Taking more than a few years

After about sixty years the Britsh government has finally gotten around to issuing an official apology to the late Alan Turing. Prime Minister termed his treatment "appalling." What is particularly appalling is that Turning was being pilloried at the same time that real spies like Philby, Burgess, Blunt and MacLean were actively providing detailed information to the Soviet Union. All were assumed to be above suspicion since they all came from "good families" and had attended the right schools.

By way of background, Guy Burgess and Donald MacLean were British diplomats who disappeared in 1951 and surfaced in Moscow in 1956. There was speculation that Harold "Kim" Philby, head of the Soviet section of the British Secret Intelligence Service, was the "third man" who alerted them before they could be arrested for espionage. Philby also defected but only after overwhelming evidence was provided to show he was a spy (the Brits hadn't learned a thing from Burgess and MacLean). Anthony Blunt did not flee and continued to hold a position of trust until finally exposed in 1979.

Besides the tie-in to cryptography with Alan Turing finally getting an apology, another lesson to be learned from this post is to be alert that anyone can be either an active or inadvertent security vulnerability.

Cheers,
Dave