I found this while looking at a website called Clearance Jobs. It's a site that links you to businesses where the jobs require a government security clearance, and you may have one from your time in the reserves or guard. And that is a decent amount of money for a civilian contractor doesn't have to pay if they hire you, so it may make the difference.
Pretty decent look at the clues. They ain't that difficult for people to see.
How to Spot a Honey Trap
David Brown
That extremely attractive woman you just met, the one who just cannot get enough of you—the one who hangs on your every word and loves—loves!—to hear about the fascinating things you do at your job? There is no way she’s an agent with foreign intelligence.
Sure, she’s a little out of your league. I mean, just look at you. You’re a balding, middle-aged man who sweats and has the sort of rolling belly otherwise seen on tire mascots and slug gangsters on planet Tattooine. She picked you up at a sports bar—you, a middle manager at a defense contractor. You forgot to remove your access badge before arriving for drinks, but who hasn’t made that mistake at least once..?
...She just couldn’t get enough of that, this foxy number with the tight dress that came right up to here. Oh that magical height that reveals so much and so little. You’re eyeing her and eyeing that plate of chili and cheese just sitting there, no fries left, and ordinarily you’d just finish it off with a spoon but with this goddess showing interest in you, is that uncouth? You finish your beer...
Yes, these are what we call clues in the business.
...Why it’s even in the Bible, this spy trick, which is known as a “honey trap.” In the Book of Judges, the Philistine leadership approaches a woman named Delilah and tells her that there’s a guy named Samson in town with godlike strength. He can slay lions with his bare hands. He can lay waste to entire battalions if he so chooses. Delilah, the Philistines say, “Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him: and we will give thee every one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver.”
The first honeytrap...!
...What else did that mandatory security briefing explain? Something about rodents. Rats? Mice? Mice—MICE! The motives for espionage: money, ideology, compromise and ego. Agents are recruited by foreign intelligence for a big payday, or because they believe in the political system of the foreign government, or because they’re being blackmailed or manipulated, or because dammit they’re important and nobody appreciates it and they’ll show the world how important they really are!
Honey traps fall under the C in MICE, it was explained. Either you unwittingly begin an affair with a foreign spy and you reveal secrets through pillow talk, or you sleep with a foreign spy and an envelope of photographs, just you and she in flagrante delicto, and a note included explaining that if you don’t deliver the goods, these goods will be delivered to your spouse and maybe posted on Facebook for good measure. Who wouldn’t reveal a few numbers or diagrams to spare your spouse the pain of such photographs? A few pages of notes to protect 50% of your belongings. It’s not like the country is at stake. It’s a little secret, an insignificant piece of a colossal puzzle.
What else did the briefing say? It was so boring, the briefing. Why are you even thinking about this, with this woman who is clearly interested in you, and with her dress—it’s wrapped so tightly around her, and is at least an inch higher and lower than it was a moment ago. Something about small favors. If honey traps are in it for the long haul, they start actual relationships with their marks. Long term relationships built on sex and secrets. They probe gingerly at first—asking for something small. Some tiny secret that can help her somehow. For work or whatever. And then it builds and builds until you’re hers, Samson in Delilah’s clutches, and if you figure out what’s going on, the tender caresses end and the blackmail threats begin.
Anyway, you’re not a target! Sure, you’re only middle management and they keep passing you over for promotion, the bastards, but so what? And yes, you’ve put on a few pounds, but a nice belly gives a man a big of respectability. Your wife has lost interest but that’s her loss! Why would a spy—a “sparrow,” as the Soviets called their seductresses—waste time on you? You don’t fit the profile. Actual honey traps target “those who lack confidence, feel insecure, harbour grievances and need affection...”
Yes, people will target the middle aged person who thinks they are nothing, or not appreciated, but you have access to sensitive or classified information. The KGB used to use a simple plan, how much money would get you to betray your country? Twice your annual income. And the Russians haven't gone anywhere, the Chinese are going full blast, and the Iranians want to know. So yes, when your approached by a el-fino young enough to be your daughter, and something tell you, "She can't be interested in me...." She's not, get out quick.
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