The wiki is leaky
Forget about Smiley. Recycle your Spy vs Spy comics. The real world of espionage works in a very different way, now that we have the Internet tubes running from desk to desk.
This is the week of Wikileaks. All around the world, the powerful people are playing the offended virgin card, telling anyone who will listen that lives are in danger because… and there the diatribe stutters and fades away. Somehow, a quarter of a million “cables” (think email on paper) have been released for public consumption. A snowstorm of diplomatic trivia, wherein we learn that “so and so is really not as bright as he appears.” Oh, save me!
Who knew that the diplomatic corps liked to gossip? Who knew that every simple thought was committed to paper and then stored for, well, leaking to the rest of us? I’m unable to grasp the mechanics of it. Unless the photocopy machines in government service are WAY better than the one in my hallway, it must have taken about fifteen years of lunchtime duty to get through the piles of papers. Not to mention that it must have been done in stealth mode, wearing that cloaking device I keep hearing about.
So far, one soldier, a private. That’s the only name we have to pin the tail on, and he’s already in a military gaol. Anybody that can copy that efficiently should be made sergeant, or lance corporal.
Before we get too excited, remember that the best way to obfuscate is by hiding a leaf in the forest. Perhaps the important point to ponder is that governments are intensely anal. Small talk is just that. Nothing to see here; move along.
