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Alleged Russian Spy Ring Exposed In US
Several readers sent in the story of an alleged Russian spy ring busted yesterday by the FBI after a decade-long investigation. The FBI says that Moscow trained and planted long-term "moles" in the US in order to infiltrate the upper echelons of US government and business circles and pass back intelligence to the Russians. Twelve people have been charged; ten were arrested in the US (one is at large) and one in Cyprus. Wired and the New York Post have colorful coverage. Wired's leans on the tradecraft and discusses steganography, while the Post favors the femme fatale angle (alleged spy Anna Chapman). The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the US actions were unfounded and pursued "unseemly" goals. One of many choice quotes from copious coverage: "They couldn't have been spies. Look what she did with the hydrangeas." From the WSJ report: "Officials said no secrets were compromised or revealed in the alleged plot, and the spy operation seems to have yielded little of value given some of the elaborate methods deployed. None of the 11 charged by US prosecutors was accused of accessing any classified or sensitive US government information."
They were acting as "agents of Russia" which is against the law in itself since they aren't registered. Why the FBI chose to arrest them now is the mystery because the FBI knew for over a decade.
"Officials said no secrets were compromised or revealed in the alleged plot, and the spy operation seems to have yielded little of value given some of the elaborate methods deployed. None of the 11 charged by US prosecutors was accused of accessing any classified or sensitive US government information."
This is typical of Russian intelligence activity. The book The Sword and the Shield: Mitrokhin Archive details most of the Soviet operations up until the mid 80s. This sounds like more of the same techniques: Attempting to attract young, impressionable, college-educated people to their cause and then trying to guide them into positions where they can gain intel. Unfortunately, the Russians still do not really understand american culture and so they find it difficult to penetrate deeply into any establishment domestically.
Historically, their most successful intelligence gathering operations were either through signals intelligence or from defectors who wanted monentary compensation. Their recruiting efforts have been laughably under-planned. This is just another example. Their resources would be better spent in open source intelligence to identify vulnerable individuals who could be blackmailed than attempting to sway them on idealistic grounds. Communism just isn't that sexy. Sadly for them, I don't think they have the resources anymore to do much more than the French -- industrial espionage is as far as they get too. But at least the French make money on their intelligence operations...
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Make that 10 bullets, I'll take care of Anna, she's been very naughty.
New job posting! Live in the USA. Get an absurdly high salary. Hobnob with politicians. Raise hydrangeas. Provide nearly useless tidbits of information. Pick your job title from the following list:
1) Journalist
2) Spy
3) Lobbyist
4) Politician running for office
5) Lawyer
6) Wealthy old money parasite
7) Failed CEO of HP/Compaq, Microsoft, Enron or any Hedge fund.
8) Oprah (or generic talk show host)
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Wikipedia?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Okay, raise your hands, how many people got to the bit about "while the Post favors the femme fatale angle (alleged spy Anna Chapman)" and immediately stopped to go do some google searches on this spy in particular?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Last week Obama met with Russian President Medvedev and is going to start pushing for an arms control treaty which will need ratification by the U.S. Senate. The timing of the arrests could have been an FBI signal that they don't trust the Russians in an effort to scuttle the treaty.
I think a lot of the reason behind secrecy is to shroud what we don't have as capabilities. If other countries knew about our failings in pervasive monitoring and command, control, coordination, and communications, and sharks with lasers on their heads or the ability to educate youths and keep old decrepit folks happy and sane, then they'd just have to assume we were awesome at all of those things.
But until then, we can charge admission for the illusion!
Hardly in the upper echelons but based on the security briefings I've received the answer is tiny, insignificant bits and pieces that you would tell anyone in passing but which can be put together to see the bigger picture. Of course, this was during a briefing about how important it was to keep secret things secret so that might be an exageration to instil a sense that the little things are important but the techniques they warned against backed up their statements. Engineers in particular are apparently susceptible to minor insults against a project they are working on. They will jump to devend it even if it means leaking non-trivial details.
As an example:
Spy - "I heard that the Air Force's new radios can't even do X"
Engineer - "What!? of course it can do X, we can even do X with Y and Z!"
Where X, Y, and Z are small details that are never the less classified information.
Too good looking and too smart.
Any woman who looks like that and who has a masters degree in economics is almost certainly a spy. No ordinary woman looks that good and is that smart.
They aren't being charged under the typical set of espionage laws (Title 18, 792-798) which cover gathering or disclosing information on defense installations or plans and disclosing classified information. Rather they are being charged with 'Conspiracy to Act as Unregistered Agents of a Foreign Government' (Title 18, 951) which is much broader and covers many otherwise non-criminal activities if performed at the behest of a foreign power.
In addition there are charges unrelated to actual performance of espionage including falsifying passports and other identity documentation, money laundering, and conspiracy to defraud the US.
Over all the complaint has a wealth of specific details that make it very clear that there was intent to commit espionage and commision of crimes in furtherance of that. We still file criminal charges against individuals who have been stopped in the attempt to commit a crime even if they did not succeed to do so, though the charges may be slightly reduced (ie no murder charges if bombing is prevented, but still charged for the bombing).
... : O.k., we'll be back in a few days. If you are telling the truth, we'll set you free. If you are not, the torture continues. ...
Repeat until
a. V is dead.
b. V gives credible information
On problem, torture isn't conducive to rational decision making. You want the torture to stop NOW, and you also probably would find an immediate (if temporary) break to be just as good as a permanent one. Also if the country who has you is of the torturing type, I doubt you trust them to actually set you free, since no country with torture really has much honor.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
to infiltrate the upper echelons of US government and business circles and pass back intelligence to the Russians
If they're looking for intelligence, the past couple of decades of US government and business decisions should be enough to convince anyone with a few ounces of brain that that's not the place to look for it.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Ok, here's the things about "enemy combatants" in several forms, from Taliban militants to German soldiers. When you capture someone on the field of war, you hold them until the war is over. You don't try them for "conspiracy to kill Americans," "conspiracy to commit terrorism," or any of that other bullshit. Why? Because killing opponents on the battle field isn't a crime. Conducting military operations isn't a crime. It's not even any more morally wrong than war is in general, because that's what war is. Thus, I am not for trying taliban militants, al qaeda operatives, or anyone else we capture in Afghanistan or Iraq. Hold them until the war is over. The only problem is, the "war on terrorism" will never be over. However, when we are done fighting in Iraq, everyone captured in Iraq should be released, and when we're done fighting in Afghanistan, then everyone captured in Afghanistan should be released.
Anecdote: in the mid 1960s, my mom's parents decided to have some work done to their house, including re-doing the chimney and fireplace. The man hired to do the job was a German immigrant. He and my grandfather got to talking and discovered they had been in the same battle, on the same day, during WWII, but on opposing sides. They ended up going through a couple of bottles of scotch and crying together for a few hours. I know it's a cliche that young soldiers who come face to face with the enemy always think how 'in another life, they could have been friends,' but in this case an American and a German who had been trying to kill each other a few years earlier in part of the Ardens offensive really did come together. I have a number of friends from Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and other countries in the area. They're all perfectly fine people, and it really bothers me when people who can't even pronounce "terrorist" accuse all middle-easterners and/or Muslims of being one.
Back on topic, the Russians aren't even being charged with espionage, but with acting as agents of a foreign government without proper registration. This is a normal, criminal matter that NGO-types can often run afoul of if they don't fill out the proper documents. I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up getting worked out by the State department. But these 10 people are hardly Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Why the FBI chose to arrest them now is the mystery because the FBI knew for over a decade.
Part of the spy game is not letting on that you know what is going on. By letting them conduct operations in against non-critical assets, you get to see how they operate, who they work with, and who they answer to. You can unravel their network to watch and catch other agents. You can set them up to pass false information. You can collect vast amounts of incriminating evidence to use to force them to become double agents. You can find out what they think you are doing and what they are worried about, and use that to play on their fears.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
As much as it seems foolish there is legitimate reasoning behind it.
(1) Penalty proportional to the harm done. If you fail to commit a crime the harm done to the victim and/or society is greatly reduced, thus since the US 'justice' system is largely built on retribution (rather than rehabilitation) there is less to take out on the criminal.
(2) It encourages going through with a crime when faced with discovery. If you are faced with an identical penalty whether you succeed or not, there is no motivation to back down if confronted by police (ie kill your target vs surrender) because there will be no lessened punishment. It is similar to the argument used for why making forcible child-rape a capital crime is counter productive (the penalty for killing the kid after is the same so why risk them being able to identify you if caught).
(3) Easier to prove. Despite the fact that the law does not allow for it, it remains much easier to get convictions for offences with lesser penalties. If the penalties were normalized than the standard of evidence required for something like attempted murder would correspondingly rise. *Note: This is probably a good thing, but would fundamentally alter the judicial system.*
If you believe the FBI, one of the targets under investigation realized that she was compromised. The FBI had become aggressive and had an undercover agent contact her because they pretty much knew how the Russians operated with this woman. I would expect that the FBI was trying to set up a sting operation so they can finally bag these spies for espionage. Unfortunately, they gave away the game. The woman bought a Verizon cell phone under a fake name, threw away the charger, and started to make calls. The FBI realized that she was trying to make an anonymous call (which doesn't work if you're already under constant surveillance) then decided to arrest everyone before they fled. One guy ran away but ten were caught.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Cryptography is for people don't want others to learn their secrets.
Steganography is for people who don't want others to know there *is* a secret.