First let us elucidate our definitions. A local confidential informant (CI) is also known by the derogatory title “snitch” and is not to be confused with a “whistle blower”. A CI is generally a criminal and/or a holder of current criminal charges.
A spy is typically a highly valuable human intelligence (HUMINT) operator recruited, trained, vetted and working directly for the Central Intelligence Agency. A spy is generally not a double agent although this axiom of spy-craft is sometimes violated. A spy lives a highly dangerous life when operating overseas. If possible and this ideal, a spy needs to know a lot about culture of the country in which the spy is operating. The most valuable spy speaks multiple languages and is a world class traveler.
A confidential informant and spy live a double life and must be exceedingly cautious when sharing any information about their past and/or present lives. It is occasionally best to recruit an unmarried spy. Family allegiance sometimes supersedes loyalty to the United States and the family may present a clear and dangerous operational security risk. An optimal situation is too having a married couple who are both spies for the CIA.
The trust model for a CI and a HUMINT operator are vastly different in most cases and situations. The CI’s handler must be very skeptical of the CI’s verbal information and it is good to seek audio confirmation of CI data via wiring the CI and obtaining at least audio information if not video tapes. A spy’s information must be carefully evaluated and heavily analyzed by her/his station chief and possibly higher up the CIA chain of command and control.
Author: jamespatewilliamsjr
My whole legal name is James Pate Williams, Jr. I was born in LaGrange, Georgia approximately 70 years ago. I barely graduated from LaGrange High School with low marks in June 1971. Later in June 1979, I graduated from LaGrange College with a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry with a little over a 3 out 4 Grade Point Average (GPA). In the Spring Quarter of 1978, I taught myself how to program a Texas Instruments desktop programmable calculator and in the Summer Quarter of 1978 I taught myself Dayton BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) on LaGrange College's Data General Eclipse minicomputer. I took courses in BASIC in the Fall Quarter of 1978 and FORTRAN IV (Formula Translator IV) in the Winter Quarter of 1979. Professor Kenneth Cooper, a genius poly-scientist taught me a course in the Intel 8085 microprocessor architecture and assembly and machine language. We would hand assemble our programs and insert the resulting machine code into our crude wooden box computer which was designed and built by Professor Cooper. From 1990 to 1994 I earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from LaGrange College. I had a 4 out of 4 GPA in the period 1990 to 1994. I took courses in C, COBOL, and Pascal during my BS work. After graduating from LaGrange College a second time in May 1994, I taught myself C++. In December 1995, I started using the Internet and taught myself client-server programming. I created a website in 1997 which had C and C# implementations of algorithms from the "Handbook of Applied Cryptography" by Alfred J. Menezes, et. al., and some other cryptography and number theory textbooks and treatises.
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Numerical Explorations 