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The Russians Are Coming | 229
querade as members of the security services of Israel, South Africa,
Germany, France, and the United States to recruit unwitting agents.
These deceptions became an integral part of the recruitments of the
Russian intelligence services.
Penetrating the NSA and getting access to files from its stove-
piped computers was a far more difficult challenge for the SVR.
Approaching CIA officers, such as Nicholson, was relatively easy
because it was part of the CIA officers’ jobs to meet with their adver-
saries. NSA officers, on the other hand, did not engage in “dangles”
or even attend diplomatic receptions. They had no reason, other than
a sinister one, to meet with a member of the Russian intelligence
service. Furthermore, unlike CIA officers, who, like Nicholson, are
often posted in neutral countries where they can be approached in a
social context, NSA officers work at well-guarded regional bases and
are not part of the diplomatic life. Because a known employee of a
foreign diplomatic mission could not even approach an NSA officer
without arousing suspicion, the SVR would need to use an inter-
mediary, called an access agent, whose affiliations were not known
© to the FBI. Such an operation would require establishing a network ©
of illegals in America, as the SVR did after Putin became president.
Even then, the intermediary would have to find a plausible pretext
to approach the target without revealing his actual interest. Such
complex operations at the NSA, as far as is known, only yielded a
few low-level recruits.
The emergence of computer networks in the 1990s greatly
expanded the SVR’s recruiting horizon. It offered a new penetration
opportunity at the NSA: civilian technologists working under con-
tract for the U.S. government. Many of these civilians at the NSA,
especially the younger ones, as we know, had been drawn from the
hacking and game-playing culture; some had even taken courses on
hacking techniques. They presented the SVR with inviting targets
for recruitment. As was previously mentioned, Russian intelligence
had considerable experience in Germany with hacktivists, who
tended to be anarchists. There were also supporters of the libertar-
ian movement. The common denominator was often their resent-
ment, expressed in their postings, of the United States and its allies
attempting to limit the downloading of copyrighted music, movies,
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