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The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

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Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#31

Post by josefresco »

frandroid wrote: post #29
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #6

The most important of which was how officers in the field under diplomatic and deep cover stationed across the globe were readily identified by the KGB. A dirty little secret within the world of clandestine operations is that the majority of official-status officers (diplomatic or military cover) are known by the host country intelligence services. This is largely because you generally only take so much risk with ong…

There is a strong implication in the article that the Soviets were much better than the Americans at this game.

The implication was that the Americans were "embarrassed" by how easily their agents were identified (or conformed to a formula of sorts). I don't believe it mentioned if the Soviets were in fact "better" at either spying, or identifying spies.

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#32

Post by EdwardCoffin »

Spooky23 wrote: post #21
EdwardCoffin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I missed something, those articles just give specific examples of agents being uncovered. Nothing is given to indicate how many remained uncovered. Its a pretty long jump from examples of such to the general statement that "the majority of official-status officers" being known by their host countries.

From the 1985 article: >"United States counterintelligence specialists estimate that at least 150 K.G.B. officers are working out of the embassy under cover as diplomats, clerks, chauffeurs, journalists and in other jobs." Just as a point of reference, the US Embassy in Iran during the 1979 revolution and subsequent hostage crisis had something on the order of 75-100 people working there. Again, Google around, there…

You still haven't provided the evidence needed though to support the conclusion of a majority given some or even many.

Also, we are talking about an endeavour in which deception is the norm, so even evidence like this is more than a little bit questionable.

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#33

Post by exelius »

frandroid wrote: post #29
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #6

The most important of which was how officers in the field under diplomatic and deep cover stationed across the globe were readily identified by the KGB. A dirty little secret within the world of clandestine operations is that the majority of official-status officers (diplomatic or military cover) are known by the host country intelligence services. This is largely because you generally only take so much risk with ong…

There is a strong implication in the article that the Soviets were much better than the Americans at this game.

Mostly because the Soviets did everything under a veil of secrecy -- likely as much to shield their own people from what was going on as the West. This extended to most parts of the government, not just the military/intelligence apparatus.

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#34

Post by ep103 »

gherkin0 wrote: post #28
neurotech1 wrote: post #24

The problem today is that with LinkedIn and Facebook, some CIA personnel are stupid enough to actually mention their status with the Agency, or are friends/connections with known CIA Analysts etc. who do mention their status. NSA Contractors sometimes mention classified codenames in their LinkedIn page. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130617/13482623512/disco...

That seems like something that competent counterintelligence people should be monitoring and shutting down. Hell, they probably should have unit in their new employee orientation covering this: "Do not list your occupation as 'Spy'" on LinkedIn.

I kinda wanna put spy on my linkedin page now

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#35

Post by AndrewKemendo »

frandroid wrote: post #29
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #6

The most important of which was how officers in the field under diplomatic and deep cover stationed across the globe were readily identified by the KGB. A dirty little secret within the world of clandestine operations is that the majority of official-status officers (diplomatic or military cover) are known by the host country intelligence services. This is largely because you generally only take so much risk with ong…

There is a strong implication in the article that the Soviets were much better than the Americans at this game.

The definition of "better" in this game is dependent on what your goals are.

There are three primary things you can do with a foreign IO on your soil in increasing order of difficulty: 1. PNG them 2. Collect on them 3. Flip them. Add in #4 of killing them if you are a certain type of country - very, very rare though and headline worthy.

In fact in some cases it's worth more to let an IO keep stealing secrets, and know what they are, than it is to get rid of them - so these things aren't binary.

edit: I note this distinction because in the case of this article it is discussing specifically officers that the Agency knew were burned - which serves the same goal as kicking them out of your country as they are no longer operationally effective.

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#36

Post by tacos »

irl_zebra wrote: post #30
tacos wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most valuable information never comes with a citation. Thus the derogatory term "book smart."

It's easy to say your information is true when you say I can't look at the information and see if it's true. Not a tenable position, sir.

I didn't say "the most accurate information."

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#37

Post by GauntletWizard »

ep103 wrote: post #34
gherkin0 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like something that competent counterintelligence people should be monitoring and shutting down. Hell, they probably should have unit in their new employee orientation covering this: "Do not list your occupation as 'Spy'" on LinkedIn.

I kinda wanna put spy on my linkedin page now

Honestly, the CIA should want you to too. The more randos listing fake intelligence activities that can't be easily discounted, the more time russian counterintelligence has to spend chasing down false leads.

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#38

Post by kafkaesq »

philsalesses wrote: post #2

I wonder if this pattern could still be applied. For a NOC they'll setup a shell corporation called "Southern Electronics Corporation, LLC" or some other discrete sounding name and have a real website, office address and phone number actually manned, but surely they register the corporations, domains, phone numbers at the same place, staff the phones with the same voices... Makes me wonder if they fixed the problem o…

It is absolutely applicable. In fact this is pretty much how the whole "extraordinary renditions" program was (fairly easily) unravelled by journalists.

Dummy ("brass-plaque") corporations, recycled aircraft registrations, special landing permits at military airports... just a matter of connecting the dots, basically.

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#39

Post by migsvult »

two thoughts

1. In the 70's and the 80's our Soviet counter-intel was fairly compromised. Aldrich Ames and Robert Hassan are just the biggest examples. That probably does a better job explaining a Soviet CI advantage than 'we looked at the things agents did and looked for correlations.' I mean, every agency has been doing that forever.

2. There are a number of different types of cover, like the article points out. Diplomatic cover is the 'laziest' and for some (usually very low lever or very high level) people it's not really meant to fool anyone. There's private sector cover, with dummy corps and rented office buildings, and genuine P&L sheets. Private sector cover can be extremely clandestine, and extremely sophisticated. As AndrewKemendo points out, the things that this article points out are maybe not very impressive at all.

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#40

Post by scintill76 »

philsalesses wrote: post #2

I wonder if this pattern could still be applied. For a NOC they'll setup a shell corporation called "Southern Electronics Corporation, LLC" or some other discrete sounding name and have a real website, office address and phone number actually manned, but surely they register the corporations, domains, phone numbers at the same place, staff the phones with the same voices... Makes me wonder if they fixed the problem o…

Some civilians and journalists uncovered FBI spy planes by correlating generic, formulaic fake company names and shared addresses: https://storify.com/jjwiseman/tracking-fbi-aerial-surveillan...
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