Hi Reader,

This week, I gave my first-year security students a challenge involving encryption, access control, and a suspiciously endangered grade file.

There was competition. There was some confusion. There were teams leaning over clues and trying to figure out what the other teams were doing. In other words, it looked a lot like learning. I’m not sure every part of the lesson landed perfectly. That happens in a classroom.

But they understood something important: protecting information and breaking a code both require curiosity, patience, and a willingness to keep looking when the answer isn’t obvious.

That brought me back to a remarkable book I read several years ago called Code Girls by Liza Mundy.

During World War II, more than 10,000 American women were recruited to intercept enemy messages, study patterns, and break codes. Their work influenced military decisions and saved lives, yet many of them remained silent about their contributions for decades.

They did this without modern computers, search engines, or an “ask AI to explain this cipher” button. They used pencils, paper, machines, mathematics, teamwork, and an extraordinary amount of persistence.

In the newest episode of Mr. Fred’s Tech Talks, I share the stories of women such as Dorothy “Dot” Braden and Genevieve Grotjan Feinstein, whose work helped crack Japan’s difficult PURPLE cipher. I also connect their story to what my students were learning about encryption this week.

→ Listen to “Code Girls: The Women Who Cracked WWII’s Secret Messages”

This is a story about technology, but it is also about people doing meaningful work without knowing whether history would ever remember their names.

I think you’ll enjoy meeting them.

Keep learning and keep tinkering, Mr. Fred

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P.S. Had you heard of the Code Girls before today? Hit reply and let me know. I would genuinely enjoy hearing from you.