[weichi]

Please read the article. This example actually supports his thesis that "as long as it is possible for counterspies to generate misleading information most of the time, spies are useless even when their information happens to be correct."

[shin_lao]

It's like saying: "it's useless to have a sword, because my enemy will have a shield".

[abcd_f]

Don't bother.

The crowd just loves the idea of spies being useless morons based on some game theory musings by a fellow armchair analyst.

[Ygg2]

Not, morons, just corrupt criminals posing as doing something useful.

[onetwofiveten]

No it's not. The correct analogy would be "it's useless to have a sword because my enemy has a magic shield that is easy to use, impossible to detect and will hurt me if I hit it". If such shields existed, then certainly, they would make swords useless.

Likewise, it's reasonable to deduce that certain kinds of intelligence gathering are useless if you start from the premise that counter intelligence is easy to generate and difficult to detect. If you disagree with that conclusion, then I think you probably disagree with the premise rather than the logical argument. I don't know anything about spying, but if you can share some insight into whether or not the premise holds water, that would be interesting. The article specifically talks about examples where counter intelligence would be hard to generate or easy to detect. What did you think of those examples? Do you have more? Do you have insight into why counter intelligence would be harder to generate or easier to detect in general?