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Crazy story about a guy who got an FBI record at age 12 for making a secret code with his friend [1]

['Mark Frauenfelder']

Date: 2023-01-19

In a 1988 post, computer scientist Les Earnest recalls the time he was suspected of being a Japanese spy when he was a 12-year-old living in San Deigo, California, in 1943. Earnest and his friend Bob had read the 1942 book Secret and Urgent: The Story of Codes and Ciphers, by Fletcher Pratt and made their own cipher for fun. Pratt lost the piece of paper with the cipher while he was riding on a streetcar trolley. Someone found the paper and reported it to the authorities, eventually leading to an all-out manhunt for the "Japanese spy" who lost the code. Read Earnest's story here.

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