This article describes some of the issues that the spy ring had with technology. One of the methods of information exchange was adhoc peer-to-peer wireless networking. However…
Apparently she was having trouble making connections with the other laptop, and in frustration turned it over to a U.S. undercover agent for repairs.
It’s nice to know the Russians are even more incompetent with technology than the FBI.
Why do I keep thinking of Marvel Comics’ Black Widow…?
Dude, there are moments where she gives her “come hither” look at the camera… she can have my nuclear codes.
JMR
66
I wonder how she cares for her octopussy.
Russia-US spy swap appears to be in motion
Wow, the Russians must have gotten someone really important to the CIA to make this happen.
Bye bye, Anna.
I figured something like this would happen.
Besides, both countries are eager to put this behind them. The Russians weren’t even doing anything naughty all those years under surveillance. It’s sort of embarrassing for the Russians, and the US is eager to turn the page on relations for various reasons (Iran, as well as the fact that Russia’s infrastructure is falling apart and that means hundreds of billions of rubles of business for Western firms.)
Plus, every nation spies on every nation. Nation’s don’t have friends, they have interests, and if we got pissy at every nation that spied on us then plenty of our allies would be in the doghouse, not the least of which Israel.
Iran, numbahr one! Russia, numbahr one!
Mordrak
71
More video of Ms. Chapman, slightly not safe for work. I feel a little too much like Rimbo posting this.
Great legs on the hot little spy. The Leno, Biden exchange was pretty funny about her.
[LEFT]Leno asked Biden during a taping of “The Tonight Show” why the U.S. was sending 10 accused spies back to Russia while getting only four in return.[/LEFT]
[LEFT]“That doesn’t seem fair,” Leno said.[/LEFT]
[LEFT]“We got back four really good ones,” Biden reassured Leno. “And the ten, they’ve been here a long time, but they hadn’t done much.”[/LEFT]
[LEFT]Leno then showed a sultry photo of alleged Russian agent Anna Chapman and asked: “Do we have any spies that hot?”[/LEFT]
[LEFT]Biden’s reply, in a mock-serious tone: “Let me be clear. It was not my idea to send her back.”[/LEFT]
And, according to the Guardian:
A contract killer has been dispatched to assassinate the Russian double agent who betrayed Anna Chapman and nine other spies in the United States this spring, according to reports in Moscow.
“We know who he is and where he is,” a high-ranking Kremlin source told the reputable Kommersant newspaper.
That guy did them a favor! How much was this inept spy ring costing the Russian government?
Editer
75
Am I on the only person who, upon seeing this topic resurrected, assumed the discussion would be about Ms. Chapman’s latest photo opportunity, rather than actual spy stuff?
Yeah, I’m kind of sad about that … lol.
As an aside, it’s a pretty goofy article but I guess there have been equally (if not moreso) odd articles filled with bravado coming from the U.S. when viewed from a Russian perspective.
Lum
77
She’s certainly better at her new career than her last one.
(Slightly NSFW warning: Russian spies in lingerie behind this link!)
It bears repeating: this ring wasn’t busted because of a counterintelligence coup, but because they were really, really, really bad spies who were doing the bare minimum necessary to soak the SVR for a salary funding a life in the US.
Consider the reflexes of Anna Chapman, one of the group’s members. On June 26, an FBI agent posing as a Russian consulate employee set up a meeting with Chapman at a coffee shop in downtown Manhattan. Judging by court documents later filed by the Justice Department, Chapman wasn’t even suspicious that the call had come from someone other than her usual controller. When they met that afternoon, she complained that her laptop computer — which she used for covert communications — was having connection difficulties and handed it over to the agent, someone she had never previously met, asking him to have it fixed.
After their meeting, Chapman failed to notice the other FBI agents who tailed her to a Verizon store, where she purchased a cell phone and two prepaid phone cards. They then retrieved the receipt she casually discarded. On it, she had given her name as Irine Kutsov, not the best alias for a person seeking to hide her Russian identity. (Verizon may have to explain why she was able to declare her address as “99 Fake Street.”)
Whoa, dude! Do not link images with untranslated text, they cannot be ctrl-c ctrl-v babelfish’d. Also, hilarious.
The real cost to the Russians were the spys they exchanged for the hacks caught in the US.
