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Everything we know about spies is wrong

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Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#81

Post by NikkiA »

praptak wrote: post #35
red_admiral wrote: post #17

This is pure gold, and still works on the internet to get the specs for PLA tanks: > If she wants to know something specific, but doesn’t want people to notice her asking questions, she should simply make incorrect statements while in the company of experts. Her companions will correct her, especially if they’re men.

I heard this one about Linux in the '90s. "If you need help with doing something in Linux, don't ask for help - you'll get ignored. Just boldly state Linux can't do that and you'll have PhDs running to prove you wrong."

AKA Cunningham's law, although it predates linux.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Cunningham#Cunningham's_L...

Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#82

Post by itronitron »

praptak wrote: post #63
like_any_other wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Her companions will correct her, especially if they’re men. Observe the importance of phrasing. If this had been put as "men enjoy sharing knowledge, while women are content to let others wallow in ignorance and error", it would have ruffled a great many more feathers.

Sticking to facts ruffles less feathers than adding a charged interpretation to the facts, it's not very surprising. ("X is more likely to correct you" can obviously also have a negatively charged interpretation, which I'm leaving as an exercise to the reader)

X may be more likely to correct you simply because there are more of them, which is different from saying that someone is more likely to correct you "especially if they are X"

Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#83

Post by edu »

romanhn wrote: post #12

Highly recommend watching The Americans, an incredible show about Soviet spies pretending to be a regular American family. Based somewhat on real people, and very well-researched.

I’ll add to the list The Spy (2019) with Sacha Baron Cohen about Eli Cohen, an Israeli spy who infiltrated the Syrian government in the 1960s, and with a deep focus on the human cost for the spy itself.

Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#84

Post by dfxm12 »

poincaredisk wrote: post #76
ffujdefvjg wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also use this to get a rough idea of who the most insecure people in the room are and work from there.

What's wrong with correcting someone? It requires some effort from the person doing the correcting, but it facilitates information sharing and lends itself to a more productive environment. If course it can be done in an shooting way, especially if the correcter is a jerk, but most people aren't.

Depends on the context. Correcting impertinent details comes off as pedantic and detracts from the conversation at hand. Like, if you and your partner are talking about how delicious your meal at a restaurant was with another couple, it's not worth correcting your partner over the name of server, or if they got the price wrong by a few bucks. Maybe it's worth correcting your partner if they say you got the halibut when you got the salmon though.

Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#86

Post by Animats »

There are lots of books by actual agents. If everything you know about spies is wrong, you've been reading the wrong books. There are histories of intelligence. From WWII, Reinhart Gelhen (Nazi side) [1] and William Colby (US side) [2] both wrote good books.

The CIA calls their field HUMINT people "case officers."[3] They recruit spies, people who are on the inside of something, but rarely spy themselves. That's how it's really done.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Gehlen

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby

[3] https://www.cia.gov/careers/jobs/case-officer/

Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#87

Post by digging »

jasonvorhe wrote: post #25

Is anyone else burned out of these headlines? Doing X for fun and profit Everything we knew about X is wrong I did X for $timespan and Y happened

I'm quite peeved because this article contained almost no new information for me. This is the basic stuff you learn about spies if you have literally any interest in historical spying, plus some trivia about how to make invisible ink. I regret my click.

Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#88

Post by digging »

ziddoap wrote: post #39
jasonvorhe wrote: post #25

Is anyone else burned out of these headlines? Doing X for fun and profit Everything we knew about X is wrong I did X for $timespan and Y happened

Title it in any other format and people will say it is clickbait.

But this title is clickbait. It's a lie. It could have been "How real spies were nothing like movie spies."

Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#89

Post by pseingatl »

slowmotiony wrote: post #19
romanhn wrote: post #12

Highly recommend watching The Americans, an incredible show about Soviet spies pretending to be a regular American family. Based somewhat on real people, and very well-researched.

I can recommend the french show "Le Bureau des Legends". It's written with the help of various consultants from the intelligence community and tries to be as realistic as possible, with most actual spies in the show being regular university students, office workers, psychologists, or even cafeteria staff. It's a fantastic show, although not very hollywood, so don't expect explosions or shootouts.

IRL intelligence from a potential informant was disregarded because a similar story was told in Le Bureau so the authorities presumed the informant just got the information from the show.

He didn't. There were other hostages. Not to mention the captagon warehouses. Or the Syrian intelligence network.

But what can you do when their minds are made up and they don't want to listen?

All info vetted by retired CIA, btw.

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