Spy Blog from the International Spy Museum

Dr. Thomas Boghardt, Historian

Today The Wall Street Journal ran an article revealing that militants inside Iraq have hacked U.S. Predator drones and were able to access real time information used by the military.  

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or drones, are used extensively by the CIA and Pentagon to conduct surveillance, as well as identify and kill insurgents and terrorists. In fact, armed drones have eliminated half of the CIA’s twenty most wanted “high value” targets, including Saad bin Laden, Osama’s oldest son. A few months ago, CIA director Leon Panetta even referred to the drone program as “the only game in town.”

Given the drones’ central role in America’s counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism efforts, it is worrisome to learn that Iran-backed Iraqi insurgents this summer successfully hacked into a drone feed and downloaded large amounts of surveillance footage (which the U.S. military later discovered on a laptop belonging to a Shiite militant). To date, there is no indication that any drones have been manipulated, but the implications are troublesome.

As successful as the drones have been tactically, their usage is controversial. Missiles fired from drones have killed numerous innocent civilians—exact numbers are hard to come by—further complicating America’s already difficult relationship with Pakistan, where many of the strikes were conducted. What if someone hacked into a drone and fired a U.S.-made hellfire missile into a major Pakistani city? True, it is a far-fetched scenario, but then again, who would have imagined that insurgents could have downloaded highly classified drone video footage simply by using commercially available software, as happened this summer?

Nothing is What It Seems

Dr. Thomas Boghardt, Historian

The International Spy Museum’s permanent exhibition ends with the following quote: “The most successful spies—those too clever to be caught, too loyal to defect, too shrewd to speak up—will never be recognized, their missions never revealed.” This statement is largely true. It is in the nature of spies and secret services to stay covert, and we usually hear only about those spies who were caught. But sometimes we get a glimpse of what lies beyond.

I was recently visited by an inconspicuous-looking gentleman who told me that he used to work for the foreign ministry of a Soviet Bloc nation. He calmly elaborated that, while serving as a diplomat in a Western country in the 1970s, he contacted the CIA and provided information to the agency up to the end of the Cold War. It is a remarkable story, given that most Cold War Human Intelligence (Hummit) espionage operations known to the public lasted far shorter than a decade, and a reminder of how much there remains to be learnt about the “secret history of history.”

Our Museum will remain in touch with the above-mentioned gentleman who has by now returned to his home country. He has already generously donated some of his spy gear to our collection, and we are hoping to tell more of his fascinating story in the future. Stay tuned as an amazing tale of Cold War espionage unfolds!

Nothing is what it seems