alanhitchcock49
Bletchley Park Mansion
Following information courtesy of Wikipedia - "Secrecy -
Properly used, the German Enigma and Lorentz ciphers should have been virtually unbreakable, but flaws in German cryptographic procedures, and poor discipline among the personnel carrying them out, created vulnerabilities which made Bletchley's attacks just barely feasible. These vulnerabilities, however, could have been remedied by relatively simple improvements in enemy procedures, and such changes would certainly have been implemented had Germany any hint of Bletchley's success. Thus the intelligence Bletchley produced was considered wartime Britain's "Ultra secret" – higher even than the normally highest classification Most Secret – and security was paramount. Few outside Bletchley knew its mission, and even fewer (inside or outside) understood the breadth of that mission and the extent of its success.[citation needed] All staff signed the Official Secrets Act (1939) and a 1942 security warning emphasized the importance of discretion even within Bletchley itself: "Do not talk at meals. Do not talk in the transport. Do not talk travelling. Do not talk in the billet. Do not talk by your own fireside. Be careful even in your Hut ...
In addition, any commander in the field receiving Ultra intelligence was fed a cover story crediting a non-Ultra source; at times sham scouting missions – intentionally visible to the enemy – were dispatched to "discover" German positions in fact already known from Ultra. In some cases it was impossible to act on Ultra intelligence at all because to do so might suggest to the enemy that their communications had been penetrated,
though certain claims that the British authorities refused, for this reason, to take steps to protect civilians from imminent harm have been vigorously disputed – see, for example, Coventry Blitz."
Bletchley Park Mansion
Following information courtesy of Wikipedia - "Secrecy -
Properly used, the German Enigma and Lorentz ciphers should have been virtually unbreakable, but flaws in German cryptographic procedures, and poor discipline among the personnel carrying them out, created vulnerabilities which made Bletchley's attacks just barely feasible. These vulnerabilities, however, could have been remedied by relatively simple improvements in enemy procedures, and such changes would certainly have been implemented had Germany any hint of Bletchley's success. Thus the intelligence Bletchley produced was considered wartime Britain's "Ultra secret" – higher even than the normally highest classification Most Secret – and security was paramount. Few outside Bletchley knew its mission, and even fewer (inside or outside) understood the breadth of that mission and the extent of its success.[citation needed] All staff signed the Official Secrets Act (1939) and a 1942 security warning emphasized the importance of discretion even within Bletchley itself: "Do not talk at meals. Do not talk in the transport. Do not talk travelling. Do not talk in the billet. Do not talk by your own fireside. Be careful even in your Hut ...
In addition, any commander in the field receiving Ultra intelligence was fed a cover story crediting a non-Ultra source; at times sham scouting missions – intentionally visible to the enemy – were dispatched to "discover" German positions in fact already known from Ultra. In some cases it was impossible to act on Ultra intelligence at all because to do so might suggest to the enemy that their communications had been penetrated,
though certain claims that the British authorities refused, for this reason, to take steps to protect civilians from imminent harm have been vigorously disputed – see, for example, Coventry Blitz."