High-Tech Squirrels Trained to Conduct Espionage

Pcol writes "In the July 20 issue of the Washington Post, columnist Al Kamen reports that the BBC has translated a story headlined 'spying squirrels,' published in the Iranian newspaper Resalat on the use of trained animals to conduct espionage against their country: 'A few weeks ago, 14 squirrels equipped with espionage systems of foreign intelligence services were captured by [Iranian] intelligence forces along the country's borders. These trained squirrels, each of which weighed just over 700 grams, were released on the borders of the country for intelligence and espionage purposes.' According the story the squirrels had 'GPS devices, bugging instruments and advanced cameras' in their bodies. 'Given the fast speed and the special physical features of these animals, they provide special capabilities for spying operations. Once the animals return to their place of origin, the intelligence gathered by them is then offloaded. . . .' Iranian police officials captured the squirrels before they could carry out their assignments."

Re:Is it April 1 already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or a really bad piece of propaganda.

It seems incredibly vague so that they could then replace foreign with a specific country as needed. We already know that most people will believe something that is blatantly contradictory if the government says it, we should be going by Orwell's predictions and not Nostradamus'.

What's next?

[RichPowers]

Mind controlled giant squids? Trained dolphins with sonar cannons on their backs? Sharks with lasers?

Re:Is it April 1 already?

[dbIII]

Or a really bad piece of propaganda.

Bad propaganda works. Remember the more than sixteen thousand weapons of mass destruction sites and the bit about London getting hit by missiles from Iraq with only a warning of a few minutes. In Russia there was the magic British spy rock with cameras, microphones and a transmitter (at least a little more credible but it wasn't there), so now from Iran we have acoustic kitty revived as secret squirrels for propaganda. Silly but not completely impossible - we saw with WMD how hard it is to argue with people that make rediculous claims and just hint that the evidence is beyond our clearance level.

Re:I think...

[_Sharp'r_]

Ah, finally a /. story where the following link makes sense:

DeadSquirrel.com [deadsquirrel.com]

These guys have already been on top of this kind of stuff for years....

Re:Squirrels?

[darkmeridian]

Spying with squirrels and small animals would be great if you can actually do it. Two words: plausible deniability. Even if your targets capture your squirrely assets, the technology aboard the animal is not a huge wash, and probably is not so special it has to be from the United States. You do lose a trained squirrel, however. If you could get a squirrel to enter a house and just sit there, you can effectively bug a house. With the GPS gear, you can figure out whether you're bugging the right house. If you hear conversations about insurgencies, and killing Americans, and stuff, then you can send a GPS-guided JDAM bomb right through the window.

But if your target complains about being spied on by a trained squirrel, people will laugh at them for being paranoids.

Re:Squirrels?

[acidrain]

plausible deniability

It is well known the CIA did this with a cat in the 60s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_Kitty [wikipedia.org] I would be quite reasonable to expect them to have moved on to smaller animals by now. The CIA has an overwhelming need to spy on Iran. Sure this story is funny, but not really all that unlikely.

Wiki article covers technology

[FauxReal]

Wikipedia already has the operation and underlying technology behind squirrel espionage [wikipedia.org] outlined.

Re:Squirrels?

[Ohreally_factor]

But if your target complains about being spied on by a trained squirrel, people will laugh at them for being paranoids.

You hit the nail on the head. Infowar. Actually implementing such a plan is stupid. Faking it is brilliant.

Re:Iranian news mistook satire for truth before

[Jasin Natael]

That's still nothing compared to when the Beijing Evening News translated and reprinted an Onion article about Congress going on strike and threatening to move to another city because they wanted a retractible dome, better seating and parking, and more concession stands and bathrooms for the Capitol Building, complete with illustrations. They had to issue a formal retraction.