Title text:
Every weekend I take an ATV out into the desert and spend a day tracing a faint “© GOOGLE 2009” watermark across the landscape.
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: https://xkcd.com/3173/
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“We immediately dispatched a covert team being inserted under the cover of darkness.”
“And?”
“Nothing. Not a damned thing. The only material evidence left is large cardboard camouflage panels and some steel struts. Somehow they must’ve know we were coming. We’ve got no idea how they managed to pack everything up and exfiltrate. It’s maddening.”
During the last dictatorships in South America, Brazil and Argentina were in a bit of an arms race.
One day, the Brazilian government created a nuclear program that over the course of several years managed to enrich some nanograms of uranium. The Argentinian gov started their own program as a response.
When both countries published their data, the Argentinians had plenty of spying documents saying that the Brazilian program had incredibly security, they could only discover a small lab and some people digging missile silos.
(And yeah, the Argentinians managed to enrich milligrams of uranium, beating Brazil by 2 orders of magnitude.)
Pft. Ahaha!
“We have no idea where they’re hiding the real program. This is clearly just the decoy we were meant to find!”
“How can you be sure?”
“It’s obvious: There would be no point if this was all they had.”
Any sources for this story? I learned that Brazil and Argentina had long been partners in nuclear matters, and never heard of any spying or competition that took place in the last century.
I have no deep sources in English, but Wikipedia has some references:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentina_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
Argentina’s last dictatorship was extremely afraid of Brazil attacking them.
thanks; and I’m sure some level of spying happened, but idk if there was any actual tension between the countries, especially considering that the Argentinian president was one of the first people officially informed when Brazil achieved enrichment capabilities in the 80s and later on both countries joined a bilateral inspection agreement.
maybe things were different during the dictatorship
officially informed when Brazil achieved enrichment capabilities in the 80s
That one was about the official nuclear program, that wasn’t intended to create nuclear weapons. The Brazilian nuclear weapons program was a secret out of the clearance level of the official nuclear program so there was never any interaction between them.
And yes, it was in the later 80s, when Brazil was trying to repair the damaged relations with Argentina.
[off topic?]
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/ghost-army-canvas-and-camouflage
Basically, the Allied forces did exactly what the cartoon suggests. They created a ‘ghost army’ that confused the German observation planes.
Slightly different, but similar premise. Blatant (loud) concealment of something that isn’t actually a security risk is a honeypot tactic. False intel feeds are used in situations where you’re diverting resources away from the intended target of an operation, as opposed to spy-catching tactics like honeypots.
You sound like a fellow espionage geek.
Two recommendations.
TURN : George Washington’s Spies. Doesn’t turn away from things like Washington owning slaves and the British freeing them, and it has lots of cute tricks, like a one-man submarine and secret writing on egg shells. AMC show.
Any of the WW2 spy novels by Alan Furst. “Night Soldiers” is about a Bulgarian fisherman whose brother was killed by a Fascist mob. He gets recruited into the KGB and fights in Spain.
if i’m new to Furst, should i start on Night Soldiers or somewhere else?
