
Rules of Spycraft (2009) [pdf] - Tomte
http://www.oss.net/dynamaster/file_archive/100102/0a947a77d762061cc87ec541c2d2dcc7/2010-01-02%20Dulles%20on%20Tradecraft%20via%20Srodes.pdf
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motohagiography
For the sake of argument, I'll say, "spies aren't cool."

Interestingly, about half of the "tips," Dulles writes are standard management
training these days. The spy business as described is about using others as
instruments, and I would argue most flat organizations are just a bunch of
bored managers trying to get leverage over one another using similar tactics.

Trouble I have with the whole spy genre is it is the exaltation of deceptive
people, which by most standards means objectively terrible.

The people I've met in the past who I pinned as "spies," seemed fun and
intelligent, yet predictable and compromised. They were creatures of their
institutions and just not free people, and on a basic level, they got off on
betraying others. That inner smallness was what I think made them suitable for
that job, and the remnants of admirable qualities that made some of them
leave.

The WWII and cold war era seems romantic, but now it appears mostly what spies
do is manage their domestic political situation as to maintain a status quo of
an increasingly unpopular elite, who have more in common with their
international counterparts than the citizens they ostensibly protect. Examples
of states with advanced espionage operations can also be described as
"kakistocracies," where people are promoted to senior roles for their ability
to abuse and deceive.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakistocracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakistocracy))

Are spies necessary? Sure, but only for a very narrow military counter
intelligence mission, and any creep beyond that should be seen as a social
ill.

~~~
toyg
_> exaltation of deceptive people_

The most exalted celebrities on the planet are actors, i.e. professional
liars. Spies at least risk their life, and I bet they have to actually
improvise more often.

~~~
Just_Smith
I'm not sure if it qualifies as lying when both involved parties are aware of
it. Escapism isn't the same as deception, as one entails a person willfully
relinquishing reality and the other entails a person subversively creating a
false reality for another.

~~~
sandworm101
On screen, both sides realize the lie. But being a modern actor is just as
much about life off screen. Celeb culture, starting with stage names, is all
about manipulating how people percieve your realworld persona. The people
reading the celeb websites really do believe the lies.

------
GreeniFi
For reasons I can’t quite remember, in the late 90s I once had a drink at an
army club in London. I’m not very army at all, so it was not somewhere I’d
expect to go as a rule. My overriding memory was an old paratrooper at the bar
telling me in a very old-fashioned and serious voice, “never be a spy”. I must
have not been 20 at the time, and it seemed like very good advice.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
That makes sense, given that people who would be paratroopers and people who
would be spooks are very different types of people (generally).

Doesn't say much about the profession of espionage/intelligence broadly
though.

~~~
paganel
> Doesn't say much about the profession of espionage/intelligence broadly
> though.

Espionage/intelligence is a very thankless and at times very depressing job,
there's not that much glamour into it, I'd say the state of mind of the people
involved in such a field are better described by John le Carré's books than by
Ian Fleming's books or even by what it's written in the post linked to by the
OP.

I'm from a country located on the East side of a Wall and I used to have an
uncle (my grandpa's brother) who used to be an "embassy attaché" in East
Berlin in the mid '50s (there's where his daughter, my aunt, was born). In
other words: he was a spy. He didn't do anything fanciful like you can see in
the movies, afaik he didn't wear any disguises nor did he do anything "spy-
ish" as described in Dulles's document because he wasn't a Yale graduate (he
used to be a boot-maker's apprentice when the communists came to power), the
only "spy"-worthy thing that he did was to be a driver for his boss when one
day they crossed into West Berlin (the Wall hadn't been built at that time).
Down there they both met with a dissident from our country who had escaped
when the Soviets had come "to liberate" us just after WW2.

My uncle's boss had first "maimed" said dissident back in Istanbul by
promising him a business opportunity which (the boss said) they should have
continued talking about in West Berlin. Said dissident was trustful enough, so
that he decided to meet with my uncle and my uncle's boss in West Berlin. I'm
not sure of the exact circumstances but at some point during said meeting my
uncle and his boss immobilized the dissident and "I just pushed him in the
car's trunk", as my uncle told my father a couple of decades after the event.
After that my uncle drove the car through the checkpoints back into East
Berlin, the dissident hidden in the trunk and then sent packing back to our
country (he wasn't killed, after a couple of years he even got back his former
job as a university professor, but I suppose the first years after his "forced
repatriation" weren't the best for him).

So, nothing fancy about it at all, just some minor deceit and then pushing
someone into a car's trunk. After this whole affair my uncle got pretty high
up in my country's spy ranks, at some point he was the chief of some foreign
intelligence Directorate (like I told you, this is more like John le Carré's
books than Ian Fleming's), he even received his nomenklatura house, nothing
big or shiny, just something that would keep all the people (and their
families) on which the system depended physically close to the local dictator.
All was relatively well until at some point in the late '70s the big boss of
my country's foreign intelligence services decided to defect to the Americans.
Not long after that my uncle was found hung-up in his nomenklatura house. Like
I said, a very thankless job (at least his wife, my aunt, a salt-of-the-earth
type of lady, got to keep the house).

And this story involving my uncle happened when this whole spy thing still had
something like an ideological tinge to it, when the East vs West thing was not
about money or hidden off-shore accounts but about who was right when it came
to the future of the human condition (Marx vs Adam Smith, to use a lousy
metaphor). My grandpa's generation (and that includes his brother, my spy
uncle) really believed that the communists were right and the capitalists were
wrong and were exploiting the normal people. Nowadays (and I think it has been
that way since about the late '70s - early '80s, again, John le Carré's books
really capture this transition really well) the spy thing is almost all about
getting an economic advantage over your "adversary", there's no ideology,
there's no perceived right and wrong, it's just a fight over some resources
(protecting/stealing IP, some things that need to be dug out from somewhere in
Africa etc etc). Which is to say that the spy job has become even more
sinister.

~~~
RealityVoid
> All was relatively well until at some point in the late '70s the big boss of
> my country's foreign intelligence services decided to defect to the
> Americans

Are you Romanian by any chance and is that Pacepa you are talking about? Ever
thought about going to CNSAS and try getting any flies they might have had on
your uncle? It would be, I think, an interesting bit of family history.

~~~
throwaway8932
The phrase "more John Le Carre than Ian Fleming" can also be found as a quote
on this website [https://www.sie.ro/viata-in-
sie.html](https://www.sie.ro/viata-in-sie.html) under the first testimony.
Don't know if this is a frequently used metaphor.

~~~
seppin
The quote makes sense, but anyone that thinks James Bond is even 1 percent
realistic isn't being serious at all.

~~~
RealityVoid
Obviously _some_ people do believe that is what spies do. I would even venture
the majority of people believe that. The people that write in these threads on
HN are more in the know than most of the public, because they had some
interest/curiosity about them. Most of the public lack knowledge about these
institutions and have a severely distorted image of what they do.

I would guess, some of the commenters in the thread had some brushes with
intelligence agencies. At the risk of sounding conspiratorial, you're
answering to a throwaway. What better place to talk with people about your job
you can't talk with anybody than an anonymous online medium where smart people
congregate?

------
nestorD
It reminds me of "A most wanted man", a movie I would strongly recommend if
the subject interests you (I cannot recommend the book since I have not read
it yet).

------
ben0x539
obviously no one can comment here without drawing undue attention to their
cover. awkward.

~~~
na85
It's not an article that lends itself well to bike shedding, so most HNers
have little to comment.

~~~
paulcole
Never stopped them before.

Life, uh, finds a way.

------
ddingus
I like how a domain can be contained by set of rules. You look at these, and
you look around between the lines what they speak to and it's a complicated
shape but one you can see. Very cool to read.

------
olivermarks
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Dulles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Dulles)

------
mcguire
Ok, what is the origin of this document? It looks like a pdf copy of an
article, but it reads like a poor ocr.

Check out #54.

~~~
mirimir
As the lead says, it was a rough never-published draft, typed by Dulles. Found
in his papers. And later published _verbatim_ in _Intelligencer: Journal of
U.S. Intelligence Studies_.

------
jacquesm
Interesting to see how well most of these have stood the test of time or have
even become more forceful because of it (17 for instance).

Wonder how the writer would have written these today, what would be changed,
left out or added.

~~~
emXdem
Tradecraft hasn't changed much. It has been fairly well tested. Operational
security and information security have not changed much... They have become
more difficult with cell-phones and small internet connected devices.

I think another big difference and a subject that probably would be included
in a redo is understanding how all of the modern data generating systems can
reveal covert activity through the analysis of metadata and how to "hide in
the noise" of this.

The geospatial correlation of burner phone to actual identity if one does not
practice good sanitation as far as locational security when accessing wireless
networks as an example.

~~~
jacquesm
I treat my cellphone as though I have an always-on homing beacon on me that
can not be trusted to be off even when it says it is off. And that's not even
a smartphone, so I can still remove the battery if I want to. Now throw ANPR,
face recognition, cheap DNA synthesis, ubiquitous video surveillance, public
transport ID cards and a some more modern goodies into the mix and it takes
real work just to move from 'A' to 'B' without leaving a trail a mile wide.

~~~
maroonblazer
I’m going to presume you’re not conducting illegal activity such that you’re
worried about getting caught. Given that presumption, what risks are you
trying to mitigate by treating your cell phone as you describe?

~~~
jacquesm
Knowing what companies are on the market. My cell phone location would pretty
much tell you who is being invested in or about to be sold. That could
_really_ cause trouble.

~~~
mef
if a party was going to go to the trouble of getting access to your phone geo
data, couldn’t they just as easily put a tail on you?

~~~
jacquesm
I don't think that would be a strategy that would work for very long, and
besides that, why make it easy?

------
anonu
Dulle's declassified report from the late 1940s on how to fix the CIA is also
good reading. The report was referenced in Legacy of Ashes... A book that
takes a very dim view on the agency: basically a bunch of ivy Leaguers trying
to shape world events with disastrous consequences...

------
gtcode
It's easier than ever for people to moonlight as a spy and get away with it.
You'll probably only get caught if your adversary has the means and motivation
to counter.

Most people in civilian/domestic situations are unable to defend themselves.
Thus, amateurs get away with spying more easily. They can work alone more
easily and have a wider variety of commodity spying tools.

------
anotherthrower
Comment was ghosted, comment seems like a valid viewpoint:

"It's easier than ever for people to moonlight as a spy and get away with it.
You'll probably only get caught if your adversary has the means and motivation
to counter. Most people in civilian/domestic situations are unable to defend
themselves".

edit: HN has gone down the toilet progressively for the past 8 years. There's
no reason the comment (or my resurrection of it) should be downvoted or
ghosted.

The other account was "bbllbves" and it shows "1 point" but a moderator 'saw
to it' that the comment disappeared silently. If it were a low-value or troll
comment, then maybe that would be justified.

~~~
dang
We banned you for using multiple accounts to post in the same threads. If
you'd please stop doing that, we'd be grateful.

