US: Old school Russian spy ring busted

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/world/europe/30spy.html?pagewanted=1

An F.B.I. investigation that began at least seven years ago culminated with the arrest on Sunday of 10 people in Yonkers, Boston and northern Virginia. The documents detailed what the authorities called the “Illegals Program,” an ambitious, long-term effort by the S.V.R., the successor to the Soviet K.G.B., to plant Russian spies in the United States to gather information and recruit more agents.

As much as it's a serious thing, I can't help but think the stuff about encoded messages in images, invisible ink, special short wave messages, etc. is pretty cool.  It's like a spy novel.

So now we've all got to be paranoid about the Russians again.

I was under the impression that everyone spied on everyone else, friend or foe.  We spy on the British and vice versa.  However, this is a huge and expensive operation (if it's a real thing).  However, some commentators point out that they weren't charged with espionage, and that might mean that they actually didn't have access to anything that was vitally important.