Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bugger: Maybe spies aren't very good at their jobs (2013)

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 147 posts

Re: Bugger: Maybe spies aren't very good at their jobs (2013)

#11

Post by rl3 »

boznz wrote: post #3

I worked as a technician for GCHQ twenty years ago and heard some good stories in the London Office at Palmer Street (loose lips guys!) it was so obvious that wearing the right tie or being a Freemason would get you further than any degree in this circle. But lets face it, it's the same at the top levels of all civil service they are all really just job clubs for people with Latin and History degrees.

>... or being a Freemason would get you further than any degree in this circle.

That's rather disturbing. This is why storing everything on everyone is a terrible idea. Insiders with loyalties that may lie with a particular Old Boys' club, with access to the most intimate details of people's lives.

Strict rules with regard to access control are meaningless if the people abusing the system are either sufficiently high-level or are able to use side channels.

Re: Bugger: Maybe spies aren't very good at their jobs (2013)

#12

Post by jrs95 »

jimnotgym wrote: post #9
Declanomous wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much crap as people give the civil servants in the US, I feel like our government does a pretty reasonable job at finding competent employees. I'm from Chicago, so I definitely know how false that statement can be, but most other places in the world seem a lot more about who your parents were and who you know. I mean, the social stratification of the public/private school thing is somewhat baffling to me, as someo…

In Britain we have state schools, private schools and most expensive of all the old 'public schools', with a name almost designed to confuse. Most of them are ancient, and look a bit like Hogwarts. The real power of the schools is the 'old boys network'. When you need help getting into university, or beginning a career, there will be an old boy of your school you can write to for help. It seems daft in 2017, but ex p…

While there's a lot wrong with that, replacing it with the hysterical corporate politics of the U.S. wouldn't make for much of an improvement imo

Re: Bugger: Maybe spies aren't very good at their jobs (2013)

#14

Post by fullshark »

Analemma_ wrote: post #10

This comment is more amusing than educational, but for anyone who hasn't already, I recommend watching the Coen Brothers movie Burn After Reading. When you watch it, you get the strong sense that this, rather than Jason Bourne or James Bond, is the movie that comes the closest to depicting what the intelligence community is actually like: nobody knows anything and everyone's bumbling about helplessly while they prete…

Similarly: Politics is Veep not House of Cards.

Re: Bugger: Maybe spies aren't very good at their jobs (2013)

#15

Post by crdb »

boznz wrote: post #3

I worked as a technician for GCHQ twenty years ago and heard some good stories in the London Office at Palmer Street (loose lips guys!) it was so obvious that wearing the right tie or being a Freemason would get you further than any degree in this circle. But lets face it, it's the same at the top levels of all civil service they are all really just job clubs for people with Latin and History degrees.

I immediately thought of Peter Wright's bio [1]:

> The Registry employed enormous numbers of girls to maintain efficient delivery of files within the building, as well as the massive task of sorting, checking, and filing the incoming material. In Kell's day the Registry Queens, as they were known, were recruited either from the aristocracy or from the families of MI5 officers. Kell had a simple belief that this was the best vetting of all. [...]

> By the early 1970s the staffing of the Registry had become a major problem for MI5. There were more than three hundred girls employed and with the surge of file collection at that time the pressure for more recruits was never-ending. Openly advertising was considered impossible. Yet it was becoming very difficult to recruit this number of girls, let alone vet them properly. In at least one case, the Communist Party managed to infiltrate a girl into the Registry, but she was soon discovered and quietly sacked. This problem, rather than dissatisfaction with the increasingly antiquated filing system itself, finally pushed MI5, belatedly, into accepting a computerized [sic] Registry.

As the quote hints, large landholdings and a family with long standing ties to the country (i.e. old money) are great ways to ensure loyalty, both emotional and financial, and loyalty is much more precious than ability in intelligence work.

The Cambridge Five were a very public (and rare, if costly) failure of this system, and Yuri Modin (their handler) claims [2] that the tension between the middle class, Scottish-accented John Cairncross and his upper class colleagues was part of what pushed him over.

The British merchant banks' eventual deaths at the hands of meritocratic American ones is strong evidence that this is not a good system in areas where ability is more valuable than trust.

[1] Peter Wright, Spycatcher - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spycatcher-Candid-Autobiography-Int...

[2] Yuri Modin, My Five Cambridge Friends - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Five-Cambridge-Friends-Cairncross-C... - Modin died a hero in Moscow after a prestigious career including heading the KGB's Active Measures department, so it could be mostly disinformation, but his observations on human character are still great.

Re: Bugger: Maybe spies aren't very good at their jobs (2013)

#16

Post by gerdesj »

jimnotgym wrote: post #9
Declanomous wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much crap as people give the civil servants in the US, I feel like our government does a pretty reasonable job at finding competent employees. I'm from Chicago, so I definitely know how false that statement can be, but most other places in the world seem a lot more about who your parents were and who you know. I mean, the social stratification of the public/private school thing is somewhat baffling to me, as someo…

In Britain we have state schools, private schools and most expensive of all the old 'public schools', with a name almost designed to confuse. Most of them are ancient, and look a bit like Hogwarts. The real power of the schools is the 'old boys network'. When you need help getting into university, or beginning a career, there will be an old boy of your school you can write to for help. It seems daft in 2017, but ex p…

Anecdote != data, mate. Counter examples: I went to Abingdon School which is in the town called Abingdon (Oxfordshire). Before that I went to a school called Wolborough Hill School which was perched on top of Wolborough Hill, in Newton Abbot, Devon. Both are (were in the case of Wolborough which passed away some time ago) fee-paying schools.

My dad was a soldier (as was my mum but she was told to leave on marrying dad - things were different back then). Me and my brother went through five schools/kindergartens by the age of 10 (three in West Germany, one in Manc (MCR)). By that age we were pretty good at looking under cars for devices because dad was an ATO and taught us - a handy skill for a family going to a restaurant or whatever: you never knew when you car was going to explode.

Dad didn't hand over the family business to me and my brother because the RAOC (Rag And Oil Company) is now part of another org these days - RLC (Really Large Corps) and besides I'm a nerd and a sysadmin and my brother is loosely HR. We are both grateful for the start in life that both he and mum and a contribution that the army gave us in life - whether it made us better or worse people is debatable. We had less schools is definite.

OK, my job title is MD these days but you doff your hat and I'll kick you in the nuts (and take you out for a beer until the swelling subsides.)

Cheers

Jon

PS You failed to initial capitalise "Brit" - I am better than you 8)

Re: Bugger: Maybe spies aren't very good at their jobs (2013)

#17

Post by _coldfire »

jimnotgym wrote: post #9
Declanomous wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much crap as people give the civil servants in the US, I feel like our government does a pretty reasonable job at finding competent employees. I'm from Chicago, so I definitely know how false that statement can be, but most other places in the world seem a lot more about who your parents were and who you know. I mean, the social stratification of the public/private school thing is somewhat baffling to me, as someo…

In Britain we have state schools, private schools and most expensive of all the old 'public schools', with a name almost designed to confuse. Most of them are ancient, and look a bit like Hogwarts. The real power of the schools is the 'old boys network'. When you need help getting into university, or beginning a career, there will be an old boy of your school you can write to for help. It seems daft in 2017, but ex p…

Nameless resumes are a good way to counter the inefficiencies of a system not based on merit.

Re: Bugger: Maybe spies aren't very good at their jobs (2013)

#18

Post by jstrate »

Silly article, the revelations of Edward Snowden shouldn't really tell anyone much about the capability of spies, nothing we didn't already know. If you're interested in a good book about the technical history of the CIA check out 'The Wizards of Langley'. It gives a pretty accurate history of the technical ability of spies throughout the years, and the bureaucracy which limited them. https://www.amazon.com/Wizards-Langley-Directorate-Science-T...

Re: Bugger: Maybe spies aren't very good at their jobs (2013)

#19

Post by angusmacphail »

jstrate wrote: post #18

Silly article, the revelations of Edward Snowden shouldn't really tell anyone much about the capability of spies, nothing we didn't already know. If you're interested in a good book about the technical history of the CIA check out 'The Wizards of Langley'. It gives a pretty accurate history of the technical ability of spies throughout the years, and the bureaucracy which limited them. https://www.amazon.com/Wizards-L…

The salient point in the Adam Curtis piece is that regardless of their _technical_ capabilities, the organizations are themselves incapable of making use of what signals they may capture. A similar case can easily be made about the US intelligence establishment, for what it's worth.
Post reply on HN