[Cryptography] Women Cryptologists of WW2: a stamp

John Gilmore gnu at toad.com
Wed Nov 2 07:34:37 EDT 2022


The US Postal Service recently produced a stamp to honor the women
cryptologists of World War 2:

  https://store.usps.com/store/product/buy-stamps/women-cryptologists-of-world-war-ii-stamps-S_482204

I found it available in my local post office last week.  A first-day
cover, a commemorative panel, and other collectors' versions are also
available.  The sheet of stamps includes a simple substitution cipher
to decode (using the rot3 key on the back).

The sheet commemorates 11,000 women.  The USPS description webpage calls
out by name one such woman, whose insights were key to cracking Purple
and Venona:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genevieve_Grotjan_Feinstein
  https://www.buffalo.edu/atbuffalo/article-page-spring-2018.host.html/content/shared/www/atbuffalo/articles/Spring-2018/features/an-american-hero.detail.html

There's more declassified detail on her work here:

  https://www.nsa.gov/portals/75/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/history-today-articles/History%20Today%2022%20April%202019.pdf
  https://www.nsa.gov/portals/75/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/history-today-articles/History%20Today%2023%20April%202019.pdf

These cryptologist stamps will be useful for sending christmas cards to
kids, spies, and cryptographers!

	John


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