US spies want to use AI

The U.S. government is considering incorporating more artificial intelligence into its spying operations — but first it has to figure out which AI models can resist tampering and protect the country’s secrets...

“The intelligence community wants to avail itself of the large-language models out there, but there are a lot of unknowns,” Tim McKinnon, who runs IARPA’s Bias Effects and Notable Generative AI Limitations (BENGAL) project, told Bloomberg. “The end goal is being able to work with a model with trust.”...

The BENGAL team tests different ways to attack AI models and uncover vulnerabilities that could hamper their effective use by U.S. spies. Officials have also invited private companies to perform these tests for the government. more

The CIA Teaches You How to Speak Like a Spy

Spy Speak Glossary 

You might walk the walk, but can you talk the talk? 

Being a spy is more than just the gadgets and the disguises. To be successful in the field, you need to speak like a spy. 

So, before you head out on your next mission, or write the next great American spy novel, take some time to familiarize yourself with our Spy Speak glossary.

Example: Rolled-up - when an undercover operation goes bad and is raided by opposing forces, resulting in agents or assets being arrested.

The CARVER Mindset: How to Think Like a Spy - FREE

Luke Bencie (Mr. Carver Mindset), is a really smart guy. His book, Among Enemies: Counter-Espionage for the Business Traveler which first introduced me to him is excellent. Check out his other books, too. His Monday morning emails are always inspiring. I look forward to receiving them. Great way to start the week. The sign-up is at the bottom of this page.

I attended Carvercon 2022 at the University of South Florida and was impressed by the entire event. You can see this year’s event on-line, at no charge…

CARVERCON 2023 is coming November 1st (Day of the Dead). 

This year's theme is The CARVER Mindset: How to Think Like a Spy 

(CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR FREE!)

The US Presidential Race Gets More Interesting

Former CIA clandestine officer and GOP Rep. Will Hurd has announced he is joining the Republican race to be president. The Texan and Donald Trump critic announced he is jumping into the growing GOP field with 14 rivals during an interview with CBS on Thursday morning. 'This is a decision that my wife and I decided to do because we live in complicated times and we need common sense,' he said. more

SPECIAL EDITION: U.S. Bugging Operation Against Soviets

by Zach Dorfman

Recently, I obtained a set of declassified 1980s intelligence files from Poland’s cold war-era archives. The files detailed a Soviet operation to identify and remove a cornucopia of bugs placed in Russian diplomatic facilities across the United States. 

The document — written in Russian and almost certainly produced by the KGB, unlike the other Polish-language files in the tranche of documents — provides a meticulous pictorial account of the ways in which the U.S. spy services sought to technically surveil the Russians on American soil. The file offers an unprecedented, stunning — if dated — look at these efforts to eavesdrop on Russian government activities within the U.S.

Click to enlarge.

The file details a number of bugs found at Soviet diplomatic facilities in Washington, D.C., New York, and San Francisco, as well as in a Russian government-owned vacation compound, apartments used by Russia personnel, and even Russian diplomats’ cars. 

And the bugs were everywhere: 

• encased in plaster in an apartment closet; 
• behind electrical and television outlets; 
• bored into concrete bricks and threaded into window frames; 
• inside wooden beams and baseboards;
• stashed within a building’s foundation itself; 
• surreptitiously attached to security cameras; 
• wired into ceiling panels and walls; 
• and secretly implanted into the backseat of cars and in their window panels, instrument panels, and dashboards. 

It’s an impressive — and impressively thorough — effort by U.S. counterspies... 

Click to enlarge.

“The number of bugs is useful as an indication that this is a sustained operation over years,” a former U.K. intelligence official with experience conducting technical operations told me. (The official requested anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence techniques.) The sheer variety in where U.S. counterspies placed the bugs shows a great deal of “creativity” on their part, the former U.K. official said. While the bugging of cars and power outlets is considered “fairly standard,” the former official added, U.S. spies cleverly inserted bugs in more unusual locations like window frames...

It's unknown why the Soviets declined to publicize all the bugs they found within their U.S.-based facilities. The Russians ripped them out from their hiding spots, ostensibly preventing them from feeding the U.S. disinformation through the listening devices and trackers they identified.

Click to enlarge.

The likelier explanation is that the KGB knew that U.S. diplomatic facilities in the Soviet Union were bugged to hell — including, at certain points, with listening devices activated by blasting American facilities with microwaves. The use of this technique by the Soviets, which some U.S. officials believed sickened those exposed to it, became a serious diplomatic issue in the 1970s between the two superpowers. more

(Kevin) A friend of mine, now deceased, was one of the CIA technical specialists during this time period who developed and planted these devices. He was prohibited from discussing the actual devices and placement operations even after he retired. However, he did write a "fictitious" story which details a typical bugging operation. Corporate security directors especially should read... The Attack on Axnan Headquarters: An Espionage Operation

The CIA Renovated its Museum...

... The public still can’t go see it.

The CIA Museum covers the intelligence agency’s long history — from spying on the Soviets to the Argo mission in Iran — but the latest addition is practically ripped from the headlines: a model of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s compound in Kabul used weeks ago to plan the U.S. drone strike that killed the al-Qaeda leader.

The model is part of the newly renovated exhibition hall located deep inside CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Like the NSA’s Wall of Spies museum in Bethesda, Md., the CIA Museum isn’t open to the public. But it’s not exactly top secret either, welcoming CIA employees, official guests, foreign partners, potential recruits — and, early on a Saturday morning, a handful of carefully observed journalists, including reporters with old-school notepads and pens (electronics are banned).

There are plenty of fun gadgets to see, like a polygraph machine in a briefcase and a communication device disguised as a tobacco pipe, used in the 1960s. When a user bit down on the pipe, sound traveled through their teeth and jawbone to the ear canal, allowing them to hear messages that no one around them could. 

But many of the items displayed — the pigeon camera, the fake dead rat used for “dead drops” — can also be found across the river at the International Spy Museum. more

Allow me to sneak you in the back door.

17 CIA Tips - Think like a spy and stay safe while on vacation

The CIA is releasing these tips – or travel tradecraft, in spy parlance – as part of its ongoing effort to demystify its work in assisting the American public, according to agency spokesperson Walter Trosin.

I found the CIA's best practices, culled from the experience of its officers in the field, are exceptionally helpful, easy to adopt and especially relevant to Americans in these fraught times.

Here’s how to think like a spy on the ground overseas... more

The CIA Shares How to Travel Like a Spy

Staying in a high-rise hotel on vacation this summer? ... The CIA is offering these tips and more to Americans... “Call it travel tradecraft,” the agency said, publishing the new advice on its website. 

“Whether you’re off to a bustling city or a secluded getaway this summer, we hope these CIA ‘travel tips’ help you journey with more confidence and safety.” 

Some of the guidance is standard practice for seasoned travelers... But some of their advice is more spook savvy...

“Don’t look like an easy target,” the guidance reads... “You’ll want to be alert and maintain situational awareness, especially in an unfamiliar country.”

Once you have arrived at your destination, the CIA suggests familiarizing yourself with the emergency escape routes. more  The CIA Tips

Three Declassified Spy Gadgets Of The CIA

Informally known as the “Agency” or the “Company”, the Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the United States government. Its main task is to gather, process, and analyze national security information from all over the world, mostly through the use of human intelligence and performing actions behind the curtain. It was former-President Harry S. Truman’s initiative to create the Central Intelligence Group out of the Office of Strategic Services on January 22, 1946, which was transformed itself into the Central Intelligence Agency by the implementation of the National Security Act of 1947.

Here are three of the declassified spy gadgets that were designed by the CIA and could be found in their museum:

 

China Sighted by CIA

The Central Intelligence Agency is weighing proposals to create an independent “Mission Center for China” in an escalation of its efforts to gain greater insight into the U.S.’s top strategic rival, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

The proposal, part of a broader review of the agency’s China capabilities by CIA Director William Burns, would elevate the focus on China within the agency, where China has long been part of a broader “Mission Center for East Asia and Pacific.” more

Spy History: The CIA Heart Attack Gun

You can say that the gun looks like a toy at best, especially with that ridiculous scope, but from the descriptions of the American senator Franck Church, the weapon is scary, to say the least, even to today’s standards.

The CIA needed a weapon to take care of the targets on their blacklist without living any sort of trace that would bring up suspicions in the media. One of the hot targets was Fidel Castro, the Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976. Killing people from a distance was the go-to choice, but every bullet can be traced back. Getting too close to the target would risk the agent being compromised.

This is why the CIA gave the task of creating a new secret weapon to Mary Embree. Embree started working at the CIA as a secretary in the audio surveillance department. With time she got promoted to the technical services department where she was asked specifically to research a new poison that would induce a heart attack on its victim but undetectable in a post-mortem verification.

The technical team came up with a gun that would shoot poisoned projectiles that would dissolve inside the target and induce a heart attack which would be undetectable upon post-mortem. Embree wasn’t able to confirm if the gun was used to assassinate someone, but she did confirm that animals, as well as prisoners, were used to test the weapon.

To explain the strange scope on top of the weapon, besides being a pistol, the gun had had the ability to shot the poisoned projectile from 100 meters with good accuracy, hence the scope. more

How Spying Works in Real Life

We took a deep dive into the sub surface world of intelligence as we discussed SIGINT, HUMINT and IMINT with James Olson. James knows what he’s talking about. He is currently a Professor of Practice at the Bush School of Government of Texas A&M. 

He’s also the FORMER CHIEF OF COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AT THE CIA and has 31 YEARS of experience doing espionage and covert action work undercover work for the CIA.

What he had to say is well worth the listen, especially when he shares a real time threat made to his family while on a mission in another country. more

BOOK: To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence

Diplomats Reportedly Zapped with Microwaves

Mysterious neurological symptoms experienced by U.S. diplomats in China and Cuba appear to be caused by directed microwave energy, according to a new report by the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) obtained by The Hill...

A source familiar with the symptoms told NBC News, which was the first to report on the findings from NAS, that the CIA had determined Russian operatives who had worked on microwave weapons were in the same cities as CIA agents at the time they began experiencing the neurological symptoms.

U.S. diplomats in Cuba began experiencing the symptoms in late 2016, reporting they were hearing strange sounds and experiencing odd physical sensations before becoming sick. Some of those symptoms disappeared, while others lingered.

Cuba has denied any knowledge of the illnesses. more

The Stress of Being a Professional Spy

A top CIA spy killed himself in front of his wife, whom he wanted to take to the “afterlife”... Anthony Schinella, 52, the national intelligence officer for military issues, shot himself in the head outside his Arlington home...

“My husband was planning on murdering me. He had talked about taking me to the afterlife before,” Washington, DC-based journalist Sara Corcoran, 46 — who had only recently married Schinella.

“We would often watch documentaries on Egypt, Valley of the Kings, pharaohs. He had a love of Egypt, he spent a great deal of time in the Middle East, he spent several years living in Bahrain,” she told the outlet. 

Corcoran told the Sun she believes her late husband — who was just weeks away from retirement after a 30-year career in the CIA — had been suffering from stress after being involved in four wars.

Corcoran said she believes her husband had been planning to blow up their home. more

From The Dot Connection Files - CIA & Iran - Just Coincidence? You Decide

Three stories.
Same day.
Makes one wonder...

The Central Intelligence Agency, using new powers, carried out aggressive covert cyber operations against countries including Iran, North Korea, China and Russia, a new report says... The new powers gave the CIA more latitude to “damage adversaries’ critical infrastructure, such as petrochemical plants, and to engage in the kind of hack-and-dump operations that Russian hackers and WikiLeaks popularized,” the report explained. more

Iranian cyberspies leave training videos exposed online — One of Iran's top hacking groups has left a server exposed online where security researchers say they found a trove of screen recordings showing the hackers in action. more

The US has "several" intelligence indications that Iran has put portions of its air defense system on "high alert" in recent days, following unexplained explosions at key facilities tied to the country's military and nuclear programs, according to a US official who is closely tracking developments. more   sing-a-long (nsfw use headphones)

This Month in Wiretapping History

 1977 - S. Korea - The foreign ministry delivers a letter of protest to Washington over the wiretapping of the office of President Park Chung-hee by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The agency was investigating an allegation that a South Korean lobbyist paid bribes of up to US$1 million to high-level U.S. politicians at the behest of the South Korean president, who did not get along with his U.S. counterpart, Jimmy Carter. more

‘My Spy’: Film Review

The long line of Hollywood tough guys appearing alongside cute kids continues with “My Spy,” a passable PG-13 action-comedy in which big ’n’ brawny Dave Bautista plays a CIA man whose nose-diving career and damaged emotions are rehabilitated by a clever nine-year-old girl with an aptitude for espionage and a matchmaking plan for her widowed mom. more

My Spy will premiere on the Amazon Prime Video streaming service on June 26, 2020.
Trailer.

In other spy film news... The closely watched arrival of Christopher Nolan's big-budget sci-fi espionage film “Tenet” will finally happen on July 31, Warner Bros. announced Friday.

Frank Anderson, Former Spy Who Supplied Afghan Insurgents, Dies at 78

Frank Anderson, an American spymaster who oversaw the Central Intelligence Agency’s covert mission to funnel weapons and other support to Afghan insurgents fighting their Soviet occupiers in the 1980s, died on Jan. 27 in Sarasota, Fla. He was 78.

The cause was a stroke, his wife, Donna Eby Anderson, said. Mr. Anderson lived in Sarasota and had been in hospice care.

During his nearly 27 years with the C.I.A., Mr. Anderson became the ranking American clandestine officer in the Arab world.

He served as Beirut station chief; was promoted to chief of the Near East and South Asia division of the agency’s Directorate of Operations, its covert branch; and directed the agency’s technical services division, a role similar to that of James Bond’s “Q.” more

The CIA's Greatest Hit... that we know of so far.

For more than half a century, governments all over the world trusted a single company to keep the communications of their spies, soldiers and diplomats secret.

The company, Crypto AG, got its first break with a contract to build code-making machines for U.S. troops during World War II. Flush with cash, it became a dominant maker of encryption devices for decades...

The Swiss firm made millions of dollars selling equipment to more than 120 countries well into the 21st century. Its clients included Iran, military juntas in Latin America, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican.

But what none of its customers ever knew was that Crypto AG was secretly owned by the CIA in a highly classified partnership with West German intelligence. These spy agencies rigged the company’s devices so they could easily break the codes that countries used to send encrypted messages. more

Talk about your self-licking ice cream cone. 
Profit from selling expensive crypto gear.
Profit by deciphering everything going through it. 
Brilliant! ~Kevin

This Week's News About Spies

 Busy, as always...

• California Man Charged With Spying for the Chinese Government 
• Russia Pulls Diplomat Suspected of Spying in Bulgaria
• Poland detains man suspected of spying for Russia
• Youth football coach denies spying allegations after team disqualified from playoffs
• Ex-CIA Spy Flees Italy Over Fear for Her Safety
• How The Relationship Between Trump And His Spy Chiefs Soured
• FTC Banned Retina-X Spying Apps Until Proven For Legitimate Use
• The Air Force’s secretive spy spaceplane is back on Earth after a record two-year stay in space 
• Decision-making tips from a former spy