asciilifeform: very elegantly described in that tome.
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: if you happen to have a w4r3z link to 'running rings of spies' by 'paladin press', it has some (authenticated and not) case studies.
asciilifeform: (most folks, apparently, feel less 'edgy' re: the idea of muppeting for a small-time intelligence agency, than ru or us)
asciilifeform: (bugger: 'i wouldn't work for no russian scum' agent: 'aha, but we're mossad, friendlies, dontchaknow')
asciilifeform: just that it fails on a few basics. for one thing, ru recruiters traditionally false-flag.
asciilifeform: not saying that this is an impossible picture.
asciilifeform: so one would have to posit some magic-trick in his pocket to explain why he is still around and kicking.
asciilifeform: except that if mr. o were so 'open' to volunteers, he'd be grunting in the oubliette with mr. nyc deathray
asciilifeform: the piece concerned folks who were given the job of preparing hidey-holes and providing materiel, however
asciilifeform: s never met any Soviet citizens, leads a lonely, introspective life, far from other people, and is by profession a forester, fisherman, lighthouse-keeper, security guard or railwayman. In many cases such an agent will be a physical invalid...'
asciilifeform: 'A portrait of an ideal agent for spetsnaz emerges something like this: a man of between fifty-five and sixty-five years of age who has never served in the army, never had access to secret documents, does not carry or own a weapon, knows nothing about hand-to-hand fighting, does not possess any secret equipment and doesn't support the Comunists, does not read the newspapers, was never in the Soviet Union and ha
asciilifeform: manchuko << interesting and explains things
asciilifeform: doesn't do any work << usually folks ask 'if x works' with the understanding that x may be on a shelf, in a crate, has not been used in anger yet
asciilifeform: iran authoritarian << poor country, and, afaik, run by populistic idiots generously helped by foreign wreckers from half the globe
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: test bed << if the proper kind, with simulated loads - aye
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: e.g., i like to imagine that i had 'working brain', yet here i am 'on mars', far away.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: i can't say that i agree. they're cheap as dust. but very far, typically, from the 'levers of power'
asciilifeform: stuxnet << as i described in my article 'don't blame the mice' - imho, iran doesn't really want to live. how we know this? if they wanted to live, there would have been a public impalement of whoever said 'everyone runs winblows, it's ok for us to'
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: in his words, approx., 'violent entrepreneurs are special and distinct in that they will work whether or not you pay them, whether they're paid simply determines whether they work with you or on you'
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: mr o is fixated on the 'elephant's trunk' because that was the organ he saw in action personally while visiting ru in '90s
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: if they weren't worthless they'd be invovled NOW << tricky bit here. 'involved now' almost always means 'share the fate of the new york death ray plot' or 'citadel corp.' or a thousand other stoolie-run shams.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: a small experiment, yes
