On one hand, its easier for a spy to communicate with their handlers.
On the other hand, mass surveillance make it more difficult for the spy to hide their activities and thus make it easier for them to get caught.
I imagine easier right?
Like, you don’t have to 007 to set up a thirst trap tumbler that eventually slips “weird Dave” in gov HR a malware link to log key strokes…
About the same. Things like the internet have made exchanging secrets easier, but things like metadata retention has caused spy rings to be identified and eliminated.
Both got much more interesting. Also, don’t underestimate modern encryption
yes
I know it’s made it harder for me to get into my own accounts.
The GDR was known as a first-class surveillance state. But if you look at the amount of data they actually collected, the modern agencies are in a complete different league. There was a thorough calculation some years ago showing that the NSA collects the same amount, that the GDRs StaSi secret service amassed in the 40 years of existence, several times a day.
Commies were not wrong… They were just early.
I get with current tech their regimes could have better economic success along with even oppression
Way easier, most of us do carry 24/7 a tracker and store our data in foreign host cloud. This also includes target of interest who still use social media, Ms office/google/apple cloud and more.
Special forces and submariner do post on strava letting everyone know where they are, weapon industry engineer bring work at home saving data on Microsoft cloud and way more stuff which are supposed to be forbidden but happen
