British Spy Ring In Russia

GB acused of using a rock to spy in Russia.

"A diplomatic row between Russia and Britain has developed over accusations of spying."

Sky News Link

Russia's state security service, the FSB, has accused British diplomats of spying in Moscow.

It backed claims made in a Russian TV report which showed footage of what it said was British agents retrieving data from a fake rock planted on a street.
...
The programme said four officials from the UK embassy and one Russian citizen, allegedly recruited by the British secret service, downloaded classified data from a transmitter in the rock onto palm-top computers.

The UK four were named in the programme as Christopher Pirt, Marc Doe, Paul Crompton and Andrew Fleming [A distant relation to Ian Fleming?

]

"Now, 007, what you see before you is a large paperweight, yes? Look beneath it. What that is is a sophistocated spying device which is capable of recording video, and storing data to be later be downloaded to your palm pilot. This is the tool which will finally help us catch the Ruskies at their own game. Oh, And 007, Please don't leave it lying around in the middle of the street. A forest, or somewhere it won't be conspicuous as the good mother sitting in one of them chinese baskets on the pitch with her britches while gnoshing on some fish and chips"

Sorry, couldn't help it. As to this article, it sounds like the rock was used primarily as a medium for passing information. A Russian recruited by the Embassy would upload classified info into the rock where it could later be downloaded, or vice-versa. On the other side of the coin, this could indeed be a smear campaign against these Russian NGO's (Non Governmental Organizations), but I doubt it. Why implicate a foreign country when there are other, less politically destabilizing, options?

Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said the government was trying to turn public opinion against NGOs it wanted to shut down
...
Ms Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said they were part of a campaign against Kremlin critics, linked to a law tightening control over NGOs which President Vladimir Putin signed this month.

news.bbc.co.uk...


[edit on 23-1-2006 by TheGoodDoctorFunk]

Top Ho Sir, those pesky reds saw through our ruse heh?
Well, we tired of use our umbrellas and The Times rolled up and discreetly left on a park bench.
Do you think the Russians that found the rock sit near a laed-lined window, next to a radio transmitter, smoking cigerettes and wearing horizontal striped 'soviet navy' t-shirt?

It's merely the tip of the iceberg.