How to Spot a Spook (1974)
cryptome.org
cryptome.org
Apparently, regulations required the agents to only have small beers, presumably to avoid indiscretions while inebriated.
Only problem was, none of the locals ever ordered small beers, as the general practice was to get wasted enough to forget what a godforsaken place you'd wound up in, if only for an evening.
"What Totrov came up with were 26 unchanging indicators as a model for identifying U.S. intelligence officers overseas."
Reading stuff like this is really irritating. Do the author and editors not know the meaning of "unchanging and invariable"? It just makes the entire article seem idiotic.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u...
The Mossad used the same three ties for everybody.
I wonder if this is still the case? Seems like a very externally observable difference, especially today.
Of course, physical, structural security was bad too. Break a window and climb on in, just repair the window when you leave and maybe that'd be enough to capture some records. If it wasn't a bank or a prison, a building probably wasn't a fortress unless it was extra special.
People cared a lot less about how life turned out 40 or 50 years ago. Alcohol, tobacco, diseases everywhere, and medicine was kind of terrible. You get a feel that risk taking was normal.
Now, people clench up at the thought of breaking any rules. Call it the new technological superstition. We don't believe in god, but we believe in logs.
Even so, risk-taking is underrated. A risk is a chance of something happening; it's not guaranteed to happen every time. Whereas a measure you take to mitigate a risk, you end up having to do that every time, or else rationally there's no point to it. You have to lock the front door 100% of the time, to feel like you've successfully guarded against an intrusion that realistically might have only a 0.1% or 0.01% probability. If the cost of the mitigation measure is small, you don't notice. You're just being rational. But over time you accumulate a cowardly attitude. Put on your bike helmet and knee & elbow pads, grab your first-aid kit, pepper spray, some cash, tracking devi-- errrr phone, backup battery for phone, towel, jacket, air pump & flat tire repair kit, evidence-gathering videocameras, backup batteries for evidence-gathering videocameras, and then lock the front door, hide the key in your shoe along with the cash, and go for a bike ride, sticking to the bike lanes at all times, or off-street trails better yet (unless you're allergic in which case also bring an epi-pen and/or allergy pills, and since it might be rural better also bring a knife, a way to make fire, and a signaling device). Enjoy your freedom!
If you are an just an employee, it makes perfect sense to throw up your hands and claim you can't solve a problem, when the alternative is taking risks that reward the company, rather than yourself.
Not endorsing either POV, just noting that one's formative era affects one's behavior.
So, what do you do?
a) Throw up your hands in despair and do nothing, annoying whoever asked you to wade through barbed wire only to find the minefield.
b) Get down to it, step on a few mines after getting cut to shreds on the barbed wire, annoying the people who placed the mines as well as the ones who asked you to charge ahead (which are, by now, annoyed that you didn't complete the task on schedule.)
c) Try to point to the inconsistencies of The System and ask for clarification and advice. Annoy both the people who put down the mines (who fail to see why anyone wouldn't want a mine field there, it's not like they put them down for fun!) and the people who simply want you to do your job (noting that you complain that the sappers keep you from doing it well, rather than just getting down to it.)
d) Quit.
My pet theory in big organizations is that the next cohort of workers (40-50 year olds) have been mostly languishing waiting for old people to die, because big organizations are mostly not growing.
The younger people get stuck in a mid career cul de sac because the dinosaurs rule the important things, so career success is on peripheral things like the PMO. Those jobs are great for getting promoted, but not great for actually knowing anything.
Every generation feels like they're waiting for the next generation to retire. I feel that way about Baby Boomers. (No, I'm not a Baby Boomer. I'm more like Gen X, but that's not quite right either. I'm in between those two, which is why I have feelings of contempt for the people who invent sociological models....but I digress.)
I am at an age where my experience counts for something with some organizations, and is considered a complete liability for other organizations. I have changed fields entirely several times in my life. Some of the skills I have that make me uniquely qualified to do valuable things for big organizations are completely unmarketable to those same organizations because I do not have an appropriate credential they can accept to certify my knowledge and expertise. I have given up on them, too.
My point is that there is always room for younger people to really shake up the dinosaurs, but if you are trying to influence my generation, you'd better be willing to take some risks and really just say it straight. I know that's difficult for people younger than me, and I know that people in my daughter's generation (she's 29) aren't very good at being blunt and usually screw it up when they try, but truth-telling without worrying about political nuance or whatever the hell it is that everyone worries about that keeps them from just saying what they're thinking is very attractive and useful, at least to people my age.
Oh, and don't whine when you're telling the truth. Not many people who are my age like whiners.
In my 20's, my work environment was literally refered to as pirates vs dinosaurs. I learned that the dinosaurs had a lot to teach and that a lot of pirates weren't willing to go too deep. Easily intimidated. If you were willing to go deeper into things your peers were afraid of, you could make quite a nice niche for yourself.
>and usually screw it up when they try
Best advice I got when I was 24: "kid, you need to screw up enought to get noticed"
I work in volunteer convention running. I made someone cry once because I called their plan a "dumb idea" - this person mind you has a Ph.d in physics. I was dumbfounded.
I get frustrated by the younger folks because they all want everything RIGHT NOW (for no work), and I get frustrated by some of the older folks, because they're unwilling to question the status quo.
Now? The really pent up people just snap, shoot a bunch of people, and kill themselves, because they know they can't get away with anything anymore.
What was your name in the States? Was it Thompson or Johnson or Bates? Did you happen to draw on your mother-in-law? Or sink the old lady with weights, my friend, Eh, What was you name in the States?...Oh!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bank_robbers_and_robbe...
He actually _did_ get away with the initial heist, but screwed it up by trying to do it again. Did a few years in prison, but from the sounds of it, the banks only recovered a few million dollars, not the whole amount!
I thought that was an interesting story :) Mild-mannered programmer, biggest heist ever!
TLDR, today police arrested a man for a bank robbery in 1991, 26 years ago.
So I invite you to do what I did, which is look at the list and note how many were either shot, arrested, or otherwise eventually 'failed.'
The post I'm replying to makes it sound like folks got away all the time and that doesn't appear to be the case.
And if nothing else, you can find some interesting details in there. NYC burglaries in the 1850s and 1860s were patronized by a female German-immigrant while she simultaneously hob-knobbed with the society set.
My main point is that I don't think folks 'got away with it' as much as we might like to romanticize.
It's a fact, though, that operational security is /really/ difficult to do well all of the time. And your overall security is driven by your weakest link (like Ross Ulbricht found out).
The original article points out some ways informaiton leaked in the 70s; my guess is that there are similar leaks in the present day.
What people?
>Bruce, David KE--b Md 2/21/98, m (Evangeline Bell). >Princeton U AB 19. Mem Md bar. US Army 17-19, >42-45 col overseas. PRIV EXPER ... >GOVT EXPER with Off Strategic Sers 41-45
The other is the date of publication, just before the Church committee crippled the CIA for a number of years. It makes me wonder how this fits in with all the other events of that time.
And that's exactly what makes spy work so interesting to observe in the first place: trying to figure out the motives, reality vs. cover, intent, etc. of complete strangers. It's all fun and games until you become their target, I suppose.
The overt description of covert operations, made by the CIA, in their career description, is that agents handle sources and sources do whatever dirty deeds the agency really wants done. Of course, the CIA has entirely different sections with military or hacking capability but basic "game" of embassy based agents interfacing with covert agents interfacing with actual sources remains.
Don't these agencies, militaries, and companies (BAH, Lockheed, Boeing, Dell) get micro-targetted exactly like this? I'd imagine foreign intelligence agencies use websites and ad networks to drop zero-days on persons of interest.
Might be a fair few government employees who just don't tie their social media presence to their real identity for one reason or another. If I get a role in the UK civil service I'm certainly not putting a job description in my Twitter profile, but that doesn't mean I work for MI5.
- Could someone who read through to the end mention what the eventual answer the journalist gave, as to why?
(I see I got almost instantly downvoted[1], but could you answer the question?)
Thanks.
I guess I'm not. Hey, let me ask you something. Are you a very experienced Linux user? It's the only other community I've heard this perspective from.