A we move into the first Cryber-war (yes, that is what I am calling it), one interesting trend is the emergence of shadowy characters who appear to have fragmented pasts and confusing present activities. Just like in World War II, when people changed identities and moved between countries to survive or work for the war powers, there are people out there whose life details are some combination of sketchy, contradictory and confusing, even though they seem to be real people, unlike the increasing number of online personas that are definitely not linked to real people.
One such person is Joseph Mifsud, a man of Maltese ancestry who apparently worked with George Papadopoulos.
Extensive research using online sources reveals a lot about Mifsud, but a lot of it makes no sense. He appears to have been working in a variety of roles, some of them with now-defunct organizations, or organizations that became defunct while he was involved. His past is sketchy to say the least, and his present is even more sketchy.
The Observer has now done some investigation of its own, concluding that Mifsud’s activities are those of what is often described as a “cut-out” , a person involved in a legitimate-looking occupation or business that requires (conveniently) a lot of international travel, whose role is to act as an intermediary between ostensibly opposed organizations who are in fact secretly collaborating. The use of a cut-out in this manner allows the secretly collaborating parties to plausibly deny that they have any direct relationship.
If Mifsud’s cover (as now seems likely) is blown, he suffers the “Mission Impossible” fate of all cut-outs, with all of the involved parties suddenly claiming to have no knowledge of him or his activities.
