Technology used to help spies. Now it hinders them

[R.A. Hettinga]

<http://www.economist.com/node/16590867/print>

The Economist

Spycraft
A tide turns
Technology used to help spies. Now it hinders them
Jul 15th 2010

DEPENDING on what kind of spy you are, you either love technology or hate it.
For intelligence-gatherers whose work is based on bugging and eavesdropping,
life has never been better. Finicky miniature cameras and tape recorders have
given way to pinhead-sized gadgets, powered remotely (a big problem in the old
days used to be changing the batteries on bugs).

Encrypted electronic communications are a splendid target for the huge
computers at places such as Americas National Security Agency. Even a message
that is impregnably encoded by todays standards may be cracked in the future.
That gives security-conscious officials the shivers.

But the same advances are making life a lot harder for the kind of spy who
deals with humans rather than bytes. The basis of spycraft is breaking the
rules without being noticed. As with the Russians arrested last month in
America and now deported, that involves moving around inconspicuously, usually
under false identities, and handing over and receiving money by undetectable
means. For those that get caught, the consequences can be catastrophic.

The biggest headache is mobile phones. For spycatchers, these are ideal
bugging and tracking devices, which the target kindly keeps powered up. But
that makes them a menace for spies (and for terrorists, who often operate
under the same constraints). Removing the battery and putting the bits in a
fridge or other metal container disables any bug, but instantly arouses
suspicion. If two people being followed both take this unusual precaution near
the same location at the same time, even the most dull-witted watcher may
infer that a clandestine meeting is afoot.

Creating false identities used to be easy: an intelligence officer setting off
on a job would take a scuffed passport, a wallet with a couple of credit
cards, a driving licence and some family snaps. In a world based on atoms,
cracking that was hard.

Thanks to electrons, it is easy to see if a suspicious visitors shadow
checks out. Visa stamps from other countries can be verified against records
in their immigration computers. A credit reference instantly reveals when the
credit cards were issued and how much they have been used. A claimed
employment history can be googled. Mobile-phone billing records reveal past
contacts (or lack of them).

Missing links, in fact, are almost as bad as mistakes. A pristine mobile phone
number is suspicious (especially when coupled with new credit cards and a new
e-mail address, but no Facebook account). An investigation that would have
once tied up a team of counter-espionage officers for weeks now takes a few
mouse clicks.

With enough effort, a few convincing identities can be kept alivea minor
industry in the spy world involves keeping the credit cards for clandestine
work credibly active. But for serious spies these legends wear out faster than
they can be created.

Dead on arrival

Biometric passports are making matters worse. If you have once entered the
United States as a foreigner, your fingerprints and that name are linked for
ever in the governments computers. The data can be checked by any of several
dozen close American allies. Obtaining a passport with a dead childs birth
certificate is increasingly risky as population registers are computerised.
Stealing a tourists passport and changing the photo (a tactic favoured by
Israels Mossad) is no longer easy: in future the biometric data on the chip
will need to check out too. Only the most determined and resourceful countries
can do thatand the cost is spiralling.

Technology creates other problems. Take the dead-letter drop, where an item
can be left inconspicuously and securely for someone else to pick up.
Intelligence officers are trained to spot these, in places that are easy to
visit and hard to observe (cisterns and waste bins in public lavatories, or
under a heating grating in a church pew, for example). Time was when
monitoring a suspected dead-letter box involved laborious work by humans. Now
it can be done invisibly, remotely and automatically. Next time you bury a
beer bottle stuffed with money in a park, you should ponder what cameras and
sensors may be hidden in the trees nearby.

The days of the illegal, living for many years in a foreign country under a
near-foolproof false identity, are drawing to a close. Spymasters are
increasingly using real people instead: globalisation makes it unremarkable
for those such as Anna Chapman, one of the ten Russians deported from America
(under her own, legally acquired, British name), to study, marry, work and
live in a bunch of different countries. Like so many other once-solid
professions, spying is becoming less of a career and more a job for
freelancers.