Spies Vocab Quiz Flashcards
A person unofficially employed by an intelligence service. This person is often a foreign national whom a staff officer from an intelligence service recruited to obtain information for intelligence purposes or perform other clandestine activities
Agent
A foreigner enrolled or enlisted by an intelligence service - either for pay or because of political conviction - to serve as an intelligence source
Asset
A deception planted abroad by an intelligence agency to mislead another country that returns to the originating nation with bad consequences (Ex: CIA trained mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan who later sided with al-Qaeda and/or the Taliban)
Blowback
Agent or asset revealed to counterintelligence, also called burned
Blown
Canada’s secret training based for Allied spies during World War II (in Ontario)
Camp X
Messages in which every letter of a word is replaced with a different letter or numeral
Ciphers
Messages in which letters or numbers are substitute for a whole word or a phrase. Codes are easier to crack than ciphers because codes are constantly repeated
Codes
The psychological terrain of a spy in enemy territory - beyond the reach of his “side”
Cold
Communications intelligence usually gathered by technical interception and codebreaking but also by use of human agents and surreptitious entry
Comint
When an operation, asset, or agent is uncovered and cannot remain secret
Compromised
Identifying, penetrating, and neutralizing foreign intelligence or any “adversaries” activities directed against a country’s national interests, values, and objectives
Counterintelligence
Activities carried out in a concealed or clandestine manner, primarily to make it difficult, if not impossible to trace the activities back to the sponsoring intelligence service
Covert action
Agent assigned to supervise an agent or asset or even a network (i.e. spy ring) in matters of pay, collection of intelligence/information, and other critical details. Also referred to as “controlled agent”
Case Officer
Organization cover or disguise in which an agent hides his/her connection to an intelligence agency
Cover
Practices used with code or cipher machines that enable enemy cryptologists to break into a code or cipher
Crib
Individual who tries to decipher communications that is either CODE or CIPHER. American William F. Friedman is considered one of the greatest cryptographers. He and his team cracked a Japanese code system called Purple using their own machine. The information they deciphered was called Magic
Cryptographer
Code name given to a spy to hide his or her real identity
Cryponym
A mechanism or person used to create a compartment between the members of an operation to allow them to pass materials or messages securely; also an agent who functions as an intermediary between a spymaster and other subagents
Cut-Out
Agent who pretends to volunteer to spy for the hostile intelligence service but in fact remains loyal to his/her country
Dangle
Site where agents leave and exchange messages with other agents or their control. The locations are nooks and crevices in out of the way places. The object is to have no direct contact between agent and their control
Dead drop
A person who has intelligence value and who volunteers to work for an enemy intelligence service
Defector
Person who, while pretending to spy for a hostile service, is actually under the control of the country on which he/she is supposed to be spying. Sometimes, double agent poses as a spy who has “turned, meaning decided to change loyalties, but actually continues to work for his/her original intelligence agency
Double agent
The act of obtaining information clandestinely. The term applies particularly to the act of collecting military, industrial, or political data about one country for the benefit of another
Espionage
Executive action
Assassination
Governments often give double agents so-called feed material, accurate information that they do not mind handing over to foreign power in order to help their agent gain the trust of the other side. That trust is then useful when it comes time for the double agent to pass on disinformation
Feed material
Someone who supervises the work of another agent, often from a foreign intelligence service
Handler
Slang for use of men or women in sexual situations to intimidate or snare others
Honey trap
Intelligence derived from human sources
Humint
An agent operating in a foreign nation under an assumed identity or cover job. This form of agent has no protection from arrest or detention
Illegal
Information gathered from both open and classified sources that is analyzed to help policy makers better understand world events
Intelligence
An agent operating in a foreign country under diplomatic cover, providing diplomatic immunity in event of arrest
Legal
False biography in order to conceal true identity
Legend
A photographic reduction of a message, so small it can be hidden in plain site (Ex: period at the end of a sentence)
Microdot
Human penetration into an intelligence service or other highly sensitive organization. Often a mole is a defector who agrees to stay in place and then supply the other intelligence service with classified information
Mole
Sheets of paper or silk printed with random number group ciphers used to code and decode messages one time
One-Time pad
Intelligence gained from public sources (like newspapers, magazines, websites, books)
Open Source
Original message before it is encrypted
Plaintext
Operative sent to incite a target group to action for purposes of entrapping or embarrassing its members
Provocateur
An antenna on a receiver that can be mechanically or electrically steered to determine the direction a signal is coming from. Two receivers at different locations can then triangulate on the source of the signal (aka Radar)
Radio Direction Finding
Male agent employed to seduce the people for intelligence-gathering purposes
Raven
Activity involving the covert collection of information on an enemy’s specific areas of activity or resources (Ex: reconnaissance satellites photograph foreign military installations)
Reconnaissance
Site considered safe for use by operatives as a base of operations or for meetings
Safe house
To be arrested (as an agent) by an enemy security service after a secret operation is exposed
Rolled up
An agent planted in another country with orders to carry out a normal life and conduct no intelligence operations until ordered to do so - most often, in the event of hostilities
Sleeper
The leader of any intelligence-gathering services, and an agent handler who has a string of extraordinary successes (Ex: William Stephenson during WWII)
Spymaster
The chief office of an intelligence agency in a foreign country, most often located in an embassy
Station
Female agent employed to seduce for intelligence-gathering purposes
Swallow
Technical intelligence - IMINT/SIGINT/MASINT
Techint
The methods developed by intelligence operatives to conduct their operations
Tradecraft
Methods for gaining intelligence from the patterns and volumes of messages of radio intercepts
Traffic analysis
Informal name given to headquarters of any intelligence service
Uncle
Operation in which blood is such, such as an assassination (the soviets used this term)
Wet Job
