Espionage – Page 3 – Blazingcatfur

How the spy game will work when there’s no place to hide

Aaron Brown was working as a CIA case officer in 2018 when he wrote a post for an agency blog warning about what he called “gait recognition.” He cautioned his fellow officers that computer algorithms would soon be able to identify people not just by their faces, or fingerprints, or DNA — but by the unique ways they walked.

Many of his colleagues, trained in the traditional arts of disguise and concealment, were skeptical. One called it “threat porn.” But Brown’s forecast was chillingly accurate. A study published in May reported that a model called FarSight, using gait, body and face recognition, was 83 percent accurate in verifying an individual at up to 1,000 meters, and was 65 percent accurate even when the face was obscured. “It’s hard to overstate how powerful that is,” Brown said.

by Blazingcatfur•July 10, 2025July 10, 2025•0•"Surveillance Society", Espionage

Spy Technology No Longer Leaves Anything to the Imagination.

China has invented a mosquito-sized spy drone, and now I can’t wait for Trump to come up with a flyswatter. If a Democrat were in the White House, they’d probably be considering introducing a mandate to wear full-body-sized masks to protect against spy mosquitoes. But I know Trump wouldn’t do that. Trump would rather blast Chinese flies with a cannon than further erode individual freedoms. And so would I.

by Blazingcatfur•June 28, 2025June 28, 2025•0•"China - Communist Slave State", Espionage

Inside TikTok town: vast data centre sparks Chinese spying fears

For Finland’s small city of Kouvola, the centre would bring money and jobs. But the social media giant as the tenant poses a political headache for Helsinki

Kouvola needs all the jobs it can get. Young Finns who have not already left a small city so drab it could be stuck in the Soviet Union struggle to find work.

So when an international company called Hyperco announced it would exploit the freezing north’s temperatures and ready access to cold water to build a data centre in the area, there was general acceptance of it being a pretty good thing.

After all, the few million euros paid for a parcel of empty land seemed a good deal for everybody.

by Blazingcatfur•May 19, 2025May 19, 2025•0•"China - Communist Slave State", Espionage, Finland

Canada needs a foreign human intelligence service

For decades, a small circle of government officials and academics have periodically debated whether Canada should establish a foreign human intelligence service. Proponents have argued that, as the only G7 member state without such a body, Canada needs to set up its own version of an American CIA or British MI6. Opponents have responded that Canada’s secure position in North America and the important benefits it already derives from intelligence partnerships, such as the Five Eyes, have made the many challenges of creating a separate foreign intelligence agency unnecessary.

It is time to revisit this debate.

by Blazingcatfur•May 12, 2025May 12, 2025•0•Canada, Espionage

Canadian Citizen Xiao Guang Pan Charged for Taking Drone Pictures of US Space Force Base

A Canadian citizen has been charged by U.S. authorities for allegedly using a drone to take photos of a military base in Florida.

Xiao Guang Pan, 71, faces three counts of using an unmanned aircraft to photograph vital defence installations at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base, according to a Feb. 13 press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida. On three separate days in January 2025, Pan allegedly also took aerial pictures of space launch complexes, a submarine wharf, and munitions bunkers.

by Blazingcatfur•February 16, 2025February 15, 2025•0•"China - Communist Slave State", Canada, Espionage, USA

Discord leaker Jack Teixeira sentenced to 15 years for massive disclosure of U.S. secrets

BOSTON — Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guard member responsible for a sprawling leak of classified information, was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison in a case that shook the U.S. national security community and exposed the ease with which government secrets can spread online.

by Blazingcatfur•November 13, 2024November 12, 2024•0•Espionage

National security cited as B.C. drone engineer’s devices seized

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has granted an extraordinary order to seize electronic devices from a former employee of a Lower Mainland company specializing in anti-drone technology — citing fears China or Russia might be trying to access military secrets.

Documents contained in a partially sealed civil court file detail a scene in early September in which nine people — including bailiffs, lawyers, and representatives of Burnaby-based Skycope Technologies — descended on the man’s home to seize laptops, phones and storage cards.

Skycope got the order against its former employee — known as XL — in a closed-door hearing where the company alleged the electrical engineer had handed a foreign competitor confidential information sought by unfriendly state actors.

by Blazingcatfur•October 23, 2024October 23, 2024•0•Canada, Espionage, WTF?

Germany Arrests Chinese Woman on Espionage Charges

A Chinese woman accused of spying on Germany’s defence industry was arrested in Leipzig on Tuesday, October 1st. The woman is “strongly suspected of acting as an intelligence agent for a Chinese secret service,” federal prosecutors said in a statement.

Named only as Yaqi X., the woman worked for a logistics services company, including at Leipzig/Halle Airport in eastern Germany. She is alleged to have used her position to gather information on “the transport of military equipment and persons with connections to a German arms company.”

by Blazingcatfur•October 2, 2024October 1, 2024•0•"China - Communist Slave State", Espionage, Germany

The Russian spies so deep undercover even their own children didn’t know who they were

When 11-year-old Sofia and her brother Gabriel, 8, stepped off the plane at Moscow’s Vnukuvo airport last Thursday, they were met by an unfamiliar balding man in a dark suit.

“Buenas noches,” he said, addressing them in Spanish, the language they spoke at home.

Surrounded by media, security and other functionaries, he embraced Sofia and her mother, handing them flowers and welcoming them to the Russian capital. It must have been a bewildering sight.

Later, according to the Kremlin, the children asked their parents who the man there to greet them on the red carpet had been. Vladimir Putin, they explained.

by Blazingcatfur•August 6, 2024August 5, 2024•0•Espionage, Russia, USA

Russia to free Gershkovich and Whelan in major prisoner swap

Three US citizens imprisoned in Russia, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, are expected to be released on Thursday under a prisoner exchange deal.

Gershkovich, US Marine veteran Paul Whelan, and Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva will be released under the deal agreed by the Biden administration, a senior US official confirmed.

In total, the exchange will involve 24 prisoners held in Russia, the US, Germany and three other Western countries. The swap has not happened yet but is expected later on Thursday.

by Blazingcatfur•August 1, 2024August 1, 2024•0•Espionage, Russia, USA

Leading ‘Trump Russia Hoax’ Propagandist’s Wife Indicted As Foreign Spy

Max Boot – a big fan of ‘forever wars’ who laundered Trump-Russia conspiracy theories through the Washington Post – is married to a South Korean spy who used to work for the CIA, and is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (now on ‘administrative leave) – according to a new indictment revealed on Wednesday.

h/t Mauser

by Blazingcatfur•July 19, 2024July 18, 2024•0•Espionage, Trump Derangement Syndrome

‘Rolling Surveillance Devices:‘ Chinese Self-Driving Cars Are Mapping America

As Chinese companies test their autonomous vehicles on American roads, concerns are growing about the vast amounts of data these “rolling surveillance devices” are collecting and the potential national security implications.

h/t XC

by Blazingcatfur•July 9, 2024July 9, 2024•0•"China - Communist Slave State", "EV's - Electric Vehicles", Canada, Espionage, USA

Mossad for hire: the private detectives spying for rich clients

Mayfair on a crisp, clear morning. The demure woman I am meeting in the bar of an opulent hotel is dressed elegantly and entirely in black. Her nail polish is black, too. A flash of a gold bracelet when we shake hands hints at money.

To the waiter delivering her glass of still water, my companion might be a high-flying banker or even a minor European royal. Age? She could be 25 or 45. Appearances can be deceptive, and this woman knows all about deception.

by Blazingcatfur•July 1, 2024July 1, 2024•0•Espionage

There’s an old problem Canada’s new foreign-interference law won’t fix

When it comes to using intelligence to prosecute crimes, U.S. and Canada are a world apart

To understand Canada’s failure to criminally prosecute foreign collusion, an old news report from Washington offers a useful starting point.

In 1981, a Canadian correspondent made an observation: when it came to using security intelligence in policing, Canada and the U.S. were diverging onto opposite paths.

The Americans were ramping up, while Canadians were dialling down. The legacy of that era lingers to this day in an ongoing Ottawa scandal. And it’s unclear how much will change under a soon-to-be-enacted law.

by Blazingcatfur•June 22, 2024June 22, 2024•0•Canada, Espionage, USA

Canada’s 1940s spy scandal can shed light on today’s foreign-interference problems

As the controversy over foreign interference in Canada’s democratic processes continues to grip Ottawa, a look back at a similar episode in Canadian history may offer some useful perspective. It has been almost 80 years since cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko left the Soviet embassy in Ottawa with a sheaf of secret documents that revealed an extensive Soviet espionage operation in Canada, while also implicating a British scientist and a highly ranked official in the U.S. State Department in spying.

by Blazingcatfur•June 15, 2024June 15, 2024•0•Canada, Espionage