1977. Video equipment was VERY different then, especially on that side of the iron curtain. It would have had moving parts, motors, probably requiring a degree of soundproofing. I want to see pictures of where/how they hid this stuff because it wasn't easy.
- How do you know the KGB is surveilling you?
- A new wardrobe has just appeared in your apartment.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-uighurs-...
"China sends state spies to live in Uighur Muslim homes and attend private family weddings and funerals"
Talk about power though, imagine getting a knock on your door and being told "you're moving apartments, and don't ask why or who we are.".
(Indeed, the story as written does have Hollywood MacGuffin floppy disk written all over it, in that I'd find it implausible that, even in a war zone, no one kept anything on-prem, or at least backups? At least performing a "kill -9" via Hellfire missile does upstage Stanford gangstas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fow7iUaKrq4 .)
[1] Compare https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-why-wh... and remember that the case of TFA starts in 1974 with social engineering via "Nadia." I'm pretty sure the Arthashastra mentions social engineering via thirst trap, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Shi has a similar story. Then there's https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/12/all-you... 's account of deradicalisation via honey trap.
Q. How did Adam and Eve anticipate the twenty-first century?
A. They failed to read Apple's Terms & Conditions and got in trouble for misunderstanding the Privacy Policy.
Seems like the "Negus" device is a photo-camera with a large magnifying attachment, sturdy base, stereo viewfinder, and knobs for focus. I found a description and some pictures here: http://ussrphoto.com/Wiki/default.asp?WikiCatID=46&ParentID=...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hershey_fonts
Edit: the bus stop has been replaced, and the kerbside tree is gone: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Druzhby+St/@55.7139414,37....
(it was conveniently located between an "embassy row" and a nice park with scenic overlook)
https://www.google.com/maps/@55.709541,37.5422738,3a,75y,90t...
https://www.google.com/maps/@55.7272732,37.5479753,3a,75y,15...
(unfortunately nowhere near close enough to see if the sign is still there)
Do you have any idea what they are talking about here? I'm imagining dispersing some invisible chemical (or isotope maybe?) in his house and then looking for increases in concetrations in areas where he might have been to.
In SpyCatcher, Peter Wright describes contemplating a similar system to catch spies removing sensitive documents from MI5. From the book:
"I was asked if there was any technical way we could prove Vassall was removing documents from the Admiralty. I had been experimenting for some time with Frank Morgan on a scheme to mark classified documents using minute quantities of radioactive material. The idea was to place a Geiger counter at the entrance of the building where the suspected spy was operating so that we could detect if any marked documents were being removed. We tried this with Vassall, but it was not a success. There were too many exits in the Admiralty for us to be sure we were covering the one which Vassall used, and the Geiger counter readings were often distorted by luminous wristwatches and the like. Eventually the scheme was scrapped when fears about the risks of exposing people to radiation were raised by the management"
Peter Wright also described a radioactive agent for discovering secret writing, which may be similar to how the secret writing that tipped them off was detected on the letters to the embassy to begin with:
"The techniques of secret writing are the same the world over. First the spy writes his cover letter. Then he writes the secret message on top, using a special sheet of carbon paper treated with a colorless chemical. Tiny particles of the chemical are transferred to the letter, which can then be developed by the recipient. Most developing agents make the chemical traces grow, so that the message becomes legible, and unless the correct agent is known, the message remains undetectable. But Morgan created a universal developing agent, using radioactivity, which transformed the possibilities of detection."
Makes you wonder if the person removing the documents was management.
I had been joking about www.duckdascism.gov in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24458630 but https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24526075 has people who've used that channel. (for the record, ~64kbps is more than most people had over dialup in the early days of the web)
Unless you co-opt a page everyone "listens" to, such as facebook or something.
1. Do not try to sneak stuff past the Russians in invisible ink.
2. If you are a spy and your friendly neighbours suddenly have to move, consider taking an unscheduled vacation in GTFO.
After release he demanded compensation from the US embassy, but was denied as a non citizen.Additionally a lot of "weather stations" around the world are simply number stations. They vary the numbers reported, and wherever they diverge from whatever is determined in advance as the "canonical" source is how information is communicated. This paragraph and the above are just my personal observations please note.
Lastly good examples of weather stations in general (not actual spying things please note) can be found here [1] and here [2].
Wouldn't a MQTT station be lacking one of the major advantages of a radio number station - that it is very difficult to know who is listening to the broadcast.
Using weather reports (or obituaries in newspapers etc) are not number stations, though they can be used as covert channels.