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Well, Britain decided to hide everything behind the Official Secrets Act, which workers proudly maintained. And the US didn't, and here we are today on HN from

Well, Britain decided to hide everything behind the Official Secrets Act, which workers proudly maintained. And the US didn't, and here we are today on HN from California.

chrisseaton 6y ago
If you didn't know, you're been hell-banned for months. That's why so few people reply to your comments. But anyway, keeping something secret doesn't mean it didn't happen. And it's now public knowledge for anyone who cares to look outside the history of the US.
- hoseja 6y ago
  Didn't know HN has shadowbanning.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    You have to have a certain level of karma to be able to see shadow-banned people. Otherwise... yeah not knowing about it is kind of the point, isn't it?
    - garaetjjte 6y ago
      No, you just need to enable showdead in profile settings. Certain karma amount is required for vouching permissions.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > If you didn't know, you're been hell-banned for months. Of course I'm banned on HN - I'm not a leftist, right dang? I stand by what I say, and won't appease moderators. > But anyway, keeping something secret doesn't mean it didn't happen. My point was that Britain missed out on most of the IT industry growth because of the OSA. Instead that success went first to Boston, then SV. I do understand that all Britain has left is its past glory, which its citizens continually remind the US about, while we're busy doing.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > I do understand that all Britain has left is its past glory, which its citizens continually remind the US about, while we're busy doing. Not sure why you needed to turn snide there after I took the time to vouch for your comment and reply to you in good faith. You can be happy about making a success of current technology, without pretending what other people did before you never existed.
  - mellosouls 6y ago
    Of course I'm banned on HN - I'm not a leftist, right dang? Very unfair. As somebody who has regularly commented here against the excesses of the left, while sometimes the silent downvoting has often been telling as to the sympathies of some, the moderation has always been scrupulously fair.
M2Ys4U 6y ago
> Well, Britain decided to hide everything behind the Official Secrets Act, which workers proudly maintained. Fun fact: GCHQ still refuses to talk about some of the earliest computing work on Colossus and enigma decryption. I was quite surprised to hear this when I was on a tour of The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park[0]. I hope that if/when they do decide to declassify that information that they'll hand it over to TNMOC. [0] https://www.tnmoc.org/ https://www.tnmoc.org/ - It's well worth a visit so when they're open again post-COVID see if you can get down there.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  GCHQ are embarrassed because they lost / destroyed it. "Refusing" is less embarrassing than "ooopsie!".
  - sep_field 6y ago
    do you have a source for this? I imagine you are right, but is there an interesting story about it you've seen?
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      I recommend "Between Silk and Cyanide" by Leo Marks.
      - redis_mlc 6y ago
        I follow WW2, and you'd be surprised that there's several areas of technology that were secret for decades afterward: - the US submarine torpedo computer (one is restored in SF now) - Lorenz streaming cipher (I think the Russians continued to use it) - Britain's entire signals intelligence process was "transferred" to the US, which made a global system still used today. - and Britain just doesn't declassify anything quickly. Some of the WW2 computer experts tried to get bank loans after the war to start mfg. companies, and I think the bank loan officers called MI5 or MI6 on them. If you follow the MSM, there's a related article or interview annually about this mindset in Britain, where most people expect to go to the grave with any knowledge from the 1940's. What's interesting about German technology was that: - Britain didn't know you could do long-range radio navigation until they detected German broadcasts - the V-1 and V-2 were thought to be fake by Churchill's science advisor until they started landing in Britain, as reliable rockets were "scifi only." The V-2 was a hypersonic ballistic missile that was designed in a Mach 5 wind tunnel, first entered space, then descended at 3600 mph. Even today that sounds like scifi. Ironically most of the advanced WW2 German technology was leaked in the "Oslo Report", but it was dismissed until horrified British scientists realized it was all true, and it was so far ahead that they couldn't understand it.

Well, Britain decided to hide everything behind the Official Secrets Act, which workers proudly maintained. And the US didn't, and here we are today on HN from California.

chrisseaton 6y ago

If you didn't know, you're been hell-banned for months. That's why so few people reply to your comments. But anyway, keeping something secret doesn't mean it didn't happen. And it's now public knowledge for anyone who cares to look outside the history of the US.

hoseja 6y ago
Didn't know HN has shadowbanning.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  You have to have a certain level of karma to be able to see shadow-banned people. Otherwise... yeah not knowing about it is kind of the point, isn't it?
  - garaetjjte 6y ago
    No, you just need to enable showdead in profile settings. Certain karma amount is required for vouching permissions.
redis_mlc 6y ago
> If you didn't know, you're been hell-banned for months. Of course I'm banned on HN - I'm not a leftist, right dang? I stand by what I say, and won't appease moderators. > But anyway, keeping something secret doesn't mean it didn't happen. My point was that Britain missed out on most of the IT industry growth because of the OSA. Instead that success went first to Boston, then SV. I do understand that all Britain has left is its past glory, which its citizens continually remind the US about, while we're busy doing.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > I do understand that all Britain has left is its past glory, which its citizens continually remind the US about, while we're busy doing. Not sure why you needed to turn snide there after I took the time to vouch for your comment and reply to you in good faith. You can be happy about making a success of current technology, without pretending what other people did before you never existed.
- mellosouls 6y ago
  Of course I'm banned on HN - I'm not a leftist, right dang? Very unfair. As somebody who has regularly commented here against the excesses of the left, while sometimes the silent downvoting has often been telling as to the sympathies of some, the moderation has always been scrupulously fair.

M2Ys4U 6y ago

> Well, Britain decided to hide everything behind the Official Secrets Act, which workers proudly maintained. Fun fact: GCHQ still refuses to talk about some of the earliest computing work on Colossus and enigma decryption. I was quite surprised to hear this when I was on a tour of The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park[0]. I hope that if/when they do decide to declassify that information that they'll hand it over to TNMOC. [0] https://www.tnmoc.org/ https://www.tnmoc.org/ - It's well worth a visit so when they're open again post-COVID see if you can get down there.

ncmncm 6y ago
GCHQ are embarrassed because they lost / destroyed it. "Refusing" is less embarrassing than "ooopsie!".
- sep_field 6y ago
  do you have a source for this? I imagine you are right, but is there an interesting story about it you've seen?
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    I recommend "Between Silk and Cyanide" by Leo Marks.
    - redis_mlc 6y ago
      I follow WW2, and you'd be surprised that there's several areas of technology that were secret for decades afterward: - the US submarine torpedo computer (one is restored in SF now) - Lorenz streaming cipher (I think the Russians continued to use it) - Britain's entire signals intelligence process was "transferred" to the US, which made a global system still used today. - and Britain just doesn't declassify anything quickly. Some of the WW2 computer experts tried to get bank loans after the war to start mfg. companies, and I think the bank loan officers called MI5 or MI6 on them. If you follow the MSM, there's a related article or interview annually about this mindset in Britain, where most people expect to go to the grave with any knowledge from the 1940's. What's interesting about German technology was that: - Britain didn't know you could do long-range radio navigation until they detected German broadcasts - the V-1 and V-2 were thought to be fake by Churchill's science advisor until they started landing in Britain, as reliable rockets were "scifi only." The V-2 was a hypersonic ballistic missile that was designed in a Mach 5 wind tunnel, first entered space, then descended at 3600 mph. Even today that sounds like scifi. Ironically most of the advanced WW2 German technology was leaked in the "Oslo Report", but it was dismissed until horrified British scientists realized it was all true, and it was so far ahead that they couldn't understand it.