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Espresso Martini | Hegseth’s Lecture, an NYC SIM Farm Bust, Spies in a Shutdown, and MI6’s Silent Courier
Season 10 Episode 6
This week, Chris and Matt break down Pete Hegseth’s speech at Quantico, where he and President Trump summoned 800 generals and admirals for what turned out to be a culture-war lecture on grooming standards and “wokeness.” They examine what it says about civil-military relations in Trump’s second term and the risks in treating the armed forces as a political prop. Then they turn to the Secret Service’s discovery of a massive SIM-card farm in New York linked to swatting threats and fraud, and what it reveals about the intersection of cybercrime, sabotage, and telecom vulnerabilities. From there, they look at how the US government shutdown is playing out inside the intelligence community—why frontline missions continue while contractors and support staff face furloughs that erode resilience. Finally, they discuss MI6’s launch of a new dark-web tool called Silent Courier, designed to encourage potential sources to walk in virtually, and weigh the promises and dangers of this digital era of espionage.
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Train Like a Spy with SpyQ - Use this discount code for 10% off - SECRETS&SPIES10
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John Le Carré: Tradecraft @ The Bodleian Library in Oxford 1st Oct - 6th April
https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/lecarre
Subscribe and share to stay ahead in the of intelligence, geopolitics, and current affairs.
Train Like a Spy with SpyQ - Use this discount code for 10% off - SECRETS&SPIES10
Find out more information about SpyQ and register: https://www.spyq.co.uk/
John Le Carré: Tradecraft @ The Bodleian Library in Oxford 1st Oct - 6th April
https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/lecarre
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Articles discussed in today’s episode
"A Novice Defense Secretary Lectures the Brass on What It Takes to Win" by Greg Jaffe | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/us/politics/hegseth-military-officers.html
"Trump Gave the Military’s Brass a Rehashed Speech. Until Minute 44." by Shawn McCreesh | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/us/politics/trump-military-brass-speech.html
"Secret Service traced swatting threats against officials. They found 300 servers capable of crippling New York’s cell system" by John Miller & Celina Tebor | CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/23/us/swatting-investigation-server-network-discovered
"Six key questions about the dismantled network capable of crippling New York’s cell system" by David J. Lopez | CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/27/us/nyc-network-secret-service-investigation
"'SIM Farms’ Are a Spam Plague. A Giant One in New York Threatened US Infrastructure, Feds Say" by Andy Greenberg, Lily Hay Newman & Matt Burgess | WIRED: https://www.wired.com/story/sim-farm-new-york-threatened-us-infrastructure-feds-say/
"The Shutdown and the Spies" by Jeff Stein | SpyTalk: https://www.spytalk.co/p/the-shutdown-and-the-spies
"Silent Courier: UK intelligence service MI6 launches dark web portal to recruit foreign spies" by Nick Paton Walsh | CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/18/europe/mi6-silent-courier-dark-web-spies-intelligence-intl
"Trump Gave the Military’s Brass a Rehashed Speech. Until Minute 44." by Shawn McCreesh | The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/us/politics/trump-military-brass-speech.html
"Secret Service traced swatting threats against officials. They found 300 servers capable of crippling New York’s cell system" by John Miller & Celina Tebor | CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/23/us/swatting-investigation-server-network-discovered
"Six key questions about the dismantled network capable of crippling New York’s cell system" by David J. Lopez | CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/27/us/nyc-network-secret-service-investigation
"'SIM Farms’ Are a Spam Plague. A Giant One in New York Threatened US Infrastructure, Feds Say" by Andy Greenberg, Lily Hay Newman & Matt Burgess | WIRED: https://www.wired.com/story/sim-farm-new-york-threatened-us-infrastructure-feds-say/
"The Shutdown and the Spies" by Jeff Stein | SpyTalk: https://www.spytalk.co/p/the-shutdown-and-the-spies
"Silent Courier: UK intelligence service MI6 launches dark web portal to recruit foreign spies" by Nick Paton Walsh | CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/18/europe/mi6-silent-courier-dark-web-spies-intelligence-intl