New Technologies for Espionage

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

It seems that the "old technologies" are approaching their end. This guy
got caught by having too many physical contacts:

-- walking into the Soviet embassy (well-known to be under surveillance)

-- presumably using dead drops to exchange documents and money

-- relying on a physical contact with an unknown person (whom he thought to
be KGB, incorrectly)

Digital dead drops and digital cash will eventually revolutionize spying.
The digital dead drops are here now, though not the digital cash.

--Tim May


Tuesday October 13 11:49 AM EDT

Ex-U.S. Army Analyst Arrested On Spy Charges

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former U.S. Army intelligence analyst has been
arrested on charges of spying for Russia by allegedly passing to KGB agents
highly classified
documents from 1988 to 1991, federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

They said David Sheldon Boone, who worked for the military's super-secret
National Security Agency, was scheduled to appear in federal court in
Alexandria, Virginia, later
Tuesday.

According to the criminal complaint, Boone, who was arrested Saturday,
began spying in 1988 after he walked into the Soviet embassy in Washington
and volunteered his
services.

He was charged with meeting his Russian handler about four times a year
between late 1988 and when he retired from the Army in 1991. Boone
allegedly was paid more than
$60,000 for the highly sensitive, top-secret documents he gave them.

He allegedly gave the Russians documents about the capabilities and
movements of Soviet forces and about Soviet tactical nuclear weapons. He
also allegedly gave the Russians a
document based on information that the National Security Agency, which
conducts eavesdropping operations around the world, had intercepted.

Boone was arrested after he was contacted in September by an individual who
worked on behalf of the FBI, but whom he believed to be a Russian agent.
According to the
complaint, he had agreed to resume his espionage activities.