A Shoreditch local journalist reads about foreign spies offering romance in exchange for AI secrets and looks at security, start-ups and dating around Old Street
The Warning Reaches Old Street
The London Prat has a piece about foreign spies offering romance in exchange for AI secrets, built on a genuine warning that hostile intelligence services may use charm and personal attention to get information from people working in technology. The comedy comes from imagining lonely programmers updating their profiles in the hope of being targeted, and from a proposal for two-factor authentication in relationships.
In most of London, that is a joke. In Shoreditch, the home of Silicon Roundabout, it is also a local story. The area around Old Street has been one of Britain’s best-known clusters of technology start-ups for well over a decade, and the shared workspaces, cafes and bars between Old Street and Shoreditch High Street are full of people working on software, data and, increasingly, artificial intelligence. Some of them are building things that other countries would very much like to know about.
A Real Concern
British security agencies have for years warned universities, research institutions and businesses about attempts by hostile states to obtain sensitive technology. Guidance to staff in sensitive sectors typically covers suspicious online contacts, unusual interest in their work, unsolicited job offers and personal approaches that seem too good to be true. Social and professional networking sites have made it easier to identify and approach people who work on valuable projects. A start-up engineer in Shoreditch who lists their work in detail online is, in theory, easier to find than ever.
Most of the people I know in the local tech scene take security seriously at work and rather less seriously in their personal lives. They lock laptops, use password managers and attend training sessions. Then they go to a bar on Rivington Street and tell a stranger exactly what their company is building, because they are proud of it and because the stranger seemed interested.
The Start-Up Problem
Large technology companies have dedicated security teams. Start-ups often do not. A ten-person company in a shared workspace may have extraordinary technical talent and very little formal security training. Founders are focused on funding, product and survival. Security is something they intend to sort out after the next round. That makes small companies, in a cluster like Shoreditch, a potential weak point in a wider ecosystem. The Prat’s joke works because it points at a genuine vulnerability: people in technology are often busy, isolated and flattered by attention.
Romance Fraud Is The Bigger Risk
For most Shoreditch residents, the far greater danger is not state espionage but ordinary romance fraud, in which criminals build online relationships to extract money. Banks, police and consumer groups regularly warn about it, and losses can be devastating. The basic rules are simple: be wary of anyone who becomes intensely affectionate very quickly, who avoids meeting in person, who asks for money or who shows unusual curiosity about your finances or your work. Talk to friends. Meet in public. Never send money to someone you have not met.
Dating Around Old Street
Mention the Prat piece in any co-working space around Old Street and the reaction is easy to predict: laughter, followed by a slightly uncomfortable pause. The jokes are obvious ones. Being targeted by a spy would be flattering. Anyone interested in your work would be suspicious, because nobody else ever is. A spy, at least, would read the pitch deck. The laughter is real. So is the pause.
Underneath the jokes is something that local residents, tech or not, often mention: Shoreditch can be a lonely place. It is busy, fashionable and full of people, but many of them are passing through, working long hours or living in short-term flats. Loneliness makes people more receptive to attention, from spies, scammers or simply the wrong person. That is not a security issue so much as a community one.
A Local Suggestion
The Prat proposes two-factor authentication for relationships. I would propose something simpler and more Shoreditch: meet people offline, in the neighbourhood, at the things that already exist. The community gardens, the local football clubs, the volunteering projects, the evening classes, the Sunday markets. Real relationships built in real places are harder to fake and easier to trust. They also tend to involve fewer discussions about large language models, which several residents told me would be a relief.
You can follow my reporting on Shoreditch’s technology scene and the people who live around it on my author page.
Silicon Roundabout At Night
Old Street roundabout itself has been rebuilt in recent years, with the old maze of subways replaced by a more open public space and a new station entrance. Late one evening this week I stood on the corner and watched the office lights go off, one floor at a time, as the engineers and designers headed home. A man in a hoodie walked past talking loudly on his phone about a funding round. A woman behind him rolled her eyes. Nobody, as far as I could tell, was a spy. But if one had been standing there, he would have learned a great deal about the funding round, and nothing at all about romance.
