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I agree. Over hyped click bait. The "secret forces" they identify are special forces (of course, what would you expect?), civilian consultants (same) and those
by sam_4675 5y ago
I agree. Over hyped click bait.
The "secret forces" they identify are special forces (of course, what would you expect?), civilian consultants (same) and those who "search for high-value targets and collect what is called "publicly accessible information"—or even engage in campaigns to influence and manipulate social media"( i.e., military staff surfing the public web as anonymously as possible).
Article admits that only the real spies use fake IDs and then only during a mission: "Most signature reduction soldiers travel under real names, exchanging operational identities only once on the ground where they operate,".
Also some of this sounds like disinformation, e.g., re ability to manipulate enemies databases to get through security. Sounds like noise to freak opponents out.
- graderjs 5y agoIt might not be notable if you're familiar with the scale of it and the secrecy through your own experience, but that's not really the main audience of Newsweek. I think a majority of regular people this would be newsworthy and interesting. I agree some of it could be disinfo. I wonder how representative the 60k estimate is of the true size of people whose main full-time work is mostly in SAPs / black budget programs, not just these seemingly "operationally focused" ones.