geekosystem

Last month the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) publicly posted a WWII code found with the remains of a dead messenger pigeon. They believed that the code was uncrackable without further information, and hoped that by making the code public someone could provide the missing piece of the puzzle. That's exactly what happened. A Canadian man says he was able to crack the code in 17 minutes with an inherited codebook. He even believes he knows who sent the message.

British intelligence is seeking public assistance in cracking a coded message found on the leg of a dead World War II carrier pigeon. The agency GCHQ has been working on deciphering the message for the past few weeks, but they believe the code could be impossible to break without additional information. They're hoping they can get said information from the public, which is why we're now hearing about it. We'd like to help, but we're still having trouble figuring out GCHQ.

A new U.K. law, expected to be announced during the Queen's Speech in May, would allow the Government Communications Headquarters ( -- a British intelligence agency -- to have unlimited access to a wealth of information about U.K. citizens' communications. The law, which proponents claim is necessary for tackling terrorism and crime in general, would allow the GCHQ to pull up records concerning any citizen's phone calls, text messages, emails, and web history. At the moment, access to such information requires the permission of a Magistrate, much in the same way search warrants work in the United States. The new law, however, would remove this step.