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Everything we know about spies is wrong

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Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#11

Post by mangamadaiyan »

nativeit wrote: post #5

The story of Nora Inayat Khan is an affecting tale of incredible bravery, heroism, and selfless sacrifice. She nearly survived the war, but was captured only days before she was due to be extracted, and died at the hands of one of Germany’s most sadistic torturers. Nora Khan was a “regular” citizen who rose to the moment, committed herself entirely to the allied cause, and nearly single-handedly maintained radio cont…

> regular citizen

Almost, but not quite. She had royal blood on both sides of her father's family:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_Inayat_Khan

Not that this takes away anything from what you wrote, I just happened to be in one of my pedantic moods :)

Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#13

Post by JKCalhoun »

kalaksi wrote: post #6

This reminds me... Anyone interested in spy stuff should check out The Bureau (2015). It's an excellent spy series and also a nice change in style compared to the usual Hollywood productions.

Le bureau des légendes (French title) is an amazing show. Five seasons (the first three probably the superior ones).

The first season it's fun to watch and wrestle with whether you would want to be an agent or not. (Eventually I decided I would love to be an agent — but not the high-profile kind — I would want to be the Mémé or Pépé characters from the series — or one of the techies that work in the office).

Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#14

Post by WolfeReader »

_yb2s wrote: post #9

Cool article. They are saying to use a regular book as a way of numerically referencing your message, but then aren't you limited to some generic phrase from that book? It seems to me, at least in pre-computer times, that a regular book would work fairly well as a one-time pad. Especially something widely available, innocuous, and very long, like a bible. You'd probably want to add something like an offset, and a rul…

If the adversary discovers the book that your spy is using - through any trivial surveillance method - then all communication which that spy has participated in, and will participate in, just got compromised.

Part of the appeal of a real one-time pad is that no previous communications can be deciphered again, even by the agents themselves.

Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#15

Post by priprimer »

mangamadaiyan wrote: post #11
nativeit wrote: post #5

The story of Nora Inayat Khan is an affecting tale of incredible bravery, heroism, and selfless sacrifice. She nearly survived the war, but was captured only days before she was due to be extracted, and died at the hands of one of Germany’s most sadistic torturers. Nora Khan was a “regular” citizen who rose to the moment, committed herself entirely to the allied cause, and nearly single-handedly maintained radio cont…

> regular citizen Almost, but not quite. She had royal blood on both sides of her father's family: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_Inayat_Khan Not that this takes away anything from what you wrote, I just happened to be in one of my pedantic moods :)

royal blood is one of them ideas even worse than the notion of race

Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#16

Post by nonrandomstring »

_yb2s wrote: post #9

Cool article. They are saying to use a regular book as a way of numerically referencing your message, but then aren't you limited to some generic phrase from that book? It seems to me, at least in pre-computer times, that a regular book would work fairly well as a one-time pad. Especially something widely available, innocuous, and very long, like a bible. You'd probably want to add something like an offset, and a rul…

Think "return-oriented programming" and "gadgets". Hidden somewhere in the book is the message you want to send expressible by a series of jumps within the text.

Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#17

Post by red_admiral »

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.

Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#18

Post by victorbjorklund »

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.

Fun show but hardly anything realistic (other than russia having spies that work the long game pretending to be normal citizens)

Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#19

Post by slowmotiony »

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.

Re: Everything we know about spies is wrong

#20

Post by breaker-kind »

> everything you know and think about spies is wrong

> The school’s first explosives instructor was Bill Cumper, a boisterous character who walked around with his pockets full of bomb parts and “a detonator behind his ear as if it were a cigarette.”

come on. we can acquiesce that people were maybe getting a little crazy with it

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