https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14791681
North Korean hackers are now trying to trick research analysts to write up detailed reports on North Korea.
This is the same tactics Dickson Lee used when he approached American military personnel.
I feel this is related.
BBC reports the arrest of a mainland Chinese student named Xiaolei Wu for harassing other mainland students studying in America after taking part is pro-democracy activism.
Wu reported their activities to the mainland. Wouldn’t surprise if this included the MSS and public security.
https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/11/moldova-russia-wages-another-hybrid-war
Sort of related (In my humble opinion). This USIP report from November mentions Russian involvement in trying to upstage the current Moldovan government with squeezing it out of Russian-sourced energy and assisting pro-Russian groups in the country with (paid) protests.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64200872
Ana Montes was released after her prison term was up. She spied for Cuban intelligence for many years. Ana was pissed at Reagan for supporting the Contras that she agreed to help Havana.
Her internet usage is monitored and she can't meet foreign agents. Some of the FBI agents who detained her say that Ana'll likely just move on and live a normal life.
Bellingcat journalist Christo Grozev is forced to relocate from Austria since he's being warned by various intelligence agencies that the FSB "wants a word with him".
Also, the FSB claimed that Grozev is involved in a supposed planned terrorist attack. Grozev calls it rubbish.
PS - He's from Bulgaria originally.
Edited by Ominae on Feb 4th 2023 at 11:55:20 AM
https://mobile.twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1621803146501554176
Word is that the SBU managed to snoop in a "Truconf" meeting between collaborators and officials from Moscow.
Moldova accused Russia of planning to do a “Little Green Men” scenario.
The SBU in Kyiv sounded the alarm.
Oh, bother.
The Kremlin denied it of course. Which probably means they're totally planning to do this.
Disgusted, but not surprised
In 2015, iirc, they even arrested some people in Moldova under similar charges. But nothing came out of it...
Considering this came about after pro-opposition groups from Belarus mentioned that Wagner is trying to turn OOO Gardservis into a clone of itself.
BTW, Gardservis is the only private military company allowed by Minsk to "exist" legally.
An investigation by a consortium of journalists journalists has exposed a black ops disinformation group made of Israeli contractors, named "Team Jorge", who have engaged in hacking, propaganda, and manipulating numerous elections across several continents (allegedly around 30 elections).
The full article is...jeez, it's a doozy. This is some crazy shit.
The article admits the guy in charge of Team Jorge might be exaggerating his feats in order to better sell himself to clients, but it's still scary as to how casual he is about the whole thing, or how he's able to easily hack most social media accounts. Also kinda depressing in how I don't see this guy being brought to justice for a long time, lest he pisses off the wrong government or intelligence agency.
Haaretz has published their own article on the investigation with additional details regarding the actions undertaken by Team Jorge. This includes details about meddling in elections in Nigeria, Kenya, Chad, Venezuela, and Indonesia (the last allegedly made to look like it came from China), the Catalan independece referendum, the Western Sahara conflict, and pushing propaganda to undermine governments in Trinidad, alongside using dummy social media accounts to defend a political figure in Mexico who was involved in the disappearance of several students in Iguala.
It should be noted that yes, some of the claims made by those part of Team Jorge are possibly exaggerated, but a LOT of this was verified by the journalists who went undercover to break the story.
Disasturbator
> but a LOT of this was verified by the journalists who went undercover to break the story.
I hope to god the journalists stay safe after this because there's going to be a lot people involved who will be eager to see them silenced
New theme music also a box
https://www.yahoo.com/news/hackers-broadcast-address-ukraines-intelligence-110419325.html
Ukrainian Pravda carried a story of Gazprom-managed radio stations being hacked. It’s supposedly by GUR.
Moldova took out a pro-Russian spy ring thanks to a Moldovan agent who infiltrated it.
I wonder if the espionage life is as sexy as espionage stories make it out to be.
Never trust anyone who uses "degenerate" as an insult.
From what people told me (those who are involved in it), the answer is no.
Espionage is more boring than it seems.
Now in World War II, when the SOE and the OSS trained agents and sent them to occupied Europe, or when Germany sent agents to free Mussolini or to commit sabotage in the USA (Through a submarine), Or when Richard Sorge worked on Japan, now those were the days when the job was glamorous, as long as you did not get caught and executed on the spot that is.
Now days If you expect a James Bond experience, when you travel from city to city in first class flights, check at 5 stars hotels, drive insanely cool cars, and sleep with a great beauty every night. Then you will be greatly disappointed.
And that's not speaking on the morality side of things, spies that work overboard are no better than thugs, despite what Hollywood may make you believe.
Still a necessary profession sadly, like the army.
Edited by jawal on Mar 13th 2023 at 1:08:32 PM
Every Hero has his own way of eating yogurt
A procrastination in of itself
Bond has always been a shit example of someone in the espionage trade. Fleming created Bond because actually working for MI 6 wasn’t as glamorous as Fleming had hoped.
Also Bond never does any real intelligence work and never manages sources, he’s a special forces operator that likes to pretend he’s a spy.
George Smiley is supposedly a more accurate fictional depiction of what someone in the intelligence/espionage world gets up to.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Trans Siberian Anarchestra (it/they)
There's a book called Istanbul Intrigues of supposedly-true stories about diplomacy in Turkey during WWII that sounds like it would be an interesting read.
However, I have my doubts that there was ever an era when a successful spy would have described their work as "glamourous". People who value that don't make good spies.
The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Glamorous may be the wrong word.
Adventurous? Romantic? There is a charm in the Idea of jumping by a parachute or sneaking by a submarine behind enemy lines, trying to survive by your wits, and sending coded messages by self-made radio. That, of course, until enemy soldiers notice you are wearing the wrong shoes for the country and speaking with a strange accent.
I know those stories were exaggerated, but I still like them.
But that was WWII, nowadays, a spy is more likely to spent time in a cubicle from 9 to 17H analyzing some data.
The ones who go overboard will be tasked to bribe and corrupt government officials for information and designing coups d'état.
And if you are spying against your own countries for a foreigner one, for money and sex, then you are hardly a heroic figure.
Edited by jawal on Mar 14th 2023 at 10:07:59 AM
Every Hero has his own way of eating yogurt
A procrastination in of itself
I imagine that wartime and peacetime espionage will be very different beasts.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
A spy ring operating in Poland was busted by the ABW for spying on the movement of weapons and equipment for Ukrainian security forces and were ordered to conduct sabotage ops.
Section 16 of the CSIS Act limits what they can do and it means they're stuck doing domestic-based work.
There are debates on whether the CA should be amended or just create a new foreign intelligence agency from the ground up.
Trivia matter: CSIS Intelligence officers are recruited with the condition that you have a Class 5-type Driver's license for many years. They've changed it recently.
Edited by Ominae on Dec 1st 2022 at 6:45:36 AM