US EditionThe CIA used a Star Wars fan site to secretly communicate with spies
- The CIA covertly used a Star Wars fan website around 2010 to send coded messages to agents abroad through technical fan discussions online.
- This method arose from the agency’s need for hidden communication, but Iranian authorities discovered the network, exposing the sites and triggering agency efforts to reconfigure.
- The sites contained passwords embedded in Star Wars chit-chat, which led to login portals enabling classified exchanges amid fan debates, blending spycraft with fandom culture.
- Security researcher Ciro Santilli identified hundreds of such domains, and a Reuters report confirmed sloppy coding linked to the exposure and later deaths of CIA sources, especially in China.
- This episode illustrates that even advanced intelligence operations can fail due to developer errors, resulting in severe consequences and ongoing revelations years later.
40 Articles
40 Articles
A Star Wars fan site visibly served as a front for the CIA to communicate with its spies. The American agency reportedly developed numerous sites in the 2000s to exchange secretly with its spies.
The CIA Created And Ran A Fake 'Star Wars' Fan Site For Use As Part Of Spy Network
Darth-Vader-mask-and-helmet-Star-Wars The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has done a lot of strange things over the years, but this is one of their more interesting attempts. It has now been revealed that the CIA created and ran a fake Star Wars fan site for use as a tool to communicate with its spy network. The CIA-ran website StarWarsWeb.net had all the usual items one would expect to see on a Star Wars fan site: news, images, video games, t…
Apparently The CIA Once Ran A Fake Star Was Fan Site To Communicate With Spies Overseas
TechSpot- The internet has seen its fair share of weird, but a Star Wars fan site secretly run by the CIA to communicate with overseas spies might top the list. StarWarsWeb.net looked like any other 2...
At one time, he communicated through this with some of his foreign spies.
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