This Week in Spy News

DC - In a previously undisclosed secret mission in 2017, the United States successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government... more

Netflix - Though hampered by a few hiccups and low-hanging cliches, Netflix's new miniseries The Spy is also awesomely anchored by an astounding dramatic performance by Sacha Baron Cohen. more

FL - The trial of alleged Mar-a-Lago intruder and supposed Chinese “spy” Yujing Zhang started with a bout of the bizarre that has become typical of the case, briefly delaying proceedings. more
Switzerland - Russian spies have been operating in Switzerland under assumed identities, using documents that change their nationalities, a former KGB agent has told Swiss public television RTS. more

S. Korea - A former prisoner in North Korea has told German media that he used to spy for the CIA, seeking out nuclear secrets and taking pictures with a concealed wristwatch camera. more

DC - A former CIA officer who says she spent years under deep cover has written what appears to be one of the most revealing memoirs ever put to paper by an American intelligence operative — a book so intriguing that Apple bought the television rights even before its October publication date. Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA, by Amaryllis Fox more

DC - Valerie Plame isn’t a spy anymore, but she plays one in her latest campaign ad, which looks more like the trailer for a movie about Jason Bourne’s aunt than the start of a congressional run. more


Book Review - Spying: Assessing US Domestic Intelligence Since 9/11 by Darren E. Tromblay.
This book is a welcome addition to the rather small literature on domestic and homeland intelligence in the United States. It will interest more than just intelligence specialists, because Tromblay addresses broader homeland security issues, focusing especially on the FBI and DHS, and the book would serve as a useful introduction to those agencies. more

Tony Mendez - CIA Hero - Dead at 78

Mr. Mendez’s artistic skills, which included hand-eye coordination that enabled him to look at something and copy it precisely, suited the agency’s need for a counterfeiter and forger.

And so began a career that in time would lead Mr. Mendez, who died on Saturday at 78, to orchestrate one of the most audacious covert operations in C.I.A. history: the rescue of six American diplomats from a tumultuous Iran after Islamic militants had stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979. The militants held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, a humiliating foreign policy debacle that would severely undermine Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

The operation, which took place in January 1980, was kept secret until 1997. It was celebrated in a heart-pounding movie, “Argo,” released in 2012, with Ben Affleck (who also directed) portraying Mr. Mendez. The movie won three Oscars, including for best picture, though some critics took it to task for underplaying the vital role of the Canadians in the operation and for inventing certain scenes, such as a chase on an airport tarmac at the end. more

CIA Spy Tool Kit (Preparation H suggested)

The CIA Rectal Tool Kit

Spy Book Collection for Kids

Can an undercover nerd become a superstar agent? Ben Ripley sure hopes so—and his life may depend on it!

When Ben Ripley is recruited to the CIA’s Academy of Espionage, it’s a dream come true. But as soon as he gets on campus, Ben finds out that Spy School is way more deadly than debonair. And given his total lack of coordination and failure to grasp even the most basic spying skills, Ben begins to wonder what he’s doing here in the first place.



Luckily, through a series of hilarious misadventures, Ben realizes he could actually become a halfway decent spy…if he can survive all the attempts being made on his life! more

Fred Kovaleski, International Tennis-Playing CIA Spy Dies

Just coincidence?

Fred Kovaleski, whose international tennis-playing career became his cover in the 1950s while he was working as a spy for the C.I.A., died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 93.

Mr. Kovaleski was well into his career on the tennis circuit, having played at Wimbledon and in tournaments abroad and in the United States, when he joined the C.I.A. in 1951 and began training in spycraft at Camp Peary, near Williamsburg, Va.

Within three years, his ability to play tennis and his Russian-language training with the C.I.A. became essential when Yuri Rastvorov, a K.G.B. lieutenant colonel and avid tennis player, defected to the United States. more

A.I. vs. Human Spies - Guess who wins

Human spies will soon be relics of the past, and the CIA knows it. Dawn Meyerriecks, the Agency’s deputy director for technology development, recently told an audience at an intelligence conference in Florida the CIA was adapting to a new landscape where its primary adversary is a machine, not a foreign agent.

Meyerriecks, speaking to CNN after the conference, said other countries have relied on AI to track enemy agents for years. She went on to explain the difficulties encountered by current CIA spies trying to live under an assumed identity in the era of digital tracking and social media, indicating the modern world is becoming an inhospitable environment to human spies.

But the CIA isn’t about to give up...

Today’s spies have the same problem as yesterday’s: the need to be invisible. What’s changed is the adversary. Instead of fooling people with fake documents and well-told lies, agents have to fool computers capable of picking out a single face in a crowd.

According to Meyerriecks at least 30 countries have the capability to do this with current CCTV camera systems...

We’ve always thought spies, like James Bond, had the coolest gadgets. Now they’re being replaced by them. more

Industrial Espionage – Uber Spy Team – Former CIA Agents

A former Uber security manager says an espionage team inside the ride-hailing service used former CIA agents to help the company spy on its rivals overseas.

The testimony in a San Francisco courtroom Tuesday comes amid revelations that federal prosecutors are investigating allegations that Uber deployed an espionage team to plunder trade secrets from its rivals. That has triggered a delay in a high-profile federal trial over whether the beleaguered ride-hailing service stole self-driving car technology from a Google spinoff.

Under questioning, Richard Jacobs, Uber's manager of global intelligence, said that Uber hired several contractors that employed former CIA agents to help the ride-hailing service infiltrate its rivals' computers. Jacobs said the surveillance occurred overseas. more

How the Dutch Bugged the Soviet Embassy -- Updated with Excellent Graphics

Our friend in The Netherlands, Dr. Cees Wiebes, has alerted us to some updates on the cryptomuseum.com website.

Click to enlarge.

Backgrounds: Dr. Wiebes is the author of Intelligence and the War in Bosnia: 1992-1995 (Studies in Intelligence History). In researching this book he was granted full access to the top-secret archives of the Dutch services and the still classified UN archives. Foreign intelligence services gave him confidential briefings, and he spoke with more than 100 intelligence officials from various countries.

The Crypto Museum, curated by Paul Reuvers and Marc Simons, is the absolute best virtual site I've seen for information on government eavesdropping and information security countermeasures. Both are self-employed engineers from Eindhoven, a lovely small (but very high-tech) city which I've been to multiple times. Their dedication to preserving this history is only rivaled by the photography and graphics they have been able to obtain for the website. Enjoy...

An update of the Dutch bugging of the Soviet embassy in The Hague: http://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/cases/nl/ra1958.htm

The various types of Dutch bugs that were used.
http://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/ec/ec1/index.htm
http://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/ec/ec2/index.htm
http://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/ec/ec3/index.htm
http://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/ec/ec4/index.htm
http://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/ec/ec5/index.htm

New information as regards the Moscow bug:
http://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/ec/cavity/index.htm

An interesting overview of all Easy Chair- related affairs:
http://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/ec/index.htm

North Korean Spy News

• In a nation as bizarre as North Korea is, it comes as no surprise that their broadcasting of secret spy codes over the airwaves would be equally as bizarre.

While no official explanation for North Korea’s coded broadcasts has been solidified, many believe that the seemingly random numbers and phrases are codes understood by North Korean spies living under the radar in South Korea. more numbers stations

• North Korean prosecutors Friday demanded the extradition of those they say plotted to assassinate leader Kim Jong Un, including South Korea's outgoing spy chief and unnamed "masterminds" in the US Central Intelligence Agency.

The demand comes a week after the North sensationally alleged it uncovered a US-South Korean plot to kill Kim with biochemical, radioactive or poisonous substances during a major event, such as a military parade. more

Spy v Spy in Nicaragua — Some Things Never Change

U.S. officials are tracking the activity of a Russian spy base on the edge of a volcano in Nicaragua that is believed to be monitoring American agents.

The CIA has reportedly sent numerous Russian-speaking Cold War experts to perform counter surveillance of Moscow’s activity in Central America.

One source told The Washington Post, “Clearly, there’s been a lot of activity, and it’s on the uptick now.”

Located in Laguna de Nejapa, the base is officially known as a tracking site for Moscow’s GPS satellite system, but CIA officials suspect that resources there are being utilized to spy on the American Embassy located only ten miles away. more

Spy Radio History - The Rhode & Schwarz ESM500A

This receiver was used by the top government surveillance agencies worldwide during the 1990's (CIA, NSA, GCHQ, BND, etc.) Some countries may still be using it today.

Depending upon the installed options, it would have set the purchaser back from $25,000 to $40,000 USD.

ESM series receivers are highly prized by premium receiver collectors, radio museums, and amateur radio / TSCM enthusiasts. It is is considered to be one of the best communications receivers ever made.

More photos and a chance to own it, here.

CIA Divulges Procedures for Information on Citizens

via The Wall Street Journal...
In a rare act of transparency, the Central Intelligence Agency for the first time has published a fully declassified version of its procedures for handling information on “U.S. persons,” a category that includes American citizens in the country or overseas.

The new guidelines, which were published in full on the agency’s website on Wednesday, are meant to address the fact that large amounts of communications and other data are collected when spying on foreigners. The previous guidelines date to 1982 and had been updated through a patchwork of policies, but hadn’t been overhauled for the digital age, CIA officials said.

In the past, intelligence officers could promptly review reports that might contain references to U.S. persons or the contents of their communications, and then decide how to handle that information in line with privacy rules. But today, it’s not always feasible to do that in short order because the CIA is collecting information in far larger volumes. A digital storage device, for instance, can hold thousands of pages of material, which a CIA officer has to review.

The new guidelines require the CIA to purge any especially sensitive information it has stored after five years if it hasn’t been evaluated to see if it contains information about U.S. persons. Such sensitive information includes the contents of any communications, officials said. Information that’s deemed less sensitive, like the business records of a foreign company that aren’t expected to contain information about U.S. persons, must be purged after 25 years if it hasn’t been evaluated. more

O.S.S. Heros Honored ...except by Congress

In February 1945, a small group of personnel assigned to the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime spy agency, scrambled to prepare for a particularly risky mission: inserting a team of agents deep behind Nazi lines with the goal of gleaning crucial enemy information.

For a host of reasons, the proposed operation seemed like a suicide mission. The area targeted for dropping the three-man team into Nazi territory was high in the Austrian Alps, surrounded by towering peaks and flanked by antiaircraft weaponry. Even if the drop went as planned, some of the spies tapped to infiltrate enemy ranks were European-born Jews, increasing the dangers they faced.

After the Royal Air Force refused the dangerous mission, code-named Operation GREENUP, John Billings, then a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps, was given the job.

Billings and other veterans who made possible some of World War II’s most daring spy missions were among those honored this weekend by the OSS Society, a group that includes former OSS members and members of the U.S. intelligence, military and Special Operations communities.

In addition to Billings, Gaetano Rossi and Caesar Daraio, two then-sergeants who were part of operational groups made up of Italian American volunteers, were honored with OSS Society awards for their work advancing the Allied cause during World War II. Also honored at this year’s “spy ball” was David Cohen, who served as director of operations at the CIA and as a senior intelligence official with the New York City Police Department, and retired Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, former Air Force chief of staff.


After retiring from the military as a captain, Billings became a commercial pilot. At age 93, he still pilots a Cessna Cutlass. Most of the time he flies “angel flights,” transporting people in need of medical attention.

The OSS Society is advocating passage of a proposed measure that would honor the wartime spies, which so far has not gained required congressional support. The proposal, which would award living OSS veterans the Medal of Honor, has stalled in the House.*  more

*You can help get this bill passed. It's easy. Click here, see top right corner.

The OSS Society is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. All donations are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law. Membership in The OSS Society is available to OSS veterans, their descendants, current and former members of the U.S. intelligence community and U.S. Special Operations Forces, and people who are interested in General Donovan's "unusual experiment" - the Office of Strategic Services.

The OSS Society^®
7700 Leesburg Pike, Ste. 324
Falls Church, VA 22043
Phone: 703-356-6667
Email: oss@osssociety.org

Pokemon Go — The Story Behind the Story

The suddenly vast scale of Pokemon Go adoption is matched by the game’s aggressive use of personal information. Unlike, say, Twitter, Facebook, or Netflix, the app requires uninterrupted use of your location and camera — a “trove of sensitive user data,” as one privacy watchdog put it in a concerned letter to federal regulators.

All the more alarming, then, that Pokemon Go is run by a man whose team literally drove one of the greatest privacy debacles of the internet era, in which Google vehicles, in the course of photographing neighborhoods for the Street View feature of the company’s online maps, secretly copied digital traffic from home networks, scooping up passwords, email messages, medical records, financial information, and audio and video files.

Before Niantic Labs CEO John Hanke was the man behind an unfathomably popular smartphone goldmine, he ran Google’s Geo division, responsible for nearly everything locational at a time when the search company was turning into much more, expanding away from cataloging the web and towards cataloging every city block on the planet.

Hanke landed at Google after his wildly popular (and admittedly very neat) CIA-funded company Keyhole, which collected geographic imagery, was acquired in 2004 and relaunched as Google Earth in 2005. more

Your Weekend Spy Flick—Bourne... again

‘Jason Bourne’: A welcome return for Matt Damon’s spirited spy.

What with all their international adventures through the years, it seems like only a matter of time before Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt cross paths, whether it be in a crowded town square in Greece or a winding boulevard in Paris — or maybe while the two of them happen to be involved in crazy high-speed chases at the same time.

Hey man. What are YOU doing here?

Just as Tom Cruise continues to carry the “Mission: Impossible” action franchise in his 50s, the 45-year-old Matt Damon still kicks butt in serious fashion in his fourth appearance (and first since 2007) as Jason Bourne in the film of the same name. more trailer movie times

1970's CIA Dragonfly Spy - Ripley's Believe It or Not

In the 1970s, the CIA developed the Insectothopter, an unmanned surveillance drone disguised as a dragonfly.

video

• The Insectothopter was the size of a dragonfly
• It was painted to look like a dragonfly
• It was powered by a small gasoline engine made by a watchmaker
• And jets of gas were used to propel it forward
• Because it was too difficult to control in even a slight crosswind, the project was abandoned