3 ms·

Why go through the risk of trying to deposit a cheque when the plan worked perfectly fine as is? Once you get banks involved, seems like more of a risk of some

Why go through the risk of trying to deposit a cheque when the plan worked perfectly fine as is? Once you get banks involved, seems like more of a risk of something getting flagged there rather than someone in payroll noticing cheques weren't deposited within the time you were there.

XorNot 3y ago
People with fake identities because they're working as a spy have real bank accounts. But more importantly, cheque-cashing places give a god-awful return but would still look more legitimate then just not ever cashing anything. In short: the details of this story make no sense for the implied narrative (spy). They make a lot of sense for "not mentally well person" or "guy who suddenly had to disappear for other reasons". Combined with just "regular software developer things". For example - I've cloned the entire git repository server of every place I've ever worked at. I have a script which does it for Github and Gitlab, because usually when you're exploring a codebase you wind up needing just "every repo" and it's easier to dump it all in a folder on my work machine ahead of time. I've run "find" on a network share because have you ever tried to figure out where a particular word document might be after looking through 10+ years of random SMB share naming systems and empty folders? Read the stories of long-term agents from the Cold War - for both sides, but Russians in America is easier to find the stories of. Spies don't act secretive, spies blend by acting normal. They're an unremarkable next door neighbor who never draws any attention and works a respectable job. They're polite to their neighbors but keep to themselves, they do things on time and promptly, they have identities that check out and do normal things like "get paid from a regular job". Whereas people absolutely can and do simply ghost jobs all the time. Like a simple explanation here for this guy would be "was actually an illegal immigrant and someone told him that going from contractor to full time employee might be too much exposure, got spooked and bailed". Probably was just an actual software developer. And if you here "illegal immigrant" and think "Mexican" you're also wrong - plenty of people overstay or exceed the bounds of their visas in the US. P.S. "contributed a large number of commits to the project he was assigned to" - you know, as would be expected when you're hired to work on something? What was in those commits? Why is it omitted from the story?
- GauntletWizard 3y ago
  Two months is short enough that it doesn't look abnormal; I've left my paychecks uncashed for a month or more while I dealt with everything else around moving for a new job. I don't disagree that it was poor opsec, but the rest of the story makes it clear enough that they were burning the identity/employee quickly enough that it really didn't matter.

XorNot 3y ago

People with fake identities because they're working as a spy have real bank accounts. But more importantly, cheque-cashing places give a god-awful return but would still look more legitimate then just not ever cashing anything. In short: the details of this story make no sense for the implied narrative (spy). They make a lot of sense for "not mentally well person" or "guy who suddenly had to disappear for other reasons". Combined with just "regular software developer things". For example - I've cloned the entire git repository server of every place I've ever worked at. I have a script which does it for Github and Gitlab, because usually when you're exploring a codebase you wind up needing just "every repo" and it's easier to dump it all in a folder on my work machine ahead of time. I've run "find" on a network share because have you ever tried to figure out where a particular word document might be after looking through 10+ years of random SMB share naming systems and empty folders? Read the stories of long-term agents from the Cold War - for both sides, but Russians in America is easier to find the stories of. Spies don't act secretive, spies blend by acting normal. They're an unremarkable next door neighbor who never draws any attention and works a respectable job. They're polite to their neighbors but keep to themselves, they do things on time and promptly, they have identities that check out and do normal things like "get paid from a regular job". Whereas people absolutely can and do simply ghost jobs all the time. Like a simple explanation here for this guy would be "was actually an illegal immigrant and someone told him that going from contractor to full time employee might be too much exposure, got spooked and bailed". Probably was just an actual software developer. And if you here "illegal immigrant" and think "Mexican" you're also wrong - plenty of people overstay or exceed the bounds of their visas in the US. P.S. "contributed a large number of commits to the project he was assigned to" - you know, as would be expected when you're hired to work on something? What was in those commits? Why is it omitted from the story?

GauntletWizard 3y ago
Two months is short enough that it doesn't look abnormal; I've left my paychecks uncashed for a month or more while I dealt with everything else around moving for a new job. I don't disagree that it was poor opsec, but the rest of the story makes it clear enough that they were burning the identity/employee quickly enough that it really didn't matter.