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SD cards in sandwiches at dead drops? Is this reality or a Grisham novel? If someone in 2021 is asking you to transfer secret information in an SD card, run.
by sandworm101 5y ago
SD cards in sandwiches at dead drops? Is this reality or a Grisham novel?
If someone in 2021 is asking you to transfer secret information in an SD card, run. They are either a scammer or a cop. The only reason to do something like this is to get physical evidence, photographs documenting you handing over the information. Physical dead drops of encrypted information isn't a thing anymore. Real spies use dropbox, tor, rapidshare, or a thousand other ways to securely move digital files without physically meeting.
Encrypt it into a truecrypt container. AES-blowfish plus whatever other layers you think you need. Toss in some random junk to pad the size. Then rar-encrypt it again, splitting it into a couple 200mb volumes. Label it as some sort of porn and upload it to a filesharing service via Tor. If this is real spy stuff information then the recipient won't care about jumping through a few hoops to download the material. If it is the police then they will balk at the effort because it will be complicated to explain these steps court. The police will insist on an SD card in a sandwich.
- tcper 5y agoLike the first comment said, how do they trust each other? How did the buyer make sure you are not sending him a porn movie? I think the engineer knows all about that, but meeting is inevitable.
- sandworm101 5y ago>> how do they trust each other? They don't. The Russian agent places no value on the money. If it doesn't result in any useful information then it is a minor business loss. The American agent has accepted money from the Russian. He is already on the hook for espionage charges. He only continues the relationship to keep the Russian happy, to keep the money coming but also to keep the Russian from informing the FBI. The business deal becomes a continuing blackmail operation. Nobody trusts anyone.
- Animats 5y agoThey don't. The Russian agent places no value on the money. Historically, the USSR was really cheap about paying spies in the US. Maybe the GRU is paying better.
- sandworm101 5y agoThey are cheap because they need to keep the target hungry.
- wly_cdgr 5y agoWell, maybe it's a really good porn movie. Could be worth it
- unfunco 5y ago"Real spies use Dropbox" would be an excellent marketing slogan thing for Dropbox.
- busterarm 5y agoIt wasn't so long ago that Anna Chapman was posing as a real estate agent and meeting with her connections while showing houses in Forest Hills, NY. That ruse worked for years, btw, despite other parts of their operation performing terribly. It's also not so long ago when both China ('10-'12) and Iran ('19) nabbed entire spy rings operating in their countries wholesale because the supposedly secure channel established by the CIA was obviously and blatantly phoning home. Old school spycraft still has its place. I think the real lesson is that being a spy probably isn't worth it because the odds are that your handlers are shit, don't care about the risk they expose you to and will get you killed.
- dredmorbius 5y agoI'll have to update the filk. https://old.reddit.com/r/MKaTH/comments/kddkg2/my_tradecraft_things/ https://old.reddit.com/r/MKaTH/comments/kddkg2/my_tradecraft...