Russia carried out a 'stunning' breach of FBI communications system

[misskit]

On Dec. 29, 2016, the Obama administration announced that it was giving nearly three dozen Russian diplomats just 72 hours to leave the United States and was seizing two rural East Coast estates owned by the Russian government. As the Russians burned papers and scrambled to pack their bags, the Kremlin protested the treatment of its diplomats, and denied that those compounds — sometimes known as the “dachas” — were anything more than vacation spots for their personnel.


The Obama administration’s public rationale for the expulsions and closures — the harshest U.S. diplomatic reprisals taken against Russia in several decades — was to retaliate for Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. But there was another critical, and secret, reason why those locations and diplomats were targeted.


Both compounds, and at least some of the expelled diplomats, played key roles in a brazen Russian counterintelligence operation that stretched from the Bay Area to the heart of the nation’s capital, according to former U.S. officials. The operation, which targeted FBI communications, hampered the bureau’s ability to track Russian spies on U.S. soil at a time of increasing tension with Moscow, forced the FBI and CIA to cease contact with some of their Russian assets, and prompted tighter security procedures at key U.S. national security facilities in the Washington area and elsewhere, according to former U.S. officials. It even raised concerns among some U.S. officials about a Russian mole within the U.S. intelligence community.

“It was a very broad effort to try and penetrate our most sensitive operations,” said a former senior CIA official.

MORE https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-rus...AOEoxsB_vIHOmJ

[Dragonfly]

awesome, nothing changed, Russia still at the top of the game when it comes to intelligence ops

all those expensive toys and still couldn't stop the Russians

I bet they got in with the help of old school tech, aka the Russians Dolls

[bowie]

Spy vs. Spy - The Song Remains The Same

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Anthony_Walker

John Anthony Walker Jr. (July 28, 1937 – August 28, 2014) was a United States Navy chief warrant officer and communications specialist convicted of spying for the Soviet Union from 1968 to 1985.^[2]
In late 1985, Walker made a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, which required him to testify against his co-conspirator, former senior chief petty officer Jerry Whitworth, and provide full details of his espionage activities. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to a lesser sentence for Walker's son, former Seaman Michael Walker, who was also involved in the spy ring.^[2] During his time as a Soviet spy, Walker helped the Soviets decipher more than one million encrypted naval messages,^[3] organizing a spy operation that The New York Times reported in 1987 "is sometimes described as the most damaging Soviet spy ring in history."^[4]
After Walker's arrest, Caspar Weinberger, President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense, concluded that the Soviet Union made significant gains in naval warfare attributable to Walker's spying. Weinberger stated that the information Walker gave Moscow allowed the Soviets "access to weapons and sensor data and naval tactics, terrorist threats, and surface, submarine, and airborne training, readiness and tactics."^[5] John Lehman, United States Secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration, stated in an interview that Walker's activities enabled the Soviets to know where U.S. submarines were at all times. Lehman said the Walker espionage would have resulted in huge loss of American lives in the event of war.^{[citation needed]}
In the June 2010 issue of Naval History Magazine, John Prados, a senior fellow with the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C., pointed out that after Walker introduced himself to Soviet officials, North Korean forces seized USS Pueblo in order to make better use of Walker's spying. Prados added that North Korea subsequently shared information gleaned from the spy ship with the Soviets, enabling them to build replicas and gain access to the U.S. naval communications system, which continued until the system was completely revamped in the late 1980s.^[6] It has emerged in recent years that North Korea acted alone and the incident actually harmed North Korea's relations with most of the Eastern Bloc.^[7]

[Cujo]

I found this long read more informative.

https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-rus...090024212.html
same one ?

[misskit]

^ ;p Same article. See MORE.

Living in the US again so more conscious of plagiarism.

[thailazer]

Those diplomats being expelled hardly made the news here in the USA at the time. I knew there had to be some deeper reasons for that happening. Now we have an administration that cuddles up to an adversary with a known record for tampering.