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Well, Britain decided to hide everything behind the Official Secrets Act, which workers proudly maintained.

And the US didn't, and here we are today on HN from California.




If you didn't know, you're been hell-banned for months. That's why so few people reply to your comments.

But anyway, keeping something secret doesn't mean it didn't happen. And it's now public knowledge for anyone who cares to look outside the history of the US.


Didn't know HN has shadowbanning.


You have to have a certain level of karma to be able to see shadow-banned people. Otherwise... yeah not knowing about it is kind of the point, isn't it?


No, you just need to enable showdead in profile settings. Certain karma amount is required for vouching permissions.


> If you didn't know, you're been hell-banned for months.

Of course I'm banned on HN - I'm not a leftist, right dang?

I stand by what I say, and won't appease moderators.

> But anyway, keeping something secret doesn't mean it didn't happen.

My point was that Britain missed out on most of the IT industry growth because of the OSA. Instead that success went first to Boston, then SV.

I do understand that all Britain has left is its past glory, which its citizens continually remind the US about, while we're busy doing.


Of course I'm banned on HN - I'm not a leftist, right dang?

Very unfair. As somebody who has regularly commented here against the excesses of the left, while sometimes the silent downvoting has often been telling as to the sympathies of some, the moderation has always been scrupulously fair.


> I do understand that all Britain has left is its past glory, which its citizens continually remind the US about, while we're busy doing.

Not sure why you needed to turn snide there after I took the time to vouch for your comment and reply to you in good faith.

You can be happy about making a success of current technology, without pretending what other people did before you never existed.


> Well, Britain decided to hide everything behind the Official Secrets Act, which workers proudly maintained.

Fun fact: GCHQ still refuses to talk about some of the earliest computing work on Colossus and enigma decryption. I was quite surprised to hear this when I was on a tour of The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park[0].

I hope that if/when they do decide to declassify that information that they'll hand it over to TNMOC.

[0] https://www.tnmoc.org/ - It's well worth a visit so when they're open again post-COVID see if you can get down there.


GCHQ are embarrassed because they lost / destroyed it. "Refusing" is less embarrassing than "ooopsie!".


do you have a source for this? I imagine you are right, but is there an interesting story about it you've seen?


I recommend "Between Silk and Cyanide" by Leo Marks.




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