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A MUNICH COURT has handed down an eight-year prison sentence to a German former intelligence agent who spied for both the CIA and the Russian secret service because he wanted to “experience something exciting”.
Markus Reichel admitted to handing over “scores of documents and internal information” to the CIA, including names and addresses of agents for the Federal Intelligence Service or BND, in exchange for €95,000.
Some 200 of those documents sent to the CIA were deemed very sensitive, and even included papers detailing the BND’s counter-espionage strategies.
The 32-year-old also delivered three classified documents to the Russian secret service.
Reichel’s case had emerged during a furore over revelations of widespread US spying in documents released by former CIA intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, which had also plunged its partner service the BND into an unprecedented crisis.
Partially disabled after a botched childhood vaccination, Reichel, who speaks haltingly, admitted that he had spied for foreign services out of dissatisfaction with his job at the BND.
“No one trusted me with anything at the BND. At the CIA it was different,” he told the court at the opening of his trial in November.
Not only did the CIA offer “adventure”, the Americans also gave him what he craved – recognition.
“I would be lying if I said that I didn’t like that,” he told the court.
I wanted something new, to experience something exciting.
Agent Uwe
After finishing his studies at a training centre for the disabled in 2004, Reichel had struggled to find a job until late 2007, when the BND offered him a position in its personnel division.
As a member of staff in the lowest salary band, he drew a monthly net pay of €1,200.
The CIA did not pay him significantly more – he received between €10,000 and €20,000 a year in cash at a secret meeting point in Austria, but it gave him a thrill, he said.
Using the undercover name Uwe, Reichel first sent documents to a US agent codenamed Alex by post before later transmitting them by email and later directly entering them into hidden software on a computer provided by the CIA.
Stealing documents turned out to be surprisingly easy – Reichel simply photocopied sensitive papers using a copier next to his desk, before driving out of the BND offices with the stack in his bag.
Random checks at the BND’s gates were so seldom that there was hardly any risk he would be caught.
At home, he would scan the documents before sending them to Alex.
Slip up
In 2014, he itched to “experience something new” again and decided this time to offer his services to the Russian consulate in Munich.
But his email with three BND documents attached was uncovered by the German agency, and led to his arrest on 2 July that year.
Reichel’s case emerged in the wake of revelations the United States has been carrying out widespread surveillance on global communications.
The information stemming from documents made public by Snowden strained ties between Washington and Germany, a key European ally, and led to the expulsion of the US spy chief in Berlin.
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I’ve seen the movies. It doesn’t end well. Only John Connor can save us.
@R: We are watching the origins of skynet.
@Jaymes Moynihan: are you an AI? Is that why you have no sense of humour??
Even working in the software industry, it makes me very wary, although the genie ain’t going back in the bottle.
We had a presentation recently about how AI is going to “help” Developers with the presenter quickly saying “not replace Developers of course just assisting them” but it rang kind of hollow.
I joked with a colleague, who doesn’t see the risk about how “First they can for the Product Managers…..”
But it’s more then that. Our data is making us very predictable, and more easily manipulated to those with the know how. Allowing us to be targeted. Don’t be naive and think you’re immune.
@Tricia G ☘️:
Learn other languages and you’ll be fine.
@Tricia G ☘️: We need it. Badly. We’re pretty useless. traffic lights were invented in the late 1800′s etc.
@zephyrum: Yeah. Chinese.
AI won’t replace you, the people using AI will.
If anyone should be worried, it should be journalists.
@Garret Fawl: Not if CNET’s experience is anything to go by.
Because of my upbringing AI to me meana Artificial Insemination. Or, to an older generation, ‘The Bull Man’.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: Don’t be giving the bots ideas!
They should have called it Skynet for the craic.
But on a more serious note, I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
@Handsome McWonderful: Biggle, Biggle, Right on Buck.
Imagine it! We could get a journal article summarised.
Can’t stop modern tech. from enhancing the world. The possibilities are endless. Imagine what our fore father’s thought of tech advances. Were they worried? Did it stop progression? Imagine a world where modern techs hadn’t helped medical advances for example…
@Thomas Meaney: Kinda ruins graphic design when AI seems to come up with all the possibilities you could ever want.
@Paul Cunningham: Does Graphic Design in general contemporary terms need to be ruined? Yes it does.
We still haven’t figured out how to deal with the massive problems from Facebook etc generally and high speed internet more generally
Misinformation, polarisation, social isolation, sexual impotence, espionage etc
Is this like Hal the computer in Kubrick’s film ’2001: a Space Odyssey’ deciding to take over from those malleable humans? I’ll be wary. We should all aim to do our own thinking and cultivate our own feelings.
I’ve been using plenty of these AI tools in recent months, ChatGPT, DeepStory, Stable Diffusion, Play.ht ,etc, they are all incredible tools, but people don’t wanna bother learning about how useful they are, they’d rather just reference terminator, which only proves to show how ignorant and uninformed they are.
@Jaymes Moynihan: Such a pity none of the AI software that you’ve been using for months taught you that name calling is childish and the lowest form of intelligence.
@Ann Reddin: He used ChatGPT to make that comment. Didn’t spot that, did you. :)
Great, super, wonderful. Can’t wait to get my hands on it.
No-one should interact with any AI technology as our interactions will only increase its power as it is just learning more and more about us.
The option ‘Nothing at all’ sums it up. Not that I feel nothing at all, but that AI will feel nothing at all, bar it’s algorithms. But same could be said about many humans. But yes, excited, but hopefully apprehensive. Hurry up with the robots so.
The idea of a job will change. Could AI middle manage the HSE? Almost definitely, can AI drive better? yup, but what do we all the do? Maybe do what you’re interested in but then most people aren’t interested in anything. There’s a few theories smashing about, I like Fully Automated Luxury Communism :) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/07/world-without-work/395294/
@thesaltyurchin: You don’t need “AI” to implement logic.
We’re all doomed, I tell ye…..
New AI is all showy algorithms and snazzy coding. Not like the old days, that was real AI.
@Davis Payne: Right on.
Intelligence, noun.
1. the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.
2. the collection of information of military or political value.
Artificial, adjective:
1. made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural.
2. insincere or affected.
One would be forgiven for considering the secondary definition as the primary, these days. But do not fear, even the inimitable John Carmack calls BS on the whole thing, apart from the (above) secondary definitions.
Anything that replaces humans in Jobs, is a no no. A step to far. While these make billions it leaves people vulnerable, just look at last few months in tech sector.
@Colette Byrne: The popular notion that anything artificial could ever conceivably replace something natural, demonstrates the abject materialism and conceitedness of modern thinking.
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