Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
"All intelligence services rely on convincing the public that there is a monster out there in the big wild world waiting to grab them." The truth is more complicated, as KGB founder Felix Dzerzhinsky could tell us
Hacked email jewel. On Power Point: "An efficient means for turning complex and sophisticated analysis into half-witted bullets. If you can’t read a 50 page analysis before invading a country you shouldn't be in the business"
Remember her? Of course you do. Now with her own TV show and luxury lifestyle bankrolled by financial arm of Russian space agency. But is she a manufactured Russian hero and sham, or was she something more serious?
Rumours of Chinese cyber-espionage take a sinister turn. Latest claims are that China is building spyware into the very hardware it manufactures for US telecoms firms. Or installing it via routine software updates. Worrying, if true
On the life and "career" of David Headley, spy, militant. Pakistani-American, born Daood Giliani. Revealed Pakistani intelligence role in Mumbai attacks. Slid among different cultures with ease. Life a mass of contradictions
Story of Jim Thompson, American intelligence operative in south-east Asia, silk merchant, idealist. His anti-imperialist views were overtaken by the CIA's secret war in Laos. Nothing about the agency has been the same since
Manssor Arbabsiar is accused of playing a key role in a high-level political assassination plot in the United States. But a look at his life (and the modus operandi of Iranian intelligence) suggests he's a most unlikely 007
CIA is supposed to be prohibited from spying on Americans. But this concerning, detailed report suggests it has collaborated with NYPD in decade-long programme to monitor Muslim communities in New York covertly
Reminiscences pegged to the remake of "Tinker, Tailor" with Gary Oldman in the Alec Guinness role. "You’ve got to have spies, but the important thing is that you’re not enchanted by them. Use them and don’t let them use you"
US ignores "its primary responsibility to protect its own citizens when they are targeted for harm by a foreign government". Because Chinese hackers are everywhere. Probing corporations, government, even power grids
Gripping back-story to arrest of American contractor Raymond Davis, held in Lahore for shooting two men who were about to shoot him, and eventually freed after huge diplomatic row between US and Pakistan. He was indeed a spy
A most sophisticated computer virus. "Stuxnet was ingeniously complex, probably took several people many years to develop, and has opened the eyes of every government to the destructive possibilities of a new type of covert attack"
Image by ElvertBarnes on Flickr
