CIA declassifies WWI-era secret documents

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Originally published Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 1:47 PM
CIA declassifies WWI-era secret documents

The CIA is declassifying secrets for writing with invisible ink and even opening sealed letters without detection: state-of-the-art spying techniques from World War I.
By KIMBERLY DOZIER

WASHINGTON —

The CIA is declassifying secrets for writing with invisible ink and even opening sealed letters without detection: state-of-the-art spying techniques from World War I.

Six secret documents, made available on the CIA's website Tuesday, show how diplomats and generals of yesteryear got the drop on each other. There's a document written in French about the German's secret ink formula, showing that the French had cracked the German code.

CIA Director Leon Panetta says it's possible to reveal these secrets now because the old methods have been far outpaced by recent advances in the chemistry of secret ink and the lighting methods used to detect it.

Documents on secret writing fall under the CIA's authority to declassify. The agency said it declassified more than a million historical documents last year alone.



Read more: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2014816451_apusciasecretwriting.html

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. 100 years seems safe.

:eyes:

[HereSince1628]

2. Interesting that they control secrets from BEFORE their existance.

Methinks this organization's funding and influence greatly needs a severe trimming.

[Hardrada]

3. Intercepting carrier pigeons and telegrams will be up next!!

[formercia]

4. CIA declassifies Rosetta Stone

more at 11.

[AtheistCrusader]

5. Kind of cruel. Imagine all the WWI vets that died wondering about

XYZ, people maybe wronged, people maybe separated, people who wanted to know what happened to another person or a town..

How many people died with unanswered questions?

[Lasher]

10. I think of us today and wonder of the things we will never know.

Buried in the archives until they no longer matter.

[Ian David]

6. In my day, we used to carry our secret ink inside the onions that we all wore on our belts. n/t

[boppers]

7. Simpsons reference? Family guy? eom

[Lasher]

11. Grandpa Simpson.

[Liberal Veteran]

8. Damn you CIA and your transparency!

That shit I have been working on for 100 years is now in jeopardy because of you!

You may have won this round by exposing my evil plots, but just you wait! MY next plan for conquering the universe and defeating Batman will not be so easily foiled!

[The abyss]

9. Recommend! Thanks for posting Judi

[struggle4progress]

12. Some of the "secret ink" described is pretty primitive stuff, like lemon juice, and

some of the disclosure techniques seem fairly obvious, such as "Examine through powerful beam of light directed on surface at different angles"

There are some other curiosities: "Samples 1, 4, and 5 will .. exert a .. corrosive action on steel pens, and therefore .. would have to be used with a quill pen"