Re: on collecting nikkers and socks.....

On 30 Mar, 15:27, abelard <abela...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
6 short pages

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/27/baying_of_the_hounds_chapter_...
...http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/27/baying_of_the_hounds_chapter_....
"     "The Stasi was the secret police in East Germany. Its objective
was total control of the population and its means was to know
everything about everyone. They turned the German Democratic Republic
- I think that's what it was called - into a police state. Everyone
living there was terrified of being spied on, informed upon or
arrested. The police had a file on everyone." Tracy took another drag
on her cigarette and exhaled pensively. "It was weird the information
they collected. They used it to intimidate people. They scared the
crap out of one girl by telling her that they knew her little sister
wanted to study music at college. I think they implied they could put
a stop to it or something. Anyway, I can't remember what there is on
sniffing in her book, but there is something."

I purchased a copy the next day. In the first chapter, Ana Funder
visits the Stasi museum, located in the former headquarters of the
Stasi in Leipzig.

The Stasi had developed a quasi-scientific method, 'smell sampling',
as a way to find criminals. The theory was that we all have our own
identifying odour, which we leave on everything we touch. These smells
can be captured and, with the help of trained sniffer dogs, compared
to find a match. . .

Mostly, smell samples were collected surreptitiously. The Stasi might
sneak into someone's apartment and take a piece of clothing worn close
to the skin, often underwear. Alternatively a 'suspect' would be
brought in under some pretext for questioning, and the vinyl seat he
or she had sat on would be wiped afterward with a cloth. The pieces of
stolen clothing, or cloth, would then be placed in a sealed jar. The
containers looked like jam bottling jars. A label read: "Name: Herr
[Name]. Time: 1 hour. Object: Worker's Underpants."

Leipzig Stasi had collected smell samples of the entire political
opposition in this part of Saxony. No-one knows who has these scraps
of material and old socks now, nor what they might be keeping them
for."

I remember reading somewhere (I've forgotten the source but I'll
try and locate it) that the ratio of government employees paid as
professional spies, relative to people under Hitler was 600:1. Under
Stalin, it was 500:1. Under Honecker (and presumably before then),
this figure was 16:1.

As to what the equivalent for North Korea is....the mind boggles.
.