Its funny, but this girl I'm seeing will be getting some Internet training in the near future for the gov't job she holds. And in the course of talking about that this evening with her, I briefly chatted with her about cryptography privacy and PGP. But when we talked abit more on this subject, she revealed something I found to be pretty interesting. It turns out that her old man was an MI6 operative during WWII. That certainly caused me to raise my eyebrows a bit. He evidently was one of MI6's operatives in Iraq and did some pretty lethal shit. Apparently he was involved in some economic warfare (whatever the hell that means) aginast Axis interests in the area.She told me he still clams up REAL good about his wartime experiences and it takes quite abit of coaxing to get anything out of him. It sounds like his security clearance was pretty reasonable.....likely in the secret/top secret category. As somebody whose closest contact with an operative of an intelligence service has been the cover of a Len Deighton novel, I found this awful intriguing. MI6, from what I understand is one of the oldest and longest running agencies around. I think they started up (offically) in 1910, although Whitehall likely had some spooks earlier than that, given Britain's colonial exposure. And indeed, MI6 is one of the best. Maybe even THE best? Still, you can be damn sure I'm going to remain friends with this lady for some time. What her father has to tell is probably pretty enlightening, to say the least.