

Accused Russian spies lived perfect Boston lives - fady
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/06/accused_russian_spies_lived_pe.html?hpid=topnews

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huhtenberg
Just read through this and look at the technical part. Why didn't they
randomize their MAC addresses? Why the heck were they using standard protocols
in the first place? Oh the glory days of spying when they had a transmitter in
a shoe, a mike in the olive and the olive in the martini...

<http://www.justice.gov/opa/documents/062810complaint1.pdf>

~~~
redorb
I would have thought that the FBI would've had a harder time setting up
meetings using their undercover guys...

I always thought each spy dealt with very few handlers / I wouldn't have
showed to a 'phone call' ~ but I also see they edited the document a lot; I
guess the FBI was able to uncover some of their "signals of authenticity" and
use them against them;

~ I think the main charge is the fake passport (which the FBI set her up with)
~ of course that charge leads to being a SPY which leads to? life or death in
prison

~~~
dhimes
Taking the US/Russia relationship at face value, I doubt they'll have to serve
prison time. But it does make me wonder: why the sting _now_? A good strategy
for this game is that when you know who the spies are, you play along and let
them "spy." Then when the game gets serious you're one step ahead as you
already know who to watch and can possibly even feed them tainted information.

Why did the US "fire all of its guns at once" here? Methinks there's more to
this.

~~~
jeromec
_> Methinks there's more to this._

I was thinking the same thing. I just watched a RT interview with a "military
analyst" here
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9kwPr9PqG8&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9kwPr9PqG8&feature=player_embedded).
I transcribed parts that stood out to me:

"...but basically it just demonstrates it's not Obama who controls the foreign
policy regarding the..., that somebody within the inards of the body
politicking ... so the beltway bandits, I believe, has regained the initiative
from the White House, and with their moles it is not the Russian moles or
spies, it is the neo-conservative's moles in the White House who are trying to
hijack the agenda and who are actively against resetting the Russian, American
strategic partnership to deal with the common threat like counter-terrorism
strategy, and counter drug strategy in Afghanistan and Paskistan."

"...let me tell you something ... it's ludicrous from professional
intelligence perspective, because in open society as America is definitely,
it's open source intelligence data mining which becomes the main priority for
all intelligence officers working openly in the United States, and in Russia,
and everywhere else. The problem is why America is missing the analytical
minds who can absorb and analyze the incoming threats ... real threats, not
imaginary threats. "

~~~
jackfoxy
Neo-conservative moles in the White House? Start down-voting me...now!

~~~
whimsy
This is HN, not Reddit.

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gaika
Just a warning to anybody using Linked-In or Facebook - journalists are
already calling all the "friends" they can find online for details. FBI will
be calling soon too. This information is just too easy to find for anybody who
has time to type in the name into a search box.

~~~
sethg
Just for the hell of it, I searched for both Heathfield and Foley on LinkedIn,
and I’m a third-degree connection to both of them. (I wonder if this is a sign
of how incestuous the Boston high-tech community is.)

~~~
rdtsc
> how incestuous the Boston high-tech community is.

Or how well the alleged spies have been planted...

~~~
sabj
Or how well the sleeper cells have had the programming subsumed into their
consciousness...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spies_Reminiscent_of_Us#Plot>

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splat
Suddenly the 1977 movie Telefon sounds a lot more plausible:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qg0w8qbBQo>

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sabj
Growing up in Boston, all my russian friends would joke of such things as
this, or other connections. And here I was thinking it was but schoolyard
bluster!

~~~
sethg
I have a biased sample, but almost all of the Russian expats I know are
Jewish. Their connections probably involve _being interrogated by_ the KGB.

~~~
sabj
Of course - and we all knew this. But that didn't make calling the russian
math school a mob hideout any less fun.

