved in incidents in the Ryazan and Ivanovo regions reported similar experiences. One of them, a 46-year-old man named Sergey, told investigators he was transporting a modular house from Chelyabinsk. While driving through Ryazan, the roof of his Scania truck suddenly tore off, and drones flew out.

The fourth truck, involved in the drone launch targeting the Ivanovo airfield the day before, was also loaded in Chelyabinsk. According to the driver, this truck also belonged to Artyom.

A criminal case has been opened under terrorism-related charges. Investigators are currently searching for Artyom, who is reportedly a native of Ukraine.”

Thank you, Artyom!❤️

No woman in recent time has combined her qualities – her taste for arduous and dangerous adventure with her scientific interest and knowledge, her competence in archaeology and art, her distinguished literary gift, her sympathy for all sorts and condition of men, her political insight and appreciation of human values, her masculine vigour, hard common sense and practical efficiency – all tempered by feminine charm and a most romantic spirit.

- D.G. Hogarth on Gertrude Bell, explorer, archaeologist, diplomat.

No one was more qualified than distinguished Oxford archaeologist than David G. Hogarth to pass judgement on the life of Gertrude Bell.

D.G. Hogarth was Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (1909 -1927), but during the First World War as acting Director of the Arab Bureau during World War One he roped in both T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) and Gertrude Bell to undertake arduous British intelligence missions in the desert.

Both Gertrude Bell and T.E. Lawrence (of later Arabia fame) had attended Oxford and earned a First Class Honours in Modern History, both spoke fluent Arabic and both had travelled extensively in the Arabian desert and established ties with the local tribes before World War One. Hogarth recognised the value of Lawrence and Bell's expertise and upon his recommendation first Lawrence, then Bell, were assigned to Army Intelligence Headquarters in Cairo in 1915 for wartime intelligence service.

Bell became the only female political officer in the British forces during the war. She was St. John Philby's field controller, and taught him the finer arts of behind-the-scenes political manoeuvering - St. John Philby was a close supporter of the Ibn Saud family and the father of the future British spy traitor, Harold ‘Kim’ Philby.

After the war, Bell sought to help the Arabs. She wrote “Self-Determination in Mesopotamia,” a paper that earned her a seat at the 1919 Peace Conference in Paris. While Lawrence was frozen out, Bell became the architect of re-drawing the maps of the new emerging post-war Middle East.

Bell continued to explore related political and social issues in her 1920 work Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia. She was involved the 1921 Conference in Cairo with Winston Churchill, then colonial secretary, that established the boundaries of Iraq. Bell also helped bring Faisal I to power as Iraq’s new king. She is widely recognised as the founder of modern Iraq. For her work on their behalf, Bell earned the respect of the peoples of Mesopotamia. She was often addressed as “khutan,” which means “queen” in Persian and “respected lady” in Arabic.

Lessons In Quaratine: Forgotten Heros of History

In today’s post I will be covering British Mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philospher, and theoretical biologist, Alan Turing.

Alan Turing was a genius man who created the machine that helped break the notorious Nazi coding machine, the Enigma. The Enigma was a cryptic coding device used by the Nazis to send coded messages throughout WWII. This coding device was so advanced that every single day the codes that were used would be switched, meaning that there was about 159 quintillion combinations that could be used. This meant that no code was every used once.

At the being of this project Alan Turing was told he would be unable to produce his machine that he claimed would be able to break the Engima. Not being satifised, Turing contacted Winston Churchill, the prime minister of Britain at the time. Winston Churchill soon have Turing complete control over the project and allowed him the materials to complete the device he believed would crack the Engima code.

At first Turing machine was a failure, he couldn’t figure out exactly what was wrong since he’d put it together correctly. In a few short weeks following the final creation of the machine, he was able to finally crack the code. Using the a phenomenon in which is very common in coding, one in which you look for the name letters or words throughout messages. Once Turing implemented this technique into his work the machine was fully functionable. Throughout the war, Turing and his team of cryptanalysts were the only people besides the highest commander of the British Intelligence who knew about the creation of the machine.

After the end of the war Turing’s life took a turn for the worse. Turing was a homosexual, which by law in Britain was illegal during the 50’s, for being a homosexual he was charged with gross indecency and put on trial. On trial, rather than spend two years of his life in jail, he decided to go with chemical posioning treatment. Not being able to handle his life any longer, Turing committed suicide by cyanide posioning in the year of 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday.

The declassification and Turing’s Machine or the British Bombe wasn’t released to any form of the public until the year of 1970. The full declassification, in its entirety, wasn’t released to the public until the year of 1990. A full 50 years or so later was Alan Turing recognized for his work in WWII. As of modern day he is considered the father of modern computer. Turing was the first person ever to impose the question it AI(artificial intelligence) could ever be as smart as humans, he was also the person who created the “I’m not a robot tests”, these test are formally called the Turing Tests. Now that Turing has been recognized by the modern science, he had received awards and has awards named after him.

As of the year 2013, Her Majesty, the Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom gave Alan Turing a royal pardon for his charge of gross indecency. This pardon was a long time coming and needed to be done, especially since he was such a pioneer to the modern world of computer science that we live in.

Even though it’s been about 30 years since Turing and his cryptanalysts have been recognized for the major part they played in WWII, they are still not taught in History Books at all. It’s very disappointing that even after they’ve been recognized, they are still being forgotten by the world.

The Central Intelligence Group, the immediate predecessor of the CIA, was formed on this day seventy years ago. On January 22, 1946, President Truman christened Admiral Souers as the first Director of Central Intelligence and outlined the core missions of the group he had to oversee. Many of these core missions survive to this day.

If you are interested in learning more about the Central Intelligence Agency, why not read up on the history of CIA directors, starting with Admiral Souers. Or discover the impact of the National Security Act of 1947 on the agency, and how the agency quickly acquired a reputation for successful covert operations.