TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Espionage

Go To

A thread to discuss espionage (both international and corporate) and its impact on world affairs.

If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines before posting here.

As with other OTC threads, off-topic posts may be thumped or edited by the moderators.


NOTE: The Israel and Palestine thread is currently locked. Although we generally permit posts in other threads that involve one or both and are directly on-topic, espionage is inherently controversial and that approach doesn't really work here.
  • Posts about espionage related to the conflict between Israel and Palestine are prohibited.
  • Any posts about espionage involving Israel or Palestine and unrelated to the conflict are permitted as long as they stay on topic for the thread.

    Original OP 
Would like to get a discussion ongoing about espionage and anything that can affect the current world affairs...


For starters, I have (still do when possible) some interest in Mossad/Shin Bet/Israeli Police's use of informant within the Palestinian populace to root out militants and help Israeli commando identify HVTs. Although their recruitment comes at a heavy price.

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/01/28/267836867/a-palestinian-explains-why-he-worked-as-an-israeli-informant

- This article is a good read since it talks about one Palestinian member of Fatah who abandoned it after its members accuse him of being an Israeli mole.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-palestinian-informant-for-israel-says-police-abandoned-him-1.5462490

- This one mentions an arrest made by Palestinian police on a man who's been working with Israeli police for some time and was found to have a pistol for protection.

Edited by Mrph1 on May 28th 2024 at 9:14:18 AM

Ominae Since: Jul, 2010
Ominae Since: Jul, 2010
#252: Nov 20th 2020 at 7:48:00 PM

Jonathan Pollard's parole conditions have expired, so he's allowed to leave for Israel after serving time for passing sensitive intel to them from the US.

TerminusEst from the Land of Winter and Stars Since: Feb, 2010
#253: Nov 29th 2020 at 3:03:04 AM

The former Chief of Disguise in the CIA talks about Cold War gadgets:

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
Ominae Since: Jul, 2010
eagleoftheninth Shop all day, greed is free from a dreamed portrait, imperfect Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Shop all day, greed is free
#255: Dec 9th 2020 at 6:53:35 PM
Ominae Since: Jul, 2010
#256: Dec 9th 2020 at 7:26:32 PM

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/09/secret-deal-reveals-chinese-spies-free-rein-switzerland

There's a supposed deal published by the Guardian on how the MSS can safely operate in Swiss cities with little counterespionage interference from the Federal Intelligence Service.

The agreement between China and Switzerland was obtained by the Safeguard Defenders and the Swiss secretariat for migration defended it as a necessary evil against illegal immigration.

DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#257: Dec 12th 2020 at 12:29:10 PM

@Eagle: My favorite spy story of all time is "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" by John Le Carre (a fascinating man in his own right). I think it's also one of the most realistic I've ever read.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#258: Dec 13th 2020 at 1:26:21 PM

[up] If you haven’t seen it I’d also recommend Smiley’s People, it’s great stuff.

Another reasonable depiction of a spy is probably Elim Garak from Deep Space Nine, while he’s got a bit of Bond to him, he’s by and large less action focused.

Edited by Silasw on Dec 13th 2020 at 9:27:14 AM

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
eagleoftheninth Shop all day, greed is free from a dreamed portrait, imperfect Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Shop all day, greed is free
#259: Dec 13th 2020 at 2:38:13 PM

Who coincidentally just passed from this mortal plane. o7

One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.
AngrokVa indighost from america, unfortunately Since: Feb, 2012 Relationship Status: Saddled with unnecessary feelings
indighost
#260: Dec 14th 2020 at 12:31:02 AM

From Reuters: Suspected Russian hackers spied on U.S. Treasury emails

Hackers believed to be working for Russia have been monitoring internal email traffic at the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments, according to people familiar with the matter, adding they feared the hacks uncovered so far may be the tip of the iceberg.

The hack is so serious it led to a National Security Council meeting at the White House on Saturday, said one of the people familiar with the matter.

U.S. officials have not said much publicly beyond the Commerce Department confirming there was a breach at one of its agencies and that they asked the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to investigate.

National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot added that they "are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation."

The U.S. government has not publicly identified who might be behind the hacking, but three of the people familiar with the investigation said Russia is currently believed to be responsible for the attack. Two of the people said that the breaches are connected to a broad campaign that also involved the recently disclosed hack on FireEye, a major U.S. cybersecurity company with government and commercial contracts.

In a statement posted here to Facebook, the Russian foreign ministry described the allegations as another unfounded attempt by the U.S. media to blame Russia for cyberattacks against U.S. agencies.

The cyber spies are believed to have gotten in by surreptitiously tampering with updates released by IT company SolarWinds, which serves government customers across the executive branch, the military, and the intelligence services, according to two people familiar with the matter. The trick - often referred to as a "supply chain attack" - works by hiding malicious code in the body of legitimate software updates provided to targets by third parties.

In a statement released late Sunday, the Austin, Texas-based company said that updates to its monitoring software released between March and June of this year may have been subverted by what it described as a "highly-sophisticated, targeted and manual supply chain attack by a nation state."

The company declined to offer any further detail, but the diversity of SolarWind's customer base has sparked concern within the U.S. intelligence community that other government agencies may be at risk, according to four people briefed on the matter.

SolarWinds says on its website that its customers include most of America's Fortune 500 companies, the top 10 U.S. telecommunications providers, all five branches of the U.S. military, the State Department, the National Security Agency, and the Office of President of the United States.

The breach presents a major challenge to the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden as officials investigate what information was stolen and try to ascertain what it will be used for. It is not uncommon for large scale cyber investigations to take months or years to complete.

"This is a much bigger story than one single agency," said one of the people familiar with the matter. "This is a huge cyber espionage campaign targeting the U.S. government and its interests."

Hackers broke into the NTIA's office software, Microsoft's Office 365. Staff emails at the agency were monitored by the hackers for months, sources said.

A Microsoft spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did a spokesman for the Treasury Department.

The hackers are "highly sophisticated" and have been able to trick the Microsoft platform's authentication controls, according to a person familiar with the incident, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the press.

"This is a nation state," said a different person briefed on the matter.

The full scope of the breach is unclear. The investigation is still its early stages and involves a range of federal agencies, including the FBI, according to three of the people familiar with the matter.

A spokesperson for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said they have been "working closely with our agency partners regarding recently discovered activity on government networks. CISA is providing technical assistance to affected entities as they work to identify and mitigate any potential compromises."

The FBI and U.S. National Security Agency did not respond to a request for comment.

There is some indication that the email compromise at NTIA dates back to this summer, although it was only recently discovered, according to a senior U.S. official.

Ominae Since: Jul, 2010
#261: Dec 14th 2020 at 3:39:59 AM

https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/china-xinjiang-leaks-1749363-2020-12-14

Related, but someone in China was able to get info out regarding the personal details of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in and out of China.

It's being covered worldwide.

Forgot to mention that someone also forwarded the data to NY Times, which published the story.

Edited by Ominae on Dec 14th 2020 at 4:00:32 AM

eagleoftheninth Shop all day, greed is free from a dreamed portrait, imperfect Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Shop all day, greed is free
#262: Dec 14th 2020 at 3:47:43 AM

FWIW, Sky News Australia is a News Corp outlet that got blacklisted by its own cousin, Sky News New Zealand, for being too racist. So until we have coverage from something beyond *squints*

The Australian, The Sunday Mail in the UK, De Standaard in Belgium and a Swedish editor

I'd take this with a grain of salt.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Dec 14th 2020 at 3:48:44 AM

One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.
Ominae Since: Jul, 2010
#264: Dec 16th 2020 at 2:47:47 AM

https://www.nknews.org/2020/12/south-koreas-intelligence-agency-loses-power-to-investigate-north-korea-ties/

The National Assembly passed a law that tranfers the powers of the NIS to investigate North Korean activities to the Korean National Police Agency.

minseok42 A Self-inflicted Disaster from A Six-Tatami Room (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
A Self-inflicted Disaster
#265: Dec 16th 2020 at 4:16:08 AM

[up]The link is paywalled.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) used to conduct counterintelligence and investigate crimes related to national security (espionage on behalf of North Korea, terrorism). This meant that the NIS had the powers of both the MI 5 and the MI 6 combined, or the CIA and part of the FBI combined. This led to some abuses of power by the NIS. What the new law does is that now the police is responsible for investigating cases related to national security.

"Enshittification truly is how platforms die"-Cory Doctorow
Ominae Since: Jul, 2010
#266: Dec 16th 2020 at 5:52:44 AM

Thanks.

Weird that the site didn't notify me when I first read it.

Edited by Ominae on Dec 16th 2020 at 5:52:57 AM

Ominae Since: Jul, 2010
#267: Dec 17th 2020 at 5:59:52 PM

https://twitter.com/ipacglobal/status/1337991464517849088

A tweet from the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China that confirms receiving the leaked CCP database.

TerminusEst from the Land of Winter and Stars Since: Feb, 2010
#268: Dec 21st 2020 at 10:45:46 AM

How China used stolen US data to find operatives in Europe and Africa

Around 2013, U.S. intelligence began noticing an alarming pattern: Undercover CIA personnel, flying into countries in Africa and Europe for sensitive work, were being rapidly and successfully identified by Chinese intelligence, according to three former U.S. officials. The surveillance by Chinese operatives began in some cases as soon as the CIA officers had cleared passport control. Sometimes, the surveillance was so overt that U.S. intelligence officials speculated that the Chinese wanted the U.S. side to know they had identified the CIA operatives, disrupting their missions; other times, however, it was much more subtle and only detected through U.S. spy agencies’ own sophisticated technical countersurveillance capabilities.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
eagleoftheninth Shop all day, greed is free from a dreamed portrait, imperfect Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Shop all day, greed is free
#269: Dec 21st 2020 at 1:15:25 PM

Alexei Navalny prank-called an FSB officer involved in his poisoning and got him to admit the plot on tape.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Dec 21st 2020 at 1:18:25 AM

One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.
eagleoftheninth Shop all day, greed is free from a dreamed portrait, imperfect Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Shop all day, greed is free
#270: Dec 21st 2020 at 2:14:02 PM

Anyway, the FP article more or less shows the essence of Chinese counter-intelligence strategy over the past decade:

  • In the 2000s, corruption was everywhere in the Chinese government. Officials had to pay "promotion fees" running into millions of dollars to rise up the ranks, and the ones who didn't engage in corruption were seen as a security risk by their colleagues who did.

  • This naturally gave the CIA an opportunity to recruit agents. Chinese officials needed money, and they had lots of it. Just by paying their assets, the CIA could ensure that they would rise through the ranks quickly and get access into lots of sensitive spaces. Even officials who weren't necessarily sympathetic to the US often had to go abroad to cover up their corrupt activities, where they were ripe for recruitment.

  • China's MSS managed to identify this weakness and turn it into a sustained anti-corruption campaign, which intensified when Xi got into office. A lot of it had to do with Xi's effort to consolidate his rule against potential rivals (especially the cronies of his longtime nemesis Bo Xilai), but it was also a sweeping move to eliminate/turn foreign intelligence assets in the government and assert legitimacy in the eyes of the populace.

  • Edward Snowden's leak in 2013 exposed the depth of NSA penetration into Huawei servers in China, which alerted the MSS to the role of big data in foreign intel operations. It turned the dynamic on its head with the 2014 OPM hack, which net it classified data on 4 million US government employees plus their friends and families.

  • Chinese (counter-)intelligence strategy from there on leverages big data, collected from a wide variety of sources (including Belt and Road partner nations) to identify enemy intel operatives and operations. It's also built new data processing infrastructure and relocated intelligence offices to be closer to the new processing centres, as well as investing into AI to further streamline the process. Intelligence officers on the field may practice good tradecraft, but there's always a sea of seemingly-innocuous data from their "civilian" lives and their erstwhile employers floating around, which when put together makes up a picture of an intel operation in action.

The spy of the 21st century isn't James Bond or Jason Bourne. It's a geeky analyst in an office cubicle, running a software to comb through a stack of stolen Excel sheets to pick out possible enemy operatives and mark them for surveillance before their plane even touches down.

One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#271: Dec 21st 2020 at 2:41:58 PM

It never was James Bond. The greatest spies in history posed as journalists or diplomats. Digital spying is a logical extension of electronic spying, which itself is a logical extension of opening people's mail. Everything new is really old, except for the technology.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#272: Dec 21st 2020 at 3:31:01 PM

Half the time they didn’t even pose, apparently back in the day there was an argument between the British diplomatic service and MI 6, the diplomatic service wanted MI 6 to pay for the office space the spies were taking up in embassies, MI 6 then pointed out that the spies did a bunch of diplomatic work as part of their cover and that if anything the diplomatic service should be paying MI 6, eventually it was agreed that nobody should pay anyone and things should continue as is.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
eagleoftheninth Shop all day, greed is free from a dreamed portrait, imperfect Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Shop all day, greed is free
#273: Dec 21st 2020 at 3:40:48 PM

The tech changes everything. A huge amount of innocuous-seeming data that would've been gibberish to past analysts can now be collated to produce identifiable patterns. You can use data from social media, telecom and travel companies to spot persons of interests out of a sea of John Does and put them under surveillance without putting a single operative on the ground.

One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#275: Dec 21st 2020 at 8:36:54 PM

@Eagle: Yes, that's true. However, in order to make sense out of all that data generally requires someone who has experience and expertise in the region or issue the data is regarding. You can't tell from metadata alone who is or isn't plotting against the US. If that were the case, they could more easily justify mass warrantless surveillance, but they haven't. That aspect of intelligence analysis hasn't changed.

As for Navalny—heh, I guess they weren't the most brightly lite bulbs. No wonder they failed.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.

Total posts: 580
Top