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Mark Stout

@markstout.bsky.social
22K followers 6K following 3.3K posts

Former intelligence officer and university educator, current intelligence historian. Also live on the borderlands of military history. Former Historian at the International Spy Museum. I wish I were in Seattle. The cat is Boadicea. Not flying with Natalie.

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Reposted by Mark Stout
MARC in a Cold Climate @marccold.bsky.social · 18h
nothing can go wrong if we tell the cataloger to teach a library instruction session for a comparative literature seminar on the Brothers Grimm, they said
A slide deck for a one-shot on the Brothers Grimm titled "My Mother, She Killed Me; My Father, He Ate Me; The Librarian Was Helpful, Though."
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University Press of Kansas @univpressofkansas.bsky.social · 19h
Stay connected with UPK! Join our newsletter to get the latest book releases, author events, special offers, and behind-the-scenes news from the press delivered straight to your inbox.  Sign up today and never miss a new story: kansaspress.ku.edu/newsletter #KansasBooks #UPKansas
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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
A great illustration of the way social media has essentially shredded society’s informational immune system: The USSR spent a fortune trying to spread conspiracy theories, without success because they couldn’t crack newsrooms. Today, you can reach the globe with a post that costs $20 to make.
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 28/09/2026
These are what the clouds on Jupiter look up close. The small patches of white are cloud tops, soaring above the main, colourful cloud layer. Image from NASA's Juno spacecraft during its 38th close approach to Jupiter on 29 November 2021, processed by Kevin Gill (@kevinmgill.bsky.social)
A complex, swirling pattern of lighter and darker clouds. One large system, angled to the upper left in this scene, is a tawny brown colour and is elongate. Another, more circular storm system is at lower centre, and is a grey–greenish colour. The background swirls are various shades of grey to blue; small, white features dot the scene.
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IntelArchive @intelarchive.io · 28/09/2026
New addition Journal article: SOVIET SURVEILLANCE APPARATUS ON GERMAN EXPEDITIONS IN TURKESTAN AND ITS EFFECT ON GREAT TERROR by Emre Tegin (published 26-09-2026) dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/gttad/artic…
dergipark.org.tr
SOVIET SURVEILLANCE APPARATUS ON GERMAN EXPEDITIONS IN TURKESTAN AND ITS EFFECT ON GREAT TERROR
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
There has been pretty widespread reporting that AI recently broke a previously unsolved Enigma message from WWII. Turns out that an AI system has also solved a WWI-era German message encrypted with the fiendishly difficult (for the time) ADFGVX cipher. French codebreaker Georges Painvin...
hackaday.com
World War I Coded Message Appears Cracked, Finally
When you think of wartime cryptography, you probably think of World War II and Enigma, although there were other famous codes used during that war. But in fact, there have been codes used through w…
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U.S. Naval Institute @usni.org · 27/09/2026
NHHC has confirmed a wreck off Russia’s Kurile Islands as USS Herring (SS-233), lost in June 1944 with all 83 crew members. www.usni.org/magazines/naval-histor…
usni.org
Wreck off the Kurile Islands Confirmed as World War II–Era Submarine
NHHC has confirmed a wreck off Russia’s Kurile Islands as USS Herring (SS-233), lost in June 1944 with all 83 crew members.
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Great piece.
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Joseph Oldham @paranoidstylist.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Fans of Arthur Hopcraft might be interested to know that the University of Salford have put digitised versions of some of his papers online. Includes episodic breakdowns for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and A Perfect Spy, and a full Ep 1 script for TTSS. salford.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/co...
salford.primo.exlibrisgroup.com
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I think it's telling that the companies buying up these books to throw into the maw of the AI machine feel obliged to do it on the down-low.
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SpyTalker @spytalker.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
open.substack.com/pub/spytalk/...
open.substack.com
How ‘Neutral’ Sweden Secretly Prepared to Fight the Russians
“The Stay Behinds” details how Sweden built an underground network of spies and saboteurs early in the Cold War
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Frode Weierud @frode-weierud.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
TechCrunch has just published an article about the AI-assisted breaking of the Enigma messages MVUEH and FMNGI. techcrunch.com/2026/09/25/a...
techcrunch.com
Astra and Opus just passed Turing's other test | TechCrunch
Frontier AI models are finishing Alan Turing's World War II codebreaking work.
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Brian Groom @groomb.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Woman, child and pram, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, Ireland, c.1967, photo by Evelyn Hofer, German-American photographer (1922-2009).
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Bits of Jupiter @jupiterbits.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
A bit of #Jupiter (NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Joaquin Camarena)
Photo of the planet Jupiter's southern high latitudes, featuring its polar hood and the cloud bands surrounding it.
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Angry @angrystaffer.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is an absolute disaster from a national security perspective. Obviously, a lot on F-35s is classified, but a weapons-bay door and a canopy with radar-absorbing material are some of the most sensitive. Hard to describe how bad this is.
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Now there, my friends, is a font. I don't know what's going on with this. There were probably issues with the scanning by NARA but still something is going on with that thing.
I don't even know how to describe this font. The text says "TELEGRAM Outgoing, Foreign Service of the United States of America, Embassy Djakarta." The "telegram" is in a bold all caps with white highlightings inside some of the thicker parts of the letters.
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Also, the other guitarist in the band, Chris Holt, is seriously good.
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Really enjoyed seeing Mike Campbell and the Dirty Knobs in DC two nights ago. Mike’s as good as he ever was and I hadn’t realized that his band now included former Heartbreaker Steve Ferrone. Mike is making great music and threw in a few Petty songs, as well. So much fun.
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Bryn Hammond @brynleyh.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Meanwhile, high on the Eiffel Tower … #SWW #WW2 #2GM #history 🗃️
A plaque on the upper level of la Tour Eiffel that reads « Ici, le 25 Août 1944 aux ordres du Capitaine SARNIGUET Les sergents Henri DURIAUX, Pierre NOËL. le caporal Charles ROUARD, les sapeurs Marcel CONVERSY, André TAILLEFER, du Regiment de Sapeurs-Pompiers de PARIS ont hissé le drapeau tricolore dans la capitale encore occupée. »
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Dr. Jonathan Schroden @jjschroden.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
As it pertains to warfare, the US is tactically brilliant, operationally questionable, strategically deficient, and politically inept Some may pass that off as “things get more complex as you go up”—which is true—but our leaders should rise commensurately too That they don’t is a *real* problem
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your friend oriana @schwindter.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
hoodie season is heeeeere, support a documentary about america's indie movie theater renaissance (there are also hats, totes, tees, kid/baby apparel etc.)
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Digital Tolkien Project @digitaltolkien.com · 21/09/2026
Today is the 89th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit. Here's a thread on interesting glimpses the book gave us into the legendarium Tolkien had at that stage already been working on for over twenty years but which readers at the time would have had no sense of.
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Jorge Liboreiro @jorgeliboreiro.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The Trump administration is preparing to sanction the ICC as a whole and cut it off from everyday financial transactions, insurance providers and IT services and products, which would leave the court unable to operate, Reuters reports.
reuters.com
Trump administration prepares sanctions against International Criminal Court, sources say
President ‌Donald Trump's administration has prepared sanctions against the entire International Criminal Court and plans to announce them soon, two sources familiar with the matter said, a move that ...
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Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
There are building works on my staircase, and this ghostly list of previous inhabitants emerges. Trevor Jones was a German lexicographer and Bletchley code-breaker; Thurston Dart a musicologist; Harry Creswick was university librarian; Cameron Wilson taught French; Freddy Britain was a classicist.
An old list of inhabitants of C Staircaae in Jesus College Cambridge.
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Would be interesting to know why Trump changed his mind. Article doesn’t say.
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
OK. I'm officially terrified. I'm flying out of DC in the very near future.
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
It doesn't seem a real great idea to be launching drones from an arch the top of which almost reaches the airspace designated for planes bound for Reagan National Airport.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 18/09/2026
Q: China is one of the most repressive countries for journalists in the world-- TRUMP: Well, I don't know about that. I think we're repressive also
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
This intelligence analyst should be at least seriously reprimanded and their management should think long and hard about what “tools” they are putting analyst’s hands and why. Also, they should think about procedures around their use.
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Alex Blackwell @alexblackwell.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The unclassified version of the latest issue of CIA’s Studies in Intelligence (Vol.70, No.3, September 2026) is available (PDF) at www.cia.gov/resources/cs...
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Dr. M.A. Davis @mikedavis.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Tsarist Russia produced a lot of interesting characters. Sergei Zubatov (1864-1917) was one of them! The son of a police chief who became a radical as a young man, Zubatov was 'flipped' by N. S. Berdyaev, head of the Moscow Okhrana, and became an informant. thread
Sergei Zubatov, 1864-1917
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Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Hey friends, I continue to forget how hard it is for more than a few people who might appreciate it to know about work I do in history, historical games, and history education (and any combination of the 3) relevant to them. Could you maybe share one or more of these items ? I'd be SO grateful. 1/
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Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
So #historians, I might ask again - what are your weird archival finds? On the National Archives of Australia website, I found this digitised WWII-era letter to the Prime Minister complaining about enemy aliens in Australia, which then goes into rant about women smoking. #archives #history 🗃️
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Filip Kovacevic @chekistmonitor.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
A “trace” is a summary information on a given individual that an intelligence service keeps in its records. I've recently started a short article series "Top Secret: Traces from #KGB Files." Here's the link for the first 4 installments: thechekistmonitor.blogspot.com/2026/09/fili...
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Steve Conklin @nondim.com · 16/09/2026
I want to talk a little bit about a tangent to recent discourse here. The discourse is generally of the form of "I could never vote for anyone unsupporting of [a particular issue], no matter what else they support. I'm not going to cite examples. They're _everywhere_ now in the runup to the midterms
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Cold War Conversations Podcast @coldwarpod.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
For decades, ordinary Swedes secretly prepared for the day Soviet forces might occupy their country. Listen here 🎧🎧 coldwarconversations.com/episode473 #sweden #coldwar #staybehinds @johanwennstrom.bsky.social @ospreypublishing.bsky.social
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King's Centre for the Study of Intelligence (KCSI) @kcsi.uk · 14/09/2026
🎉 A new chapter at KCSI @drceliap-v.bsky.social is taking over as Executive Director of the King's Centre for the Study of Intelligence, succeeding @drichterova.bsky.social and @msg77.bsky.social after 5+ years at the helm of KCSI and, before that, the King's Intelligence Study Group. (1/6)
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
This is quite something, if true.
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Thomas Juneau @thomasjuneau.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Very nice to see the cover of my forthcoming book, Grand Strategies of Middle East States, co-written with Steven Lobell, Norrin Ripsman and Lawrence Rubin, available with Columbia University Press in March 2027:
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Brian Weeden @brianweeden.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
August edition of Space Policy is out, with articles covering lunar safety zones, NATO's space policy, megaconstellations, Korean's national space policy, public preferences on NASA's budget, and more! www.sciencedirect.com/journal/spac...
sciencedirect.com
https://ScienceDirect.com
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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I’m going to channel Indiana Jones and say this belongs in a museum, not a millionaire’s or billionaire’s private collection. So if there’s anyone out there that can make that happen, you have 10 more days (September 24). After 18 bids, bidding now stands at $205,700. But it will surely go higher.
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NPR @npr.org · 14/09/2026
Federal agents may have broken state laws after the Department of Homeland Security began surging personnel for what it called the Unlawful Voter Initiative, a federal whistleblower alleges. n.pr/4yE1CTT
n.pr
Federal agents may have broken state laws in voter fraud hunt, whistleblower claims
Federal agents may have broken state laws after the Department of Homeland Security began surging personnel for what it called the Unlawful Voter Initiative, a federal whistleblower alleges.
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Gov. Bob Ferguson @governorferguson.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
From the New York Times: "Here’s How the Postal Service Could Refuse to Deliver Your Mail Ballot" The Trump Administration is trying to disenfranchise Washingtonians. We blocked their illegal attack in court and will continue to defend our elections.
nytimes.com
Here’s How the Postal Service Could Refuse to Deliver Your Mail Ballot
The plan, which two dozen states have challenged as unconstitutional, puts in place new requirements about who can receive mail ballots.
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Dr Ross Mahoney @airpowerhistory.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The RAF Staff College (Overseas) at Haifa drrossmahoney.substack.com/p/the-raf-st... #RAF #PME #airpowerhistory #WW2
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Brad Johnson @climatebrad.hillheat.com · 14/09/2026
Since I'm sharing this, you can guess what the solution to the Case of the Shockingly Spicy Mustard is
thestar.com
My jar of mustard was so spicy it made my eyes water and sent me on an obsessive quest to find out why
The mustard was the same brand I buy every time, Maille Dijon Originale, but it was much, much stronger than usual.
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Interesting bit from one of the just-declassified PDB articles pertaining to Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaida, 9/11, etc. It's from a September 10, 1998 piece, specifically.
We suspect several recent walk-ins to our Embassies [2 lines redacted]--may be part of an effort by Bin Ladin to case US facilities."
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
This is an outstanding idea.
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Cool insignia for part of the 3rd Observation Squadron which operated under that name from 1937 to 1943. Eventually evolved into the 3rd Special Operations Squadron which operated Predators. Photo is from the Smithsonian Institution.
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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
David’s book is well worth reading.
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