a 'Pet Rock' for her Majesty's Secret Service

Well, in case you missed it, Putin just kicked over a spy rock in Moscow, a real Hollywood job packed with transmitters, which apparently fed UK diplomats sureptitiously standing around storing and trading data with it over palm pilots. A second rock was supposedly disposed of by British agents before it could be found.








[The Rock is much more, uh....sophisticated than the CIA's older and more crude Pet Log used back in the Vietnam War, don't you think? Certainly more British. You can see the Dog Doo Transmitter on display at The Spy Museum in Wahington, DC.]



The sad thing is that this story corroborates a deep suspicion of NGO's working in Russia, who are being clamped down on by a new law that disempowers foreign funding of activist organizations there. The law returns that authority to Russia's security branch, while the NGO's are seen as corrupt and used to incite civil unrest that is favorable to the west. Regardless, Putin admitted, "But if we send them away (the British Spies), more will come. Maybe clever ones will come. And we will have to struggle to find them. Let's think about it." What, rocks weren't clever enough? Do you want them to send you Spy Flowers next time? A bugged silver platter to serve your corruption on, Putin?