By Sky News Middle East correspondent Dominc Waghorn

One of the world's most secretive intelligence agencies has become the first to open up to the public - in the form of blogs by its insiders.

But don't rush to log on. If you are thinking James Bond or something out of the TV series 24, you will be disappointed. This is more geeks than spooks.

Israel's Shin Bet is the country's internal spy agency, like our MI6 or similar to America's FBI.

Tasked with stopping attacks within Israel's borders and monitoring Palestinian militant activity, its staff do everything from handling collaborators and informants to conducting interrogations.

But the four agents chosen to emerge from the shadows and offer their internet diaries or blogs for public consumption clearly do not work at the most exciting end.

Their lives seem less than glamorous. Reading their blogs, you end up assuming the agents doing the interesting work are too busy to write about it on their laptops. But then isn't that the problem with blogs in general?

"I love my new job with the Shin Bet – it gives me time with my family" raves a female agent 'H', a software analyst. No derring do there then.

She is handling secret information because "there are things that I can't even tell my husband in detail," although she adds they do not like talking about work anyway.

If her work is as humdrum as her blog leads you to believe, you can hardly blame them.

'Y' tells his readers he likes to be home by 6.30pm.

And programming engineer 'A' concedes his life is not quite what he'd hoped for when he left his job in the hi-tech private sector.

"It's really unfair", he says, "I didn't get a siren to put on my car and I too have to sit in traffic jams."

Facetiously he adds: "This post will self-destruct in 10 seconds."

At least he has a sense of humour.

There is a serious reason why the blogs are not exactly Ian Fleming. The Shin Bet wants to hire the kind of people who like reading them.

It is in a recruitment competition with Israel's booming hi-tech industries and needs the best brains in IT who - from the readers' questions at the end of the blogs - are more interested in working hours and website design than gadgets and Martinis.

After all, many of Israel's enemies now operate online to communicate or to promote their ideology and ideas of resistance.

The Shin Bet requires cyber spooks skilled enough to deal with them even if reading about the spies' work can be less than thrilling.

Comments

[Dan 3 Apr 2008 17:09:29]

John,

There never ever was a state "Palestine" so it could not have been part of anything.

And I have it from good authority that Israel will return lands as soon as California and New Mexico reverts to Mexico, Manhattan to the Indians, Australia to the Aborigines, Half of Russia to Poland and Breslau, Danzig and Koenigsberg to Germany.

But never before!!!

[John Hyde 2 Apr 2008 12:30:12]

But it is the facts though! Israel-Palestine, was part of the Assyrian Empire. And the Assyrians didn`t like Jews much, either.

[Dan 1 Apr 2008 19:57:07]

John Hyde

Try facts for a change instead of your old hat Pal propaganda mantras

[John Hyde 31 Mar 2008 13:03:03]

What if The Assyrians, who make up 5% of the population of Iraq, (and are now being killed in Iraq by Islamic Fundamentalists, and which didn`t happen when Saddam was there)said they want to rule Israel again? And there now spread around the world, because of the genocide by the Ottoman Empire, why can`t they have their own homeland?

[jerome webber, ramat gan, israel 30 Mar 2008 18:09:49]

reply to ismail & john,
since there is no such place as palestine & no palestinian people - why on earth should the jewish people who live today in just a tiny part of the land of israel ( an area defined in the bible as streching from the river of egypt - the nile - to the euphyrates - in the artificial state of iraq) give up their land to hostile arab invaders? both the 2 above entities are occupied by the arab invaders whilst the decendents of the pharonic people - the copts - are the most opressed people in egypt & and in iraq ( formerly messopotamia & babylon ) the nearest relative of the jews - the kurds - live in a small enclave surrounded by their enemies - turks & arabs. palestine comes from a roman corruption of the term philistine - the philistines were not an arab people - they were a sea people who lived on a small strech of israels costs ( approx. from rafiah north sinai to modern day ashkelon in israel) John you should also be aware that the romans are still around - the roman empire became the roman catholic church & till this day will not accept responsibility for the execution of jesus - choosing to blame & persecute the jews for a crime they commited 2000 years ago! as for the arabs - they are newcomers to the scene - it was a mere 1300 years ago the firebrand mohamed swept out of arabia forcing islam - the religion of the fire & the sword - on the original peoples of the mid. east. today the whole world lives in fear both of muslim terror & oil at $100 plus a barrel. without the oil the arabs are nothing - when it runs out - heaven help them - their victims will compete with each other to punish them!

[Dan 28 Mar 2008 19:51:07]

john hyde

give it a rest, you have no idea what you are talking about

fact: Jews lived in Israel all through the centuries since the Romans destroyed the second temple.
fact: the Muslims (and the Christians) always tried to murder Jews. Whether it was English kings trying to conquer Jerusalem, or Arab progroms (e.g. Hebron 1929), whether it was Hitler or the madman from Teheran.

But you only listen to Hamas propaganda.

So go on being ignorant

[John Hyde 28 Mar 2008 14:41:27]

I wish Israeli`s would give it a rest, about Palestine being their "ancient Homeland." So, because Jews were booted out, by the Romans thousands of years ago, that gives them a right to go back thousands of years later, and kick the people who live there now out? If countries which ruled over countries thousands of years ago, said they`d like to rule them again, I don`t think they`d like it. If Mongolia said they want to rule countries, that were part of the Mongol Empire, or if we said, we want to rule the parts of America we once ruled, even Dubya would say we`re mad. So this "Ancient Homeland," thing, is a load of nonsense.

[Justin, Buckinghamshire 26 Mar 2008 14:09:26]

Ismail

The Jews have a right to their own homeland. They cannot be expected to live always in the countries of others. Israel was the land of the Jews long before the Arabs were living there, so whose land is it? Haven’t the Jews simply returned home? The Jews now have their own nation, and they have no intention of leaving. Some Jews located to Palestine early in the 20thC but only arrived in greater numbers later, following the devastating experience of the Holocaust. Swamped suddenly by many Jews was bad for the Palestinians but the area designated for the Zionists is relatively modest, and a lot of it is desert which has had to be reclaimed to make it useful. The region is large enough to accommodate everyone. Above all, the Palestinians and Israelis need to work hard at attaining peace, and to resolve the contentious issues.

[Khalid 25 Mar 2008 14:14:38]

And here we have before us a pristine example of how http://www.sky.com/news has furthered the blogospheric platform so that [Karen White] can also enjoy another [Secret Rendezvous. (But there is only but one RTS News Channel of the Year for centuries to come, as further adduced on the Sky Digital Platform Channel 501)

[Paul, Benoni 23 Mar 2008 15:31:15]

and is this the final confirmation of mind over matter, brain over muscle?

[Paul, Benoni 23 Mar 2008 15:29:46]

so after 10 000 years of the muscle men ruling the world, the geeks get a chance to star...

[ismail laher 22 Mar 2008 13:06:03]

Remember the land they live on belongs to someone else.Land to me means nothing
but to orther nations it means alot.They might bethe most intelligent nation of the world, no matter what they do or where they go they a nation that will never be in peace.Hows this for the most simple solutions give every rightfull thing back to palestine and all bloodshed will stop across the region .And people and nations will live in peace.

[Paul, London 22 Mar 2008 09:39:04]

Our internal security service is MI5, not MI6...