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The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

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Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#41

Post by omni_wisdumb »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #6

The most important of which was how officers in the field under diplomatic and deep cover stationed across the globe were readily identified by the KGB. A dirty little secret within the world of clandestine operations is that the majority of official-status officers (diplomatic or military cover) are known by the host country intelligence services. This is largely because you generally only take so much risk with ong…

Exactly. But, those are official covers, most of these are covert but not necessarily clandestine. There are people with Non-official covers (the real clandestine people)who don't get the grace of diplomatic immunity and persona-non-grata if they are caught.

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#42

Post by omni_wisdumb »

EdwardCoffin wrote: post #12
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #6

The most important of which was how officers in the field under diplomatic and deep cover stationed across the globe were readily identified by the KGB. A dirty little secret within the world of clandestine operations is that the majority of official-status officers (diplomatic or military cover) are known by the host country intelligence services. This is largely because you generally only take so much risk with ong…

> A dirty little secret within the world of clandestine operations is that the majority of official-status officers (diplomatic or military cover) are known by the host country intelligence services. Do you have a citation that would support this?

Almost all of the official covers (covert) are known. Hence they have a safety net of simply being persona-non-grata'd. It's the non-offical clandestine covers who really get screwed.

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#43

Post by omni_wisdumb »

neurotech1 wrote: post #24

The problem today is that with LinkedIn and Facebook, some CIA personnel are stupid enough to actually mention their status with the Agency, or are friends/connections with known CIA Analysts etc. who do mention their status. NSA Contractors sometimes mention classified codenames in their LinkedIn page. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130617/13482623512/disco...

Some people work for the CIA as analysts or even basic jobs like accounting. It's not all one big super secret thing. If it were you wouldn't have the top spots like the head of recruitment or the director known. There's one professor at my alma mater who is openly known as a in-resident CIA officer and helps people with their tradecraft, it's all on his university site profile page.

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#44

Post by gwern »

EdwardCoffin wrote: post #12
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #6

The most important of which was how officers in the field under diplomatic and deep cover stationed across the globe were readily identified by the KGB. A dirty little secret within the world of clandestine operations is that the majority of official-status officers (diplomatic or military cover) are known by the host country intelligence services. This is largely because you generally only take so much risk with ong…

> A dirty little secret within the world of clandestine operations is that the majority of official-status officers (diplomatic or military cover) are known by the host country intelligence services. Do you have a citation that would support this?

One submission on HN a few months ago, IIRC, was a history of how the USA dealt with a subtle bugging of all the typewriters in the US embassy. Given penetrations like that, it's not much of a surprise if the USSR had known most/all of the US's spies...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Murray makes an interesting claim https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/06/five-reasons... :

> 3) MI6 officers work under diplomatic cover 99% of the time. Their alias is as members of the British Embassy, or other diplomatic status mission. A portion are declared to the host country. The truth is that Embassies of different powers very quickly identify who are the spies in other missions. MI6 have huge dossiers on the members of the Russian security services – I have seen and handled them. The Russians have the same. In past mass expulsions, the British government has expelled 20 or 30 spies from the Russian Embassy in London. The Russians retaliated by expelling the same number of British diplomats from Moscow, all of whom were not spies! As a third of our “diplomats” in Russia are spies, this was not coincidence. This was deliberate to send the message that they knew precisely who the spies were, and they did not fear them.

(I quickly tried to look it up, but there are so many mutual expulsions it would've taken too long.)

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#45

Post by obrero »

migsvult wrote: post #39

two thoughts 1. In the 70's and the 80's our Soviet counter-intel was fairly compromised. Aldrich Ames and Robert Hassan are just the biggest examples. That probably does a better job explaining a Soviet CI advantage than 'we looked at the things agents did and looked for correlations.' I mean, every agency has been doing that forever. 2. There are a number of different types of cover, like the article points out. Di…

Hanssen was posting stories to Usenet's alt.sex.stories in the late 1990s, stories of voyeurism about his wife ( https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.sex.stories/3e1fHGTW_Pc/... ). He can't be said to have been keeping the lowest of profiles.

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#46

Post by tsotha »

omni_wisdumb wrote: post #43
neurotech1 wrote: post #24

The problem today is that with LinkedIn and Facebook, some CIA personnel are stupid enough to actually mention their status with the Agency, or are friends/connections with known CIA Analysts etc. who do mention their status. NSA Contractors sometimes mention classified codenames in their LinkedIn page. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130617/13482623512/disco...

Some people work for the CIA as analysts or even basic jobs like accounting. It's not all one big super secret thing. If it were you wouldn't have the top spots like the head of recruitment or the director known. There's one professor at my alma mater who is openly known as a in-resident CIA officer and helps people with their tradecraft, it's all on his university site profile page.

I interviewed with the CIA out of college. The first thing they do during interviews is disabuse the applicant of any notion he's applying to be James Bond. The clandestine people are only a tiny, tiny portion of the organization.

Mostly what people do in Langley is move paper from one side of the (electronic) desk to the other, and I don't think foreign powers have any trouble photographing and identifying them as they arrive at the office.

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#47

Post by gherkin0 »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #37
ep103 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda wanna put spy on my linkedin page now

Honestly, the CIA should want you to too. The more randos listing fake intelligence activities that can't be easily discounted, the more time russian counterintelligence has to spend chasing down false leads.

> time russian counterintelligence has to spend chasing down false leads.

But don't do it if you ever plan on actually traveling to Russia or China. IIRC, they've held innocent Westerners in the past on suspicions of espionage.

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#48

Post by rhino369 »

neurotech1 wrote: post #24

The problem today is that with LinkedIn and Facebook, some CIA personnel are stupid enough to actually mention their status with the Agency, or are friends/connections with known CIA Analysts etc. who do mention their status. NSA Contractors sometimes mention classified codenames in their LinkedIn page. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130617/13482623512/disco...

Very few people who work for the spy agencies are "under cover." The ones who are under cover use fake names for their service.

Living in DC you'll run into lot of people who work as analysts for CIA/NSA/FBI/State etc. Some of them have business cards with CIA on it.

The CIA has a starbucks inside.

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#49

Post by hugh4 »

EdwardCoffin wrote: post #32
Spooky23 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the 1985 article: >"United States counterintelligence specialists estimate that at least 150 K.G.B. officers are working out of the embassy under cover as diplomats, clerks, chauffeurs, journalists and in other jobs." Just as a point of reference, the US Embassy in Iran during the 1979 revolution and subsequent hostage crisis had something on the order of 75-100 people working there. Again, Google around, there…

You still haven't provided the evidence needed though to support the conclusion of a majority given some or even many . Also, we are talking about an endeavour in which deception is the norm, so even evidence like this is more than a little bit questionable.

What evidence would you like? Embassy payroll documents annotated with "spy" and "not a spy"?

Given the privileged status of the embassy and the protections offered by diplomatic status (eg the diplomatic pouch) you'd be crazy not to staff your embassy with spies, at least in any country worth spying on. You'll probably get a few actual diplomats to do the actual diplomacy too, and the occasional low-level passport stamper, but the default assumption should be that they're pretty much all spies.

Re: The KGB’s success identifying CIA agents in the field

#50

Post by hugh4 »

gherkin0 wrote: post #28
neurotech1 wrote: post #24

The problem today is that with LinkedIn and Facebook, some CIA personnel are stupid enough to actually mention their status with the Agency, or are friends/connections with known CIA Analysts etc. who do mention their status. NSA Contractors sometimes mention classified codenames in their LinkedIn page. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130617/13482623512/disco...

That seems like something that competent counterintelligence people should be monitoring and shutting down. Hell, they probably should have unit in their new employee orientation covering this: "Do not list your occupation as 'Spy'" on LinkedIn.

I once read an NSA employee manual which talked about how you should talk about your work. It said you should be truthful without making it sound exciting or mysterious.

If asked "where do you work" you say "the department of defense". If asked what branch you say "the NSA". If asked what you do, you say "research". And that's it, apparently.

No doubt there are other manuals for other types of employee, but they're not available on the Internet.

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