when i was in prison in 2014, my last 4 months in low-sec, one of my fellows was a former intelligence officer who told me stuff about how things work

like for example that the main shopping strip of Sofia, the "vitoshka", a renovated piece of road in the centre of town between the central park and the main mosque and former central bathhouse, constantly had several agents posing as cafe and restaurant customers who every morning were given a bundle of photographs of people to watch out for and note if they saw them and what they were doing

intelligence isn't necessarily "onto you" just because they are watching you, because they are watching everywhere, that's the thing about covert operations, they are hard to spot and military and spook agencies spend a lot of resources paying people to do "fun" things like drinking coffees, sipping martinis, eating tasty meals and the like, in public places

it would be completely naive to not realise that every place on the internet where more than about 100 people regularly frequent there isn't at least one or two agents with cover stories who make a reputation for themselves as being something or other

and it would be more naive to think that as well as watching, when there is discussions going on, that they are not sending people to plant disinformation and rumors in order to fulfill operational objectives

anyone who thinks that nostr is just a bunch of bitcoiner dev nerds meming it up is simply unaware of what goes on in the real world, let alone online

these disinformation agents are pretty easy to spot if you are aware of techniques of counterintelligence and manipulation, but normal people are not alert to the way that they will roll through several different narratives, change their personal history, and sometimes even instigate personal attacks and pile-ins on targets that they perceive as being obstructive to their work

note that as well as actual spooks, there is also crazy people out there, who on one side believe that everyone is a spook, and on the other side, believe they are special agents for some fictitious agency or organisation and will also behave in similar ways as actual spooks and covert operators

it's quite comical to watch

when i say i think someone is a spook, just always keep in mind that i'm usually about 25% confident that if they are not, they are out of their minds