.:: Keypicking :: Anything And Everything For Locksmiths, Hobbyist Lock Pickers, Locksport, Lock Picking, lockpicks, cutaways and Security. Simply The Best Lockpicking Forum Around!

Coincidentally, a story on a government TLA organisation and one of their covert entry specialists:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-CIA-Burglar-Who-Went-Rogue-169800816.html

Edit: correct my crap typing

I hate when that happens.

Oops! I just realised Rai had posted about this guy in the Amanda Todd suicide thread. I got the link this morning from Schneier's email newsletter. Didn't mean to steal your thunder Rai. My apologies.

Oh thats not a problem, the bits I hoped would get some discussion didn't seem to catch on, on that thread,
what I liked was Clive Robinsons speculation on aspergers syndrome and how this fits in. Clive has three posts in that comments thread.
First he mentions that relationships of trust break down and recriminations get ugly. He mentions marriage.
I have a copy of Schneiers book "liars and Outliers" and while reading it a while back I was remembering reading some book by buckminster fuller, in which he mentions that "outlaws" will create new things because they do not have the rigid mindset of "experts" and therefore do not know all the arguements on why something cannot be done.
I had some further thoughts about trust and relationships. The rigidity of some thinking does not take into account the different points of view of other people who have more or less at stake. As religion would have it, all are sinners, people and society depend on trust, and some are just bad apples, This is a somewhat black and white view, there are shades of grey, what is important to one person is less important to the person who might be trusted with it. whether it be locking a door, or not telling something to a certain person, whenever you trust, you expose yourself to some betrayal, and the person you trust may tell to someone whom they trust, but that person will have a different position on the whole thing. Actually I had some of these thoughts while reading this mornings paper an article about some scandal among republicans at the state legislator, what someone admitted to one person was told to another by that one and politics was played in a power struggle.

The X files opened with the statement "trust no one", is that the equivalent of "distrust everyone" Of course you have to trust people, the guy at the store will give you correct change most of the time but if he makes a mistake, is he dishonest?

Ultimately you should trust people to be what you know them to be. Trust a liar to lie, its what they practice. If you don't know someone very well, you might ask a lot of questions to try to establish trust.
If you have water problems in your basement you hire the guy who says he knows how to fix it. but does he understand your own particular case of water leakage? You can onlly hope he is good at what he does, Do you ask a lot of questions before you let the dentist drill off some of your teeth, maybe hes just looking to buy a fishing boat with the money. You don't know enough about dentistry to ask the relevant questions so you just trust him to do whats right.
then there are police and judges, both are positions of trust with long histories of corruption and special interest dealings, Does power corrupt? how do we trust politicians, most know that they are liars and special interest dealers

I think that trust is simply not applicable to strangers of any type, and in situations like marriage, where the other person is intimately known, and perhaps trusted depending on how you percieve them, things can change, trust can be used to betray, long before the truth gets know, (schwartzenegger)

the link I saw to the amanda posts was about the possibility of mental illness being part of the seriousness of the betrayal, given that she had no support and sympathy at home, but others pointed out that the person who did the harm to her was a complete jerk who will never be any more than the lowest sort. and they were right,

I shouldn't type so much free association in the mornings

OK so im still at it.

The CIA guy, he was a hired burglar, he trusted bureaucrats to understand what he needed, they understood what they needed, a budget cut. they didn't discuss this with him adequately. Trust between a burglar and bureaucrats.........hmm

He also understood that he was breaking laws for his country's intelligence agency.....the kind of place where 'plausible deniability' and 'need to know" are catch phrases, the budget pricks didn't understand his position, didnt need to know...

The story says that he enjoyed risk taking, but in this case he felt abandoned, it also said that it was understood that if caught he could be tortured and shot and denied by the bureaucrats who hired him.

Interesting that Clive would bring in aspergers, it made a good discussion. went off on an interesting tangent.

I think the risk taker just cracked under stress. This stuff builds up, it can be fun if you skate away the first few times, but it builds up. Everyone has a breaking point. Only the levels are different, and every case is different, Actually if you're interested in hireing risk takers, get teenagers, they never think about it. I was a teenager when I was serving in vietnam.

more question than answers, but the discussion can be interesting, hope to hear from others with interesting angles on it .

Morale, control your own destiny, trust no one to have your back. If you have to trust, its temporary and won't hold up over time, you could trust someone you know has a personal stake in it for a while or in a dire circumstance, you might have to take a flyer on trusting a complete stranger for a few hours. roll the dice, hope for luck

Thank guys that was a good read, CIA burglars wonder what picks he used

Trust issues,
California, where they put the AUTO in automobile, you can send your car to get its tuneup without having to hang around the mechanics garage while waiting,
How does it work when someone with a deathwish crosses the centerline, to deliberately hit the autonomus auto, does the auto show the insurance paperwork? will there be robocops in autonomus autos?
are these goody twoshoes autonomous's gonna make all the other drivers look bad?
Ok I think im done now.

Amazing story. This story also tells a part of how the spying jobs are executed, and how the spy agencies abuse their contractors or agents.

He is lucky to be alive, IMHO the betrayal at any level in such sort of spying business means death, to make sure there is a complete silence and no secrets ever come out.

I do not support his writing letters to various Embassies. This clearly is a beach of trust. His point of view was good to pressurize feds but not the right one for making a better deal for his retirement.

His second mistake, he did not listen to his Lawyer at one stage when his lawyer suggested him to take 3K and make a deal with the Feds and start a new life.

He proved to be a fighter till death. He was trying every effort to get to his goal of better retirement and other benefits. But did he really achieved 100 % what he wished?

Being alive after a long battle with Feds, I would still consider him a winner!

Kent

I think because he was basically just thieving he just used conventional NDE tools and techniques. Unlike the agents that plant surveillance equipment, there was no need for repeat visits so there didn't appear to be a need for creating a key that other agents (non-lockexperts) could use. In some cases they didn't even care about hiding the theft.

Whenever I read a story like that all I want to do is go and drink a beer with that guy. The knowledge that some of those folks have is out of this world. On the other hand there is the operation he describes that merely involves a pair of bolt cutters and just carrying the safe safe out. No ninja skills there. As we have all noted here, sometimes, security is not all that complicated. Despite all that cool stuff I bet that we have guys here that could out pick him.