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GCHQ was originally established after the First World War as the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) and was known under that name until 1946. During the Second World War it was located at Bletchley Park, where it was responsible for breaking the German Enigma codes.
The Establishment of the Government Code and Cypher School. Within a year of the end of the war, the separate naval and military intelligence organisations had merged to become the Government...
NCSC. information. Alan Turing was a leading cryptanalyst at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) working at Bletchley during WW2. He is also considered the founding father of...
- Most Secret
- State Secrets
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- Significant Advantages
- A Bewildering Jungle
The focus on its wartime work is both a blessing and a curse for GCHQ and British intelligence history. Just as the foreign intelligence agency, the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), is unable to escape the legacy of James Bond, GCHQ remains wedded to its wartime predecessor. Yet, while few historians would leave out ULTRA from its achievements, m...
The making and breaking of codes and ciphers has always been important. The Elizabethan state had its own cipher bureau, notably revealing plots against the sovereign. Later, the Post Office had its own ‘Secret Department’, opening the mail of suspected agents, which was abolished in the 1840s as a result of political scandal. But the origins of GC...
There were successes. One particularly important breakthrough was against wartime KGB traffic, codenamed VENONA. For Western intelligence, the breaks into KGB communications gave clear evidence that Soviet intelligence had penetrated the West’s atomic bomb programme, government and even intelligence agencies. SIGINT success led to the unmasking of ...
GCHQ’s history is more than just spy stories and secret intelligence. For much of its existence, it has been at the forefront of the UK’s diplomatic efforts in cementing the ‘special relationship’ with the United States and its Commonwealth partners. It has been intelligence that puts the ‘special’ into the ‘special relationship’, whatever politica...
For Britain’s allies, its reach had significant advantages. In wartime, the global nature of Britain’s intelligence effort was reflected in the list of overseas intercept sites: Malta, Cairo, Sarafand in Palestine, Abbottabad and Delhi in India, Singapore and later Kilindini in East Africa and HMS Anderson, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Even as Britain e...
But the new ‘second age of SIGINT’, starting in the late 20th century, poses significant challenges. First, the target has changed. State-based monitoring is important, but the end of the Cold War and the changed nature of international relations saw non state-based threats – terrorism, serious organised crime – rise up the agenda. As the CIA Direc...
1 nov 2018 · The origins of GCHQ date back to 1919 when it was formed under the original name of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS). It was the result of the merger of Room 40 in the...
23 ott 2019 · Originally called the Government Code and Cypher School, the unit was formed on 1 November 1919. In the interwar years, the Government Code and Cypher School had the overt function of protecting British Government communications and a secret mission to decrypt messages sent by foreign countries.
19 apr 2019 · Nick Smith 13 min read. From the archive: Just so you know, this article is more than 5 years old. External links and some functionality may no longer work. Fri 19 Apr 2019 — updated 9 Oct 2023. This year, the UK government's intelligence and security organisation celebrates its centenary.
