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Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

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Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#81

Post by bitlax »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #74
dragonwriter wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm having trouble understanding how one can seriously consider NPR 'internal propaganda.' Their national broadcasts are like radically centrist and unbiased “Radically centrist” and “unbiased” are mutually incompatible descriptions, the former of which is compatible with propaganda favoring the elite consensus.

Radically centrist in that they go out of their way not to be liberal or conservative in an attempt to stay unbiased, sometimes to the detriment of the programming.

Well they aren't liberal or conservative so much as establishment Democrat. And they regularly engage in bias by omission in their reporting.

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#82

Post by blantonl »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #56

I wonder how much of CIA spycraft has been made obsolete because of social media? In the past finding out who someone's family, friends, interests, political leanings, where they travel, and skills might involve sending a human to secretly follow them around. Now you can just see who their family and friends on Facebook are, look at their daugther's Instagram page to see where the family has traveled, see their comme…

CIA agents are trained to be perfectly just like "one of us" leading apparently normal lives.

There are most likely CIA agents among us here on Hacker News... functioning as technology executives, sales people, engineers, developers, etc

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#83

Post by blantonl »

opportune wrote: post #48
mysterydip wrote: post #5

This is well known but often ignored for convenience. Go to any restaurant in the DC area around lunchtime and you'd be amazed at what you can learn from the table next to you.

Also true for the Caltrain, coffee shops, and nicer restaurants between SF and SJ. And SFO, SJC, and SEA airports; I think I hear some salesman loudly talking about a deal almost every time I fly out of those places on weekdays.

Yup, and I guarantee you foreign states send nosey-nellies to all these venues to do nothing but snoop on this stuff.

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#85

Post by Mathnerd314 »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #66
jessaustin wrote: post #47

Wow CIA agents are actually just swell folks who have all of our best interests at heart. I feel a lot better about all those third-nation torture dungeons now. Earlier this year NPR hired as CEO the guy who previously ran the USA organization for external propaganda. It's so surprising that NPR are even more committed to internal propaganda than they were before they hired him.

I'm having trouble understanding how one can seriously consider NPR 'internal propaganda.' Their national broadcasts are like radically centrist and unbiased while the local/syndicated programs can be hard hitting and completely opposed to the government.

You just have to read the websites, like https://12bytes.org/articles/exposed/npr-national-public-rad... or https://www.mrc.org/bozells-column/npr-admits-liberal-bias

The criticism looks like most criticism of news media: braindead reporters, selective coverage, etc., pointing to some bias, but not really enough overall to be conclusive. And associated with the same sort of people that would sign a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide.

IDK, my experience is that news reports are OK for getting introduced to a topic but all the detailed/useful information is in blogs and databases these days.

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#86

Post by scott_s »

i_am_nomad wrote: post #38
goatinaboat wrote: post #12

to "the Farm," a secret CIA facility in Virginia where their grueling training included all the obligatory skills of what Fox refers to as "the Bond business": how to flip or crash a car; how to use a Glock; how to parachute; how to use a speedboat; how to withstand torture; how to use a grocery bag and duct tape to bandage a punctured chest; and how to commit suicide This is over-egging the pudding a bit.

I’ve had a bit of interaction with the Farm. As a kid, my dad and I would sail past it (as close as you can get without being blared at). I’ve heard explosions coming from there, and seen people rappelling from helicopters into the woods. Later, I was a physics student at a university very close to Camp Perry. We were able to detect microwave transmissions on odd bands, at odd hours, that seemed to be directed from o…

I read the memoir of a CIA case officer ("See No Evil" by Bob Baer) while at that same university. It was surreal to think the place he trained was where I would end up if I turned right instead of left when getting off the highway.

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#87

Post by oska »

> invited her to a pub called the Fuggle & Firkin

Fuggle is a classic English aroma hop, released in 1875 by Mr Richard Fuggle. [1]

Firkin is an English brewery cask unit, specifically one fourth of a barrel or half a kilderkin. [2]

There used to be a chain of Firkin pubs in the UK, all of which featured Firkin in the name, e.g. Fettler and Firkin, Goose and Firkin, etc. [3]

[1] https://www.britishhops.org.uk/varieties/fuggle/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_brewery_cask_units#Fir...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firkin_Brewery

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#88

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

cheschire wrote: post #3

I wonder if they give a class in juggalo paint at the farm, and other means of bypassing facial recognition programs. The tenure of a field operative these days must be incredibly short

Facial recognition countermeasures can be considered in some ways obsolete in an era of stance and gait recognition.

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#90

Post by apendleton »

comicjk wrote: post #9

I found this title subtly wrong, and it took me a little while to realize why: my accent doesn't have the Mary–marry–merry merger, so "Be Wary" and "Be Merry" don't rhyme for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes...

As someone who does have this merger, which one (of Mary/marry/merry) does "wary" most resemble for you?
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