Cryptography and the Coventry Problem
By @edent
· crime gchq nsa politics prism spying terrorism · 2 comments · 350 words · read ~829 times.
There's an ethical conundrum which is often posed to military strategists and philosophers alike. In 1940, the Nazi's communications encryption had been broken by the British. Military Intelligence were able to decrypt a signal which indicated that the city of Coventry was to be bombed. The military chiefs took this information to the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. If he ordered the evacuation of the city, he would save hundreds of thousands of lives - but the enemy would know that their …
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