Deserves the ranking, entertaining and in many ways provocative and familiar. And as someone who has a decent grasp of security culture - painful at many parts. If one observes, there were many many many slip-ups from many people - and the antagonists didn’t even use many of them.
opsec rants: partial spoilers, don't open unless you've watched
Just from memory, wasn’t taking notes:
“Leaving DNA at a scene” (euphemism), selfishly delaying escape to have sex during operations, and other extreme unseriousness
Panicked speeding escape from bank heist, crashing through many cars, drawing attention to themselves and generating dozens of witnesses to the getaway cars (rule of thumb: commit one crime at a time)
Mr. Pyrotechnics didn’t rig the house to blow. Maybe that’s too extreme of a precaution, but it would disrupt enemy efforts and possibly decrease their numbers, but also disrupt evidence gathering later (see - martial arts ad, calendar)
Pat ignoring codewords and openly sharing sensitive info on the phone. Codewords aren’t an excellent tool, especially one like that which a state eavesdropper can probably crack after a few calls, but if they’re there for a reason, you don’t just work around them on an untrusted line, even in an emergency. Imagine being a fed who finds this call log (through the unencoded keywords, or just tapping a known node of a political social network). Even Comrade Josh dropped the facade, no more plausible deniability for the hotline. Willa has it right - if someone doesn’t countersign, terminate the exchange. Is Pat getting to the rendezvous worth the damage they potentially did to all the other operatives?
Pat being extremely open with the curious Sensei Carlos. I know they have some history, but what if Carlos was interrogated like many others were? For example, that music signal is a “trust someone with your life, no questions asked” key, among other didn’t-need-to-know things like disclosing membership of the French 75. Over a decade of protection work down the drain. Who needs a truth serum when we have recreational drugs? We know from history that even close people break or slip - don’t share secrets to anyone unless it’s truly necessary for them to know.
lol phone (definitely should have known better after recognizing the seriousness of the situation in/after the school escape)
Carlos making leads during the hospital getaway: “Let’s do a selfie. […] Siri, Sisters of the Brave Beaver”. For someone who is head of some serious operations, this is just a sad 1-2 combo. Disclosing the location of a secret compound is insane (although I believe Pat could have also been captured with directions?)
Deserves the ranking, entertaining and in many ways provocative and familiar. And as someone who has a decent grasp of security culture - painful at many parts. If one observes, there were many many many slip-ups from many people - and the antagonists didn’t even use many of them.
opsec rants: partial spoilers, don't open unless you've watched
Just from memory, wasn’t taking notes:
meme