From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Date: Sat, 27 Jan 1996 22:46:20 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: OpSec Snooping
Message-ID: <199601271430.PAA13276@utopia.hacktic.nl>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Economist, 27 January 1995

Licence to make a killing

Spies and fund managers seem to be cut from the same
cloth. Both take calculated risks, are fickle when it
comes to allegiances and have an annoying tendency to
speak in code. More important, however, they both thrive
on inside information. This may be why, in the headlong
rush to exploit new emerging-market opportunities, a
growing number of investment funds are turning to former
spooks for some help.

The latest fund to tap the know-how of the intelligence
community is the Scottish American Investment Company,
based in Edinburgh, which invests heavily in
international equities. On January 17th it announced that
Sir Colin McColl, the former head of M16, Britain's
foreign-intelligence service, is joining its board of
directors. The fund hopes that Sir Colin's experience in
gauging political risks -- he has worked in Eastern
Europe and SouthEast Asia -- will improve the quality of
its investment decisions.

Another ex-spy turned fund manager is Harry Fitzgibbons,
a former American agent and now managing director of Top
Technology Limited, a fund-management group based in
London. Last year, he teamed up with Alexey Vlasov, a
former Soviet agent, to launch a new high-technology fund
for investment in Russia. It employs three other former
Soviet agents in its St Petersburg office.

Why are spooks so sought after by international
investors? The reason, says Mr Fitzgibbons, is that
spying is the ideal training ground for a career in
emerging-market investing. Not only are intelligence
agents good at spotting when someone is lying, but they
are also experts at building relationships and waiting
patiently for them to develop: two essential traits for
successful long-term investors. Mr Fitzgibbons argues
that it is these general skills, rather than any specific
local knowledge, that makes former spies such attractive
partners.

Unfortunately, old adversaries do not always get on as
swimmingly as Messrs Fitzgibbons and Vlasov. In 1994, for
example, the Vietnam Frontier Fund invited William Colby,
a former director of America's Central Intelligence
Agency, who headed the agency's Vietnam station during
the Vietnam War, to join its board of directors. His
appointment prompted the fund's chairman, Nguyen Xuan
Oanh, a former deputy prime minister of South Vietnam, to
quit. Not only did the fund lose its chairman, but it was
unable to take advantage of Mr Colby's experience: he
left the board in December 1994 after Hanoi refused him
a visa.

Despite such drawbacks, the demand for former spooks is
rumoured to be growing. One such hint comes from Parvus,
a consultancy (with offices in Moscow and Silver Spring,
Maryland) that employs a number of ex-spies. The firm
claims that it has just been contacted by a headhunter
looking for recruits. The mission, should anyone choose
to accept it, is to head up a new intelligence unit for
a big New York mutual fund. Unfortunately for potential
applicants, the headhunters say that the fund's name is
still top secret.


-------------------


For more on Parvus (not the Utah corp) and its stable of 
ex-spooks see:


URL: http://www2.indigo-net.com/Indigo/INT/INTpublic/1995/
         INT275/INT275-a3.html


and other AltaVista links to globalization of OPSEC.


-------------------

URL: http://www.cais.com/zhi/OPSHomePage.html


                   OPERATIONS SECURITY PROFESSIONALS SOCIETY
                                       
   
   The OPSEC Professionals Society was established in March 
1990 to
   further the practice of Operations Security as a profession 
and to
   foster the highest quality of professionalism and competence 
among its
   members. OPSEC is a process used to deny to potential 
adversaries
   information about capabilities and/or intentions by 
identifying,
   controlling and protecting evidence of the planning and 
executing of
   sensitive activities. This process is equally applicable to
   government, its contractors, and to private enterprise in 
the
   protection of their trade secrets and other proprietary 
information.
   While military strength and capability still are required 
during the
   next years of uncertainty, we must likewise protect our 
critical
   economic information and technologies from those who seek to 
exploit
   them to their benefit and to our disadvantage.


--------------------

URL: http://www.cais.com/zhi/OPSCIND1.html


                    COUNTERINTELLIGENCE NEWS & DEVELOPMENTS
                                       
   
  Issue No. 1
  
   
   Letter from the Director, National Counterintelligence 
Center

   
   I am pleased to present the inaugural issue of the National
   Counterintelligence Center's (NACIC) Counterintelligence 
News and
   Developments (CIND). This periodic publication is designed 
to meet the
   information needs of US private industry by communicating 
important,
   yet unclassified information on the threat posed by foreign 
countries
   against US interests.

   
   The CIND is part of the NACIC's effort to develop a more 
effective
   mechanism to disseminate information on foreign intelligence 
targeting
   activities against both the US Government and private 
industry. This
   initial issue includes some information you may have already 
seen in
   our Annual Report to Congress on Foreign Economic Collection 
and
   Industrial Espionage and the Survey of the 
Counterintelligence Needs
   of Private Industry. From time to time, we will republish or 
extract
   information from such key publications to highlight data we 
perceive
   to be of interest to private industry. Furthermore, we will 
solicit
   additional information from all sources in order to better 
understand
   and support private industry through this unclassified 
forum.

   
   The NACIC will not generally republish information readily 
available
   to the general public. Our goal is to make the CIND's 
contents
   substantive and relevant to customer needs. Therefore, I 
cannot
   overemphasize the importance of receiving feedback from each 
of you.
   Future issues will respond to the requirements of industry 
as a whole
   and will be driven by your needs and interests. The 
responses received
   from you, the customer, will determine the future content, 
format, and
   frequency of the CIND. The final page of the current edition 
provides
   information on how to forward responses to the CIND Editor.

   
   Michael J. Waguespack
   Director, National Counterintelligence Center
   
   
     
_________________________________________________________________

   
   
   
   What Is the NACIC?

   
   The National Counterintelligence Center (NACIC) was 
established in
   1994 by Presidential Decision Directive/NSC-24. The NACIC's 
creation
   was one of the recommendations made by PDD-24 to improve US
   counterintelligence (CI) effectiveness by enhancing 
coordination and
   cooperation among various US CI agencies.

   
   An interagency organization staffed with CI and security 
professionals
   from the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, and the Departments of Defense 
and State,
   the NACIC is primarily responsible for coordinating 
national-level CI
   activities, and reports to the National Security Council 
through the
   National Counterintelligence Policy Board (NACIPB).