It is the Second World War. A British mathematician, Alan Turing, has designed a machine capable of decoding encrypted German radio transmissions. This creates a moral quandary.
The intelligence from the decoded messages could be used to prevent future German attacks from succeeding, but to do so would risk exposing the machine, and jeopardise its use as a tactical capability that might shorten the war. Its existence is so sensitive that even allies aren’t made aware of it.
We imagine the meeting of Turing with Lieutenant Commander Fleming from Naval Intelligence who pitches a cover story. An alternate explanation for the source of the intelligence.
The intelligence would instead have been provided by a spy-master. Fleming constructs a figure of sophisticated spy operating behind enemy lines, recruiting agents. Seductive, handsome, sophisticated, accomplished. Drinking in the finest establishments, in the finest of suits.
“And this super-spy has a name?”
“Oh it’d be something dull and unromantic. His cover would probably be be Swiss, but neither name will be spoken. We would only ever use his codename. I thought ‘Boniface’ would be apt. It’s the name Pope Gregory gave to the english monk sent to establish the Christian church in Germania.”
“Beyond the insult that the daily work of many hundreds might plausibly be that of one man, do you honestly believe your tales of a man in a suit are going to seduce German High Command.”
“Oh, personally I believe Berlin is primed to believe any explanation that doesn’t call into question their technical competence. But in this specific case, it’s the Americans we have to seduce.”
My plan for 2023 is to watch all 103 episodes of “Person of Interest”, 10 years later (the mid-point in the series aired in 2013) and to blog any notes, observations, heckles. If you want to watch along, the series is available digitally, and currently streamable on with ads.
If you’re unfamiliar with the initial premise of the show:
It is the War on Terror. An engineer has built a machine capable of predicting future acts of violence by (extralegally) processing large amounts of surveillance data. This creates a moral quandary.
This data could be used to prevent murders from occurring, but to do so would risk exposing the machine, and jeopardise its use in detecting larger scale terrorist plots.
So he looks for a way to use this data to save lives, without revealing the source.