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> By 2013, China’s success in identifying C.I.A. agents had been blunted — it is not clear how. If I can make a software analogy here, this is the least satisf
by mysterypie 9y ago
> By 2013, China’s success in identifying C.I.A. agents had been blunted — it is not clear how.
If I can make a software analogy here, this is the least satisfying resolution to a bug in your program. Imagine a devastating but intermittent bug, that simply disappears after a period of time or after innocuous changes to your program. Not knowing what happened or how it "fixed itself" is very frustrating.
Alternate theory: The F.B.I. and the C.I.A. know exactly how they fixed it, but they won't tell The New York Times that part.
- Lordarminius 9y agoYour alternate theory is likely to be the correct one. As a general rule with very few exceptions, read espionage tales published in the popular press for entertainment not accurate information. The first rule of spying is : EVERYBODY. LIES.
- angry_octet 9y agoOr in fact they have no meaningful agent program, but they want the Chinese to think they do, so they spend vast resources looking for the CIA's sources and randomly arresting the wrong people. How easy would it be to plant cyber evidence on someone these days? Especially with everyone in China running on devices with govt backdoors, it must be easy.
- apozem 9y agoI thought the same thing about your alternate theory. If they did figure out how to fix the problem, they absolutely would not reveal that.