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Britain's MI6 Opens Its First Website

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the sshh-don't-tell-anyone dept.

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."

46 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. First we know about by ewg · · Score: 5, Funny

    Their first web site that we know about.

    --
    org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
    1. Re:First we know about by ozmanjusri · · Score: 5, Funny

      Maybe you're actively posting about this on the other one? :D

      If Slashdot is a cover site for anything to do with intelligence, its disguise is near perfect.

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
  2. Old news! by davecrusoe · · Score: 2, Funny

    Old news... it's a good thing that our submitters aren't in the intel business! Or.... are they?

    1. Re:Old news! by FidelCatsro · · Score: 2, Funny

      Late information , Public Speculation , widespread leakage of intelligence , causing danger to innocents (servers) .
      I would say that they are running the intelligence agencies of the world .

      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    2. Re:Old news! by FidelCatsro · · Score: 2, Informative

      Naturally , Hubbard was an acolyte of Crowleys . Something of which most Scientologists are unaware .
      He was apparently not that good and a bit of a disappointment to the Thelamic order .
      Talking about that , Crowley did in fact work for MI6 and the American Intelligence agencies during WW2 helping with discovering some of the Nazi occult activities.

      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    3. Re:Old news! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      it's a good thing that our submitters aren't in the intel business! Or.... are they?

      You mean, as opposed to the AMD business?...

  3. how long till it's hacked? by Elminst · · Score: 2, Funny

    Who wants to set up the betting pool on this?
    I bet the gambling websites would make a killing.

    I got $20 that says it gets wacked in under a week.

    Of course starting them out with a nice slashdotting probably doesn't help. heh

    --
    No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
    1. Re:how long till it's hacked? by Coryoth · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
  4. Nice website by camelmix · · Score: 4, Funny

    Better than the FBI's or CIA :(

    1. Re:Nice website by LnxAddct · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well in defense of the FBI & CIA, both of their sites provide a lot more information. The SIS site provides minimal information so its easier to keep it clean. Regardless, the SIS site is not as cool as the NSA's :) (In particular the flash based one, its one of the few flash sites that are done well).
      Regards,
      Steve

    2. Re:Nice website by nmb3000 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Uh oh, looks like the NSA needs to watch what gets made public on their site.

      Crypto gear revealed!

      Some of these links are kind of interesting. How many tax dollars have been spent on stuff like this (flash)?

      --
      "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
      /)
    3. Re:Nice website by LnxAddct · · Score: 2, Informative

      It isn't a distro, they are kernel patches to increase the security of the kernel. The NSA worked closely with Red Hat to get them integrated, and now SELinux is supported in the mainline 2.6 kernel. Now they offer patches to bring your kernel more up to date.
      Regards,
      Steve

    4. Re:Nice website by scaryjohn · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How many tax dollars have been spent on stuff like National Reconnassiance Office for Kids? Not enough, if you subscribe to the theory that if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well.

      But there's a certian value in the idea of the site: if you work there, how are you going to explain what you do at work to your kids. Without having to kill them, I mean.

      --
      One might ask the same about birds. What ARE birds? We just don't know.
  5. /. = News for Nerds.... five days late by MBraynard · · Score: 4, Informative
    October 12.

    Slow news day?

    1. Re:/. = News for Nerds.... five days late by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 2, Funny

      Why didn't you submit it 5 days ago then?

      I tried to, but strangely my connection kept going do%^!$%[NO_CARRIER]

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
  6. Best bit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Best bit of the website has to be the operational careers profiles, http://www.mi6.gov.uk/output/Page74.html

    James Bond, 42
    "I love women and martinins so the 'SIS' flexible work hours suit me perfectly."

  7. Here's a question... by Manchot · · Score: 3, Funny

    So, is the website run by Q? If so, I must say that I'm a little disappointed that my computer doesn't explode when I click on the page three times.

    1. Re:Here's a question... by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 5, Funny
      I'm a little disappointed that my computer doesn't explode when I click on the page three times.


      That feature of the site only works correctly in Internet Explorer

  8. SIS and James Bond by CreateWindowEx · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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.

    1. Re:SIS and James Bond by st1d · · Score: 5, Funny

      Perhaps my [British] english is a little rusty, but doesn't that translate roughly as:

      "This job is mostly tedious and boring work in places you never wanted to visit, but if you are lucky, perhaps you will make enough mistakes to get yourself into mortal danger."

      Gee, where can I sign up?!! :)

      --
      Microsoft has just released their much anticipated hands-free cordless mouse. Warning, it may hurt a little at first.
    2. Re:SIS and James Bond by Quirk · · Score: 5, Interesting
      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

      --
      "Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
      Cohen
    3. Re:SIS and James Bond by Tim+Browse · · Score: 3, Funny

      You're posting to slashdot. That means you're already a double-zero.

    4. Re:SIS and James Bond by ilikejam · · Score: 4, Funny

      This from the guy with the 4 digit user ID. ;-)

      --
      C-x C-s C-x k
    5. Re:SIS and James Bond by klept · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There's an old saying in the trade. Those who know dont talk, and those who talk usually dont know. Not trying to be insulting, but think about that next time one of these guys reveals "trade" secrets.

    6. Re:SIS and James Bond by Quirk · · Score: 3, Interesting
      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."'

      --
      "Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
      Cohen
    7. Re:SIS and James Bond by Concerned+Onlooker · · Score: 2, Insightful
      He was retired to a farm, spoke very unemotionaly about some of his excutions....

      That should be your first clue that these people are not really good guys, but just guys that happen to be working for us. This whole stupid spy business is glamorized but people forget that you basically need to recruit sociopaths for the murdering. You hire some people who have zero empathy and send them out to kill people.

      This is not James Bond, this is simply setting psychologically damaged people on assignments of dubious moral character. Whether we need these people or not is beside the fact that they are sociopaths who don't always even have a real strong attachment to their own government/country (e.g. Robert Hansen).

      --
      http://www.rootstrikers.org/
    8. Re:SIS and James Bond by Nogami_Saeko · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This whole stupid spy business is glamorized but people forget that you basically need to recruit sociopaths for the murdering. You hire some people who have zero empathy and send them out to kill people.

      And this is different from a soldier in a regular army who's "just following orders" when they kill people, in what way exactly?

      N.

      --
      "Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
  9. Next Generation by Uukrul · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When I was young "nerd" news were read on magazines. We must wait one month, but usually two or three to get some news of an event.
    Now anything older than 1 or 2 days seems old news.
    If a history is old 5 days after it arrises, may be that history isn't as important as to mention it. After a century of existence MI6 opens a web, and 5 days later isn't it interesting?

    Internet is a great site to read news, but makes people very impatient.

    --
    My city: Barcelona.
    1. Re:Next Generation by randomblast · · Score: 2, Funny



      You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down the mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

      --
      ...these aren't my real teeth.
  10. This, I like. by oberondarksoul · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Having given the website a quick look, I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out. The layout's clear and understandable, it's got a few images but not too many to be especially taxing, and it has some nice features - switching the globe from night to day is cool, and implemented without using Flash, hurrah! On the whole, not bad.

    --
    And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
  11. Not only that by sielwolf · · Score: 2, Funny

    But they have a pretty good recipe for a Vodka Martini. The Kilgour suit is optional.

    --
    What is music when you despise all sound?
  12. The CIA and Sydney Bristrow by fm6 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Recently Jennifer Garner did a recruiting commercial for the CIA. When I saw it, my first reaction was, "how do I know you're recruiting for the CIA and not for some other organization posing as the CIA?"

  13. SIS is their name - but URL is mi6 by daveb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wonder why they use the domain name mi6.gov.uk when they make such a big deal of their REAL name being SIS, with Mi6 being mostly a movie thing

    see http://www.mi6.gov.uk/output/Page50.html

    1. Re:SIS is their name - but URL is mi6 by Lurk3r · · Score: 5, Informative

      Maybe its because MI6.gov.uk really isnt their main site, just a simple redirect. http://www.sis.gov.uk/ Is actually their homepage.

  14. 3.5mill visitors? by u2pa · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

    Sounds to me as if this is a dupe, and its already been slashdotted :)

    --
    Officially: "No comments"
  15. Obligatory comic link by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hackers army
    (Courtesy of Bilo and Nano )

  16. Sandbaggers by dogbreathcanada · · Score: 3, Interesting

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

  17. I dunno, the CIA's website is pretty nice by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Informative

    After all it has the World Factbook. Probably the best resource I've ever seen for getting basic information on countries. For every country it has a map, gorgraphic and demographic information, information on the government, the military, communications, etc. If you hear a country mentioned, it's a great place to go to get basic background on that country. One would assume it's fairly accurate as well.

  18. Ian Fleming and James Bond by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Whilst I can't comment about Ian Fleming being "fired from spy school", which sounds like a good yarn, I do know that Fleming served for some considerable time in the British Intelligence Service during WWII and held (as Bond did) the rank of Commander RN.

    Flemings experience of black ops in wartime directly influenced his concept of what an intelligence agent gets up to and his role in thinking up such ops exposed him to the "funny" sort of kit dreamed up by Q in the Bond books.

    Another connection with Bond is that Fleming had a considerable reputation as a womaniser.

    1. Re:Ian Fleming and James Bond by Quirk · · Score: 2, Informative

      As noted, I related schoolboy gossip, but, curious to see if there's anything to substantiate my yarn, I ran a search and came up with a story from Camp X, a spy school run in Canada during WWII. The anecdotal evidence is that Ian Fleming couldn't go through with an order to kill a man in cold blood.

      --
      "Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
      Cohen
  19. Re:Should be IS ? by FooAtWFU · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's not the secret intelligence service, it's the secret intelligence service. They go after people who seem to be stupid, but are in fact hiding the fact that they are geniuses.

    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  20. Languages by Geoffreyerffoeg · · Score: 3, Informative

    The language choices are interesting: English, Spanish, Russian, French, Arabic, and Chinese. My guess as to the reasons: English because it's Britain, Spanish because it's spoken by the non-anglophone Americas, Russian because the USSR was the Cold War enemy, French because it was the international language of diplomacy, Arabic because it's the language of the Middle East (the major intelligence interest today), and Chinese because it's the most common language per capita.

    Notable omissions are other European languages and Japanese. Arabic is a very notable inclusion.

  21. MI6 Site is missing some important info! by Ruvim · · Score: 2, Funny

    What? No Daniel Craig pictures?

  22. Re:Languages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Those are also the 6 official languages of the United Nations. Maybe that is the reason?

  23. Re:Languages by Baricom · · Score: 2

    It's interesting that those languages also correspond with the UN's official languages.

  24. Official Font of Britain by courtarro · · Score: 2, Interesting

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