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How does spying by humans/agents even work these days? I can't imagine a british agent going around spying in North korea, China or even Russia, much less a wom

by frontman1988 4y ago

How does spying by humans/agents even work these days? I can't imagine a british agent going around spying in North korea, China or even Russia, much less a woman. Cause if you get caught you are going to get tortured into oblivion. Hence most of these 'spies' are on a diplomatic visa to prevent getting disappeared/tortured and therefore most of their movements are easily tracked. Spying as an agent is probably the worst job that exists that I can't imagine anyone with a family would do it unless they are forced into it. And society rarely forces women into such hazardous situations. From my experience, people who become spies aren't women with education from elite colleges who raise families, they are much more likelier to be prisoners on a deal or drug smugglers or other people with nothing much to lose.

photoGrant 4y ago
What exactly is your experience? This just seems so innocently naive about how spies actually work
- robofanatic 4y ago
  > What exactly is your experience? watching spy documentaries/movies on netflix, youtube
  - nix23 4y ago
    But to be honest SpyGame is kind of a accurate picture..well minus the Hollywood-additions.
- dijit 4y ago
  The people who know anything about spies are not going to reply to a thread such as this. I was nearly involved with SIS in some capacity and the amount of background probing was enough to make me scared for ever being closer than I have to be. I can say with confidence that if you've been in the apparatus then you wouldn't even want to say anything. There's a lot of brainwashing that happens too (you could see the outcome of the Snowden revelations for example) so people would be very defensive of the concept of giving out info they have and extremely likely to be motivated in hunting down "leakers".
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
helsinkiandrew 4y ago
These Spies “Run Agents”: recruit, train, hand hold, interview, debrief and analyse, pay/bribe and present the information from the traitors, drug smugglers, or other people with nothing much to lose. I’m sure there may be dangerous jobs but these days much of that can be done from friendly countries or even the office. [edit] list of roles from MI6 site: https://www.sis.gov.uk/intelligence-officers.html https://www.sis.gov.uk/intelligence-officers.html
- frontman1988 4y ago
  How does the first step of recruiting the agents/local traitors happen? Most of the official spies who are on diplomatic visa are tracked 24x7 in countries like China/NK/Russia.
  - newsclues 4y ago
    Identify Targets: access to intel + exploitability Then build a relationship with them.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - jamestimmins 4y ago
    A lot the most famous Cold War spies were "walk-ins", meaning they were Soviet citizens who turned against the Soviet Union (often on ideological grounds) and then literally walked into the US embassy in Moscow or another Soviet state. If they were onsite they'd be debriefed by the CIA personnel there to determine if they were sincere or a plant, and then assigned a handler. Often times that handler was on a diplomatic visa and they'd have a KGB tail, so one part of tradecraft was learning to lose a tail so they could go dark and meet up with their contact or pick up documents/photo negatives at a dropsite. There were plenty of US walk-ins as well who walked into the Soviet embassy in Washington. They seem to have typically been motivated by financial goals. According to the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_espionage#Known_spies_working_for_the_Western_Bloc_during_the_Cold_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_espionage#Known_spies...) on Cold War spying, it doesn't look like there are cases of spies being sought out and turned within the Soviet Union. Although, it does mention that some came over to the US when they were Soviet officials assigned to posts outside the USSR, so it's possible they were sought out then. Now that there are business cases to be in China and Russia, we might have non-offical cover agents in those countries without any links to the embassy, but obviously that's just speculation.
elefanten 4y ago
> Cause if you get caught you are going to get tortured into oblivion. Was this not always a risk of that trade? Despite your gut level reaction, there are plenty of foreigners in those countries, via various channels and means — not just diplomatic. Besides, why would a British agent have to appear stereotypically British? Why would they have to declare/present themselves as British? Wouldn’t faking all these things be core competencies of the trade?
drakonka 4y ago
I recently learned about a man who was imprisoned for spying for Russia in my country. He was an engineer with his own limited company who contracted for local car manufacturers and apparently passed on sensitive information from his clients to a Russian contact. I believe he was born in this country and "recruited" locally.
euroderf 4y ago
Pervasive facial recog like in the PRC probably makes a lot of espionage ops terribly more difficult. I'd like to read about how though.
klyrs 4y ago
> I can't imagine a british agent going around spying in North korea, China or even Russia, much less a woman. That's funny, isn't it? Your prejudice here is very much the norm, which is why not all British spies look like Daniel Craig.
mhoad 4y ago
Here are two very in-depth interviews with two recently retired individuals who get into a lot of the mechanics of how that works in reality. Doug London https://youtu.be/aV9HdJtPbZA https://youtu.be/aV9HdJtPbZA Jim Lawler https://youtu.be/AFnfTDbcPOA https://youtu.be/AFnfTDbcPOA

photoGrant 4y ago

What exactly is your experience? This just seems so innocently naive about how spies actually work

robofanatic 4y ago
> What exactly is your experience? watching spy documentaries/movies on netflix, youtube
- nix23 4y ago
  But to be honest SpyGame is kind of a accurate picture..well minus the Hollywood-additions.
dijit 4y ago
The people who know anything about spies are not going to reply to a thread such as this. I was nearly involved with SIS in some capacity and the amount of background probing was enough to make me scared for ever being closer than I have to be. I can say with confidence that if you've been in the apparatus then you wouldn't even want to say anything. There's a lot of brainwashing that happens too (you could see the outcome of the Snowden revelations for example) so people would be very defensive of the concept of giving out info they have and extremely likely to be motivated in hunting down "leakers".

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

helsinkiandrew 4y ago

These Spies “Run Agents”: recruit, train, hand hold, interview, debrief and analyse, pay/bribe and present the information from the traitors, drug smugglers, or other people with nothing much to lose. I’m sure there may be dangerous jobs but these days much of that can be done from friendly countries or even the office. [edit] list of roles from MI6 site: https://www.sis.gov.uk/intelligence-officers.html https://www.sis.gov.uk/intelligence-officers.html

frontman1988 4y ago
How does the first step of recruiting the agents/local traitors happen? Most of the official spies who are on diplomatic visa are tracked 24x7 in countries like China/NK/Russia.
- newsclues 4y ago
  Identify Targets: access to intel + exploitability Then build a relationship with them.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jamestimmins 4y ago
  A lot the most famous Cold War spies were "walk-ins", meaning they were Soviet citizens who turned against the Soviet Union (often on ideological grounds) and then literally walked into the US embassy in Moscow or another Soviet state. If they were onsite they'd be debriefed by the CIA personnel there to determine if they were sincere or a plant, and then assigned a handler. Often times that handler was on a diplomatic visa and they'd have a KGB tail, so one part of tradecraft was learning to lose a tail so they could go dark and meet up with their contact or pick up documents/photo negatives at a dropsite. There were plenty of US walk-ins as well who walked into the Soviet embassy in Washington. They seem to have typically been motivated by financial goals. According to the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_espionage#Known_spies_working_for_the_Western_Bloc_during_the_Cold_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_espionage#Known_spies...) on Cold War spying, it doesn't look like there are cases of spies being sought out and turned within the Soviet Union. Although, it does mention that some came over to the US when they were Soviet officials assigned to posts outside the USSR, so it's possible they were sought out then. Now that there are business cases to be in China and Russia, we might have non-offical cover agents in those countries without any links to the embassy, but obviously that's just speculation.

elefanten 4y ago

> Cause if you get caught you are going to get tortured into oblivion. Was this not always a risk of that trade? Despite your gut level reaction, there are plenty of foreigners in those countries, via various channels and means — not just diplomatic. Besides, why would a British agent have to appear stereotypically British? Why would they have to declare/present themselves as British? Wouldn’t faking all these things be core competencies of the trade?

drakonka 4y ago

I recently learned about a man who was imprisoned for spying for Russia in my country. He was an engineer with his own limited company who contracted for local car manufacturers and apparently passed on sensitive information from his clients to a Russian contact. I believe he was born in this country and "recruited" locally.

euroderf 4y ago

Pervasive facial recog like in the PRC probably makes a lot of espionage ops terribly more difficult. I'd like to read about how though.

klyrs 4y ago

> I can't imagine a british agent going around spying in North korea, China or even Russia, much less a woman. That's funny, isn't it? Your prejudice here is very much the norm, which is why not all British spies look like Daniel Craig.

mhoad 4y ago

Here are two very in-depth interviews with two recently retired individuals who get into a lot of the mechanics of how that works in reality. Doug London https://youtu.be/aV9HdJtPbZA https://youtu.be/aV9HdJtPbZA Jim Lawler https://youtu.be/AFnfTDbcPOA https://youtu.be/AFnfTDbcPOA