
How to explain the KGB’s amazing success identifying CIA agents? (2015) - gregmac
https://www.salon.com/2015/09/26/how_to_explain_the_kgbs_amazing_success_identifying_cia_agents_in_the_field/
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Bucephalus355
Spying has always seemed like something nations do because they think they’re
supposed to, rather than because of actual benefits it produces.

General Michael Flynn was really big on a kind of OSINT approach which
devalued the current crop of experts in Washington, before he got railroaded
out of the National Security Establishment in 2014-2015 (no comment on his
later political antics). Basically he said for any information produced by a
spy, you could have found the exact same info in some tiny circulation
magazine or journal available for free, if only someone had been there to read
it in whatever language to read / report it.

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strictnein
The CIA has large numbers of OSINT analysts. Pay isn't too bad either, at the
higher end:

[https://www.cia.gov/careers/opportunities/analytical/open-
so...](https://www.cia.gov/careers/opportunities/analytical/open-source-
officer-foreign-media-analyst.html)

In later years, KBG agents in boring posts would basically repackage OSINT as
secret intel and send it back to Moscow. Putin was supposedly one of the
people who did so, during his assignment to Dresden.

~~~
beaconstudios
assuming you don't live in an overpriced city, that strikes me as a good pay
range in the middle and possibly lower brackets too.

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PhilWright
You would think that the CIA/NSA has a team whose job is to try and identify
their own people using just public information. Like white hat penetration
testers to ensure you spot weaknesses in your own processes/systems before the
enemy does. Or at least have a new team try it out once a year so you have a
variety of different approaches tried.

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_iyig
For anyone who wants to learn more about Angleton and the destructive effect
his paranoia had on the CIA, I strongly recommend "Legacy of Ashes: The
History of the CIA" by Tim Weiner. Gripping stuff, with lots of primary source
material and high-level interviews.

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1001101
> What Totrov came up with were 26 unchanging indicators as a model for
> identifying U.S. intelligence officers overseas.

Terrible. That's a lot of signal.

~~~
zaru27
False positives probably aren't a huge concern over in Putinville

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andyidsinga
not at all related - but this post reminded me of the movie "Burn After
Reading" :) J K Simmons plays a hilarious [deadpan] CIA officer ..his
character's responses to the situations that arise seem both hilarious and on
point.

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an4rchy
Interesting read!

With the digitization of data, it's hopefully easier to create a digital trail
but I was wondering how they would handle this in terms of a paper trail,
especially because a lot of things might need to be backdated.

Also, wouldn't other employees in the embassy also know based on a similar
pattern or the fact that this person abides by a different set of rules on a
day to day basis?

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cameldrv
It was understood that official cover agents were known to the Soviets. The
official cover was just a fig leaf on both sides. Phil Agee was publishing
names of official cover agents in his newsletter for God's sake. The questions
were about how NOCs were compromised, and many of them were by double agents
-- Ames, Hansen, etc

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rootusrootus
If I were head of the CIA, I would ask my counterpart at the FBI to use their
counterintelligence skills to try and do exactly what the KGB did to identify
my agents.

I find it pretty hard to believe nobody did exactly that, or some other
version of the same.

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jimhefferon
Large organizations often don't work this way.

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Misdicorl
> Experts do something that seems obviously wrong/fixable

This is always cause for serious re-examination. If I were a betting man I'd
assign probabilities something like

15% CIA is incompetent 85% Theres no reason to care if these agents are
exposed/identified as their work does not require non-identification by state
level actors.

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yters
CIA should have sought out the information theorists at NSA for advice.

