Travel Without Moving - KGB Lubyanka Headquarters

Yet another hot spot in this week's Travel Without Moving series - this time it's Lubyanka Square's KGB Headquarters. There are still lots of Cold War sentiments in the air among yesterday's and today's super powers and you just can't deny it. Today's FSB, the successor to the KGB, is taking a very serious approach towards counter-intelligence, and offensive scientific intelligence practices in a much more synergetic relationship with the academic world compared to years ago. While the CIA is undisputably the most popular foreign intelligence agency, and more of a front end to the NSA itself from my point of view, the KGB still remains reponsible for very important and "silent" moments in the world's history.There were moments in the very maturity of the Cold War, when both, the CIA, and the KGB were on purposely disinforming their operatives in order to keep them motivated and fuel the tensions even more, but compared to the CIA with its technological know-how, KGB's HUMINT capababilities didn't get surpassed by technologies. Among the key success factors for the intelligence agency was the centralized nature of the command of chain, total empowerment, common and obsessive goal, and clear enemy.

Today's trends mostly orbit around :

- information sharing, that is less complexity among different departments and agencies
- win-win information sharing among nations
- offensive and defensive CYBERINT, harnessing the power, or protecting against the threats posed by the digital era
- automated and efficient mass surveillance practices- eliminating "safe heavens"

In case you really want to go in-depth into what has happened during the last couple of decades, Vasilli Mitrohih's KGB Archives are worth reading. And the true-retro gamers can take the role of "Captain Maksim Mikahilovich Rukov, recently transferred to the Department P from the GRU after three years' duty to investigate possible corruption inside the KGB (after a former agent turned private eye was found murdered). However, as the plot progresses, Rukov finds himself investigating a party hardliner anti-perestroika plot that threatens the life of General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev" while playing KGB - Conspiracy game.