Potterwatch Passwords

[snorkackcatcher]

But before I get onto that -- a belated happy birthday for yesterday (hectic day here) to themolesmother! Hope things keep going better for you.

Anyway, Potterwatch. Can anyone suggest a good reason why the broadcasts required a password? (Other than the real, meta-reason of keeping Harry from hearing them until late in the DH year.) I hadn't thought about the subject in much detail until a fic draft touched on it, but surely the idea was for the shows to be as widely heard as possible. As far as security goes, the password for the next programme seems to have been given at the end of each broadcast anyway, and so all the Death Eaters needed to do was to catch on once and then they could listen in every time. Then there's the problem of how people even knew the broadcasts were on in the first place if they needed a password to find them.

The best in-story reason I can come up with (not a very convincing one) is that you could tune in once by just guessing the right word, but use of a password that you actually heard being given out was somehow magically linked to listening for the right reasons -- something along the lines of Hermione's jinx on the DA parchment in OotP -- and so wouldn't work for those trying to catch the Potterwatch team. Otherwise, it's secrecy for the sake of secrecy. Anyone got anything better?

Comments

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

I suppose the password would make it less easy for the Death Eaters to find, since they have to find the password first. But it certainly doesn't make it impossible for the Death Eaters to find.
And I suppose the need for secrecy came from the fact that the Potterswatch gives information to people that could fall in the wrong hands (to begin with, the identity of the broadcasters, I suppose).
Anyway, just my two cents...

[snorkackcatcher]

Yes, it does, but it doesn't keep it secret ... After all, even if the DEs can't guess the passwords, they could always torture them out of somebody. Odd,

[malinbe.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm delurking.

So, I think they all knew that ANY Death Eater who was in his twenties would have guessed in a second the identity of Lee. After all, he commentated every quidditch match for, at least, five years- and people tend to recognize that sort of thing. That was why they needed the password- to control who was listening and who wasn't. And I think they just spread the word- quietly. Everyone told people they knew they could trust, and so on. It was a way of keeping in touch AND informing people about what was really going on, but only the people they trusted with this information. Also, it's probable this was a way to keep in touch with those who were in hiding (like muggleborns, or others from the Order like Diggle and Jones, who were with the Dursleys in the muggle world)or even the kids at Hogwarts, who they had no way no reach.

(Can't help but say- I just came back from a night out and had a bit much to drink. Sorry if I didn't make any sense)

[snorkackcatcher]

Delurking is fine!

I hadn't really thought much about the voices being recognisable, but you're right -- and some of the aliases aren't exactly unguessable either ('River' and 'Romulus' for example). I can see the point about keeping it secret -- the bit that puzzles me is that it wouldn't have taken much for it to become not-secret. All the DEs needed to do was crack the code once. The undisclosed locations would be much more effective, you'd have thought?

[malinbe.livejournal.com]

Well, it occurs to me that the kind of people they would have working on such things as the radio waves wouldn't be any of the major and important DE. Hence, they wouldn't be the kind of people who understood better the people working at the Order (the way Lucius, for example, would), and probably weren't people who knew much about it either. So they probably didn't had much chance at breaking the code if they were using dead Order member's names. Granted, 'Albus' was a bit too obvious, but I don't think 'Mad-Eye' was such an obvious thing for an outsider's point of view.
After all, Voldemort is known for underestimating his adversaries, and at this stage probably thought the remaining people at the Order were terrified and in hiding, and whatever they were trying to do wasn't going to be of great importance. He's not the kind of person? being? who would think that warriors who oppose him would want to give the people hope through a radio show.

[snorkackcatcher]

hmm ... hard to say. In the broadcast the Trio actually heard, visits by DEs were mentioned, and since Snape knew the names of all the Order members and obviously would have had to pass them on, it wouldn't be too hard to guess them. There's a bit of a handwave of convenience about this. :)

[themolesmother.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for the birthday wishes. I'm having a small party today and am really looking forward to it.

I haven't really got a clue why listening to Potterwatch needed a password, especially since they were moving from place to place. You would have thought they'd want as many people to hear it as possible.

MM

[snorkackcatcher]

You're welcome!