Take My Cell Phone Survey

Take My Cell Phone Survey

Season 1 - Episode 10

 A fake identity is know in the spy trade as a false flag.  It used to be you could make your own documents with a printer and a laminater.  These days, though, IDs have magnetic strips, holograms and infrared watermarks, you need a pro.

In some situations a tactical retreat is your best option.  A guy with a gun is a guy with a gun.  You can fight him and risk someone getting shot, or wait for backup.

Corporations need spies just like goverments do.  Of course, they're not called spies - they're called security consultants.  They're basically mercenaries with nice suits.

One of the things you learn in training is to avoid situations that cut too close.  If you had a rough childhood, a situation with an abusive father and a vulnerable kid is going to make you angry.  That could be motivating, but it can also be dangerous.

Facts are at the heart of a false identity.  It's harder to create history than it is to alter it.  Plus, the more truth to your lie the easier it is to remember.

Just because there are no windows or doors doesn't mean that there are no exits.  The thing to look for is the air conditioner unit, that's where the wall is weakest.  Also, people watch doors, they don't watch air conditioners.

A basic rule of covert ops is let someone else do your dirty work, let someone else find they guy you want to kill.  It's a great technique, as long as you're not the someone else.

Remove the trigger box spring from a 6 sour P228 and you got a 9mm semi-automatic doorstop.  

Shoot a propane tanks and you'll just get a big cloud of cold gas.  You need open flame and real good aim.

Assassination is 1% shooting, 99% preparation, anticipating moves, devising approaches, recruiting sources, finding the perfect opportunity so the bullets almost an afterthought.  Usually, that's when a target is on the move, when they're too many variables to control them all.  There are ways to lessen the risk: an armed escort, taking an unpredictable route to your destination, having backup in a trail car, but ultimately as long as the assassin knows where you are going they have the upper hand.  It's impossible to stop an assassin from finding an opening and taking a shot.  The best you can do is control where the best opening is, and sometimes that's enough.

 

Season 1 - Episode 9

Work around spies for a while and you learn to be careful when it looks like you're getting what you want.  That's when tend to let your guard down, get careless.  Calling the cops on someone can teach you a lot.  A foreign agent would run and so would an armed assassin.  A beaurocrats gonna act like a beaurocrat.

Beaurocrats live for respect.  East of the Balcans that means a bribe, on the West it's more about showing them you know they're in charge.

About 40% of kidnapping victims are released safely.   These statistics are affected by a number of factors, includingn the nationality of the kidnappers, the age of the victim and whether a hostage negotiator is employed.  The odds go down sharply is nobody has any money to pay the ransom.

A kidnapping is a business deal.  The bad guys have negotiating power since they're selling the life of a loved one, but then again they have a market of one, so they have to work with you.

Working with untrained amateurs introduces an element of risk.  It's a risk you have to live with in a lot of operations.  Although you often wish everybody went through Green Beret training in high school.

Once a kidnapper knows you're onto him, he'll try to contact his partners to have the hostage killed.  At that point you have a choice: you can start choices wreathes for the hostages funeral, or take a hostage of your own.

The art of turning someone into a double agent is delicate.  The target has to be put into a fragile psychological state.  Fortunately, fragile psychological states are a specialty of Fiona's.

It's always easier to turn someone who works in a criminal gang into a double agent.  The more secretive and ruthless their side is the better.  You work on their fear that any hint at their disloyalty will get them killed by their own people.

From Corachi to Vogetah, every kidnappers favorite resource is corrupt employee.  An employee can handle alarms, police, can get financial information, bank accounts, you've even got a fall guy if anything goes wrong.  To a professional kidnapper a man on the inside is worth a lot, and a bad man on the inside is worth even more.

The thing about doubling anyone is the more they do for you the deeper they get.  The deeper they get the more you can make them do.  Great if you're running them, but hard on the source.  The suicide rate is above average.

GPS devices are becoming more and more common these days.  Mostly they're for nervous parents tracking children, but they're perfectly good for other uses.

Running a double agent is a relationship, there's a give and take.  Mostly take, but sometimes you have to give.
 
Rescuing a hostage isn't about battering rams and guns.  Charge through a door with a gun and chances are the person you're trying to save will be the first person lying on the floor dying of acute lead poisoning, so you come up with alternatives.  Ingredients from a local pharmacy, mixed with aluminum foil powdered in a coffee grinder will make a serviceable flash grenade that will stun anyone for a good 20 feet.  Thermite is another handy tool.  With a surface temperature of 1000 degrees, it's used to weld together rail road ties.  It will make pretty short work of most locks too.

If you can't get through a door without attracting attention,  the next best thing is to attract a lot of attention.  Once everyones looking at the door wondering what's going on you can pop in a flash grenade and they won't see anything for a while.

The longer you've been in the game the more careful you have to be about underestimating an opponent.  Say you don't think much of beaurocrats, don't feel they're worth your time or attention.  Then a beaurocrat is the perfect person to send to kill you.

There's no way to anticipate every danger.  You need a backup plan for when things go wrong.  That's why home court advantage is so important.


 

Season 1 - Episode 8

Covert operatives have a hard time dating.  Even if you find someone who doesn't mind you won't talk about your past or that you carry a concealed weapon, they usually want more than your ready to give.

Selling stolen goods is all about discretion.  You gotta be the kind of person who can keep your mouth shut.  The kind of person that never ever shares the numbers that in their little black book.

Even the most careful spy leaves a trail that can get them burned.  A patriot making illicit deals for his government looks a lot like a traitor making black market sales for his wallet.  Somebody upstairs gets the wrong idea and suddenly your burned and out of a job.

When your giving 5 inches and over a hundred pounds to a well trained opponent, it helps to know the terrain better than he does.

A good cover identity is a team effort.  If you want to meet someone it's a good idea to play a little hard to get.  Put people between yourself and the target; make them come to you.

Just because someone believes you are who you say you are doesn't mean he'll do what you want him to do.

Clandestine meetings are never fun to arrange.  It's a big part of the job for a covert operative but it's never pleasant.  It's not so much the fear of death that bothers you, it's driving to the meet with a bag over your head.  Sometimes they wash the bag, sometimes they don't.

The thing about security is that the very things that protect you can be turned against you by someone that knows what he's doing.  It's tough to compromise a well thought out security system, but making someone think you can compromise it - well, that's much easier.  Take surveillance cameras for example.  You can disable it by shooting a laser at it and overloading the light sensitive chip.  Cheap, easy, and exactly the sort of thing a sophisticated criminal gang would lots of resources would do.  Leave around some tell tale signs of surveillance like cigarette butts or forgotten camera lens cap and the more security their is the more likely they are to think they have a very serious problem.   Even the security team itself can be an opportunity.  The more employees you have the more you have to worry about them.  Deliver some vague threats and a few hundred bucks to a security guard.  If he's honest he'll tell his boss, who then wonders who wasn't so honest.  For the cost of a nice dinner you can get a whole security team canned.

One of the dangers of any kind of psychological warfare is it can be too effective and send the target into a paranoid tailspin.  That paranoia can be useful... or deadly.

The key to good security is good systems, but those systems make you predictable.  Where will you take your valuables?  A bank you trust.  How are you going to get there?  With armed men in a big SUV.  When will you go?  When the bank is least crowded.  All good procedure, all 100% predictable.

If you know someone's going to be at the bank at a particular time, it's not hard to make it look like they're robbing the bank.  Knock out a few surveillance cameras, block off the street with a stolen car like they're preparing an escape route, fire up a spark gap  transmitter to kill the security radios at the bank and they'll really look like they know what they're doing.

Season 1 - Episode 7

For anyone who works in coverts ops, names have a special power.  Know someones real name and who they work for, you've got something on them.  Out a spy in the field and you could get him killed, out a beaurocrat in a restaurant and you'll just piss him off.

The longer you run from the police, the more certain you are to get caught.  There's a small window of time after a chase begins before backup arrives; before helicopters are deployed.  If you want any chance of getting away, you'd best use this time to find someplace secluded and bail out.

 In intelligence work, surveillance is called coverage.  It's like basketball: you can run zone defense or man-to-man.  Man-to-man is risky; follow someone too long they're going to get suspicious.  Zone is usually the way to go.  Stay put and let targets come to you.  Less obvious, easier on the feet, and you can catch up on your celebrity gossip.

Explaining the rules of covert ops is always a challenge.  It's a world where good guys look like bad guys, and two wrongs do in fact make a right.

As cover IDs go I prefer rich buisness man or international playboy to crazy thief, but if the situation calls for it you do what you have to do.

The term "shock and awe" gets misused a lot these days.  It's a popular name for a military tactic known as rapid dominance.  Whether you do it with a thousand pound bomb or turpentine and a power drill it's all about being spectacular.  Kill the electronic brain of any late model car and it's dead; won't start, windows won't open, and you can pretty much do whatever you want.

Piss off a criminal organization and you could wind up dead, but if they don't kill you they've got plans for you.
There's no substitute for improvisation.  Even the best plans can't anticipate everything.  You better be able to roll with the punches.

They say you only get one chance to make a good first impression with an employer; it's doesn't matter if you are a store manager or a strong-arm guy - you have to put your best foot forward.

Any new employer is looking for the same things: are you willing to go the extra mile, can you take the initiative.  Impress them.

In any new job there's always friction with your co-workers.  They wonder if the boss likes the new guy better, if he's gonna make them look bad.  In some jobs that can get you a dark look in the break room.  in other that can get you a bullet in the back of the head.

Military firebombs are typically white phosphorous or chlorine triflouride.  These are remarkably effective but they're also unstable, lethally toxic and hard to find at the grocery store.  The main ingredient of a home-made firebomb on the other hand is styrofoam.  A military demolitions expert can put something together in a few hours.  An IRA trained guerilla can do it in 20 minutes, give or take.

Being a spy you have to get comforable with doing bad things for good reasons; doing good things for bad reasons.  You do the best you can.

In any kind of covert intelligence operation it's important to be careful what you wish for.  The information that you fight so hard to get may be everything you wished for, or it may just make your life more complicated.

Season 1 - Episode 6

For most people a night out at a Miami club is a chance to see and be seen.  When you're under government surveillance it's a different story.  You still want to know who's watching, but the reasons are a little different.  Sprinkle a mixture of flour and day-glo powder on your floor before you go out and you'll know whether or not you've had any visitors and what they were after.   You don't always have to get that clever though; sometimes they want you to know what they're after.

There are two kinds of government surveillance: the kind that's there to look for something and the kind that's just there to make your life difficult.

You can tie up a lot of resources by keeping a bugged phone line open.  As long as it's open they're supposed to keep listening.  Say a few cryptic things now and then and they'll be stuck in their little van trying to figure out what the hell you're doing.  They can't go home, can't grab a bite to eat, can't take a leak.   And the longer they're stuck in a van with a set of headphones, the more you can find out about them.

As a rule, spies don't like dealing with cops.  Covert ops are illegal by definition - if they weren't illegal they wouldn't need to be covert.  Still the police can be useful if you need a little insurance against people shooting.

When you're going into a meeting cold with people you know nothing about, you have to be extra careful.  Pay attention to every detail, map out an escape route or two, just in case, and never, ever show up as yourself.  Another thing to look for is people who look overly upset when things have changed, details that shouldn't matter so much.  Some tip-offs aren't so subtle.  Like a detonator sitting on enough chloride to incinerate a city block.

You can turn an old TV into an oscilloscope with about $150 worth of hardware.  It'll electrocute you if you're not careful, but it will make a decent bug detector.  If you don't want to tip off anyone to might be listening, you have to be prepared to keep talking for a few hours.  Of course when you have to keep talking, it's an opportunity for someone to hi-jack the conversation for their own purposes.

The optical bug is a high-tech toy that shoots a light beam at a window.  It picks up vibrations from the glass and translates it into speech.  You can't see the beam with a naked eye, but take the infrared filter off of a digital camera and it shows up nicely.  As high tech as a laser mic is, they're not that hard to defeat.  They pick up vibrations on the glass, so, you supply your own vibrations.

When working a cover identity the safest thing is to let the target take the lead.  You've got more information than he does, you want to keep that edge.

Anyone with a security clearance is going to know not to leave anything in a hotel room.  They'll keep the important stuff with them.  Usually it'll be in a secure laptop with a few layers of encryption and you can't break into it.  But if you're just looking to make somebody angry, you don't need to break into it; put a big enough magnet where the laptop is going to be and you can turn it into an expensive paperweight.

 Doctors are known to be the worst patients.  Similarly, anyone with special ops training is tough to protect.  They think they can handle anything.

When something serious is going down, it's a good idea to show up nice and early so you can see the ground and assess the sitaution.

When enough people hate you sometimes the only move is to just stand in the middle and hope they kill each other before they kill you.

Anyone who has every handled large amounts of cash can tell you it's one of the toughest things in the world to move.  It's heavy and dense: dead weight.  If it's on fire, of course, that complicates things further.

Getting information out of someone who doesn't want to give it up is all about upsetting the target's emotion balance, impairing their judgement.  Fear is good for that.  Anger is not bad either.  Sometimes intelligence gathering involves sophisticated techniques and a lot of high-tech equipment, but sometimes it's as simple as picking someone's pocket.

Season 1 - Episode 5

There's a good reason covert operatives keep their work a secret from their families.  Once your families know what you do, you've got problems.  Best case, their scared.  Worst case, they figure they can get into trouble and you'll get them out of it.

In gathering intel, little things can tell you a lot: a top flight alarm system, well placed cameras without blind spots, paying attention to strangers in the area.

More aggressive intelligence gathering is more delicate, but someone who knows what to look for can find out a lot.
One cheap and effective security measure is working in an area with low or no traffic.  Anyone in a car is too obvious, so you force any would be followers to get out and walk.

Fighting is something you want to avoid.  Once you fight someone, he knows your face.  You kinda blow your cover once you hit a guy in the face with rebar.  But when you have no choice, rebar it is.

When you want to turn someone into an asset, betray the people he loves, you have to get to know him.  You need to know his frustrations.  You need to know how he spends his time and money.  You need to understand his hopes and dreams.

C4 has a plastic sheen and a putty like consistency.  If you need to counterfeit it, the best thing I've found it cake icing, or fon dante as it is known in the cake trade.

If you need a moldable explosive that makes a bang, someone with Fiona's skills can make homemade C4 with spackle, petroleum jelly, and a bunch of other things I don't even want to know about.

Did you ever meet someone and it just seems to click instantly?  You like the same things, share the same opinions, it seems like you've known them all your life.  It could be fate, or it could be that you have a listening device planted under the dashboard of your car.

You'd be surprised how often covert operatives pose as international men of mystery.  Fastasies about glamorous covert ops can be extremely useful to exploit, though some secret agent fantasies are more useful than others.

 Anybody in the arms trade knows that the mark of a pro is the blow and burn - the detonator on what ever you're selling in case the deal goes bad.

Dealing with a blown cover is about stalling for time - stay alive long enough for them to tell what they know and tell a bigger lie to save yourself.

Riding in a car with a blindfold on takes some getting used to.  The good news is that the driver's busy making sure that you can't see anything.  He's not paying attention to whether he's being followed.
Any good operative is going to be a bit of a control freak.  Above all they don't want to hear that the people they think they own really belong to someone who can destroy them.

There's nothing worse for someone who's spent time in intelligence work than to be up against a ghost.  You can deal with an enemy you know, but an enemy you don't know - he could be a competitor who knows all about your operation, he could be law enforcement getting ready to bust you, could be a foreign agent setting you up for some deep spy game.  Your only option is to disappear.