Wartime Spies Who Used Knitting as an Espionage Tool

[artsandsci]

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/knitting-spies-wwi-wwii

[mnutt]

Neal Stephenson also wove this idea into his historical fiction trilogy, The Baroque Cycle, set in early 1700s Europe. One of the protagonists keeps a journal encoded in binary cross-stitch as she moves across enemy lines.

[throwaway7645 → mnutt]

Sounds like a lot of work, for not much information recorded lol.

[Steltek]

The mucher higher tech version of this is Little Old Lady memory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_rope_memory

Wires "knit" around ferrite cores to form ones and zeroes. Bit twiddling anyone?

[pavement]

I have to wonder by how long this technique predates WWI, since history is littered with subversive cues and signals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_in_the_American_R...

Probably, any earlier than the 19th century and textiles were probably still pretty valuable, that they weren't just thrown around.

Also, perhaps most notably is the scytale which is pretty much the same concept, although probably minus the steganography.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scytale

[madaxe_again → pavement]

Even more analogous are Quipu, which encode information in knots. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu

[marsRoverDev → pavement]

Anyone who has been a scout has probably heard of Baden Powell hiding pictures of enemy installations in his paintings/sketches of butterflies:

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/images/featuredarticles/bad...

[Mz]

This is so cool. Related: "Knitting for Victory" (about actual knitted goods, not secret codes):

http://elinorflorence.com/blog/wartime-knitting

Edited to add:

https://judyweightman.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/more-knitting...

[pacomerh]

If you like this topic, check out this mini-series 'The Time in Between', where a seamstress uses sewing for espionage purposes during WWII

[imchillyb]

What to buy for that burgeoning spy?

How about the new Amazon Best Seller: String of Purls!

[foxhedgehog]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

[foxhedgehog → foxhedgehog]

Spoilers!

[partycoder]

Knitting steganography, who would have thought.