Luckily, an observant FBI agent noted a piece of paper during the search with a long number / letter combination. Small problem: The hard disk was encrypted. A few years back, the FBI secretly searched the homes of some of the spies, copying various hard disks in the process. The FBI followed these spies for a while already. One neat side effect of this meeting method: The participants of the meeting never had to acknowledge each other visibly. But it is not clear if this would have made a difference. But Ad-Hoc networking would only allow for WEP unless encrypted chat software is used.Īs a "sub lesson" one may take away that you should change your MAC address as a spy to avoid tracking. It is not clear if any kind of encryption was used for the WiFi connection. The FBI was able to intercept the communication, and apparently used MAC addresses to track the participant. It appears the FBI used to be parked close to coffee shops and such frequented by the spies in order to observe them meeting with their embassy contacts. The FBI had to have a listening post close by in order to intercept the connection. This idea is interesting in so far as it does make remote surveillance of the connection a bit harder. However, instead of all of them to connect to a particular access point, they established Ad-Hoc networks. The spies evidently used WiFi networks to communicate. However, the story has a few neat cyber security lessons. With all the talk and attention paid to cyber spies, spear phishing, APT and new high tech satellites and drones, it is almost refreshing to see that good old fashioned human spies are still used and apparently found valuable. On Monday, a number of Russian nationals got arrested for espionage against the US.
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