As my father used to say: it’s not about what you know, but who you know to get anywhere in life. Anyway, I’ve always enjoyed getting visitors from the planet’s most exotic locations or just watch corporate employees from Fortune 500 companies spending more than the classic three drive-by seconds at my humble blog, in search of a post I’d never imagined being able to hold anyone’s attention.
A US government employee once really surprised me by actually posting a comment from his DC office PC, as we all know that the blogosphere at large is no longer a place of innocent diary keeping. Blogs get searched, indexed, cached, scanned for pictures, videos and keywords, often by systems like Echelon, along with the numerous other programs aimed at achieving ‘total information awareness’. And trust me, the supercomputer scanning your “dear diary” blog will not leave any recognizable traces in your logs.
So imagine my total surprise when I recently started getting a regular reader (yes, he/she didn’t even bother to update his outdated Firefox browser) from the CIA headquarters in Langley, Fairfax County, Virginia, a few miles west of Washington, D.C, USA. No bot, a real human being, kindly browsing my baby pictures and taking his/her time to read several of my posts. As this visitor is passing by during US office hours, he/she must be truly interested in this low-traffic blog from that tiny European kingdom by the sea. Thank you for visiting, ‘CIA’, I’m obviously proud being able to assist in “providing national security intelligence to senior US policymakers”.
If you’re a blogger, who’s your most famous visitor?
This blog is not affiliated with or endorsed by the city of Antwerp, Belgium.
wow the CIA uses Firefox? that kicks ass
Comment by furiousball — May 6, 2008 @ 9:18 pm
It sure does furiousball - their perimeter IT security must be so impressive that this CIA workstation was never updated from Firefox 2.0.0.8 (we’re currently at 0.0.14)
Weird though, getting these kind of visitors just browsing through my posts. I can’t even offer them Belgian chocolates or beer
Comment by Peter - blog author — May 6, 2008 @ 9:58 pm
Wow. I don’t get visited by the CIA. Guess you’re cuter.
Comment by Claudia — May 6, 2008 @ 10:43 pm
LOL, thanks Claudia - I guess the fact that I reposted the ‘if I were a terrorist’ YouTube video by some Hillbilly blogger triggered a flag somewhere at CIA headquarters.
But I’m sure Sharon Osbourne’s nipple made them come back
Comment by Peter - blog author — May 6, 2008 @ 11:00 pm
Either it’s someone who has been tasked to read/research all the Belgian blogs or it’s someone who finds they just can’t get through the day without a daily dose of you, Peter!
Hey, CIA folks are human, too, right? (Okay, some of them are …) One day in some thriller movie, in a scene that won’t make sense until near the end of the movie, we’ll see a CIA agent checking out your blog. Wonder if they’ll show the nipple entry or the sex with animals one. The Top Posts sidebar definitely makes it easier for them to find your best stuff! LOL
Comment by Shirley — May 7, 2008 @ 5:37 am
You know Shirley, I’ve noticed many (government) employees (worldwide) getting bored in front of their PC screen and start fun-surfing. My ’sex with animals’ posts may sound like a cheap tabloid post, but it focused on a real loophole in the Belgian law that caused outrage. Even the posts on prostitution are socially relevant given the problems caused by local prostitution. Only my two-line nipple entry on Sharon Osbourne was nothing special, I was just amused watching a rich celebrity showing provocative behaviour.
But the CIA visiting? There’s nothing here that might interest them professionally, so it must be fun-surfing
Comment by Peter - blog author — May 7, 2008 @ 11:44 am
I can’t BELIEVE you’ve blown my cover!!! I feel like Valerie Plame. Now you know why I lived in Brussels for three years, infiltrating the super-secret expat society, and why I’m now back in Virginia…..
Comment by V-Grrrl — May 7, 2008 @ 10:36 pm
I only blew your cover to get you a movie-deal V, just like Valerie Plame:
http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2008/02/12/breaking-nicole-kidman-outed-as-valerie-plame/
Tell your story Veronica, you undoubtedly will land a major book-deal!
Your mysterious looks, your home in Va: now it all makes sense - especially since the CIA visits
Comment by Peter - blog author — May 7, 2008 @ 10:59 pm
Can I lie and say David Duchovny reads my blog? ‘Cause if he did, I’d like it.
[Blog author comment: "Feel free to be creative Claudia - hey, it's your blog
Over the past two years, I've often been amazed noticing who reads a blog. Lots of corporate fun-surfers, for sure, but depending on my topics and keywords I really often get a genuinely weird mix. Well, just try mixing terrorism, prostitutes, personal posts, politics, gay issues, sex with animals, religion and a famous nipple. I'm convinced you can imagine the kind of readers I got 
"]
Comment by Claudia — May 8, 2008 @ 3:37 pm
Peter:
I happened to visit your blog today after a rather long time and i noticed this post. The CIA visiting your nice blog and even leaving comments on it is rather ironic. You’re right, people in those institutions are instructed to trace keywords. Though it is possible that you just have a fan at the CIA, I wouldn’t be surprised at all
Peter; A few days ago a Blogger friend of ours had unnexpected visitors at his house, 10 armed members of an anti-drug squad broke into his home at 6am and searched down the place and him too as if he was a criminal. They took his camera and confiscated his passport. They said they had a search warrant, but they never showed it to him.
As it turns out, earlier that week, a reporter from a national mexican newspaper had published an article about some videos this friend had modified and put on YouTube. Those videos he modified were the government’s black propaganda where they compare the people who are defending the mexican oil company PEMEX to Hitler and Musolini. This friend, put a text on the video accusing the government to be fascist. 10 armed men against a critic of the system… you tell me
It’s more than ironic to see that those who search those keywords and belong to government agencies don’t always know what that government will do with the information of those blogs, or the people who run them. In this case, the abuse of power is hardly ironic but rather offensive and indignant.
http://wordsinresistance.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/clitemnistra-u…-a-cambio_real/
[Blog author comment: "Even many American & European bloggers have become much more careful about what they will put online Clitemnistra - the CIA is not fun-surfing: they collect data for a purpose..."]
Comment by clitemnistra — May 15, 2008 @ 8:32 pm