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

bbc.co.uk

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

#71

Post by acqq »

Top19 wrote: post #31
Naga wrote: post #6

I recently finished reading Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner, a history of the CIA. He basically argues that the entire organization has been marked by incompetence and politics throughout history. It was really eye-opening to me to hear that the mysterious organization behind all conspiracy theories is mostly smoke and mirrors. Cue the old adage regarding malice and stupidity.

I read Tim Weiner's book 10 years ago...it was great. Am currently reading his book on the FBI. To my delight Audible managed to get the same narrator. At the time I was pretty shocked how bad it was at the COA, but then I realized...the CIA is really just a metaphor for how large organizations everywhere run. A good example is how assignments are given out in the CIA. Your career progression very much depends on whi…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

Laurence J. Peter: "In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties" [the corollary:] "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence."

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

#72

Post by nthcolumn »

jonyt wrote: post #66

Not sure what the author's point is. That all spies are incompetent? KGB infiltrated UK's intelligence establishment successfully, got the plans for the nuclear bomb and the space shuttle etc. etc. So clearly at least one organization is not completely without merit. Maybe he means specifically UK's spies? If so his anecdotes are not very convincing.

I would say rather than KGB infiltrating it was a case of British socialists fearing an imbalance of power reaching out to the Soviets. And yes he is poking fun at old Johnny English. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melita_Norwood was the most important of these atomic spies, was never prosecuted and ended her days in a cottage in Bournemouth I think it was, the nice little old lady next door. The BBC itself is heavy with British spooks so this piece may not be the jolly little fna-fna it purports to be. I even suspect OP (no offense old chap).

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

#73

Post by pjc50 »

AimHere wrote: post #61
Sunset wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we ever come to live in such a dystopian society I'm going to use our new found peeping power to mark political enemies and remove them all in a night of the long knives stile ordeal then overthrow the government and burn everything to the ground.

But the panopticon also stares right back at you. Your political enemies can also use it to google you up, find what you're up to, and night-of-the-long-knives you first. You've already blown it by writing this post, so it's on Your Permanent Record For All To See. Once the panopticon's switched on, YOUR first priority, Sunset, is to make sure you don't have any enemies who care enough to check out your posting histo…

It just means it's impossible to be covert within the system. It makes it straightforward for up-front malicious actors to run the system, Trump passim.

You'd end up with a conservative theocracy in short order. Only the perfectly conformist have nothing to hide; those people who beat their wives or children in the normal, socially approved manner will be safe.

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

#74

Post by pjc50 »

angusmacphail wrote: post #20

And doesn't it fit neatly that we're force-fed the narrative of Islamic extremism as public enemy number one... Poor religious radicals are the only foe our intelligence services are likely to outwit

There was a suggestion going around that some of the recent London attackers had at one time been recruited by MI5 to fight in Libya. My google-fu is failing to find me the alleged details, though.

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

#75

Post by PhasmaFelis »

harry8 wrote: post #30
abnry wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He makes a case but two things: (1) Weiner obviously has an axe to grind in his polemic, and (2) we hear much more about the CIA's failures than its successes. But definitely during the cold war the russians smoked us in espionage.

Pick the team that finishes last in any sporting tournament and you hear more about their failures than their successes. The usual response is "Well what successes?" So it would seem to be with the CIA. The USA is hugely and massively successful and the CIA hides its disaster laden, failure after failure after horrendous outcome in secrecy. What success did the CIA have, ever? List their failures is so easy, I'll sta…

The story of the CIA's ongoing attempts to assassinate Castro reads like a slapstick comedy. Exploding cigars weren't even the silliest.

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

#76

Post by pluma »

DanBC wrote: post #64
pluma wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody had _heard_ of this, maybe. Everybody in the tech community at least. Or let's just say enough people that some people feel like everybody did. However when I heard of this, everybody also knew this was just a conspiracy theory. The NSA records everything -- Hello, NSA person who inevitably reads this -- sure, but c'mon they wouldn't actually store any of it or even pay attention as long as you didn't use t…

> sure, but c'mon they wouldn't actually store any of it or even pay attention as long as you didn't use trigger words How did you think they were listening for the trigger words?

First of all, you stated the same thing twice in separate comments.

Secondly, I wasn't making an argument, I was describing how people at the time would think about claims like "the NSA records every conversation".

There are flaws in the argument (well, duh) but that's not even the point. The full extent of NSA surveillance was so absurdly unthinkable that people would go out of their way to rationalize anything as long as it was less preposterous than claiming the NSA literally taps, records and stores all Internet traffic.

* The NSA doesn't spy on people, that's absurd

* The NSA doesn't spy on people outside the US, that's absurd

* The NSA doesn't spy on innocent, law-abiding people, that's absurd

* The NSA doesn't spy on me, that's absurd

* The NSA doesn't spy on me as long as I don't act suspiciously, that's absurd

* The NSA doesn't spy on me all the time, that's absurd

* The NSA doesn't record everything I do, that's absurd

* The NSA doesn't store information it collects about me, that's absurd

* The NSA doesn't store all information it can collect about me, that's absurd

etc etc

Also, the way I recall it, at the time the conspiracy theory was (likely due to the popularity of the X-Files at the time) "the FBI is reading our IRC chatlogs", which is a far cry from "the NSA is rerouting all internet traffic", which is what we now know to be true. Not only does it seem less nefarious (law enforcement vs literally spies) but the scope was far more plausible (the network operators might cooperate with law enforcement).

Heck, even Guantanamo and drone strike assassinations seemed implausible back then.

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

#77

Post by [deleted] »

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #57
branchless wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another example: Cameron. Led us into Brexit due to a massive miscalculation. Not a capable man but the Brits insist on picking leaders from a few thousand upper-class twits. His Chancellor and Eton chum was also a disaster.

Americans don't seem to be doing much better in that regard. In fact, Trump has the worst education of any president in recent memory.

[deleted]

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

#78

Post by grrowl »

Animats wrote: post #38

The output of the intelligence community is surprisingly low. One director of the NSA said, pre-9/11, that the whole organization generated about one important result every two days, one that was acted upon. The output of the US's domestic anti-terrorism effort is low for the resources invested. Most of the FBI's terrorism arrests are wannabes. They get a report of somebody mouthing off in a bar or mosque, crank up a…

I find it amusing to consider the NSA/FBI thinks various terrorist groups have masterminded a plan and are closing in, while terrorist groups think similarly about the NSA/FBI's SIGINT infrastructure and capability; when in fact they're both hilariously unorganised and just trying really, really hard, like a real-life parallel to Spy Vs Spy

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

#79

Post by erikb »

sgift wrote: post #69
erikb wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I can elaborate. Standards are a set of procedures to cooperate and provide a certain level of minimum quality. For many single person hackers not having standards may result in much better quality, but for teams of people who do this because they need to pay rent the quality is always pointed towards the possible minimum, not maximum. Therefore standards usually improve the work of paid teams. But standards are…

The same argumentation is usually used to argue that people have to be in the office or they won't do work - it's wrong in that case, it is wrong in this case. People often do good work without being forced to.

Well, I can only say I'm happy you made this experience. In no company I worked until now I could see this. The quality was always horrible, and only carrot&stick could at least improve it to bearable.

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

#80

Post by erikb »

beagle3 wrote: post #56
erikb wrote: post #51

Yes, of their actual job they probably do very little. This is already part of being secret and fighting secrets. Being secret means there is no way you need to follow any standards or reviews. So your work ethic must not be very high. And fighting secrets is hard. You can even see that when working in a team of considerable size (e.g. 10+ people). It's hard even to track all the open, important and even marketed inf…

> Being secret means there is no way you need to follow any standards or reviews. So your work ethic must not be very high. I don't know if you are right or wrong, but your statement sounds to me almost exactly like the one that I hear from religious zealots about atheists: "No one to answer to, therefore, no morals or ethics". There is a point of view from which this makes sense: Since there is no standard code, eve…

See the other subtree for more detailed opinion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14504119

In any case the major point I was trying to make is that spy agencies have side gigs that are so attractive to the governments that the spy agencies will keep their position, even if they don't do their main job well.

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