Questions tagged [espionage]
Method of obtaining information about enemy or potential enemy by stealing their secret data. Espionage is strictly forbidden in most countries and heavily punished as work against the state security, but many countries still perform such actions against others, nevertheless.
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Where is the primary source for the Byzantine Office of Barbarian Affairs?
The Byzantine Office of Barbarian Affairs refers to the agency the Byzantines had to spy and deal with foreign affairs. I've seen this information across many sources (Wikipedia and blogs) but I can't ...
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Are there some concrete examples of the pre-1962 Soviet complaints in re CORONA spy satellites?
According to Pat Norris' book Spies in the Sky (p. 111)
until the first successful Zenit flight in summer 1962 the Soviets complained bitterly to America about the CORONA flights.
However he does ...
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Why did the Soviets not shoot down US spy satellites during the Cold War?
The USSR was not happy with unauthorised overflights, shooting down everything it could, from spy balloons to U-2s. Also, despite repeated US proposals, something like the Open Skies treaty was only ...
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Did the microwave listening plot ever yield useful intelligence?
In Spycatcher Peter Wright mentions that microwaves can be used to detect sound-waves in a suitable tuned object without the need for it to have an active power source, and that such a device had been ...
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Were the alleged CIA attempts to set up an economic spy ring in Japan in the 1980s disclosed in the Japanese press at the time?
According Brad Williams' book Japanese Foreign Intelligence, which also has a chapter (#2) on CIA's activities in spying on Japan, the CIA tried their hand at economic & tech spying on Japan in ...
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How did Larry Wu-tai Chin's leak in Oct. 1970 — of a classified document — allow China "to alter [...] volume of anti-U.S. rhetoric in the press"?
In the course of his nearly forty-year espionage career, [Larry Wu-tai] Chin [金无怠] supplied the PRC with information on U.S. intelligence requirements and foreign policy initiatives relating to China, ...
user60378
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What was the Soviet reaction to the revelations about secret US programs like Projects ARTICHOKE, MKULTRA, MOCKINGBIRD, etc., revealed in the 1970s?
I imagine the perception among the party elites in Moscow would have been that all these programs, projects, experiments and so on were initiated with them in mind, and would have inevitably been ...
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Were Russian female spies caught, because they exclaimed in Russian during child birth?
Actor Costa Ronin contends this, but didn't mention any names or evidence.
https://youtu.be/PHcafz2Aon8?t=2323
user48253
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Why were the Allies so much better cryptanalysts?
When I read about World War II, more specifically about the use of cryptography in that war, I get the impression that the Allies were much more successful in breaking the enemy codes than the Axis ...
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Did German spies operate in Austrian territory up to 1914?
Germany in the years up to and during World War I, had an extensive intelligence network; in the US in particular, even prior to that country's formal entry into the war, they engaged in not only ...
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Were there any important spies in modern history who had to conceal their true nationality (or culture)?
This often comes up in movies, but I can hardly find any real cases, except for the "Illegals Projects" - but that doesn't seem like high-stake espionage, let alone successful.
I'm thinking ...
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Did the US manage to eavesdrop on KMT communications during World War 2?
I was reading How frequently did the KMT use telegrams to communicate; from where (roughly) and to whom?, which contains a quote:
Following is a telegram code "dictionary" used by Japan military ...
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Have any spies ever managed to keep their identity secret from their handlers?
Having just started reading up on spies throughout history, I've just realized a new risk I hadn't thought of before, namely that once you've started spying you're at risk of being blackmailed into ...
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Who was the most successful German spy against Great Britain in WWII, from the contemporary German perspective?
Reading up on this it appears to me many of Germany's spy operations inside the UK were pretty quickly shutdown. I investigated a half dozen spies who were captured by the end of 1942.
Dorthy O'...
user28491
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What is the context for Glennon's 1956 intelligence gathering trip to the USSR?
In 1956, my father, John J. Glennon (Librarian of the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences, now the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) was one of the few fluent Russian speakers in ...
Glennon