asciilifeform: rather than the 'me battery died in 1/2 hr.' idiocy.
asciilifeform: if bugged cell phones were presided over by Meta-NSA instead of classic nsa, the buggers would store compressed audio and piss it out in bursts when plugged into the mains
asciilifeform: one day some bored kid will dig through old soviet crap, find a footnote that leads to a working rpg-7 under a mailbox.
asciilifeform: (if only because the fools lost the maps where 'x marks the spot.')
asciilifeform: likewise, most of the buried treasure probably remains buried.
asciilifeform: re: agents: i'd be surprised though, it there is entirely no more 'maintain this derelict shipping container and cafe that nobody goes to and you'll get a little cash in the mail every month'
asciilifeform: (the staples that failed to rust, was, afaik, a real incident)
asciilifeform: the one with the staples? or the black spy?
asciilifeform: but a runaway lets you 'parallel construct' to your heart's delight.
asciilifeform: would surprise me greatly if they hadn't
asciilifeform: they dug up some boobietraps, made a little noise, that was all.
asciilifeform: a couple of runaways spilled the beans, yes
asciilifeform: (the chapter concerned the recruitment of traitors in the west, rather than 'ninjas')
asciilifeform: 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. Spetsnaz is also on the lookout for women with roughly the same characteristics."
asciilifeform: ke 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 has never met any Soviet citizens, leads a lonely, introspective
asciilifeform: "If the reader had access to real dossiers on the secret agents of spetsnaz he would be disappointed and probably shocked, because the agents of spetsnaz bear no resemblance to the fine, upstanding, young and handsome heroes of spy films. Soviet military intelligence is looking for an entirely different type of person as a candidate for recruitment. A portrait of an ideal agent for spetsnaz emerges something li
