Britain's MI6 Opens Its First Website

An anonymous reader wites "Britain's spy agency the Secret Intelligence Service, known popularly as MI6, has opened its first website. While much about the agency is still not public, the website has information on service history and career opportunities for would-be spies. This rare peek at the real group popularized by the James Bond series brought over 3.5 million visits in its first few opening hours on Wednesday."

Comments

SIS and James Bond

[CreateWindowEx]

After reading about how the head of SIS (A.K.A. MI6) was called "C", I figured that surely at some point they would refer to James Bond on the site somewhere. When I found it, I was a little surprised that they didn't say the film had no basis in reality. I guess they're hoping to use the connection to help recruiting...

From the FAQ:

Q: How realistic is the depiction of SIS in the James Bond films?

A: James Bond, as Ian Fleming originally conceived him was based on reality. But any author needs to inject a level of glamour and excitement beyond reality in order to sell. By the time the filmmakers focused on Bond the gap between truth and fiction had already widened. Nevertheless, staff who join SIS can look forward to a career that will have moments when the gap narrows just a little and the certainty of a stimulating and rewarding career which, like Bond's, will be in the service of their country.

Re:SIS and James Bond

[Quirk]

I went to school with one of the decendent relatives of William Stephenson, better known as Intrepid. Mr. Stephenson was said to have fired Ian Fleming from spy school. The gossip I heard suggested Ian Fleming was undisciplined and perhaps not the brightest light.

Through my family I've direct contact with people who have served in military intelligence. I know a few CSIS people and, I had the luck to spend ~14 hours locked in conversation with one of the architects of CSIS (he'd started out as a Polish citizen in WWII, was trained by what we came to know as the KGB, then he jumped ship to British Intelligence and finally came to Canada). He was an intelligent, insightful man but certainly far from a James Bond kind of a guy. His most telling trait, share by everyone I`ve met in the intelligence community, was a belief that things that needed to get done were best done covertly. I`ve been told that the best intelligence agents are inconspicuous. From everything I know I`d go with the "Danger Man" sort with the accent more on "The Prisoner".

The Russians in the Cold War were infamous for simply walking up to someone in the know at a cocktail party and innocuously asking pointed questions about sensitive material; the person being questioned might well be caught off guard by the social setting and laid back approach.

The only person I've known like a James Bond character was a Montreal vice cop who was an interpol agent, a martial arts expert and liked to review each violent episode he had lived through, but he wasn't anything like the intelligence people I've known. I doubt there are many, if any, James Bond types. There was a British sargent who, in the aftermath of WWII, was tasked with the assissination of deemed war criminals unlikely to be brought to justice. I saw him interviewed on the Discovery Channel. He was retired to a farm, spoke very unemotionaly about some of his excutions and showed a strong liking for Russian rifles as the then best assissination weapons. In the alternative, not to long ago, I met a British intelligence trained guy and while sharing a drink I brought up the subject of best gun for the job ( a 25 cal. in my opinion ). He dismissed the whole notion saying no one uses guns anymore. Theres a pin prick in your bottle of aftershave. You cut yourself shaving. Three months later you're dead.

cheers

Re:SIS and James Bond

[Quirk]

Hi, no offense taken. If I had to sum up the makeup of an intelligence operative I'd say s/he avoids anything suggestive of transparency and accountability like the plague, and, knows, when things go wrong, when and for how long to hide in the broom closet. Careers are subject to the same politics in any field.

As far as secrecy I go with the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY).

'.. one of the first members of the United States government openly to predict the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union--and, by extension, statist communism--as far back as the late '70s, as political historian Richard Gid Powers reminds readers in a lengthy introduction (comprising approximately one-fifth of Secrecy's total length). Had we spent less time trying to gather secret information about the Soviets and more time openly discussing rather easily interpretable data, Sen. Moynihan argues, we might have been far less paranoid about the supposed Red menace. The problem, he writes, lies in the essential nature of government secrecy: "Departments and agencies hoard information, and the government becomes a kind of market. Secrets become organizational assets, never to be shared save in exchange for another organization's assets.... The system costs can be enormous. In the void created by absent or withheld information, decisions are either made poorly or not at all."'

Re:how long till it's hacked?

[Coryoth]

It depends on who is running it really. Being SIS rather than something more computer security oriented (like GCHQ), I'd expect it is possible that they will get hacked. Places like GCHQ and the NSA on the other hand, who deal with information assurance and computer security as part of their role, tend to have far better records on that front. The NSA website has never been hacked, and given their profile you can be sure it isn't from lack of trying.

Jedidiah.

Sandbaggers

[dogbreathcanada]

For those interested in television that portrays the SIS in a reasonably accurate light, I highly recommend the Sandbagger series. Available on DVD too.

Re:First we know about

[mr100percent]

Quite right, what about the Office of Strategic Influence?

Official Font of Britain

[courtarro]

It's good to see that they're sticking to the apparent official font of Britain, Gill Sans.