We already know ‘How Easy Modern Technology Makes It For Spies‘, it seems on the other hand that it makes it more complicated on some other aspects, like creating legends for secret agents. As explained in this interesting article ‘There Is No ‘Going Dark:’ Always-On Surveillance Posing Risks To US Covert Operations‘
In this fascinating account, US government seems to be quite worried about being able to maintain secrecy around its operations. Available data makes it relatively easy to know the background of individuals and what their real occupation is likely to be. Agents can easily be under constant surveillance as soon as they are in a foreign country. Biometric verification makes it much more difficult to change identities and travel under a different name.
“This is how spy craft works now. Everything is online, digitized, and likely to be accessed by agents of enemy states. There’s no flying under the digital radar. And if it’s true for government employees, it’s doubly true for US citizens who don’t have the ability to alter/remove collected data or a network of security professionals doing whatever they can to protect them (and their data) from outsiders.”
Even better, some recent reports show how critical it is not allow soldiers to carry their hand phone in battle, making it too easy to geo-localise them or to identify the source of their phone signal.
Our privacy is gone, and one consequence is that it is much more difficult for covert operations to be setup. It becomes increasingly difficult to make believe we are someone else than what really are.
