I have also been very awestruck by those PCB sleuths. Something about physical debugging that's very concrete, very tangible. Something about that effort tickles the human intellect in a very different way that I think is accessible to a lot of folks. I remember reading this article that posed some interesting questions in the realm of spy novels and all the physical shenanigans that spies can exploit in these magician like feats.
Here's the take home clinch for the story, "physical viscerality"...
I wonder about the future of the spy genre in our digital, post-historical era. The essence of espionage is information—specifically, information about the capabilities and intentions of friends and adversaries. The mechanics of this trade has always been the bread and butter of the spy thriller. The whole first half of Le Carré’s masterpiece Smiley’s People, for example, turns on the physical transportation of a single incriminating frame of negative film across national frontiers by couriers, several of whom end up dead. That was the analog world of the Cold War. Our digital world, in which the contents of the Library of Congress can be encrypted and transmitted across the globe with the touch of a key, is far less dramatic and does not lend itself as easily to romance. Kim Philby spent the better part of two decades transcribing the crown jewels of British and American intelligence secrets by hand and turning them over to the KGB. As current headlines attest, a single computer hack or anonymous leak today can yield a far bigger cache of secrets. Do spies still use dead drops? Brush passes? Microdots? Invisible ink? Do they still meet their contacts in smoky cafes and secluded parks? Many of these gritty noir devices may have been retired and replaced by banks of computer screens in the sub-basements of Northern Virginia office parks. All of which makes the spy genre poorer and more antiseptic. We are left with stylish but vapid movies about superheroes like Jason Bourne, pursued by cartoonish CIA assassins.
The digital world also changes our perceptions of political crime, of which espionage is a sub-species. Without the physical Watergate break-in and the amateur-hour rifling through DNC file cabinets, there would have been no scandal. In contrast, the political scandals of the last election cycle seem mired in the geek-squad arcana of passwords, servers, and hard drives. They lack the visceral physicality of Watergate, which is why they are unlikely to amount to much, despite the wishes of political partisans.
https://www.city-journal.org/html/alan-fursts-world-spies-15...
Here's the take home clinch for the story, "physical viscerality"...
I wonder about the future of the spy genre in our digital, post-historical era. The essence of espionage is information—specifically, information about the capabilities and intentions of friends and adversaries. The mechanics of this trade has always been the bread and butter of the spy thriller. The whole first half of Le Carré’s masterpiece Smiley’s People, for example, turns on the physical transportation of a single incriminating frame of negative film across national frontiers by couriers, several of whom end up dead. That was the analog world of the Cold War. Our digital world, in which the contents of the Library of Congress can be encrypted and transmitted across the globe with the touch of a key, is far less dramatic and does not lend itself as easily to romance. Kim Philby spent the better part of two decades transcribing the crown jewels of British and American intelligence secrets by hand and turning them over to the KGB. As current headlines attest, a single computer hack or anonymous leak today can yield a far bigger cache of secrets. Do spies still use dead drops? Brush passes? Microdots? Invisible ink? Do they still meet their contacts in smoky cafes and secluded parks? Many of these gritty noir devices may have been retired and replaced by banks of computer screens in the sub-basements of Northern Virginia office parks. All of which makes the spy genre poorer and more antiseptic. We are left with stylish but vapid movies about superheroes like Jason Bourne, pursued by cartoonish CIA assassins.
The digital world also changes our perceptions of political crime, of which espionage is a sub-species. Without the physical Watergate break-in and the amateur-hour rifling through DNC file cabinets, there would have been no scandal. In contrast, the political scandals of the last election cycle seem mired in the geek-squad arcana of passwords, servers, and hard drives. They lack the visceral physicality of Watergate, which is why they are unlikely to amount to much, despite the wishes of political partisans. https://www.city-journal.org/html/alan-fursts-world-spies-15...