Spy dictionary

A — C

  • ACCESS AGENT: a talent spotter that performs reconnaissance for recruiters.
  • ACORN: slang for someone who is performing an intelligence function.
  • ACTION DIRECT: an underground group in France.
  • AGENT: a person under the control of an intelligence agency or security service.
  • AGENT-OF-INFLUENCE: a deep-cover agent with influence among the members of a target group.
  • AGENT PROVOCATEUR: a deep-cover agent who feigns enthusiastic support while tempting the target to incriminate himself/herself through action or words.
  • AL AMN AL-KHAS: Iraq's security service.
  • AMAN: one of Israel's intelligence agencies.
  • AMERIKA: underground metaphor for a fascist USA reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
  • ANALYSIS: drawing conclusions about raw information by assessing its significance and by collating it with other information.
  • BLOWN: detected.
  • BLUE-ON-BLUE: friendly fire, inadvertent hostile engagement between allies.
  • BND: Germany's intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst. Literally translated as the Federal News Agency.
  • BONA FIDES - proof of a person's claimed identity.
  • BSS: Belgium's security service.
  • BUCAR: an FBI car.
  • BUG: A covert listening or recording device.
  • BUG-ON-A-CHIP: slang for USA's Clipper chip.
  • BUPO: Switzerland's security service.
  • BURN NOTICE: An official statement from one intelligence agency to another that an individual or group is no longer reliable.
  • BURNT: burned, completed exposed. See BLOWN.
  • BVD: Netherlands' security service.
  • CALL-UP: a police term meaning a situation where a SWAT team has deployed.
  • CAMP X - Canada's secret domestic training base.
  • CANNON: a thief who steals back the inducement offered by the spies to an informant, defector, etc.
  • CARIBINIERI: Italy's federal antiterrorist police.
  • CARNIVORE - computer program designed by the FBI to allow the FBI to collect electronic communications from a specific user targeted in an investigation.
  • CARTEL: 1. A group of independent business organizations formed to regulate production, pricing, and marketing of goods by the members. 2. A group Investigation of a computer system believed to be involved in cybercrime. Also used in espionage to retrieve intelligence from stolen laptops or pcs.
  • CONG AN BO: Vietnam's security service.
  • CONSUMER: a person or an organization on an intelligence agency's distribution list.
  • COOKED: a mixture of genuine and fake material provided via a double agent to one's adversary.
  • COORDINATION DE LA SECURITE DU TERRITOIRE: Algeria's security service.
  • COUNTERESPIONAGE: activities designed to impede the efforts of hostile intelligence agencies engaged in espionage against one's own nation, allies, and citizens.
  • COUNTERINTELLIGENCE: activities designed to impede or thwart the efforts of hostile intelligence agencies attempting to penetrate or compromise one's own intelligence agency.
  • COUSINS: slang for CIA.
  • COVER: persona, profession, purpose, activity, fictitious image maintained by an undercover operative.
  • COVERT ACTION AGENT: a spy who works to reorient an entire nation's politics in favor of his country.
  • CS GAS: a form of tear gas, full name ortho-chlorobenzalmalanonitrile, used by cops, SWAT teams, and the military.
  • CSE: Canada's signal intelligence agency, Communications Security Establishment.

D — F

  • DAM: France's military intelligence agency.
  • DANGLE: a spy who poses as a walk-in to penetrate the other side.
  • DARPA: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (USA).
  • DATA RECOVERY: bureaucrat-talk for the backdoor built into all US-exported crypto software since 1998.
  • DCSS: Denmark's security service.
  • DDIS: Denmark's intelligence agency.
  • DEAD DROP: a physical location where communications, documents, or equipment is covertly placed for another person to collect without direct contact between the parties.
  • DEAD-LETTER BOX: same as dead drop.
  • DEAD-LETTER DROP: same as dead drop.
  • DOUBLE-AGENT: simultaneously serves two adversaries (often with their knowledge).
  • DRY CLEANING: active counter surveillance and anti-surveillance against pavement artists and wheel artists.
  • DS: Bulgaria's security service, the Drzaven Sigurmost.
  • DSD: Australia's signal intelligence agency, Defence Signals Directorate.
  • DST: France's security service.
  • DUBOK: Russian term for a dead-letter box.
  • EARS ONLY - material too secret to commit to writing.
  • ELEMENT: a five-man SWAT team. Consisting of a team leader, scout, rear guard, and two assaulters. The rear guard provides cover for the scout and is usually armed with a 12-guage shotgun. The assaulters usually carry Heckler & Koch 9mm MP-5 submachine guns. See also ASSAULTER.
  • ELLIPTICAL CONVERSATION: says one thing but means another.
  • ENIGMA - the machine used by the Germans to encode messages during WWII.
  • EQUESTRIAN POSTURE: an effect produced by rigor mortis whereby the cadaver sits upright as if riding in a saddle, with arms outstretched.
  • Escort: the operations officer assigned to lead a defector along an escape route.
  • ESPIONAGE: clandestine collection of intelligence by a non-domestic intelligence agency.
  • ESS: acronym for environmentally stable strategy, a concept used in strategic game-theory. up residence in another country and are helping to define its culture.
  • EYES ONLY - documents that may be read but not discussed.
  • FALN: an underground group in Puerto Rico.
  • FALSE FLAG RECRUITMENT: impersonation by a spy while recruiting an informant, defector, agent, etc.
  • FASHIONISTA: An avid follower of fashion, esp. one who works in the high fashion industry as a designer, model, photographer, etc.; a devotee of clothing trends and fashion.
  • FBI: a US security service.
  • FCC: Federal Communications Commission.
  • FDS: One of Mexico's security services.
  • FED: Federal law enforcement officer
  • FENCE: 1. One who receives and sells stolen goods. 2. A place where stolen goods are received and sold.
  • FLOATER - a person used one-time, occasionally, or even unknowingly for an intelligence operation.
  • FLOATING BOX: a method of surveillance where a team of operators establishes a containment box around the target wherever he/she goes.
  • FMLN: Frente Farabundo Marti para Liberaciý˙n Nacional, an underground group in El Salvador.
  • FOOTFALL DETECTOR: vibration sensor designed to detect walking humans.
  • FORENSIC ACCOUNTING: About as exciting as it sounds
  • FORENSICS - The use of science and technology to investigate and establish facts in criminal or civil courts of law.
  • FOUR-BAGGER: discipline of an agent by FBI headquarters, consisting of censure, transfer, suspension, and probation.
  • FRA: Sweden's military signals intelligence agency.

G — I

  • GIA: an underground group in Algeria.
  • GID: Iraq's main intelligence organization, Da' Irat al Mukhabarat al-Amah
  • GRAYMAIL- Threat by a defendant in a trial to expose intelligence activities or other classified information if prosecuted
  • GHOUL -: agent who searches obituaries and graveyards for names of the deceased for use by agents.
  • GRU: Russian military intelligence, the Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye.
  • GSS: Israel's security service (also called Shin Beth)
  • GUAN-XI: an access agent for China's intelligence agency
  • GUOANBU: one of China's security services.
  • GUSTAV WEBER: Hitler's double, used by the Fuhrer's bodyguards to stymie the Allies as to his whereabouts. Shot in the forehead immediately after Hitler's death.
  • HAMAS: an underground group in Palestine (now in power).
  • HANDLER - a case officer who is responsible for handling agents in operations.
  • HARD MAN: an experienced operative who can survive in a hostile environment and who has killed.
  • HARD TARGET: a surveillance target who is actively maintaining secrecy and may not reveal that he/she has detected the surveillance team.
  • HEZBOLLAH: an underground group in Lebanon alleged to have operating units in Latin America with links to major drug dealers.
  • HONEY POT: Mata Hari, Raven, lady, femme fatale; a female agent using romance to compromise a target. ligence activities involving people rather than electronic eavesdropping or communications interception.
  • HUNTING PACK: slang for surveillance team.
  • ICBM: an acronym for instant calm breath method, a way to overcome the flight-or-fight reflex (panic). Also reduces hyperventilation.
  • ICBM - Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Capable of international nuclear assaults from almost any range
  • ILD: one of China's security services.
  • ILLEGAL: an intelligence officer operating in a foreign nation without the protection of diplomatic immunity.
  • IMINT: acronym for image intelligence.
  • INFILTRATION - the secret movement of an operative into a target area with the intent that his or her presence will go undetected.
  • INFORMANT: a legitimate member of a target group providing intelligence to the surveillance team.
  • INNOCENT POSTCARD - a postcard with an innocuous message sent to an address in a neutral country to verify the continued security of an undercover operative.
  • INTEL: Abbrev. for intelligence, esp. military or business; information
  • INTELLIGENCE: Secret information, especially about an actual or potential enemy.
  • INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: a trained member of an intelligence agency, an employee on salary.
  • INTERPOL: international police body that coordinates the intelligence gathering and investigative activities of member police forces.
  • INVESTIGATIVE SPECIALIST: the FBI's name for a surveillance operative (vehicle or foot). Pay grade GS-7 to GS-10. See also SSG.
  • IRA: an underground group in Northern Ireland.
  • ISTIKHBARAT AL ASKARIYA: Libyan military intelligence.
  • ITAC: an acronym for International Terrorist Assessment Center, located in Washington DC.

J — L

  • JARKING: bugging a weapons cache, often rendering weapons unusable.
  • JETRO -- one of Japan's intelligence agencies.
  • JIHAZ AMN AL DAOULA: Egypt's security service.
  • JOE: a deep-cover agent.
  • JRA: Japanese Red Army, an underground group in Japan.
  • KEMPEI TAI: Japan's secret police.
  • KEYLOGGER: A program used to capture the keystrokes any actions of a computer user, often without their knowledge.
  • KEYSTROKE TRACKER: A covert device that tracks keystrokes on a computer keyboard.
  • KGB: Kometet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti. The intelligence and internal security agency of the former Soviet Union.
  • K-LINE: SVR internal security and investigations section.
  • KOANCHO: Japan's counterintelligence and security service. [
  • L-PILL - a poison pill used by operatives to commit suicide.
  • L5: 4096 bit encryption algorithm
  • LADY: honey pot.
  • LAKAM: one of Israel's intelligence agencies (Ministry of Defense).
  • Launder: To disguise the source or nature of (illegal funds, for example) by channelling through an intermediate agent.
  • LEGEND: the faked biography of a deep-cover agent.
  • LETTERBOX: a person who is acting as a go-between.
  • LINK DIAGRAM: connections being analyzed in a complex police investigation or counterespionage case. See problem-solving matrix.
  • LLB: an acronym for live-letter box, an address used to receive communication to be forwarded to an intelligence agency. See also DLB.
  • LOOK-A-LIKES: decoys used to confuse hit squads and surveillance teams.
  • LSD: an acronym for d-lysergic acid diethylanide, a hallucinatory drug discovered in 1943 by Dr. Albert Hofmann, a researcher at Switzerland's Sandoz Corporation, a pharmaceutical manufacturer. Subsequently monopolized by the CIA for its MKULTRA project that developed methods for secretly controlling people. Still used today by numerous intelligence agencies and security services for the following functions: 1. disturbance of memory; 2. discrediting by aberrant behaviour; 3. eliciting of information; 4. creation of dependence; 5. suggestibility. At the CIA's request, in 1954 Eli Lilly and Company developed a method for manufacturing LSD from publicly available chemicals. The CIA's bungling of MKULTRA allowed the drug to escape from the lab, where the CIA lost control of it. LSD subsequently ruined two generations of young Americans. No CIA officer or contractor was ever reprimanded or punished.

M — O

  • M-19: underground group in Columbia.
  • MASINT - measurement and signature intelligence; uses elements that do not fit into the traditional scope of IMINT and SIGINT.
  • MASKIROVDA: Russian name for deception techniques designed to fool US spy satellites. Recently used by India's counterintelligence agency to conceal nuclear testing from the CIA.
  • MATA HARI: honeypot, femme fatale,
  • MBRF: one of Russia's intelligence agencies.
  • MERCURY FULMINATE: an initiating agent for detonating PETN. See PETN.
  • MI.5: Britain's security service. K Branch is responsible for counterespionage, F Branch for countersubversion, C Branch for security of sensitive government installations.
  • MI.6: Britain's intelligence agency.
  • MICE: an acronym for money ideology compromise ego (methods used by intelligence agencies and security services to ruin a target).
  • MUSIC BOX - Slang for Clandestine Radio
  • MUSLIM UIGHUR: an underground group in China.
  • NAKED - a spy operating without cover or backup.
  • NAICHO: one of Japan's intelligence agencies.
  • NARCOTHERAPY HYPNOSIS: CIA interrogators use hypnosis to force regression in the prisoner to make him believe he is talking to his spouse. The prisoner is first prepared by pharmaceuticals according to the following protocol. 1. An injection of 10 mg sodium pentothal to render unconscious. 2. Wait 20 minutes. 3. An injection of 10 mg benzodrine to revive the prisoner to a state partway between waking and sleep. 4. Repeat step 3 if required. At the end of the interrogation a hypnotically induced amnesia is invoked.
  • NEUROLINGUISTICS: a branch of psychology used by intelligence agencies and security services to covertly manipulate unsuspecting human targets.
  • NEUTRON BOMBARDMENT: used by security services like Britain's MI.5, America's FBI, Germany's BfV, and France's DST to detect microdots and invisible writing in postal mail. Originally developed by the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment in Britain for use by MI.5.
  • NIGHTCRAWLER: a talent spotter who prowls bars and nightclubs looking for government employees, military personnel, etc. who can be compromised using booze, drugs, or sex.
  • NINJAS: slang for members of a SWAT team.
  • NITROUS OXIDE: an anaesthetic inhalant used to render sleeping targets unconscious during surreptitious entry by goon squads.
  • OFFENSIVE PENETRATION OPERATION: infiltration of an agent into a target group or organization.
  • OFFSITE: a covert FBI site or facility situated away from a field office.
  • OG: an acronym for original gang members, now in their thirties and forties, who supply cocaine and heroin to street gangs.
  • ONE-TIME PAD: an unbreakable code system that works by adding the numeric value of the plaintext with a randomly-generated code string (the one-time pad).
  • OPEN-SOURCE - intelligence gained from public materials.
  • OPERATIVE: A secret agent; spy
  • OSA: official secrets act, usually a law to enable governments to conceal their mistakes from their own population.
  • OSINT -: open source intelligence; an all-source process which includes HUMINT, IMINT, SIGINT, and MASINT which analysts must understand and integrate to produce the best possible intelligence.
  • OSS - Office of Strategic Services; U.S.'s WWII intelligence, sabotage, and subversion organization
  • OUTRIDER: a wheel artist responsible for ensuring that the target does not get outside the floating box of surveillance vehicles. See also FLOATING BOX.
  • OVERT TARGET: deliberately attempts to draw attention and drain the resources of an intelligence agency or security service. Occasionally a decoy.

P — R

  • PARALLEL-LINE/INCIDENTAL-CAPACITANCE: a method of telephone, telex, and communications eavesdropping that is virtually undetectable.
  • PAROLES - passwords to identify agents to each other.
  • PATTERN - the behaviour and daily routine of an operative that makes his or her identity unique.
  • PAVEMENT ARTIST: outdoor surveillance specialist operating on foot.
  • PEEP: photographer.
  • PERIMETER SURVEILLANCE: is used to alert the surveillance team when the target enters or leaves a specific area.
  • PETN: Pentaery-thritol tetranitrate, a plastic explosive favoured by intelligence agencies and security services. See mercury fulminate.
  • PFLP: an underground group in Palestine.
  • PHOTINT: acronym for photo intelligence.
  • PIG - Russian intelligence term for traitor.
  • PICKET SURVEILLANCE: focuses on times and places when target is likely engaged in activities of interest to the surveillance team. Also called chokepoint surveillance. Named after the openings in a picket fence.
  • PICKUP: when the target of a surveillance operation is first spotted inside the stakeout box.
  • PINHOLE CAMERA: video camera with fiber-optic lens attachment.
  • PLAINTEXT -: the original message before encryption.
  • RAID: an acronym for Rapid Assessment and Initial Detection, consisting of teams of National Guardsmen who assist civilian authorities after a suspected biological/toxin/chemical attack on a population centre.
  • RAVEN: a honey pot.
  • RCMP: police agency in Canada similar to the FBI in the USA. Acronym for Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Also known as RCM Police.
  • RCMP SECURITY SERVICE: counterespionage, counterintelligence, and counterterrorist branch of RCMP. Also known as RCMP SPECIAL SERVICES.
  • RED BRIGADE: an underground group in Italy.
  • RENT-A-GOONS: operatives proficient in hand-to-hand combat, used as muscle support when direct physical confrontation is likely.
  • RESISTANCE: a civilian underground organization, consisting of cells (1 to 10 persons), circles (a group of cells), and sections (a group of circles).
  • RG: France's police intelligence security service, Renseignements Generaux.
  • RING: a network of spies or agents.
  • ROLLED UP - when an operation goes bad and an agent is arrested.
  • ROSCOE: handgun.
  • RUSE DE GUERRE: subterfuge
  • RZ: an underground group in Germany. Literally translated as revolutionary cell

S — Z

  • SA: FBI special agent.
  • SAFEHOUSE: a dwelling place or hideout unknown to the adversary.
  • SANITIZE - to delete specific material or revise a report or other document to prevent the identification of intelligence sources and collection methods. SAPO: Sweden's security service.
  • SASHA KVAP: Russian mole inside Hitler's bunker during the final months of World War II. Subsequently poisoned by the KGB in 1955.
  • SAVAK: one of Iraq's security services. SCIF: acronym for Secured Compartmentalized Information Facility (in Fort Gillem, GA, USA) where Clipper is housed (rumoured to have already been penetrated by agents of China's intelligence agencies).
  • SEMTEX: a military explosive suitable for sabotage and terrorist operations.
  • SECRET CLASSIFICATIONS: Confidential, Secret, Top Secret, and (SCI) Special Compartmentalized Information.
  • SERE: an acronym for survival, evasion, resistance, and escape.
  • SET UP: to begin to conduct surveillance on a target.
  • SEVENTY-ONE YARDS: according to FBI statistics, this is the distance at which a typical police sniper will get you. Although the SR60 .308 sniper rifle used by most police departments is designed for distances up to 600 yards, most police snipers do not fire at suspects beyond 400 yards. (Of course, at any distance an execution is still an execution.)
  • STATION - post where espionage is conducted
  • StB: Czechoslovakia's security service, the Statni Tajna Bezpecnost.
  • STINGBALL: a flashbang grenade used by SWAT teams to disperse crowds and disorient barricaded suspects. Throws off rubber fragments when detonated. It is standard police procedure to cover up the deaths of suspects inadvertently killed by stingballs.
  • STREET AGENT: an FBI agent whose work takes him to various locations.
  • SURVEILLANCE: 1. Careful observation of a person or group, especially one under suspicion. 2. The act of observing or the condition of being observed.
  • SVR: one of Russia's intelligence agencies, the Slnzhba Vneshnei Razvedaki.
  • SWALLOW - a female agent employed to seduce people for intelligence purposes.
  • SWARMING: overfilling a location with surveillance operatives. Often used in psy ops as a means for controlling the target's environment.
  • THROWAWAY - an agent considered expendable.
  • TIMED DROP - a dead drop that will be retrieved by a recipient after a set time period.
  • TRADECRAFT - The methods used in clandestine operations such as espionage. The skill acquired through experience in a trade; often used to discuss skill in espionage
  • TRIADS: Asian organized crime gangs.
  • U-2 - the world's most famous spy plane, developed by the U.S. specifically for intelligence collection in the thin atmosphere 55,000 feet above the Soviet Union; it is still in use today.
  • UACB: FBI acronym for Unless Advised to the Contrary by the Bureau.
  • UNCLE - the HQ of any espionage agency or service
  • UNITED RED ARMY: an underground group in Japan.
  • WATCH-LIST: people targeted for routine surveillance.
  • WET JOB / AFFAIR: results in death of target or major bloodshed.
  • WHEEL ARTIST: an outdoor surveillance specialist operating in a vehicle.
  • WILDERNESS OF MIRRORS: a spy operation so complicated that it is no longer possible to separate truth and untruth.
  • WINDOW DRESSING - ancillary materials that are included in a cover story or deception operation to help convince the opposition or other casual observers that what they are observing is genuine.
  • X RAYS: used by intelligence agencies and security services to pick key-locks and to deduce the settings for combination locks. Equipment fits in a standard briefcase.
  • ZOU-HOU-MAN: back door access to a protected target (as used by China's intelligence agencies).

  • A — C

  • D — F

  • G — I

  • J — L

  • M — O

  • P — R

  • S — Z


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