The first problem you're going to run into is that no one (with good reason) wants to tell you what "works" because as soon as that becomes public knowledge, people will craft means and methods against it. There's absolutely no value to disclosing what works aside from for public relations. So understand that.

Books like this and this are great for grasping a bit of knowledge and getting a storyline, but don't share much about the nitty gritty. I've read them both, and though I have no experience in operations in the 40s-70s, I do with what Bamford speaks of and there's quite a bit of fearmongering there. Either way, it's helpful to find the perspective of what's trying to be done. These aren't people trying to trample your friends, it's people trying to find a balance between freedom and security.

A book like this is basically just a nice story. It's a few biopics in one and the writer clearly likes the people he's writing about, so he's extremely pretty sympathetic to them. Still good for motivations and perspective, though.

These two are extremely useful because they get into that nitty-gritty that I spoke of earlier.

But as I said, it basically comes down to the balance between freedom and security. If you- like a crazy amount of redditors and young people seem to be- are way way way more interested than freedom than you are security, you're never going to like what people in the IC do. And that's your preoperative, but it seems that many people that of that cloth usually live within a secure environment and just don't really worry about. It's easy to not give a shit about heavy jackets when you live in West Maui. Moreover, the craze that I've seen in reddit is just...amazing? So many people with so little experience of education in these things that insist they know just so much. These same people will flip shit if you wander into their area of expertise acting like you know what's up when you clearly don't but...if someone's talking about CIA/NSA/FBI/etc or even just international politics in general? Suddenly they're the expert. It's weird.

This is why I chuckle when people think the redacted portions of the 9/11 Commission Report somehow point to an inside job, letting it happen, or a vast Saudi conspiracy. The redacted portions were redacted because of classification, and things are classified to protect means and methods, 99% of the time. Sometimes technology is classified, but it's rare and I don't know much about that anyway.

There's a lot of wrong information in this thread. First, the KGB was not superior to western spies during the cold war. Both had some great success and failures. The KGB's biggest examples would be stuff like Robert Hanssen, Aldrich Ames, or the Cambridge Spy Ring. The US and UK also had many notable successes. Unfortunately I am at work right now and can't remember specific names or spellings (I am horrible with Russian names). The KGB never succeeded in penetrating any US intelligence agency but they did have success recruiting persons already in US intelligence. The same is true of the US in regards to Soviet intelligence. There was a lot of paranoia by both sides when it came to trying to recruit spies from within the respective enemy. Aldrich Ames was originally turned away by the Soviets be cause they thought he was a trap.

Here are some great books on the subject:

[The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB] (http://www.amazon.com/Main-Enemy-Inside-Story-Showdown-ebook/dp/B000QCS8Y2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394466382&sr=1-1&keywords=the+main+enemy) is a book by Milt Bearden, a former CIA case officer and one time head of the Soviet desk at the CIA. It covers the CIA and KGB shadow war during the 80s and 90s and is told from Bearden's perspective as a mid level and high ranking CIA officer during that time period. This book also covers the CIA activity in Afghanistan from 1985-89 when Bearden was in charge of CIA operations there.

[Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB Officer: The True Story of the Man Who Recruited Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames] (http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Handler-Officer-Recruited-Hanssen-ebook/dp/B0095XKFZ8/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394466382&sr=1-12&keywords=the+main+enemy) by Victor Cherkashin is exactly what the tile says. It is a book told from a KGB officer's perspective about the recruting and running of Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen. I highly recommend reading this book after reading the book by Bearden. They compliment each other well and together provide a pretty comprehensive overview of the spy war part of the Cold War.

For a more historical look at spies and intelligence operations during the entire 20th century, including the cold war I recommend reading A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century by Jeffrey Richelson. This book covers all major intelligence programs and operations from all disciplines not just HUMINT, though.

HUMINT is the abbreviation for Human Intelligence which includes spy craft and is one of the largest disciplines in intelligence. The other disciplines are Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Imagery Intelligence (IMINT), Measures and Signal Intelligence (MASINT), Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), and Counter Intelligence (CI).

EDIT-Fixed link formatting

For whatever reason Robert's reply isn't showing. For those interested this is his [unedited] reply:

[robert_steele]

The subtitle of my new book, please buy it at Amazon, is: Transparency, Truth, & Trust. Below are five links, first four graphics and then the book link:

Graphic: Epoch B Swarm Leadership

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/07/2010/09/2008/08/graphic-epoch-b-swarm-leadership/

Graphic: Strategy for a Prosperous World at Peace

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/07/2010/09/2009/07/graphic-strategy-for-a-prosperous-world-at-peace/

Graphic: Intelligence Maturity Scale

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/07/2010/09/2010/01/graphic-intelligence-maturity-scale/

Graphic: Open Source Agency Broad Concept

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/08/graphic-open-source-agency-broad-concept/

You know what I really want to do, until such time as the public is ready to fund the Open Source Agency and put me in charge of it? I want to go around the country doing talks and encouraging people to demand electoral reform and open source everything. Now that Togather exists, people can self-organize to invite me, here is the URL for my Togather page:

http://www.togather.com/robert-steele

THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth & Trust

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583944435/ossnet-20

[/robert_steele]

The subtitle of my new book, please buy it at Amazon, is: Transparency, Truth, & Trust. Below are five links, first four graphics and then the book link:

Graphic: Epoch B Swarm Leadership

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/07/2010/09/2008/08/graphic-epoch-b-swarm-leadership/

Graphic: Strategy for a Prosperous World at Peace

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/07/2010/09/2009/07/graphic-strategy-for-a-prosperous-world-at-peace/

Graphic: Intelligence Maturity Scale

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/07/2010/09/2010/01/graphic-intelligence-maturity-scale/

Graphic: Open Source Agency Broad Concept

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/08/graphic-open-source-agency-broad-concept/

You know what I really want to do, until such time as the public is ready to fund the Open Source Agency and put me in charge of it? I want to go around the country doing talks and encouraging people to demand electoral reform and open source everything. Now that Togather exists, people can self-organize to invite me, here is the URL for my Togather page:

http://www.togather.com/robert-steele

THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth & Trust

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583944435/ossnet-20

Yes, it probably had to do with the institutionalizing and conservatizing affect of the universities and corporatization of publishing. There's also the rightward swing of politics. It was easy for liberals to like a socialist like Orwell because he criticized Stalinism, but there is nothing to gain by making nice with socialists anymore, no USSR to fight, so socialists are dumped from the mainstream.

However, there are plenty of socialist writers today. Just a few I'm very familiar with:

• Rachel Kushner - Telex From Cuba and Flamethrower
  
• Francis Spufford - Red Plenty
  
• China Mieville - The City and The City
  
  Here's a great excerpt from NYT's profile of Kushner.
  
  >It’s the same speed and the same record achieved by Ms. Kushner’s narrator, Reno. But Reno’s fascination with speed is part of an even more treacherous project: moving to New York City to become an artist at a time when the downtown scene is both male-dominated and plugged into a revolutionary impulse, with protest shading into violence.
  
  >Painting is dead, Minimalism is on the decline, and artists are ransacking their own bodies and lives for ideas and gestures that might make an impact. At 23, Reno, trying to capture “the experience of speed” by photographing her motorcycle’s tracks on the salt flats, becomes the girlfriend of an older Italian Minimalist, the scion of a tire and motorcycle company called Moto Valera. With him, she can attend chic events like a dinner party where she realizes that despite her hostess’s “feminist claims and enlightened look,” women are expected to help in the kitchen.
  
  I must admit among that list I've only read The City and The City. The hardboiled, incessantly-swearing anti-hero's story was not to my liking, but I've never read a novel like that before and loads of other people, including socialists I know of love that novel. I have Red Plenty on my bookshelf and I've plan on reading it soon. I only recently found out about Kushner but that profile on her makes me excited to read her.
  
  This it not what you asked about, but is relevant: Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World's Best Writers.
  
  >When news broke that the CIA had colluded with literary magazines to produce cultural propaganda throughout the Cold War, a debate began that has never been resolved. The story continues to unfold, with the reputations of some of America’s best-loved literary figures—including Peter Matthiessen, George Plimpton, and Richard Wright—tarnished as their work for the intelligence agency has come to light.
  
  >Finks is a tale of two CIAs, and how they blurred the line between propaganda and literature. One CIA created literary magazines that promoted American and European writers and cultural freedom, while the other toppled governments, using assassination and censorship as political tools. Defenders of the “cultural” CIA argue that it should have been lauded for boosting interest in the arts and freedom of thought, but the two CIAs had the same undercover goals, and shared many of the same methods: deception, subterfuge and intimidation.

I saw it when it first came out a long time ago. I remember reading about Mitnick from this book http://www.amazon.com/CYBERPUNK-Outlaws-Hackers-Computer-Frontier/dp/0684818620 so, I was really excited to see the movie, but It felt very 'made for TV' quality. Not nessecarily inaccurate, just treated more like a cop drama.


The book was very good, as was Bruce Sterling's http://www.amazon.com/The-Hacker-Crackdown-Disorder-Electronic/dp/055356370X


I emailed Mr. Sterling about hacking when I was in highschool, and he was one of the first people to suggest that I not take it too far, and instead work towards building things. I still follow that advice today.


Also, if you haven't read it yet, The Cuckoos Egg was a fun read http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0083DJXCM?btkr=1


It was that book that inspired me to work as a programmer for a university.


Good movies about hacking are few and far between, I'm afraid. It's all too easy to use Hacking as 'magic', and just make it rediculous.

Thanks for joining in and all the great questions! I'm going to wrap this up now but I may respond to a few good questions over the next few days. Good luck everyone with your Thanksgiving and holiday conversations this year... should be a doozy but a chance for us all to connect with loved ones on what matters most.

Let me leave you with a few links for further reading:

Christopher Andrew's "Sword and the Shield" - using historical KGB documents

https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125

Using humor to disarm disinformation:

https://youtu.be/uuKipN1aFd0

State Dept disinformation reports: 1994 baby parts

http://pascalfroissart.online.fr/3-cache/1994-leventhal.pdf

1987 AIDS report

https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/reports/1987/soviet-influence-activities-1987.pdf

Learn to identify the 4D's of Russian propaganda: Dismiss, Distract, Distort, and Dismay

https://www.stopfake.org/en/anatomy-of-an-info-war-how-russia-s-propaganda-machine-works-and-how-to-counter-it

Active measures and disinformation is like "water falling on a stone" it's not any one crazy story, it's the accumulation that makes the hole.

https://youtu.be/ALfDhs-_ce4?t=20m50s

​

That's your own fault – all of this has been documented and explained for years before Snowden started his data leaking. Someone that seems to be well-respected by lots of Snowden followers is James Bamford. Check out his books – any of them, but I'd start with The Puzzle Palace[1] – and you'll read about data collection programs that date back to Black Chamber[2][3] and analog recording of phone conversations through phone cable routers. Incredible books that I enjoyed reading, and anyone seriously interested in intelligence/security studies should read, too.

It's nothing new. Just because you didn't read the book doesn't mean it isn't out there. I wouldn't dare dispute that Snowden has given these topics a higher profile than they've ever had, but I would be equally reluctant to give him credit for exposing the existence of sophisticated data collection programs. It's an absolutely essential dialogue to have and I'm glad that the country is engaged in it, but Snowden is not the savior or intellectual that people are making him out to be.

That guy's (Cliff Stoll) a riot. Here's a .PDF link and here's an Amazon link.

I was at a security conference that he spoke at right after the book came out. He was the keynote speaker. I was with him and the organizer right before he was supposed to go on. Apparently he didn't know what 500 people sitting in front of a big stage looked like and once he saw it was refusing to go on. Organizer cajoles him into following through. There's a monster screen up (like most of the size of the entire stage opening) projecting his presentation from the back. He starts the presentation but noone can see him. Then you see this giant shadow on his presentation - he's presenting from behind the screen. The fantastic thing is he's got this Sideshow Bob hairdo so imagine the shadow. Anyway, he gets more comfortable as the presentation goes on and is kind of circling the screen sometimes behind sometimes in front on stage for the rest of the~~ stage~~ presentation.

Actually a brilliant guy and great presentation.

Edit: formatting.

More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive

The other book is The KGB and the Battle for the Third World.

They are large books but trust me it is beyond interesting. Now this all took place before Putin took power, but Putin was the best of the best and was rising in ranks. He was so good that they placed him as Director of the KGB. He is the brains behind basically everything.

Washington, in essence, declared war on Russia by facilitating "regime change" in Ukraine.

This formal declaration of US involvement in an active coup is more than enough to put the Russian Military on alert.

The chapters of "Killing Hope" by William Blum point to a certain "pattern" of US behavior in this regard;

China - 1945 to 1960s: Was Mao Zedong just paranoid?

Italy - 1947-1948: Free elections, Hollywood style

Greece - 1947 to early 1950s: From cradle of democracy to client state

The Philippines - 1940s and 1950s: America's oldest colony

Korea - 1945-1953: Was it all that it appeared to be?

Albania - 1949-1953: The proper English spy

Eastern Europe - 1948-1956: Operation Splinter Factor

Germany - 1950s: Everything from juvenile delinquency to terrorism

Iran - 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings

Guatemala - 1953-1954: While the world watched

Costa Rica - Mid-1950s: Trying to topple an ally - Part 1

Syria - 1956-1957: Purchasing a new government

Middle East - 1957-1958: The Eisenhower Doctrine claims another backyard for America

Indonesia - 1957-1958: War and pornography

Western Europe - 1950s and 1960s: Fronts within fronts within fronts

British Guiana - 1953-1964: The CIA's international labor mafia

Soviet Union - Late 1940s to 1960s: From spy planes to book publishing

Italy - 1950s to 1970s: Supporting the Cardinal's orphans and techno- fascism

Vietnam - 1950-1973: The Hearts and Minds Circus

Cambodia - 1955-1973: Prince Sihanouk walks the high-wire of neutralism

Laos - 1957-1973: L'Armée Clandestine

Haiti - 1959-1963: The Marines land, again

Guatemala - 1960: One good coup deserves another

France/Algeria - 1960s: L'état, c'est la CIA

Ecuador - 1960-1963: A text book of dirty tricks

The Congo - 1960-1964: The assassination of Patrice Lumumba

Brazil - 1961-1964: Introducing the marvelous new world of death squads

Peru - 1960-1965: Fort Bragg moves to the jungle

Dominican Republic - 1960-1966: Saving democracy from communism by getting rid of democracy

Cuba - 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution

Indonesia - 1965: Liquidating President Sukarno … and 500,000 others

East Timor - 1975: And 200,000 more

Ghana - 1966: Kwame Nkrumah steps out of line

Uruguay - 1964-1970: Torture—as American as apple pie

Chile - 1964-1973: A hammer and sickle stamped on your child's forehead

Greece - 1964-1974: "Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution," said the President of the United States

Bolivia - 1964-1975: Tracking down Che Guevara in the land of coup d'état

Guatemala - 1962 to 1980s: A less publicized "final solution"

Costa Rica - 1970-1971: Trying to topple an ally—Part 2

Iraq - 1972-1975: Covert action should not be confused with missionary work

Australia - 1973-1975: Another free election bites the dust

Angola - 1975 to 1980s: The Great Powers Poker Game

Zaire - 1975-1978: Mobutu and the CIA, a marriage made in heaven

Jamaica - 1976-1980: Kissinger's ultimatum

Seychelles - 1979-1981: Yet another area of great strategic importance

Grenada - 1979-1984: Lying—one of the few growth industries in Washington

Morocco - 1983: A video nasty

Suriname - 1982-1984: Once again, the Cuban bogeyman

Libya - 1981-1989: Ronald Reagan meets his match

Nicaragua - 1981-1990: Destabilization in slow motion

Panama - 1969-1991: Double-crossing our drug supplier

Bulgaria 1990/Albania 1991: Teaching communists what democracy is all about

Iraq - 1990-1991: Desert holocaust

Afghanistan - 1979-1992: America's Jihad

El Salvador - 1980-1994: Human rights, Washington style

Haiti - 1986-1994: Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?

I'm just a netsec tourist, but I've found that SANS is a good resource. You can watch trending issues with good analysis at isc.sans.edu

I would also recommend The Cuckoo's Egg It's not very relevant technically to what you will be doing, but it's worth the read because it is a fascinating story, and you might garner some hints in terms of methodology.

Thanks for posting this...I didn't realize this group was still going. A few random thoughts in no particular order:

In my opinion, Grugq's view of "what cybersecurity was like in 2000" was grossly oversimplified and full of personal bias. Why? All the foundational documents that shaped the environment we're stuck with today were starting to take off as an outgrowth of the Revolution in Military Affairs which took hold in the US in the 90s. In other words, the government was always a lot more involved with this shit than he realizes--and "the game got weird" long before 2010.


Case in point, In Athena's Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age was from 1997, Dorothy Denning's Information Warfare and Security was from 1998, and Networks and Netwars: the Future of Terror Crime and Militancy was from 2001. The decade also saw the rise of Andrew Marshall's protégés in the form of Dick O'Neill and John Arquilla's Highlands Group, whose influence literally can't be overstated. Also of interest: watch some lectures from that time--Thomas A. Berson's "Sun Tzu in Cyberspace") from 1998 and "International Relations in the Information Age" from 2003. What's new on a theoretical level in 2015? I'd say somewhere between "not much" and "fuck-all". lol


My jimmies were thoroughly rustled at 9:40 when he claimed the US has no way of doing defense economic analysis like the PLA. Oh really? Bullshit, that's what the TS/SCI RAND Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) and the National Intelligence Council are for. As for the subject of economic espionage and industrial collection, the US most certainly DOES have that capacity; IME it's largely been outsourced to private HUMINT collection contractor firms hired directly by Fortune 500 companies. Let's just say if you want to know more, get in touch with the private sector intelligence professionals' organization and start talking to people at their meetings: I can guarantee it will be one of the biggest eye openers you'll ever get.

Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP)


Speaking of intellectual property theft, everybody knows PLA cyberwarfare strategists straight-up RIPPED OFF the ideas of Andy Marshall's RMA theorists. If you don't believe me, read the seminal Chinese documents in this field alongside Arquilla and Cebrowski and notice the extreme degree of overlap:

INFORMATION WARFARE Senior Colonel Wang Baocun and Li Fei (1995)

THE CHALLENGE OF INFORMATION WARFARE Major General Wang Pufeng (1995)

INFORMATION WAR: A NEW FORM OF PEOPLE'S WAR Wei Jincheng (1996)

Also relevant: Chinese Intelligence Collection: An Introduction.

^^^.

Back to the topic, I don't think Grugq should have been so smug at @12:11 when he claims "Russians started hacking in 1989, NSA started hacking in 1998." What was his source on that, some National Guard junior enlisted who did six months at Ft. Meade? Did he not even READ the Puzzle Palace circa 1985 or Duncan Campbell's report to the European Parliament on ECHELON? Sure, the Black Chamber and Herbert O. Yardley were ass-reaming foreign diplomats in 1920, but nobody at NSA ever thought to hack a computer till 1989? Seriously? You really think so? Watch this archive of 90s computer security lectures and pay attention.

^^^.
"There's nothing exciting about cyberwar"--er? All I can say is just show up at a meeting here or here (and several other places) and have a drink with some old retired oatmeal-colored khaki-wearing engineer who looks like George Smiley. After they loosen up and start talking, "colorful" is an understatement. True fact: getting to know serious tool developers firsthand blew my tiny mind. Publicly-available book knowledge is one thing, but if you don't learn by talking to people who've been in this game longer than you've been alive, you're 100% vulnerable to Dunning Kruger. The longer I hang around old people, the more I realize in the overall scheme of things, I barely know jack shit about anything at all. Humility counts, and what's "common public knowledge" is at best a diversionary Mickey Mouse-level sideshow.


TL;DR: "Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world." --Arthur Schopenhauer. As Herman Kahn would say, at least I know enough to know I don't know what I don't know. I came to this lecture expecting to learn something, but didn't. 4/10; what a letdown.

The Cuckoo's Egg was the book that got me interested in network security back in the day. It details a Berkley admin tracking a hacker through the schools network in the 80's. Clifford Stoll is an amusing man to say the least, and the book has a pretty good oatmeal cookie recipe somewhere in the middle if iirc :)

You may enjoy the cuckoo's egg.

It's a true story about a man finding a 75 cent accounting discrepancy and tracing it all the way back to the KGB. Reads like a thriller and besides Cliff Stoll is pretty funny.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Espionage/dp/0743411463

I've been reading this book recently, and I definitely recommend it, but both sides pretty much know who is diplomatic staff and who is intelligence with an official cover. They just don't do anything because of diplomatic reasons, besides heavily monitoring their activities. I'm sure Russia already has a list of CIA guys in the embassies.

The people in Russia on unofficial covers is a whole other thing.

Note that kleinbottle.com is run by Cliff Stoll -- the guy of the Cuckoo's Nest fame, probably the most exciting book involving real-life computer hacking:

http://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer-Espionage/dp/0743411463

Also, an amusing except from the "positions offered" page:

PENTIUM PROCESSOR. Must know all pentium processes, including preprocessing, postprocessing, and past-pluperfect processing. Ideal candidate pent up at the Pentagon, penthouse, or penitentiary. Pays pennies. Penurious benefits include Pension, Pencil. Pentel, Pentax, and Pentaflex. Write to pensive@kleinbottle.con

(did Stanislaw Lem write that job advert?)

It works out to something like 227 million dollars a year for 22 years. That is a lot of money to spend on propoganda and building pro-western organizations. You may say that's a good thing. I disagree.

But, I think you are willfully ignoring the stated goals of the State Department in those documents This applies to Russia as well as Ukraine. So, does that aid go to Ukraine to do with as they will, or does it go to promote the State Dept. agenda of putting a friendly govt. in Here is what is stated by the State Dept.

> For Eastern and Southeastern Europe, this goal is best met through these countries’ accession to the European Union and NATO

It is unambiguous. So you can't sit back and say that the US isn't meddling.

This is the CIA playbook. It's been in use since the 50s. I recommend reading Phillip Agee's Inside the Company. He lays out in detail exactly how the CIA operated in Central America.

Inside the Company

https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125

https://www.amazon.com/World-Was-Going-Our-Way/dp/0465003133

Read these. I'm fascinated with Russian political history, especially in regards to the KGB, and these books are the best of the best when you want to learn more. They get into the deep specifics on why things are done the way they are done. Since Putin was the head of the KGB, you really get an idea on why and how he does specific things.

>You gotta have cited for 80.

Between attempts and successes it may actually be close to 80, but here are the successes:

>Iran (1953); Guatemala(1954); Thailand (1957); Laos (1958-60); the Congo (1960); Turkey (1960, 1971 & 1980); Ecuador (1961 & 1963); South Vietnam (1963); Brazil (1964); the Dominican Republic (1963); Argentina (1963); Honduras (1963 & 2009); Iraq (1963 & 2003); Bolivia (1964, 1971 & 1980); Indonesia (1965); Ghana (1966); Greece (1967); Panama (1968 & 1989); Cambodia (1970); Chile (1973); Bangladesh (1975); Pakistan (1977); Grenada (1983); Mauritania (1984); Guinea (1984); Burkina Faso (1987); Paraguay (1989); Haiti (1991 & 2004); Russia (1993); Uganda (1996);and Libya (2011).

http://www.alternet.org/world/americas-coup-machine-destroying-democracy-1953

https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-Military-Interventions-Since/dp/1567510523/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=064GA0M04G74H2S1MMKE

I don't know about you, but that seems like a shit ton of successful coups. No one does it better than the US.

This is an excellent book:

The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World
by L. Fletcher Prouty
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Team-Allies-Control-United/dp/1616082844/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481398121&sr=8-1&keywords=the+secret+team

A picture of a Klein bottle with the famous Cliff Stoll in the background. Stoll now makes these things and sells 'em off kleinbottle.com.

If you like international spying, crime, and hacking, the man went for a pretty amazing real-life adventure and wrote a book about it (which is a fun, lighthearted read).

Stoll also has a nice description of the mathematical significance of Klein bottles.

I found this book great for a solution that could replace our current economic and political systems:

http://www.amazon.com/Open-Source-Everything-Manifesto-Transparency-Truth/dp/1583944435/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406124471&sr=1-1&keywords=steele+open+source

This book is great as well. It is, Ray Kurzweil, explaining how the human brainn function as he attempts to reverse engineer it for Google in order to create an AI.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Create-Mind-Thought-Revealed/dp/0143124048/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406124597&sr=1-1&keywords=kurzweil

> I'd suggest starting with a little known (suppressed) book written by L. Fletcher Prouty, retired USAF Colonel and former Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under President Kennedy, who wrote a book titled "The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World"

For those who don't want to read an entire book on a website you can buy the "suppressed" book on Amazon in a few different formats and editions.

JAWBREAKER was good as well.
I enjoined how this CIA guy on Sept 12 or 13 goes into an REI in Virginia with his CIA credit card and buys all his gear.... pretty wild.

Yes I agree. Ive been reading a book called The Open-Source Everything Manifesto by Robert David Steele whos trying to lay the groundwork for a new type of governance. Its a radically different approach and idea but it covers the bases well on whats actually happening (clear definitions of why and how corruption happens and solutions to it in governance). You might like it:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Open-Source-Everything-Manifesto-Transparency/dp/1583944435

I can only impart that which I have learned and gleaned through conversations with individuals from the intelligence community. But let's not be naive and think that they don't. Just about every single country worth its stuff has some intelligence organization (even tiny "neutral" Austria) and these organizations most certainly practice espionage. Hell, China is another large operator (this book provides a very thorough overview).

Do you think that information gathering does not take place at these summits? These are conferences for diplomats to maintain connections throughout the world and you can believe that they write foreign contact reports after the fact that are cataloged and filed away for the future.

EDIT:

This book provides a wonderful history of the CIA. Also makes mention of espionage against the USA from the UK and other countries.

The Craft of Intelligence: America's Legendary Spy Master on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering for a Free World by Allen W. Dulles

Thanks, this was very informative. I've become interested in this sort of stuff after reading a book about the stuxnet thing.

And on your last comment, "Even if this hole has been plugged, there might be more." Won't there always be people attempting to create/utilize holes to access information? People will always try and make money or have fun, accessing computers and information is one way to do that. Right?

Well publicly available information may not always be the best place for information on conspiracies. Whether big secrets can stand the test of time is itself a paradox. What is publicly known is that the USA/CIA has been involved in covert activity around the world killing elected presidents, funding death squads, destabilising democracies...

here is the contents page for Killing Hope

1. China - 1945 to 1960s: Was Mao Tse-tung just paranoid?
   
2. Italy - 1947-1948: Free elections, Hollywood style
   
3. Greece - 1947 to early 1950s: From cradle of democracy to client state
   
4. The Philippines - 1940s and 1950s: America's oldest colony
   
5. Korea - 1945-1953: Was it all that it appeared to be?
   
6. Albania - 1949-1953: The proper English spy
   
7. Eastern Europe - 1948-1956: Operation Splinter Factor
   
8. Germany - 1950s: Everything from juvenile delinquency to terrorism
   
9. Iran - 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings
   
10. Guatemala - 1953-1954: While the world watched
    
11. Costa Rica - Mid-1950s: Trying to topple an ally - Part 1
    
12. Syria - 1956-1957: Purchasing a new government
    
13. Middle East - 1957-1958: The Eisenhower Doctrine claims another backyard for America
    
14. Indonesia - 1957-1958: War and pornography
    
15. Western Europe - 1950s and 1960s: Fronts within fronts within fronts
    
16. British Guiana - 1953-1964: The CIA's international labor mafia
    
17. Soviet Union - Late 1940s to 1960s: From spy planes to book publishing
    
18. Italy - 1950s to 1970s: Supporting the Cardinal's orphans and techno-fascism
    
19. Vietnam - 1950-1973: The Hearts and Minds Circus
    
20. Cambodia - 1955-1973: Prince Sihanouk walks the high-wire of neutralism
    
21. Laos - 1957-1973: L'Armée Clandestine
    
22. Haiti - 1959-1963: The Marines land, again
    
23. Guatemala - 1960: One good coup deserves another
    
24. France/Algeria - 1960s: L'état, c'est la CIA
    
25. Ecuador - 1960-1963: A text book of dirty tricks
    
26. The Congo - 1960-1964: The assassination of Patrice Lumumba
    
27. Brazil - 1961-1964: Introducing the marvelous new world of death squads
    
28. Peru - 1960-1965: Fort Bragg moves to the jungle
    
29. Dominican Republic - 1960-1966: Saving democracy from communism by getting rid of democracy
    
30. Cuba - 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution
    
31. Indonesia - 1965: Liquidating President Sukarno … and 500,000 others
    East Timor - 1975: And 200,000 more
    
32. Ghana - 1966: Kwame Nkrumah steps out of line
    
33. Uruguay - 1964-1970: Torture -- as American as apple pie
    
34. Chile - 1964-1973: A hammer and sickle stamped on your child's forehead
    
35. Greece - 1964-1974: "Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution," said
    the President of the United States
    
36. Bolivia - 1964-1975: Tracking down Che Guevara in the land of coup d'etat
    
37. Guatemala - 1962 to 1980s: A less publicized "final solution"
    
38. Costa Rica - 1970-1971: Trying to topple an ally -- Part 2
    
39. Iraq - 1972-1975: Covert action should not be confused with missionary work
    
40. Australia - 1973-1975: Another free election bites the dust
    
41. Angola - 1975 to 1980s: The Great Powers Poker Game
    
42. Zaire - 1975-1978: Mobutu and the CIA, a marriage made in heaven
    
43. Jamaica - 1976-1980: Kissinger's ultimatum
    
44. Seychelles - 1979-1981: Yet another area of great strategic importance
    
45. Grenada - 1979-1984: Lying -- one of the few growth industries in Washington
    
46. Morocco - 1983: A video nasty
    
47. Suriname - 1982-1984: Once again, the Cuban bogeyman
    
48. Libya - 1981-1989: Ronald Reagan meets his match
    
49. Nicaragua - 1981-1990: Destabilization in slow motion
    
50. Panama - 1969-1991: Double-crossing our drug supplier
    
51. Bulgaria 1990/Albania 1991: Teaching communists what democracy is all about
    
52. Iraq - 1990-1991: Desert holocaust
    
53. Afghanistan - 1979-1992: America's Jihad
    
54. El Salvador - 1980-1994: Human rights, Washington style
    
55. Haiti - 1986-1994: Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?
    
    to which our friend gave this epitaph
    
    "Far and away the best book on the topic."
    Noam Chomsky
    
    The question is certainly not would or could this be an inside job
    just simply was it. For the record I don't know, in many ways I don't care. There is enough public information to know how power operates to lead me the conclusion that all these things are inside jobs whether planned directly or not. A relatively small group of people hold sway over huge resources militarily, economically, culturally and create an environment that maintains the status quo - a status quo of hopelessness, environmental destruction and human misery. Power is not passive in this it continually lobbies for it and against any challenge to this status quo by 'pretty much' all means necessary.
    
    killing hope - William Blum

Might I also recommend [Steven Levy's Hackers] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003PDMKIY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) and [David Lundstrom's A Few Good Men From UNIVAC] (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/few-good-men-univac&ved=0ahUKEwjpqoDaxM7VAhUCxWMKHTOPBlwQFghnMBE&usg=AFQjCNGc3A5I8kCL4nccBXVEGf8tBqEy1A).

Both very good reads. I have plenty others ([Cliff Stoll's Cukoo's Egg] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0083DJXCM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) is an annual read the me).

• Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken
  
  
• Innovative State by Aneesh Chopra
  
  
• Open Source Everything Manifesto by Robert David Steele
  
  EDIT: How could I forget?
  
  
• The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday: Not directly related to politics but the principles and anecdotes contained within apply to all endeavors. Great read rooted in ancient Stoic philosophy. We are faced with many obstacles, my friends. Read this book and learn how to turn those obstacles into advantages. You will not regret reading this book :)
  
  

If they simply "stopped paying attention", how would you explain the CIA's orders to the Jeddah consulate to grant Al Qaeda operatives visas into the country?

How do you explain the fact that once in the country, the alleged hijackers received training at secure military installations.

It is you, sir, who needs to read some books:

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II

Confessions of an Economic Hitman

Tragedy and Hope

Wall Street and The Bolshevik Revolution

Wall Street and The Rise of Hitler

Foundations: Their Power and Influence

Bank Control of Large Corporations in the United States

Wake up to reality my friend. These people are not, and have never been, incompetent or negligent. If they were either, they wouldn't be in the positions of power they are in today.

They only admit what had already been evidenced by the way of declassified government documents. There are about 50 of such cases since WW2.

At this rate it's going to take a while until people realize that the US government overthrowing democracies in favor of dictatorships is the rule rather than the exception. In spite of rhetoric of "spreading freedom and democracy" what matters to tptb is whether a nation wants to play economic ball with the US on terms set by the US. (the same is true to a lesser degree for "the west" in general)

Killing Hope - U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II
http://www.amazon.com/KILLING-HOPE-William-Blum/dp/B007K517VE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Hope

Friendly Dictators
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

Billy's Afghan adventures are chronicled in First In by Gary Schroen. First person account of the first team into Afghanistan after 9/11 (CIA prep for SF).

Also read Jawbreaker by Gary Berntsen which picks up where First In leaves off, including the taking of Kabul. Also a first person account.

Then read the prequel that ends on Sep 10: Ghost Wars. 2005 Pulitzer Prize.

These three books are truly a trilogy in every sense.

Thanks for sharing OP. I'm in middle of The Winter Fortress, a non-fiction book about exactly what you said. Very cool to see a picture of the real thing!

If you want to read about some interesting fuckery during this period in South America, and other 3rd world countries, read The World Was Going Our Way https://www.amazon.com/World-Was-Going-Our-Way/dp/0465003133
this is the follow up to The SWord and the Shield, another great book.

> his story was more badass than anything I had read in fiction.

Stories like these are the reason I seldom read fiction.

If you get a chance, read Winter Fortress. Absolute badass Norwegians. After reading this, I can never again go out on my skis or snowshoes and feel hardcore. Five minutes of what those guys endured and I’d be crying in the corner like a five year old girl.

I'd recommend starting with Solomon's Builders by Christopher Hodapp. Founding Fathers, Secret Societies by Dr. Robert Hieronimus would be a good followup.

If you really want to delve into the older history, The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century, 1590 to 1710 by David Stevenson is your best bet.

If you really want to understand the secrecy angle - read The Craft Of Intelligence by Allen Dulles, It's not about Freemasonry, but the tools and tactics are the same. Secret Societies and the Intel Community have a lot in common.

This book any good? I've got the sample sitting on my kindle but haven't actually cracked it open.

I was personally a fan of Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stool, as well.

I think the thing to keep in mind is that there are no known US federal government employees who are even halfway competent in this field, and obviously there are no journalistic resources who know what they're talking about. I've been reading through the book on the Confikker worm which happened about five years ago and it's abundantly clear that US intel agencies and journalists are bumbling amateurs who are easily manipulated. You should discount any conclusions that rest on those sources. As to what actually happened, at a certain level of assumed skill then you literally can't prove that any particular group or individual was involved in this leak. There wasn't good forensics on the machines themselves, and there has been a great deal of speculation in the absence of any real solid evidence that isn't itself questionable.

He's a pretty neat guy. He first became fairly well known for discovering one of the earliest cyberspying cases:

> A 75-cent discrepancy in billing for computer time led Stoll, an astrophysicist working as a systems manager at a California laboratory, on a quest that reads with the tension and excitement of a fictional thriller. Painstakingly he tracked down a hacker who was attempting to access American computer networks, in particular those involved with national security, and actually reached into an estimated 30 of the 450 systems he attacked. Initially Stroll waged a lone battle, his employers begrudging him the time spent on his search and several government agencies refused to cooperate. But his diligence paid off and in due course it was learned that the hacker, 25-year-old Markus Hess of Hanover, Germany, was involved with a spy ring. Eight members were arrested by the West German authorities but all but one were eventually released.

His book on the incident is an outstanding read.

Clifford Stole wrote a pretty good book, but, man, a visionary he ain't.

A Century of Spies, by Jeffrey Richelson might be worth checking out. In general, Richelson has done a fair amount of "history of American Intelligence" types of books.

http://www.amazon.com/Century-Spies-Intelligence-Twentieth/dp/019511390X/ref=la_B000APNPG6_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406137379&sr=1-8

The most encompassing book I have read to date has been A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century. It includes everything from Russia Secretly Intelligence such as CHEKA, the Gestapo, the origins of MI6, MI5 and the BSS, and the rise of the CIA/NSA and its global intervention.

Seen here:
http://www.amazon.ca/Century-Spies-Intelligence-Twentieth/dp/019511390X

right... just like in the 500 page book, legacy of ashes or this lovely book, the main enemy. Argghhh! I wish we had books we could refer to!

Russia has a 100+ year history of successfully interfering with other countries.

This is a must read for anybody interested in Russian government subversion.
https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1483754893&sr=1-1&keywords=mitrokhin+archive

The Cuckoo's Egg is a good true account of a system administrator chasing a hacker in the late 80's.

The worst part is that one of his novels, The Puzzle Palace, shares its title with a nonfiction book about the NSA by James Bamford which happens to be one of the best books written about the NSA... so now you have to be careful when mentioning it, so people don't confuse it with the Dan Brown novel (which is also about the NSA, 'The Puzzle Palace' being one of the real nicknames for the agency)

Certainly!

The Cuckoo's Egg is a classic and describes a true story written by one of the "hackers" involved. It involves international espionage, the US military, the FBI, and the NSA.

Two book recommendations:

Killing Hope - explores the United States' covert and overt operations globally, including crimes like Colombia and Guatemala.

Kill Anything That Moves - focuses specifically on Vietnam.

GRS protects CIA officers in dangerous environments.

In addition to Horse Soldiers, you might want to check out

Jawbreaker

13 Hours (About GRS)

88 Days to Kandahar

Not a Good Day to Die

The Only Thing Worth Dying For

You won't find much about modern CIA operations because they are classified.

Read Puzzle Palace. While it predates Snowden by several decades, it's still probably the best book written about the organization.

I would also recommend William Blum's Killing Hope and Rogue State, as well as Chalmers Johnson's trilogy on empire, Blowback, Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis.

Great source of history about this topic. https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Team-Allies-Control-United/dp/1616082844

Jawbreaker. Great book.

http://www.amazon.com/Jawbreaker-Al-Qaeda-Personal-Account-Commander/dp/0307351068

Something that's not on there but which I would heartily recommend is The Cuckoo's Egg, which is 100% hard computer storytelling because it's a true story of a thing that actually happened, and the sneaky espionage / counter-espionage that a sysadmin and a hacker got in to against each other.

Russia nerd here. I don't have anything in my library that contains a history of espionage in the broad sense, but "The Sword and the Shield" is probably the most thorough examination of the KGB, which is pretty interesting. It's actually a compilation of smuggled KGB documents.

It's amazing. I'm very interested in Cold War espionage history and recently read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive/dp/0465003125

Basically, the writers take the most outrageous and intriguing stories and background details from that book and put them into the show. I love it.

This book: "The Puzzle Palace", was written in 1983 and is still amazing today. At that time, the source indicates that it took 14 acres of cooling equipment to keep the NSA's computers from overheating (as I remember).

For your book Chinese Intelligence Operations, why is the difference between the print edition and the Kindle edition so large? (~$160 difference)

This article was published after he released his book, Programmed to Kill. It contains new information.

The primary sources referenced are the Mitrokhin archives and former Russian President Yeltin's own memoirs.

Some of the Mitrokhin archives are open to the public, and a book about them was written by the only historian allowed to see them. The book is The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB.

There have been several books written on the Mitrokhin archives, but the archives have never been completely publicly revealed.

However, take a look at this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive#Disinformation_campaign_against_the_United_States

The first two claims (the KGB's promotion of false JFK assassination theories, using writer Mark Lane and a creating a forged letter from Oswald to E. Howard Hunt, attempting to incriminate Hunt in JFK assassination) reference this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Mitrokhin-Archive-Kgb-Europe-West/dp/0140284877

They reference pages 296-298.

Google Books has a generous free preview and I just tracked down the portions which discuss KGB disinformation about JFK:

https://books.google.ca/books?id=tiNqCAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PT391#v=onepage&q&f=false

Unfortunately, some of the pages about this are omitted, but start from that page and read the next six or so pages.

By the way, the above book is one of 5 or so written jointly by the original leaker of the Mitrokhin archives and Christopher Andrew, the only historian allowed to see the archives. Thus, the above book is basically a primary source.

There was a good reason for this. The so-called antiwar movement was infiltrated and funded by Soviet intelligence.


Confirmed by Mitrokin after he defected to the West.

EDIT: http://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463946856&sr=8-1&keywords=mitrokhin+archive

the cuckoo's egg by cliff stoll -- http://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer-Espionage/dp/0743411463

takedown by john markoff and tsutomu shimomura -- http://www.amazon.com/Takedown-Pursuit-Americas-Computer-Outlaw/dp/0786889136

nonfiction, actually--early-computer-age stuff about chasing down hackers in the dot-matrix days. I enjoyed these when I was younger.

A very good read.

What's old is new again... 1983 book published on NSA's intelligence gathering The Puzzle Palace. James Bamford has a couple of follow up books from 2007/2008 also.

The Craft of Intelligence
exactly $12.34

Look into the Open Source Intelligence community and the ideas of Robert David Steele, a former CIA agent who says that "spying doesn't work".

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583944435/ossnet-20

http://www.phibetaiota.net/

If the Panopticon is coming anyway, I'd rather it go both ways, so that The People can watch The State watching The People.

FYI the author of the article got the title wrong:

Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World's Best Writers https://www.amazon.com/dp/1944869131/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_CICNybHMNDBSW

Killing Hope, by William Blum is the definitive book on these matters.

Chinese Inteligence Operations by Nicholas Eftimiades also [the author did an ama] (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/zchnb/ive_appeared_on_nbc_abc_bbc_npr_and_testified/).

And if you are more interested in inteligence history [A Century of Spies:Intelligence in the Twentieth Century. Richelson, Jeffery T.] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00716PVR8/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title)

Anyone with a brain who had ever read a book about the CIA or NSA would KNOW fucking KNOW that all those communications are monitored. Trump and his idiot know-nothing family deserve everything that happens to them from this point on.

Two books everyone should read.

The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization

[Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA](
https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-Weiner/dp/0307389006/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495854882&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=leagecy+of+ashes)

We have hung spies in this country before. We should continue that practice.

https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125

https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-Weiner/dp/0307389006

A couple of books I've read recently about the intelligence side of things. Not sure about how their conventional forces compare to ours.

The concept may have been first practically demonstrated by some German hackers who found ways to link several separate international education and military webs illegally.

I read this years ago: The Cuckoo's Egg

Anyone interested in the history of the web and how it developed should read it.

This is discussed briefly in the book The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. I'm only about halfway through the book, but I've already run into some interesting stuff on shortwave radio propaganda as well.

e: According to this book, they didn't trust Eskimos and Aleuts to be reliable stay-behind agents because they were perceived as being anti-establishment drunkards (paraphrased).

L Fletcher Prouty's book Secret Team is the most cogent, well-written, non-hype book I've ever seen on the topic of hidden government and the deep state.

His credentials:

> L. Fletcher Prouty (1917-2001), a retired colonel of the U.S. Air Force, served as the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Kennedy years. He was directly in charge of the global system designed to provide military support for the clandestine activities of the CIA.

He was the guy in there during the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy assassination, and Vietnam, and he lays out in detail how information and goods flowed through secret networks. He provides detailed logistical information on how men and materiel were moved around to prepare for Bay of Pigs and how the CIA gave compartmentalized briefings to the military and president so nobody but them had a full picture of what really was being planned.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-Team-Allies-Control/dp/1616082844

I also heartily recommend The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB

https://www.amazon.ca/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125

Yep. Good book, but there is something about him that I just don't trust. You can almost see the book as a recruiting tool for "the company," intended or not. I recommend Philip Agee's Inside the Company: CIA Diary. He was first, and his book is better, and meant a lot more when it came out; he had to flee and was in hiding. Perkins is a part of the global jet-setting class and in the limelight. I don't trust him for some reason.

Here's more on Perkins, several weeks worth, probably:
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=John+Perkins\

Interestingly, this site has been run for a good long time by Cliff Stoll, author of the Cuckoo's Egg. If you're a geek, YSK at least who this guy is. He's not a pioneer or anything, but he did do a solid bit of detective work, and ended up with a decent story out of it. If you're interested in old school security, computer forensics, or the NSA at the dawn of the internet, you ought to check his book out. A little overly dramatized, but hey, it's a decent read.

Amazon Blurb
>Cliff Stoll was an astronomer turned systems manager at Lawrence Berkeley Lab when a 75-cent accounting error alerted him to the presence of an unauthorized user on his system. The hacker's code name was "Hunter" -- a mystery invader hiding inside a twisting electronic labyrinth, breaking into U.S. computer systems and stealing sensitive military and security information. Stoll began a one-man hunt of his own, spying on the spy -- and plunged into an incredible international probe that finally gained the attention of top U.S. counterintelligence agents. The Cuckoo's Egg is his wild and suspenseful true story -- a year of deception, broken codes, satellites, missile bases, and the ultimate sting operation -- and how one ingenious American trapped a spy ring paid in cash and cocaine, and reporting to the KGB.

Amazon Link

EDIT: I don't know the guy or anything, I just liked his book.

i asked my superhacker friend and he told me he had to hack "the inthenet" using "gogole" or something to get you this info fresh off the presses, so use this wisely

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/israel-zionism/2019/05/the-soviet-roots-of-anti-zionist-anti-semitism/

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/140328/timmerman-disinformation

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4886594,00.html

do you really think people have bookmark libraries and scans of books to pamper fools for free?

for the third time:

https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125

has a whole chapter detailing how ruskis were flooding arab populations with endless prints of protocols for decades, on top of all the other shit i listed above and many more

you want the unabridged 2-tome version

philip agee is also worth looking into

But that would ignore the amount of money the USSR was pouring into Chile, and specifically Allende's pockets since the early 1950s as well.

Money that payed for the establishment of Chile-Soviet relations in 1964 backed by Allende who recieved a $50,000 subsidy by the KGB by that time.

Or how they payed $18,000 to a left-wing Senator to prevent him from running outside Unidad Popular coalition.

Allende was given $60,000 by the USSR personally to bribe political and military leaders.

As president Allende constantly looked towards the USSR for financial aid to keep the economy a float, including a $45 million loan and a $200 million rubles revolving facility.

http://www.amazon.com/The-World-Was-Going-Our/dp/0465003133

Of course, I'm not excusing the US actions at all. But let's always keep in mind this stuff wasn't ocurring in a vacuum.

We were so thoroughly penetration that the Soviet Union obtained the complete plans for the American atom bomb- from two seperate sources.

An excellent book detailing Soviet penetration, ad KGB operations throughout the Soviet era, is The Sword and the Shield, based on the Vasily Mitrokhin archive.

http://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125

Not sure if you are into security tech but some of my favorites....

• The Cucco's Egg by Cliff Stoll
  
• Kingpin by Kevin Poulsen
  
• Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick
  
• Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter
  
• Zero Day by Mark Russinovich
  
  
  Also thought I'd include some that I have purchased but not finished yet in case you'd be interested.
  
  
• Where the Wizards Stay up Late by Katie Hafner
  
• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy
  
• Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who Are Bringing Down the Internet by Joseph Menn

There's the official narrative, and then there's the shit they aren't telling you, there are covert wars and destabilization behind the scenes.

I couldn't possibly convince you in a line of text, I'd point you to the covert actions behind the scenes of the official narratives being presented.

http://www.amazon.com/KILLING-HOPE-William-Blum/dp/B007K517VE

On Venezuela

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeJsauYlLi4&feature=youtu.be

https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125/

https://www.amazon.co.jp/World-Was-Going-Our-Way/dp/0465003133

変な本がCIA内部では重要扱いされてるみたいな展開を期待したけど普通の本だった

Probably produced by "The Company"..

You're right that there's nothing to prove that the content of every call in the US is being monitored. There is evidence that every call entering or leaving the US has been monitored since the 70s, and we know that they sometimes monitor people with three degrees of separation from a suspect, but they aren't saying if that means metat-data or actual phone calls.

He wrote a book about his archive material, too. The Sword and the Shield by Christoper Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin. Been sitting on my bookshelf but I haven't gotten around to reading it.

Someone had suggested that a while back.

Read his book "Killing Hope"; it is profusely documented with citations.

It's a book published in 1983.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Puzzle-Palace-Intelligence-Organization/dp/0140067485

Or just read this..

http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-Military-Interventions-Since/dp/1567510523

Some portions from it are here,

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/KillingHope_page.html

And for a little history, read The Cuckoo's Egg

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1565846648/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_66BUBbZ0BMEA8

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1944869131/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_M7BUBbCMGEF5J

http://www.amazon.com/American-Black-Chamber-Bluejacket-Books/dp/1591149894/ref=sr_1_1/189-5393201-2174227?ie=UTF8&qid=1414715465&sr=8-1&keywords=the+black+chamber

And

http://www.amazon.com/The-Puzzle-Palace-Intelligence-Organization/dp/0140067485/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414715506&sr=8-1&keywords=puzzle+palace


?

Read Killing Hope and get back to me on the history of the CIA's role in neutering leftist movements in the 20th century.

KGB secret archives are filled with information about what MPs in various European countries were on the payroll or agents of influence. Allende was on their payroll too.

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Team-Allies-Control-United/dp/1616082844

http://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer-Espionage/dp/0743411463

You can read more about the Mitrokhin files (concerning Israel) in this story: http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-13181,00.html

Or in the books written by Prof. Christopher Andrew in cooperation with Mitrokhin himsef: https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1476826988&sr=1-1&keywords=the+sword+and+the+shield+the+mitrokhin+archive
Or: https://www.amazon.com/Mitrokhin-Archive-II-KGB-World/dp/0713993596

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1616082844?pc_redir=1413174352&robot_redir=1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00AZ80NJ0?pc_redir=1411853654&robot_redir=1

That'll get you started

The other replies have shown you what it is used for in astronomy. If you want a fascinating real-world example of what else it is used for, check out Clifford Stoll's book The Cuckoo's Egg:

>Cliff Stoll was an astronomer turned systems manager at Lawrence Berkeley Lab when a 75-cent accounting error alerted him to the presence of an unauthorized user on his system. The hacker's code name was "Hunter"—a mysterious invader who managed to break into U.S. computer systems and steal sensitive military and security information. Stoll began a one-man hunt of his own: spying on the spy. It was a dangerous game of deception, broken codes, satellites, and missile bases—a one-man sting operation that finally gained the attention of the CIA . . . and ultimately trapped an international spy ring fueled by cash, cocaine, and the KGB.

PBS did a really cheesy (but good) documentary of his book if you want a taste before you dive all the way in, but the book is better.

> I would like to invite you to come to Russia and see how much bullshit we are fed everyday not only about the US but about the West in general. It is unbelievable!

Have been before, don't really need to go to see the bullshit propaganda spread there just need to watch a little bit of Russia-1 ;)

> there are thousands of outlets with all kinds of perspective and bias

My point is the BIG channels are generally the ones people watch and believe, come on lad very few people actually look up small news sites and blogs most just go to whatever the main ones are CNN , BBC etc..

> Comparing Russian propaganda to the US one is like comparing a Master of deceit to a Marketing strategist. But anyway, the world is not Russia vs US dude, so, stop just bringing up the US to justify anything about Russia.

I'd say US propaganda is pretty good with all the "justified" things they've done over the years including screwing elections in other countries and wars, these are the ones that worked : Iran (1953); Guatemala(1954); Thailand (1957); Laos (1958-60); the Congo (1960); Turkey (1960, 1971 & 1980); Ecuador (1961 & 1963); South Vietnam (1963); Brazil (1964); the Dominican Republic (1963); Argentina (1963); Honduras (1963 & 2009); Iraq (1963 & 2003); Bolivia (1964, 1971 & 1980); Indonesia (1965); Ghana (1966); Greece (1967); Panama (1968 & 1989); Cambodia (1970); Chile (1973); Bangladesh (1975); Pakistan (1977); Grenada (1983); Mauritania (1984); Guinea (1984); Burkina Faso (1987); Paraguay (1989); Haiti (1991 & 2004); Russia (1993); Uganda (1996);and Libya (2011).

http://www.alternet.org/world/americas-coup-machine-destroying-democracy-1953

https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-Military-Interventions-Since/dp/1567510523/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=064GA0M04G74H2S1MMKE


Since the conversation is about Pro- & Anti-Russian propaganda I can't not bring up Russia vs US.

> Keep on watching RT and TASS and Sputniknews. Putin thanks you!

I watch a little bit of everything tbh, I like to hear both versions of the story, one where its justified other where its a "war-crime" for example

You want to know what is exhausting? The history of US imperialism.

You know what is exhaustive? A book like Killing Hope,

https://www.amazon.com/KILLING-HOPE/dp/B007K517VE

Which should be required reading before somebody makes a comment regarding the military and justifying what it does.

A lot of fiction in this thread, I'd like to mention some non-fiction:

1. The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB by Milton Bearden and James Risen - Excellent story of the CIA and KGB from early 80s through the fall of the Soviet Union. Really covers in depth US operations inside the Soviet Union, important defections by senior Soviet military and intelligence personnel, and significant counterintelligence failures (Aldrich Ames). The best part is this is not a history review written by some academic third party, it was written by the guy who actually worked Moscow Station for the CIA during the period and knew Ames and handled many key defections. Moreover it contains a lot of detail on actual tradecraft methods.
   
   
2. The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy by David Hoffman. This book really goes in depth on the Soviet chemical, biological, and radiological program, as well as the effort towards disarmament. What the Soviets dreamed up was actually quite frightening and they did much of it despite treat obligations. This book is interesting for two reasons: 1) The Soviets (And as conveyed by Phillip and Elizabeth in the Americans) really believed Reagan was a nut whom wanted to leave them on the ash heap of history, which drove their paranoia and pursuit of WMD; 2) It shows behind the scenes that Reagan actually wanted to reduce nuclear weapons and loathed the idea of nuclear war. A significant portion of the book focuses on the impact of key Soviet defectors that provided the US insight in to the Soviet WMD program.
   
   
3. Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century - Sergei Kostin, Eric Raynaud. Farewell was the code name for Vladimir Vetrov, a Soviet KGB Line X (Just like Oleg), whom was responsible for conducting S&T collection operations against the US. He became an agent for the French, and turned over heaps of information on Soviet S&T intelligence objectives and operations worldwide. His intelligence was passed on to the UK and US, and was important to Reagan in negotiations with the Soviet Union. His betrayal caused 100+ Soviet S&T intelligence officers to be expelled from US, the UK, and France. Excellent discussion on the motivation of an agent and stresses at maintaining two lives (Vetrov, in addition to working for the French, was also cheating on his wife... talk about stressful). Also a lot of interesting information on tradecraft such as signals for meetings and dead drops.

This is the same, tired Soviet propaganda narrative western communists have been shilling for the past fifty years.

If you want to read all the stuff elided from this bullocks, check out The World Was Going Our Way.

sigh

I don't have time to educate clueless redditors again at the moment.

Do yourself a favor and crack open a book or two.

And if that's too hard it can be broken down in simple video form.

If reading books is too advanced for you.

Because despite the privacy issues of previous bills, cyberattacks are an ongoing problem, especially for U.S. companies, and solutions of some sort are needed.

Right now it's not even clear if a company like Google could legally cooperate with a company like Microsoft on detecting and responding to cyberattacks on their networks, and these problems are not theoretical.

For all that you guys are worried about NSA, don't forget that there are other nations with perfectly good foreign intelligence agencies, such as Russia and China, and these nations have been trying to break into U.S. company networks since the Internet existed.

It's hard enough to defend corporate networks when you have employees who will click on random stupid emails and when finding software vulnerabilities seems to be simply an issue of digging for long enough, without the problems introduced by preventing companies from cooperating. In the military we'd call this "defeat in detail", but you probably could see this in those fancy online multiplayer games too, where your team cooperates to gang up on one opponent at a time to bring them all down. It works with networks too, since we're all interconnected to each other, we are as vulnerable as our weakest link.

This is doubly troubling because the U.S. is almost completely dependent on cyber technologies in a way that many other nations are not, so the U.S. has much more to lose than nations like Russia and China.

The fact that previous bills have been used to try to enforce copyrights from the MPAA/RIAA and other such shenanigans has never meant that there wasn't a need to give U.S. businesses and ISPs the ability to defend themselves (since the U.S. government can't protect them by itself). If they've finally delivered a bill that focuses on that and only on that I'd probably support it; it will have been long overdue.

You should try to understand an issue before you become outraged about it. Google, and every other telephone and internet company that does business in the US, must abide by the laws of the US. One of those laws permits the government the right to see information relevant to an investigation, if they first get a warrant from a judge. Google's system was designed to give access to only what they were legally required to show when a warrant was issued, not to allow warrant-less, widespread surveillance.

Of course, the sad fact is that since WWI many companies have been willing to allow warrant-less surveillance to the US government. Puzzle Palace describes some instances. However, there is no evidence that Google has done so.

Finally, IANAL but I believe that the answer to your last question is that there is no difference between US citizen and non-US citizen email in the context of a police investigation. The data is stored on a US server, and with the correct warrant issued by a judge the US government can get the right to see that data.

I have a book on my shelf called Killing Hope: US Military and CIA
Interventions Since World War II.

The U.S. is fucking brutal.

I would just like to point out, in 1991 the KGB archives from 1918 to 1980s were smuggled to the west. Apart from the areas that were obliterated to erase the feuding during the Stalin purges and potentially embarrassing information collected on the leadership that took over after Stalin (and tragically Stalin's obliteration of his Okrana record) it is a pretty complete record of KGB activity in other countries. The KGB was extremely interventionist beyond the wildest dreams of the CIA into other nations affairs during the early 1950s. So the CIA was paranoid, but it was paranoid because there really were extreme interventions by the USSR going on behind the scene in many places. If you ever get the chance there are several books that have summarized the contents of the archive. The breadth of KGB operations was staggering even in the UK and US.


This is the book written by the KGB defectors on the contents of the archive

http://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125

buy or check out this book from your library (if your library isn't cucked to blacklist it). has all the dirty laundry on the infiltration by the KGB of our government!

and for a simple synopsis related to communist china and how truman's state dept fucked over china (he really did fuck them over), read this article:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/history/item/4691-china-betrayed-into-communism

(fantastic article and one of the only truth you'll find on the internet regarding truman and our state dept getting infiltrated by maoist sympathizers...fucking GENERAL GEORGE MARSHALL who worked for the truman administration called mao and his commies 'so-called communists' and a 'true peasant revolt'...i mean what the fuck????)

> Y'know I used to think the whole Red Scare was an overreaction

When the Mitrokhin Archive came to light, it showed that some of the most insane sounding Red Scare conspiracy theories were actually true. The Sword and the Shield breaks it down into digestible form.

The whole point of this article is to get people to wander off into useless details after they lead you past the correct path right at the beginning. Read the Cuckoo's Egg. It's about a very early internet hack job by the Russians that was tracked down by a random sysadmin who wanted to figure out who was relaying shit through his server. See, even back then the Russians were making their connection through many hops. They compromised MANY servers in order to make it difficult to trace their activities back to their origin. No hacker worth a shit would only compromise one server directly from his address in Romania. It's just too stupid to even think about.

>As a result, "the security situation in Afghanistan has worsened to its lowest point since the toppling of the Taliban a decade ago and attacks on aid workers are at unprecedented levels."

False.

I'm assuming that Chomsky hasn't been to Afghanistan. I have, multiple times. The peak of violence was in 2007. And the Afghan people agree. (PDF link, page 24)

>The people of Afghanistan, teetering on the edge of starvation in September 2001, were deprived of much of the food and medical assistance from international aid that was keeping them alive because Coalition airstrikes destroyed infrastructure and made travel unsafe for aid trucks.

False.

There are fewer babies dying now, more hospitals than since before the invasion, and the average life expectancy has risen by almost 20 years.

>Chomsky laments that the US government largely dismissed these human-rights problems in its quest to "secure our interests."

False.

Hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of people have been sent to Afghanistan to rebuild the medical, telecommunications, energy, and civil infrastructures of Afghanistan. The US didn't destroy it, decades of war with the Soviet Union and its subsequent neglect by the Taliban did. The reason you didn't see "Shock n'Awe 2001!™" with the US invasion was because there was hardly any infrastructure left to destroy.

>Chomsky was one of the few people in the United States at that time to publicly talk about how deeply the Central Intelligence Agency was involved in arming and training the mujahideen in Afghanistan during the 1980s.

False.

This is, and was, common knowledge. It was widely reported in the press in the 80s.

And before anyone goes on about how the CIA created Bin Laden, let me just put out that both "The Black Book of Communism" (Courtois, ed, 1997) and "The Sword and the Shield" (Mitrokhin, 1992) note that most of the ideological underpinnings of the modern-day jihad were put into place by the Soviet Union's attempts to eradicate Islam through violence, and that any US aid (none of which went to Bin Laden) was merely a confidence-boosting side show to the main conflict.

Not to mention the fact that in addition to the US, almost all of Europe, Saudi Arabia, and China, also gave aid to the Afghan Mujahideen.

>For example, the United States recently risked a major international conflict with a nuclear-armed nation, Pakistan, by assassinating an influential figure in one of its major cities.

If you think we are not already engaged in an international conflict with parts of the Pakistan government, I have a bridge to sell you.

But I suppose I'm just pissing into the wind.

This is the glorious Chomsky, after all. He is trapped so many decades back in political reality that he is probably still writing checks to the Sandinista National Liberation Front .