Post by Silverback on Jan 10, 2005 13:47:14 GMT
The shadow world has inspired--and mandated--a vivid vocabulary of words and codenames for secret operations, missions and agents. These words are carefully chosen to clarify or confuse, depending on the need to know.
The "spookspeak" presented here is drawn from fact and fiction, from agencies and authors around the world and throughout time.
Agent: a person unofficially employed by an intelligence service.
Agent-in-Place: a government employee who is influenced to cooperate with a foreign government instead of defecting; now working for two employers instead of one.
Agent-of-Influence: a person who works within the government or media of a target country to influence national policy.
Asset: a clandestine source or method, usually an agent.
Babysitter: bodyguard.
Bagman: an agent who pays spies and bribes authorities.
Bang and Burn: demolition and sabotage operations.
Birdwatcher: slang used by British Intelligence for a spy.
Black Bag Job: secret entry into a home or office to steal or copy materials.
Black Operations: covert operations that are not attributable to the organization performing them.
Black Propaganda: disinformation that is deniable by (and not traceable to) its source.
Blowback: a deception planted abroad by an intelligence agency to mislead another country that returns to the originating nation with bad consequences.
Blown: discovery of an agent's true identity or a clandestine activity's real purpose.
Bombe: Polish electro-magnetic device created to decipher 3-rotor Enigma combinations; early precursor to the modern computer.
Bona Fides: proof of a person's claimed identity.
Bridge Agent: an agent who acts as a courier from a case officer to an agent in a denied area.
Brush Pass: a brief encounter where something is passed between case officer and agent.
Burned: when a case officer or agent is compromised.
Camp Swampy: CIA's secret domestic training base (also known as "The Farm").
Camp X: Canada's secret domestic training base.
Carnivore: computer program designed by the FBI to allow the FBI (in compliance with court orders) to collect electronic communications from a specific user targeted in an investigation (at the exclusion of all other users' transmissions).
Case Officer: a staff officer who manages agents and runs operations.
Center: KGB headquarters in Moscow.
Cheka: Russian secret police founded in 1917 to serve the Bolshevik party; one of the many forerunners of the KGB.
Chicken Feed: convincing, but not critical, intelligence knowingly provided to an enemy intelligence agency through an agent or a double agent.
Chief of Station: the officer in charge at a CIA station, usually in a foreign capital.
CIA: Central Intelligence Agency; U.S.'s foreign intelligence gathering service.
Cipher: a system for disguising a message by replacing its letters with other letters or numbers or by shuffling them.
Clandestine Operation: an intelligence operation designed to remain secret for as long as possible.
Clean: unknown to enemy intelligence.
Cobbler: a spy who creates false passports, visas, diplomas and other documents.
Code: a system for disguising a message by replacing its words with groups of letters or numbers.
Codebook: a list of plain language words opposite their codeword or codenumber.
Colossus: an electronic device that helped solve German cryptograms.
COMINT: all intelligence gathered from intercepted communications.
The Company: an unofficial term for the CIA popularized by fiction.
Compromised: when an operation, asset, or agent is uncovered and cannot remain secret.
Controller: officer in charge of a string of agents (a handler).
Counterintelligence: spy-catching.
Cover: the purported occupation or purpose of an agent; it must be consistent with the agent's background and presence in the target area.
Covert Action Operation: an influence operation designed to effect foreign affairs.
Cryptology: the science of secret writing in all its forms.
Cut-out: a mechanism or person used to create a compartment between the members of an operation to allow them to pass material or messages securely; also an agent who functions as an intermediary between a spymaster and other subagents.
Dangle: a person who approaches an intelligence agency with the intent of being recruited to spy against his or her own country.
Dead Drop: a secret location where materials can be left for another party to retrieve.
Dezinformatsiya [Disinformation]: KGB term for its well-financed and multifarious program to manipulate the West with lies.
Discard: an agent whom a service will permit to be detected and arrested so as to protect more valuable agents.
Double Agent: a spy who works for two intelligence services, usually against his or her original employer.
Dry Clean: actions agents take to determine if they are under surveillance.
Ears Only: material too secret to commit to writing.
Echelon: a computer program developed by the NSA that captures satellite, microwave, cellular, and fiber optic traffic and processes them through filtering technologies for the purpose of gathering information.
ELINT: electronic intelligence usually collected by technical interception.
Enigma: the machine used by the Germans to encode messages during WWII.
Escort: the operations officer assigned to lead a defector along an escape route.
Executive Action: assassination.
Exfiltration Operation: a clandestine rescue operation designed to bring a defector, refugee, or an operative and his or her family out of harm's way.
Expats: expatriates who have taken up residence in another country and are helping to define its culture.
Eyes Only: documents that may be read but not discussed.
FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation; U.S.'s domestic counter-intelligence service.
Flaps and Seals: the tradecraft involved when making surreptitious openings and closings of envelopes, seals, and secure pouches.
Floater: a person used one-time, occasionally, or even unknowingly for an intelligence operation.
Friends: general slang for members of an intelligence service; specifically British slang for members of the Secret Intelligence Service.
Ghoul: agent who searches obituaries and graveyards for names of the deceased for use by agents.
Handler: a case officer who is responsible for handling agents in operations.
Honey Trap: slang for use of men or women in sexual situations to intimidate or snare others.
Hospital: Russian slang for prison.
Hostile: term used to describe the organizations and activities of the opposition services.
HUMINT: intelligence collected by human sources.
Illegal: KGB/SVR operatives infiltrated into a target country without the protection of diplomatic immunity.
Illness: Russian slang for someone under arrest.
IMINT: imagery intelligence.
Infiltration: the secret movement of an operative into a target area with the intent that his or her presence will go undetected.
Source: International Spy Museum
The "spookspeak" presented here is drawn from fact and fiction, from agencies and authors around the world and throughout time.
Agent: a person unofficially employed by an intelligence service.
Agent-in-Place: a government employee who is influenced to cooperate with a foreign government instead of defecting; now working for two employers instead of one.
Agent-of-Influence: a person who works within the government or media of a target country to influence national policy.
Asset: a clandestine source or method, usually an agent.
Babysitter: bodyguard.
Bagman: an agent who pays spies and bribes authorities.
Bang and Burn: demolition and sabotage operations.
Birdwatcher: slang used by British Intelligence for a spy.
Black Bag Job: secret entry into a home or office to steal or copy materials.
Black Operations: covert operations that are not attributable to the organization performing them.
Black Propaganda: disinformation that is deniable by (and not traceable to) its source.
Blowback: a deception planted abroad by an intelligence agency to mislead another country that returns to the originating nation with bad consequences.
Blown: discovery of an agent's true identity or a clandestine activity's real purpose.
Bombe: Polish electro-magnetic device created to decipher 3-rotor Enigma combinations; early precursor to the modern computer.
Bona Fides: proof of a person's claimed identity.
Bridge Agent: an agent who acts as a courier from a case officer to an agent in a denied area.
Brush Pass: a brief encounter where something is passed between case officer and agent.
Burned: when a case officer or agent is compromised.
Camp Swampy: CIA's secret domestic training base (also known as "The Farm").
Camp X: Canada's secret domestic training base.
Carnivore: computer program designed by the FBI to allow the FBI (in compliance with court orders) to collect electronic communications from a specific user targeted in an investigation (at the exclusion of all other users' transmissions).
Case Officer: a staff officer who manages agents and runs operations.
Center: KGB headquarters in Moscow.
Cheka: Russian secret police founded in 1917 to serve the Bolshevik party; one of the many forerunners of the KGB.
Chicken Feed: convincing, but not critical, intelligence knowingly provided to an enemy intelligence agency through an agent or a double agent.
Chief of Station: the officer in charge at a CIA station, usually in a foreign capital.
CIA: Central Intelligence Agency; U.S.'s foreign intelligence gathering service.
Cipher: a system for disguising a message by replacing its letters with other letters or numbers or by shuffling them.
Clandestine Operation: an intelligence operation designed to remain secret for as long as possible.
Clean: unknown to enemy intelligence.
Cobbler: a spy who creates false passports, visas, diplomas and other documents.
Code: a system for disguising a message by replacing its words with groups of letters or numbers.
Codebook: a list of plain language words opposite their codeword or codenumber.
Colossus: an electronic device that helped solve German cryptograms.
COMINT: all intelligence gathered from intercepted communications.
The Company: an unofficial term for the CIA popularized by fiction.
Compromised: when an operation, asset, or agent is uncovered and cannot remain secret.
Controller: officer in charge of a string of agents (a handler).
Counterintelligence: spy-catching.
Cover: the purported occupation or purpose of an agent; it must be consistent with the agent's background and presence in the target area.
Covert Action Operation: an influence operation designed to effect foreign affairs.
Cryptology: the science of secret writing in all its forms.
Cut-out: a mechanism or person used to create a compartment between the members of an operation to allow them to pass material or messages securely; also an agent who functions as an intermediary between a spymaster and other subagents.
Dangle: a person who approaches an intelligence agency with the intent of being recruited to spy against his or her own country.
Dead Drop: a secret location where materials can be left for another party to retrieve.
Dezinformatsiya [Disinformation]: KGB term for its well-financed and multifarious program to manipulate the West with lies.
Discard: an agent whom a service will permit to be detected and arrested so as to protect more valuable agents.
Double Agent: a spy who works for two intelligence services, usually against his or her original employer.
Dry Clean: actions agents take to determine if they are under surveillance.
Ears Only: material too secret to commit to writing.
Echelon: a computer program developed by the NSA that captures satellite, microwave, cellular, and fiber optic traffic and processes them through filtering technologies for the purpose of gathering information.
ELINT: electronic intelligence usually collected by technical interception.
Enigma: the machine used by the Germans to encode messages during WWII.
Escort: the operations officer assigned to lead a defector along an escape route.
Executive Action: assassination.
Exfiltration Operation: a clandestine rescue operation designed to bring a defector, refugee, or an operative and his or her family out of harm's way.
Expats: expatriates who have taken up residence in another country and are helping to define its culture.
Eyes Only: documents that may be read but not discussed.
FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation; U.S.'s domestic counter-intelligence service.
Flaps and Seals: the tradecraft involved when making surreptitious openings and closings of envelopes, seals, and secure pouches.
Floater: a person used one-time, occasionally, or even unknowingly for an intelligence operation.
Friends: general slang for members of an intelligence service; specifically British slang for members of the Secret Intelligence Service.
Ghoul: agent who searches obituaries and graveyards for names of the deceased for use by agents.
Handler: a case officer who is responsible for handling agents in operations.
Honey Trap: slang for use of men or women in sexual situations to intimidate or snare others.
Hospital: Russian slang for prison.
Hostile: term used to describe the organizations and activities of the opposition services.
HUMINT: intelligence collected by human sources.
Illegal: KGB/SVR operatives infiltrated into a target country without the protection of diplomatic immunity.
Illness: Russian slang for someone under arrest.
IMINT: imagery intelligence.
Infiltration: the secret movement of an operative into a target area with the intent that his or her presence will go undetected.
Source: International Spy Museum
