We hottie-deprived American men have long been vulnerable to the old KGB honey-pot tactic of using beautiful females as spies; but nowadays we're such socially atomized losers and hi-tech nerds that made-up hot chick profiles on social networks can pry those state secrets loose from us just as well as real babes. Real Anna Chapmans, sadly, are becoming obsolete. Ah, the good ole days!
By Adrian Chen
July 25, 2010 | Gawker.com
Nerds never change. If they get a friend request from a hot girl on a social-networking site, they'll always accept. Even if they happen to be military or intelligence personnel. One security expert proved this with an experiment.
According to Computerworld, security consultant Thomas Ryan created a fake hottie Navy cyberthreat analyst named "Robin Sage." He gave her an MIT degree and a flirty mien, then set out to befriend 300 people working in the military, intelligence agencies, and security companies. What he found will surprise no one:
Despite some patently obvious red flags — such as noting that the 25-year-old Sage had worked professionally for 10 years — the scheme worked. The connections to Sage, who was depicted as a real-life Abby Scuito, a fictional character in CBS's NCIS television series, were established in less than a month.Many friends freely shared personal information and photos, invited the fictional threat analyst to conferences and asked her to review documents. Some "friends" at major companies, including Google and Lockheed Martin, even expressed interest in hiring her, he noted.
So, basically the same techniques used to market nude webcam sites to horny nerds will work to extract state secrets from them. We're doomed.
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