Direct link to one of the photos: https://www.fieggen.com/Dont_Link/CIALacing1a.jpg
If you see two X's in his lacing, the package is at the alternate drop site.
If he has 3 X patterns, you're burned! Make your way to the safehouse after losing any potential tails.
Glance quickly, agent, and keep moving.
I spent the better part of my teenage years eating raw carrots to be a better Ninja!
There is an old joke. How do you tell an extroverted Estonian from an introverted Estonian? He stares at your shoes, not his own.
There are (at least now) plenty of “extroverted” Estonians, but I’ve heard dozens and dozens of stories of the “don’t make eye contact, just keep walking” variety during the USSR.
Also, staring at either party’s shoes may mean their own smartphone these days...
I don't know if they ever thought the myth would catch on as well as it did, but it's still widely believed today. (Perhaps because there's no downside, eating carrots is still good for you, it just doesn't improve your eyesight.)
> whilst the [British] Air Ministry were happy to go along with the story [of carrot-improved vision], they never set out to use it to fool the Germans.
> The German intelligence service were well aware of our ground-based radar installation and would not be surprised by the existence of radar in aircraft. In fact, the RAF were able to confirm the existence of German airborne radar simply by fitting commercial radios into a bomber and flying over France listening to the various radio frequencies!
Link: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-c...
I wasn't however able to find if there is any reason for the british to push such a message if it wasn't to confuse the germans.
Carrot cake also had a surge in popularity at the time (if the great show "Supersizers eat..." is to believed).
> Every Tuesday, shortly after 7:00, a British MI6 officer would take a morning stroll at the Kutuzovsky Prospekt in Moscow. He would pass outside a designated bakery at exactly 7:24 a.m. local time. If he saw Gordievsky standing outside the bakery holding a grocery bag, it meant that the double agent was requesting to be exfiltrated as a matter of urgency. Gordievsky would then have to wait outside the bakery until a second MI6 officer appeared, carrying a bag from the Harrods luxury department store in London. The man would also be carrying a Mars bar (a popular British candy bar) and would bite into it while passing right in front of Gordievsky. That would be a message to him that his request to be exfiltrated had been received.
Also can anything be inferred by the length of the signal message? Do they pad they out or will all of the sudden sending a 2kb vs 3kb message give you away that something is different?
Personally if my life is on the line, I'd stick with the shoelaces.
Could it have had something to do with rationing? Perhaps they were trying to increase carrot consumption.
And if that's not the case, you're probably not looking at other people's shoelaces - which is the entire point.
It can also be that they wanted citizens to cultivate more of it in their home gardens for its nutritional values. But either way, I have no data to confirm it.
If you have a military background it is completely normal. Beyond boot polishing, how one ties one's shoes can identify their nationality, background and even trade. They don't think twice about looking at someone's shoes.
There is an old method for spotting a US marine: Ask them to change their socks. The guy who takes one sock off at a time, changing one sock before even untying the second shoe, that's a probable marine. The guy who doesn't actually tie his laces, that does a strange wrap-around-then-tuck thing... US army. The guy who skips a few holes in the middle: air force.
Think I am exaggerating? search youtube for military shoe tying vids: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=military+shoe+l...
And if someone does notice, it seems a stretch that they would be suspicious. You could say you were feeling a creative streak. This is for message passing, not for wearing to GRU interviews...
it is also possible to depict roman numerals with lace patterns, and using under/over eyelet lacing to further increase to combinations or provide a bit of stego in the mix. you can send a shill signal with X's and a real signal with laces through eyelets.
these sorts of things are used popularily and certain affiliations creedos or type of date your looking for in a fetish bar are often communicated by display of accessories.
so its not a big secret anymore its just a matter of getting the context of the signal. so how you lace your shoes has different meaning in a night club than in front of the embassy
> Suspected ringleader Mohamed Atta was seen repeatedly by witnesses using his Hotmail account at public libraries in Florida to surf the Internet, downloading what appeared to be pictures of children and scenes of the Middle East.[1]
> Many of the hijackers were frequent visitors to libraries and internet cafes in Florida, where they are believed to have received their final orders in coded message.[2]
Pre-9/11:
> Through weeks of interviews with U.S. law-enforcement officials and experts, USA TODAY has learned new details of how extremists hide maps and photographs of terrorist targets — and post instructions for terrorist activities — on sports chat rooms, pornographic bulletin boards and other popular Web sites.[3]
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20011005232014/https://abcnews.g...
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2001/10/11/iomart_cashes_in_on_w... ([1] and [2] found via https://www.giac.org/paper/gsec/3494/steganography-age-terro...)
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20030606200613/http://www.usatod... (found via https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/11308369.pdf)
https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm
I’ve been doing this for nearly 20 years.
For the reference: https://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/aj6MYgw_700b_v1.jpg
https://external-preview.redd.it/UMjBaFaE-dFYMu_VZ8nKO4_tj0E...
http://www.linkbcit.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Finland-bu...
There's a great book that covers every single aspect of this escape, "The Spy and the Traitor" by Ben Macintyre. Rest assured that the British embassy had plenty of Mars bars and Harrods bags for this signal!
It reminds me a joke about Soviet spy arriving in Berlin and caughting stares from everyone around. What's wrong with my cover? Is something gives me out? Maybe it is a parachute? Or AK-47? Ah, it should be blue Slavic eyes! And he wears a sunglasses just in case.
The Pentagon is good at that - just try marketing something with “US Navy Seals” or “US Marine Corps.” You’ll be hearing from their lawyers fast.
CIA in the other hand ... all sorts of weird internet ads use the CIA name.
I took it to mean that the MI6 agents were under diplomatic cover. It would not be strange for British diplomats to carry or eat British things, right? And it's also a decent defense against an accidental signal, since non-agents would naturally not have Mars bars nor bags from Harrods.
That’s this lacing technique: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/commando-lacing.htm
Every third thing you hear about the CIA is made up on the spot, makes it hard to know what's true, that's just the way the CIA likes it.
Not sure why, but single knots always come undone for me pretty quickly - including the Ian Knot you linked. I used to do a double knot and now the secure Ian Knot.
Since you've read about knots I'm sure you know this, but it's worth mentioning for others in the same situation - if you find your laces come undone very easily with a simple traditional knot it may be that you're not balancing the starting knot and the finishing bow, leading to a "granny knot" - https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/grannyknot.htm
https://www.ted.com/talks/terry_moore_how_to_tie_your_shoes?...
Yeah this reminded me of the "hanky code". Either the asset is requesting immediate extraction, or signalling he's into watersports!
We met a celebrity once on a ferry. The only reason I even spotted her is because she was wearing a trench coat and ridiculous dark sunglasses like some sort of B movie operative. I happened to glance across the cabin just as she was walking past heading the same direction I was seated. Just a blink in full profile. After a moment of thinking, “no... she doesn’t live around here,” I turned to my wife and said, “was that?” And then looked at the woman across from us who had big eyes. When she passed outside the window it was definitely her. (Turns out her mother lived around there.)
Lady, you gotta work on your disguises. That outfit made you stick out like a sore thumb.
It's also only once a week that the timing is enforced, so they can vary things up throughout the week to hide that pattern in noise.
And the candy bar/Harrod's bag doesn't come into play unless Gordievsky needs an exfiltration. So it's not like they're noticing this weird thing where British diplomats always eat Mars bars every Tuesday. It would only happen once at most.
They know they're being surveilled. They can't change that. So they make their signal as mundane as possible.
