30+ CIA agents killed because disguised comms sites used Google-able HTML (2018) | Hacker News Reader

30+ CIA agents killed because disguised comms sites used Google-able HTML (2018)

in.news.yahoo.com

The CIA and other US agencies hosted innocent looking sites (yoga, books) with secret login areas for covert communication. Iran found one of these of sites and used this to uncover ALL of them, probably through a shared piece of HTML. Agents then could be easily discovered by state monitoring of visitors to these sites. Iran shared this with China & other powers and at least 30 agents killed. Internal CIA reports said upwards of 70% of worldwide operations had been compromised.

John Reidy, a CIA contractor repeatedly raised warnings of these flaws before they were discovered by a foreign power but was ignored and fired.

http://media.mcclatchydc.com/static/graphics/20150723-PDF/20...

https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/75/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18376089

This might be dipping into kooky internet conspiracy territory, but there's a theory that some former moderator of a highly controversial subreddit was involved with such a site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF0dCNxfYHk

   This almost certainly included information sharing between these countries on U.S. covert communications techniques, said multiple former officials — the makings of a real-life “axis of evil.”

so you spy on sovereign states within their own borders, and somehow they are the axis of evil when they catch your spies. this is narcissitic perversion at the state level

Seems like stock standard American Exceptionalism to me. "When we do it, it's a communications network. When China does it, it's espionage".

Just want to point out that the enemies of the US spy heavily inside the borders of the US also. It's not like we're the only one doing it.

The difference is that the US either leverages foreign spies (e.g. trade for its own captured spies) or, like captured sources, they go to prison for breaking espionage laws or treason. They don't execute these people like some other countries do.

This reads like Hollywood. US inteligenc

I take it you don't think this sort of stuff actually happens anymore, despite the fact that the headline itself mentions 30+ agents being killed?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_imprisoned_spies https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/09/russian-spies-...

> They don't execute these people like some other countries do.

Well, the US government doesn't have an incentive to call attention to any extradjudicial killings of foreign spies that it does the way it does when its own agents are extrajudicially killed, and less-democratic states don't need to broadcast foreign counterintelligence killings to build support for desired policies, so the information situation isn't exactly symmetric.

If the US executed 30 Chinese spies, you're saying China would voluntarily suppress that information and allow the world to believe the US didn't do anything improper?

And curiously, the incompetent that are responsible for this are still in high position in administration; to be compared to the millions dollars and efforts wasted trying to lock up Julian Assange for 'theoritically without any proof having put sources at risk'.

It's probably time for american to realize that they live under a dictatorship of corrupt politicians!

Well, to be fair, citizens are leaking this kind of information and they’re called “heroes.”

Welcome to "cyber", where shooting the messenger is how threats are dealt with. I'm not really surprised at the attack vector, though: For professionals it is pretty obvious, but for a non-technical decision maker? Not so much.

This is genuinely shocking. When an institution like the cia is more interested in maintaining its image than its agents.. sad times to be an American.

Yea.. really feel bad for the people caught up in this. I can't imagine the sheer terror sources like those must experience every single day of their lives. Then they are caught and executed (and hopefully not tortured, but I would expect them to be). All due to some little league bs setup that an IT intern could unravel. It makes me incredibly grateful to have a boring mundane life where I don't have to look over my shoulder constantly and have an ever present sense of doom.

further proof that the US is decades behind other foreign powers

They are still very good at orange revolutions though especially domestic ;)

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