Alex Blackwell

“Time-travel is full of ironies.” – @stephenking.bsky.social (“11/22/63”)

The “arsenal of democracy” is becoming the “McDonald’s of tyranny.”

I’m sure his defense attorneys will point that out. His apparent incriminating statements, though, might be a problem.

Kaczynski didn’t even leave DNA on the stamps, and this was long before DNA forensic analysis was a thing. In fact, I believe he sprinkled random hairs he collected during his travels in the bomb packages.

He was a monster, but his tradecraft was excellent. Until his manifesto.

This was the same issue in UNABOM, I believe. I presume there was no John Doe indictment in that case because Kaczynski didn’t leave behind any fingerprints or DNA evidence. But since he committed murder, there wasn’t a statute of limitations to worry about.

I never thought of that. Indeed, I think that explains why the USAO in NORJAK (the D.B. Cooper case) obtained a John Doe indictment in 1976 because, as we only recently learned, they had a palm print they could plausibly assert was the hijacker’s.

Given that I’m not a lawyer, I’m not familiar with the law, but if the option is still available, a John Doe indictment could have been filed at any time before the five-year mark to toll the statute of limitation.

This is what happened in NORJAK (the D.B. Cooper case).

In that case, I’m not sure why a John Doe indictment wasn’t obtained. DOJ could always file a superseding indictment once a suspect was identified.

Sort of like UNABOM?

For @jimeharrisjr.bsky.social.

Revealing secrets from WWII: the original German instructions of Schlüsselgerät 41 Schlüsselgerät 41 (cipher device 41) is a rare but very advanced mechanical cipher machine from World War II. It was developed by Fritz Menzer in 1941, and used by the German Abwehr at the end of t...

A new open access article. doi.org/10.1080/0161...

J. Edgar Loser.

Lübeck, the City of the Seven Towers and the Queen of the Hanseatic League.

The Naibbe cipher: a substitution cipher that encrypts Latin and Italian as Voynich Manuscript-like ciphertext In this article, I investigate the hypothesis that the Voynich Manuscript (MS 408, Yale University Beinecke Library) is compatible with being a ciphertext by attempting to develop a historically pl...

A new open access article. doi.org/10.1080/0161...

Linda Weissgold gives “Trust Me” four out of four trenchcoats in her @thecipherbrief.bsky.social review. www.thecipherbrief.com/security-cle...

Trust Me: A Guide to Secrets: Who Gets Them and Why We Have Such a Mixed Track Record with Them www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Gui...

The determined spy: the turbulent life and times of CIA pioneer Frank Wisner Published in Intelligence and National Security (Ahead of Print, 2025)

“The result is a fuller portrait of a committed Cold Warrior confronting both communism and an equally deadly enemy in the form of bipolar disorder, which psychiatry had yet to diagnose and manage.” doi.org/10.1080/0268...

He would have fit right in with the post-Smiley group of righteous Circus officers in the Le Carré canon. I’m thinking of Ned from “The Russia House” or Leonard Burr from “The Night Manager.”

Bletchley Park’s work on JN-25 This article describes the work done by codebreakers in the Naval Section at Bletchley Park on the primary World War II Japanese naval cipher JN-25. It also describes the relationship between the U...

It should be noted that, in addition to the US and Great Britain, the Australians and the Dutch also worked on JN-25. doi.org/10.1080/0161...

The Votivkirche in Vienna, where, in December 1975, Nicholas Shadrin was last seen (on the steps) by CIA officers from a nearby static surveillance post before being kidnapped by the KGB. Russia later admitted he died during the kidnapping.

This isn’t really new. www.ursi.org/proceedings/...

When the Chekists Took Up the Pen BOOK REVIEW: KGB Literati: Spy Fiction and State Security in the Soviet UnionBy Filip Kovacevic / University of Toronto PressReviewed by: Bill HarlowThe Reviewer Bill Harlow served as chief spokesman ...

Congratulations, Filip. Your book got an impressive three out of three trench coats in the @thecipherbrief.bsky.social review. www.thecipherbrief.com/kgb-literati...

I believe this is the first full-length biography of Meir Dagan. www.amazon.com/Architect-Es...

I’m reminded of another quote from a spymaster named Richard.

“We’re not in the Boy Scouts. If we’d wanted to be in the Boy Scouts, we would have joined the Boy Scouts.” - Richard Helms

“I’m not very keen on people being over-moralistic about the fact of spying.”

I love this quote from Sir Richard.

Former MI6 chief Richard Moore: Britain must regain the ‘power of example’ The outgoing head of the Secret Intelligence Service on the rise of China, why Putin is not interested in talks — and how screen spies aren’t always far from the truth

A great profile of Sir Richard. www.ft.com/content/acfe...

“History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors…” – T.S. Eliot (“Gerontion”)

This specific type of suspension among FVEY partners (or any multilateral sharing alliance) happens more often than one might suspect. And it’s usually resolved fairly quickly or worked around.

In the early years, the Agency conducted an internal course on FI using Gordon Stewart’s classic tome “Foreign Intelligence” as its textbook.

Gordon M. Stewart, Spymaster: the memoirs of Gordon M. Stewart, CIA station chief in Cold War Germany Published in Intelligence and National Security (Ahead of Print, 2025)

“Stewart himself seems to have completed his manuscript in 1983. Of course, readers should always be careful about memoirs, but particular caution is probably in order here.” doi.org/10.1080/0268...