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Female spies of MI6

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Re: Female spies of MI6

#91

Post by marliechiller »

petsormeat wrote: post #89

> why women often make the best spies for our times When I worked as a secretary, I was amazed at how unguarded men are in front of women in the workplace, particularly those of us in lower status roles. They seemed to think we had no capacity for thought or language, and were safe background decor for any conversation. I really worry that foreign service clerical staff are treated appropriately.

I found this extends to lower status roles in general - I have also worked as a secretary as a male and found the same thing

Re: Female spies of MI6

#92

Post by draebek »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #57

I’m curious why this article was authorized. It seems they decided it would help with recruiting more than it hurts by giving away the element of surprise.

Do I correctly understand by your comment that you think there was a foreign intelligence service that did not already know MI6 employed female agents?

Re: Female spies of MI6

#93

Post by aliqot »

marliechiller wrote: post #91
petsormeat wrote: post #89

> why women often make the best spies for our times When I worked as a secretary, I was amazed at how unguarded men are in front of women in the workplace, particularly those of us in lower status roles. They seemed to think we had no capacity for thought or language, and were safe background decor for any conversation. I really worry that foreign service clerical staff are treated appropriately.

I found this extends to lower status roles in general - I have also worked as a secretary as a male and found the same thing

Everyone talks to the barber.

Re: Female spies of MI6

#94

Post by bigie35 »

I kinda chcuckle a little reading this knowing without a doubt, someone's job at these clandestine operations is sliding into someone's DMs, hoping for a bite.

Re: Female spies of MI6

#95

Post by jackweirdy »

akomtu wrote: post #81
anigbrowl wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually fluff articles like this are a prelude to a recruiting push. MI6 advertises in the Economist and I think the FT.

I think it's a prelude to restarting the Bond series with a female character.

Barbara Broccoli ruled that out recently

Re: Female spies of MI6

#96

Post by boomboomsubban »

conviencefee999 wrote: post #86
the_af wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong-un's sister, is a woman in power in North Korea [1] (yes, probably because she is his sister, but she's no figurehead, and how else does one rise to power in North Korea anyway?) and is deemed by some analysts as a possible successor to her brother. This doesn't make it a rule, but it shows there are women with power in North Korea. Because it's such an opaque country to outside observers, who k…

Ironically there's a female only division in North Korea's army though it's claimed that they are comfort woman from South Korean sources that doesn't really seem accurate. Especially considering the statements made about being solely for Kim Jong Un and the fact that the same sources also go on to state how he exclusively only dates European models, which is also ironic when you consider he seems to be in love with…

I believe the term "comfort women" only refers to the women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army, the term is a direct translation of a Japanese word.

It's possible North Korea had a division made up of former comfort womem at some point, but I've never heard of it and the youngest members left would be in their 80's now.

Re: Female spies of MI6

#97

Post by munificent »

twic wrote: post #72
giantg2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... not a good idea. That's the type of info you might divulge on your deathbed to adult children. Absolutely insane to tell teens while still working there.

I think there's a lot of misunderstanding here. A key thing to appreciate is that the women in this article, including Rebecca, are not spies . They are civil servants [1] working in a very sensitive area of government. None of them are undercover, or sneaking into Russian bases. It's a sensible precaution for them to keep quiet about what they do, but it's not like their ability to do their job depends on absolute s…

The definition of "spy" that I know is that they are people who cultivate relationships with "agents" or "assets": people who have access to important secret information and are willing to share it.

Most spies don't go into forbidden places and physically dig up secrets themselves. It's infinitely easier to get to know someone who already knows those secrets and persuade them to tell.

Re: Female spies of MI6

#98

Post by Der_Einzige »

BurningFrog wrote: post #5

> In the past, women have been overlooked, relegated to secretarial roles or, before the SIS era, deployed as “honeytraps” to ensnare or blackmail enemies Amusing of MI6 to claim they no longer use honeytraps.

One of the most depressing things in my tech worker life is witnessing how sex starved the average FAANG caliber engineer is.

The way that they got info about twitters political bias through project veritas was to... Get a cute looking girl to ask the guy nicely...

How many people who are smart and well connected enough to end up being watched by three letter agencies (which is most likely more of HN userbase than they would like to admit) have only experienced relationships, love, or lust that was paid for by some agent in Langley? My guess is that this happens far more than we would care to admit.

Heck there are memes about this kind of thing: https://postimg.cc/62TPMBfN

Re: Female spies of MI6

#99

Post by elefanten »

frontman1988 wrote: post #67

How does spying by humans/agents even work these days? I can't imagine a british agent going around spying in North korea, China or even Russia, much less a woman. Cause if you get caught you are going to get tortured into oblivion. Hence most of these 'spies' are on a diplomatic visa to prevent getting disappeared/tortured and therefore most of their movements are easily tracked. Spying as an agent is probably the w…

> Cause if you get caught you are going to get tortured into oblivion.

Was this not always a risk of that trade? Despite your gut level reaction, there are plenty of foreigners in those countries, via various channels and means — not just diplomatic.

Besides, why would a British agent have to appear stereotypically British? Why would they have to declare/present themselves as British? Wouldn’t faking all these things be core competencies of the trade?

Re: Female spies of MI6

#100

Post by belfalas »

petsormeat wrote: post #89

> why women often make the best spies for our times When I worked as a secretary, I was amazed at how unguarded men are in front of women in the workplace, particularly those of us in lower status roles. They seemed to think we had no capacity for thought or language, and were safe background decor for any conversation. I really worry that foreign service clerical staff are treated appropriately.

"Admins run the world, never make them angry." :)
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