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Comment by commandlinefan | Hacker News Reader

There's a reason intelligence agencies recruited pretty girls to seduce high-ranking officials during the cold war.

Reminds me of that east german operation where they sent out "romeos" to seduce women in west germany (https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/romeo-spies/).

Pretty girls charged less than Nvidia?

As depicted in the tv show The Americans. Best show of all time.

This practice goes back to the ancient world and I'm sure continues today.

Jeffrey Epstein seemed to be doing things like that, whether for his own benefit (financial fraud) or on behalf of others. Maybe both.

I can't tell if he was a gov agent, or just extremely dedicated to sexual perversion.

Don't rule out "both".

When you do what you love and get paid for it, it's not even work!

It is definitely still happening today. The most famous recent example would probably be Maria Butina[0], a Russian woman who infiltrated the National Rifle Association and the US Republican Party during the 2016 election cycle to influence US politics. She was arrested, convicted of federal crimes and eventually deported back to Russia where she is now a member of the Duma (Russia's Parliament) after previously working for RT.

There's also the Chinese spy Christine Fang[1] who allegedly had an association with Eric Swalwell, a Democratic US Representative from California and also allegedly had affairs with 2 mayors in the midwest.

It's a pretty safe assumption that other governments are also doing the same thing. They just haven't gotten caught yet.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Swalwell#Contact_with_sus...

The most famous example is almost certainly Jeffrey Epstein, but that of course is just a conspiracy theory, until it isn't.

It's the original "honey pot". (That's where the term comes from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recruitment_of_spies#Love,_hon... )

A Canadian MP was recently dating a Communist spy: https://www.cp24.com/news/toronto-mp-suggests-he-was-victim-...

> and also allegedly had affairs with 2 mayors in the midwest.

This feels like extremely low-end spying.

Why? That sounds like nearly as good as it gets.

I mean, midwestern mayors? You're not winning spy of the month with reports about mayors.

I think a rep and 2 mayors is pretty solid?

Oh, a rep, sure, absolutely. But I just don’t get why anyone would bother spying on mayors at all.

What if you're an agent for $COUNTRY and $COUNTRY is planning a major investment in the city in question?

Having dirt on the mayor could be quite useful.

Yuuuuuuuup. It's where the infosec term "honeypot" comes from. They had code words in the Soviet union, where ladies were "swallows" and men were "ravens". Back in the day having a "raven" seduce another man was basically espionage jackpot, due to the enormous personal costs of outing the mark. Exceeded only by honeypotting the mark with children, which we might as well use the verb "epsteining". There was also a heyday of absolutely brilliant lady spy-adventurers in the period surrounding the French Revolution - this is right in the wake of Wollstonecraft, remember, what we might call the REAL first wave.

In ancient times sexpionage would flawlessly blend with the world of marriage alliances; Nefertiti, to take one example, was very likely of west Asian descent herself, and was thus a conduit for strange religions and large migrations from Hatti and Canaan. After Akenhaten's death, she probably sent for relatives, which gave impetus to the restoration of Amun, and would definitely put her closer to "spy" than unwitting spouse. I remember, there was one kooky old 19th century book, where Moses was actually Nefertiti. In drag, I guess? I need to go look that up.

Man, I wonder if anyone's written just a general survey of sexpionage through the milennia? Seems like it would sell a couple books.

If you have any good recommendation of book/documentaries, It would be wonderful :)

Red Sparrow (the book, not the movie, which was awful...)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008J4PK86

> It's where the infosec term "honeypot" comes from

And here I thought it was something innocuous like Winnie the Pooh getting his head stuck in a pot of honey.

It didn't end at the Cold war, at least for the Russians. Most notable is Maria Butina who, among other assignments, was sleeping with Republican political operative Paul Erickson who had close ties to the NRA, and in a relationship with Overstock.com CEO and Trump conspiracy theorist Patrick M. Byrne. She was arrested in July 2018, and charged with acting in the United States as an agent of a foreign government, specifically the Russian Federation. After release, she had a show on Russia Today network and she's now a member of the State Duma representing Kirov Oblast for the United Russia party. [0]

There was also a ring of three Russian women spying on Ukraine, feeding military intelligence to Russia and the Wagner Group. [1] The bust came one day after Ukraine announced it foiled assassination attempt on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

And of course there was notorious NY party circuit regular Anna Chapman [2], charged with covertly communicating with Russian intelligence in the largest spy ring bust in the U.S. since the fall of communism.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-detained-a-group-of-...

[2] https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/russian-spy-ring-anna-chapman...

Putin very much has taken the position that the Cold War isn't over til he says it's over. You can't lose the game if you refuse to stop playing.

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