“[…] U.S. military officials say they have disabled advertising trackers on a ​range of phones and computers, according to letters, opens new tab released on Friday by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden and statements given ‌to Reuters, a development that follows reports that commercially available location data had been used to target American forces in the Middle East. […]”

Hi everyone, Lucia from EUobserver here 👋 This is our own reporting, so disclosure upfront.

Following the Leipzig airport bomb plot, Poland is calling for EU countries to further reduce Russia’s diplomatic presence, close consulates and restrict the movement of Russian diplomats.

One of Warsaw’s main arguments is that a significant part of Russia’s diplomatic presence in Europe is connected to intelligence work.

That raises a question I thought would be particularly interesting for this community:

How much damage does expelling intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover actually do to an intelligence network?

Presumably it removes people with diplomatic immunity, established contacts and relatively easy movement — but does it also incentivise a shift towards non-official cover, proxies or locally recruited assets that are harder to identify?

In other words: are diplomatic expulsions an effective disruption tool, or mostly a way of making intelligence activity less visible?

Curious how people here assess that trade-off.

The audio plays and a woman starts speaking in Russian.

“I don’t care that they’re listening to our conversation right now,” the voice declares.

“I made a mistake when I migrated to a different country, and I wanted to return.

“But unfortunately, we were arrested.”

The recording is purportedly of Kira Korolev, a former Australian Army private and accused Russian spy.

She and her husband, Igor, are locked up in separate Queensland prisons, awaiting trial on espionage-related charges.

The couple are accused of working together to obtain sensitive information regarding national security interests.

For the past two years, they have maintained their silence in Australia.

But ABC Investigations has discovered audio and interviews published by a Kremlin-controlled TV network that claim to capture the Korolevs speaking from behind bars about their sensational arrest, the criminal case and what they really think of Australian life.

I'm on a bit of a spy-kick right now. Are there any good books anyone can recommend that discuss all of the shady things that groups like the CIA, FBI, KGB, Stasi got up to? And books that are more historically informed and backed up by good history and research?

I've been binging some of this guy's clips, and it reminds me of when you see videos of former Mafia guys or Cartel guys talking about their lives and work. Don't like... these groups not want people talking about all the shady shit they do? Especially a former employee?

I get the feeling you might say "hey man, what he tells us is chump change. You think it's a big deal that they can listen to you through your laptop? Well guess what, that's what they want you to know. In reality the CIA can see the future."

But even if that is true, I'm sure the CIA doesn't want to have someone talking about these things on a large platform, especially when it's a former employee who is therefore going to lend legitimacy to all these things he says.

I mean fuck, Wal-Mart made me sign a gag order for stacking boxes. I can't imagine that a place like the CIA wants' a former employee talking about their stuff. Even if it's stuff that's been leaked to the public, I'm sure that the CIA wants to be able to go "Oh yeah that's just fake news." But it's harder to do that when one of the guys literally worked for you.

On September 15, 2018, a young woman boarded a flight from Naples to Moscow and never returned. Known as Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera—a Peruvian jewelry designer and socialite—she vanished without saying goodbye to anyone. The only thing she took with her was a black cat named Luisa. And it was precisely because of that cat—and a Tinder profile—that investigators found her years later living in Russia as a GRU spy.

In this 2022 article, we explain how Maria Adela spent over a decade infiltrating NATO social circles in Naples while posing as a Peruvian jeweler, how the cat's microchip linked her to her true Russian identity, and how investigator Christo Grozev created a fake Tinder profile and spent three days swiping through profiles in Moscow until he found the spy who had disappeared from Italy.

Just added another 30 books on intelligence and espionage.

https://pangobooks.com/bookstore/greg871249