Spycraft - Melton [264]
The clever device updated the SRAC technology developed by OTS more than a quarter century earlier and made it safer. The agent’s PED appeared unaltered apart from an undetectable software modification. Even the low-power transmission to and from the PED had a range of only thirty feet, which made it difficult to detect. The agent’s handlers transmitted and received stored messages from the rock in a manner identical to that used by the agent. Once the rock had been discovered by the FSB, it was intentionally disabled to lure its caretakers, in this instance MI6 officers posted to Moscow as embassy staff members, to the rock to make repairs. The FSB announced that following the discovery of the first rock they also found a second rock concealed in a mound of snow at another location.30
Whether using OWVL radio in World War II, scrambled SRAC during the Cold War, or Internet steganography for the war against terrorism, every clandestine covcom system must meet five objectives:
• Break the transaction so if one end of the communication is discovered, it should not provide a link to compromise the person at the other end. The message content is secondary to the security of the agent.
• Use the best available physical or electronic hiding techniques. Covcom must always incorporate the most advanced technologies available at the time. Once a covcom system has been identified, the vulnerability of other agents being operated by the same intelligence service increases. The 1996 covcom techniques employed by Cuban agent Gerardo Hernandez and his Miami-based “Wasp” network proved helpful in recognizing similar tradecraft employed by Ana Belen Montes in 2001.31
• Employ strong encryption and ciphers to make the message so difficult to crack that, even if discovered, its contents are protected.
• Remain portable with capability to communicate with a variety of hardware platforms.
• Be backwards- and forwards-compatible, with sufficient flexibility to allow future security improvements to be incorporated while still allowing older communications to be read.
Jim Gosler concludes his essay “The Digital Dimension” in Transforming U.S. Intelligence with words of reality, caution, and optimism.32 In Gosler’s view, the reality facing the CIA is that intelligence services—allies and adversaries alike—have incorporated the “digital dimension” into their offensive and defensive operations. The caution for CIA operations is that defending against the sophisticated use of digital technology presents previously unknown and unaddressed gaps in its capabilities. The optimism is that twenty-first-century human and technical operations, when linked and mutually supportive, will solve problems otherwise intractable in either domain. A basis for such optimism can be seen in the history of OTS. The future effectiveness of American intelligence will depend on how well the lessons of that history are applied.
EPILOGUE
An Uncommon Service
by Robert Wallace
For 50 years OTS [officers] stood ready to serve whenever and wherever America’s leaders needed their talents.
—President George W. Bush, letter to CIA, August 24, 2001
John McMahon had more connections to OTS than any other senior CIA officer. In May 1973, he became its first director when TSD was moved from the Directorate of Operations to the Directorate of Science and Technology and renamed. McMahon relied on OTS for technical support as Deputy Director for Operations (1978-1981) and directed the CIA’s technical programs as the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (1981-1985). He was an informal advisor to OTS directors after leaving government service and served as the honorary chairman of the Fiftieth