iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

"How would you feel if you grassed yourself up?"

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

"... ya mam thinks she's in the FSB".

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

📚 Out this month in paperback with @edinburghup.bsky.social A study of the UK intelligence community through the declassified reviews that shaped MI5, GCHQ, SIS/MI6, with introductory essays by myself and Dr Chris Murphy ⏬️ 🔗 edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-intelli...

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

"... under military leader". Lads, he's a Captain. He's not head of a South American junta. 🤦‍♂️

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

👀 Karl Krüger's image of the newly commissioned German light cruiser SMS Bremse, then in the Vulkan Werft shipyard at Stettin in July 1916. Details were circulated to the Admiralty by MI1c (SIS/MI6) by late July, including details on armament and layout. #WW1 #FWW

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Cambridge is a small part of UKHE.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Britain’s greatest union leader wants a word, lads.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

"Ya dad makes up conspiracies about Number 10 North ..."

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

👀 MI6 source in Brest reporting on the "considerable damage" inflicted by the RAF in autumn 1941. The raids were attempting to cripple the German warships Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Prinz Eugen. The taking of images was risky and "very nearly impossible" because of German security.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

✍️ Sketches of German shipping in the port of St Malo, France, in Spring 1944. This particular SIS/MI6 network is running agents in the port from May 1943 through to the Allies liberating much German occupied Brittany in August 1944.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Other reliable services are available 😉

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

💬 "Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did" -- Sophie Scholl, February 1943

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

"They died as gallantly as they had served ... during the common struggle for freedom from tyranny".

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

To end, "Harry" Hinsley and others have predominantly talked about ULTRA and Bletchley Park on D Day, but that forgets that intelligence is a team effort and that SIS/MI6 played a major (if overlooked) role in guaranteeing success on #DDay. #WW2 #DDay82

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Finally, SIS was vital (alongside imagery intelligence) in documenting geographical sites of interest - roads, bridges, radar sites, etc - that planners needed to know about. HUMINT gave unique insights.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Although a large amount of CX doesn't survive - SIS's archives are limited and reports were often destroyed after circulation - there are enough traces of CX in files to show MI6/SIS's contribution to the success of D Day. ⏬️ is on the ID of German armoured formations.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

👀 SIS/MI6 had been building a significant number of agent networks across Europe that by 1943/44 started to give significant insights into the German order of battle. The below example shows CX - SIS's reporting - was important in identifying German units.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

#DDay82: In the years and months leading up to D Day, Allied planners had a steady stream of human intelligence from networks run by SIS/MI6 and it's allies, from beach defences and AA/radar sites to troop movements, adding to the all-source picture before Allied troops landed.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

R/16 had been asked after Jutland to provide urgent information on German losses. Krüger's six page report, sent from Rotterdam in later June, was valuable with the Admiral Reginald "Blinker" Hall, the Director of Naval Intelligence, commenting it was "100%" - see the report.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Following Jutland there was a considerable debate about losses suffered by @RoyalNavy vs the German High Seas Fleet. Post-Jutland, details of the immense damage inflicted by the RN were reported by MI1c's (SIS/MI6) source R/16, Karl Krüger - highlighted below.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

À l’école française des espions Why is it actually "sinister" that you learn about intelligence from real world examples? It seems a bit daft for "critical" scholars not to engage with current/former practitioners, it's how you learn. 🤦‍♂️ www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2026/06/JAFF...

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

👀 Valentine Vivian, the Vice-Chief of SIS, writing to the Foreign Office's Peter Loxley on the creation of Section IX, SIS's team looking at "illegal" aspects of international Communism. Section IX was later headed by H.A.R "Kim" Philby, recruited to Vivian's Section V in 1941.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Lads, can we just STOP asking the former "C" for clickbait?

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

We're banning avocado on toast and everyone needs a whippet

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Southerners facing the prospect of a Northern coup like ...

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

"... thinking outside the box enhances, rather than diminishes, the US intelligence community, giving competitive advantage". 📚 My review of Peter Grace's book, The Intelligence Intellectuals, with Georgetown University Press 🔗https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/102/3/1101/8675641?login=true

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

... on #WW2 history to commemorate past sacrifice and how history is vital for organisational culture. Here, GCHQ re-shared some interesting archive content on the end of the war in Europe, but it's a shame history isn't used in a similar way elsewhere - it's as if it doesn't exist 😞

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Excellent use of social media by 🇫🇷 DGSE to commemorate #VEDay. History is an excellent way of showing how today's intelligence ties are enduring and how the SIS-DGSE relationship is strong against mutual threats now. The DGSE is proud of the wartime BCRA and does a lot ... 1/2

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

👀 Research day. There's some absolutely amazing obituaries out there on SIS officers that reveals the range of talent and experience in the post-war service. And they're often full of detail from friends and family.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

No Time to Assess... A plotline "highly likely" to see Bond, now in his career twilight years, as JIC chair, waging a bureaucratic battle across Whitehall and obsessing about wording, all-source assessment and structured analytic techniques.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

👀 Drawing from an SIS source based in Kowloon, Hong Kong, of a Japanese "escort vessel" which arrived in the Japanese occupied port in July 1944. Nice reminder of SIS/MI6's war in the Far East.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

Mate, people fail vetting. It's not unheard of and happens. The problem today is everyone is apparently a vetting expert despite knowing little about the issues in this case.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

And, as if by magic, a cheaper paperback version of my book on vetting has appeared - get it on Christmas eve 😉

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

👀 Drawing of a minesweeper under construction for the German navy by the Gusto shipyard at Schiedam, near Rotterdam, in January 1944. It was drawn one of SIS's agents operating from Sweden as part of a larger network reporting on shipping.

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Dr. Dan Lomas @sandbaggerone.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

And I'm wondering where "full-throated" support for the US would have got us, Richard. Not the first time he's been very wrong.

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