Part of a police code for describing suspects

researchgate.net

13 points·Bluestein··9 comments

The paper is available at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01611194.2025.2... from Cryptologia v50, 2026.

A PDF of Bellovin's paper (marked "draft") is available from the author at https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/papers/codebooks.pdf .

A "preliminary version" of the same paper is available at https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~CS4HS/talks/codebooks.pdf .

The "International Police Telegraph code" is available at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C210621 ; registration required.

UK police still use 'IC codes' to describe suspects' ethnicities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC_code

As immortalised by Black Box Recorder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-s_cMk7wYs

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Now I know where the name Axe body spray comes from.

Somehow Beverly Hills cop came to mind :)

PS. I am really curious as to what would make one "strikingly short" as opposed to just very short or "the shortest".-

I would guess that "the shortest" just means the shortest in a group of suspects, for example if you're explaining that the shortest in the group had red hair and the tallest had a glass eye.

Good point. Then you got the "strikingly" short guy (or gal): "She walked like six feet tall with an attitude to match, but was short, and strikingly short"

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