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posted by takyon on Monday November 05 2018, @04:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the only-the-shadow-knows...-and-has-head-up-its-ass dept.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used a quick and dirty web-based system to communicate with its agents around the world. Easy-to-use but not sophisticated. Iran and China used this system to find U.S. spies and convert or kill many agents, including entire national spy networks, starting around 2008.

Once you recognized the system, counter-spies could simply use Google to find the CIA's communication sites. They could then use standard traffic analysis to find out who visited the sites, identifying the spy networks.

Iran found spies using the system, converted some to double agents, while killing dozens of others. Iran may have passed the info to China, who wiped out the CIA network there, turning and killing 30+ agents. Iran then went spy hunting across the Middle East, too.

The absolute kicker: a CIA tech contractor identified the problem, that the network was compromised and spies were disappearing due to it, and reported it up the chain in 2008. He was ignored, punished and fired. Part of the reason we know this all happened is because he filed a federal whistleblower protection lawsuit.

So many/most of these U.S. agents would not be dead if CIA management AND the CIA inspector general had listened and acted on the report of a technical/security problem. Instead they denied they had a problem, burying their heads and their agents in the sand. Not only is the CIA riddled with terrible torture monkeys, but also deadly, incompetent, and inept management.

Article: The CIA's communications suffered a catastrophic compromise. It started in Iran.

Previously: CIA Informants Imprisoned and Killed in China From 2010 to 2012
Ex-CIA Officer Arrested, Suspected of Compromising Chinese Informants


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by dry on Tuesday November 06 2018, @06:25AM (3 children)

    by dry (223) on Tuesday November 06 2018, @06:25AM (#758411) Journal

    The media wanted Trump. CNN by itself gave how many billions in free advertising? If Trump was unwanted, the same thing would have been done to him as to Ron Paul, silence. Trump is great for the media companies.

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  • (Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday November 07 2018, @09:16PM (2 children)

    by bobthecimmerian (6834) on Wednesday November 07 2018, @09:16PM (#759151)

    The media wanted money. Any candidate except Trump had people changing the channel or switching to another Youtube video or flipping back to their Facebook feed. Ron Paul had equal charisma to Hillary Clinton and less controversy, so he got even less coverage.

    He didn't win because they wanted him. He won because their revenue model is inherently broken, and his personality fit the breaks in the system.

    • (Score: 2) by dry on Thursday November 08 2018, @12:57AM (1 child)

      by dry (223) on Thursday November 08 2018, @12:57AM (#759242) Journal

      Exactly, they don't give a shit about anything but eyeballs to sell ads and create revenue and that's why they wanted him. Even now they're likely happy to have him to draw eyeballs.

      • (Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Saturday November 17 2018, @02:15PM

        by bobthecimmerian (6834) on Saturday November 17 2018, @02:15PM (#763093)

        Well, as much as I hate it that's human nature. People will conveniently ignore the impact of the way they earn their living.

        DEA: "Marijuana is pure evil! The devil in chemical form! The destruction of America!" Nope, it's less harmful than alcohol. You just don't want a funding cut.

        Coal industry: "Coal is a safe domestic energy source! Climate change doesn't exist! Deaths from asthma and lung disease don't exist!" Nope. I was all for renewable energy thirty years ago, because I have siblings and cousins hospitalized with asthma problems and I grew up a mile from an active coal mine.

        American South: "Servitude is the natural state of the negro race!" Nope, it just lines your pockets for you to believe that.

        21st century media: "We take no responsibility for Trump's political victories! But you're not going to believe what he said this morning!" Nope, Trump took PT Barnum's statement "There's no such thing as bad publicity" and rode it right into the White House, and you were the ones that carried him there.

        Obviously DEA employees, coal industry workers and owners, and modern media employees and executives aren't as immoral as slave owners and wannabe slave owners. But the same logic applies in all cases. And to repeat, I don't blame them - if someone presented an argument that my career path and lifestyle choices are immoral and correct action will remove my own ability to put food on the table, I probably wouldn't listen either. I'm not more moral than these people, I'm just luckier.