Categories
18th Century

James Jay’s Invisible Ink

Have a drink with: James Jay
They’ve given you a number and taken away your name

Ask him about: passing notes in class

Invisible Ink

With the recent news that Congressional Republicans have rolled back broadband protections on the harvest and sale of Internet search data by service providers, information on how to protect the privacy of your Internet existence is in high demand.

One of the words that most often comes up in this space: encryption. One of the cornerstones of modern information security is the ability to protect information in an algorithmic shield. But if you ask Revolutionary War spies about their information security program, they’d have one thing to tell you: scrambling is good, but hiding is better.

Categories
20th Century

Ian Fleming

Have a drink with: Ian Fleming
Shaken, not stirred.

Ask him: hey, can we bring drinks into the library?

In 1963 a major exhibition of rare books and printed treasures called Printing and the Mind of Man went up at the Eleventh International Printing Machinery and Allied Trades Exhibition (IPEX) in London, displaying some four hundred historic books borrowed from dozens of libraries and private individuals and billing itself as “the most impressive collection of books ever gathered under one roof.” Among other treasures, visitors could see a broadsheet copy of the Declaration of Independence and a one-of-a-kind leaf from the Gutenberg Bible. The King’s College library at Cambridge was the leading exhibitor, with fifty-one items.

In second place, with forty-four: Ian Fleming.