You'd be amazed to learn how frequently and successfully it is still done in the real world, despite your belief that using sex to get state secrets only occurs in fiction. It operates as you would imagine and is maybe one of the oldest techniques for spying. By using the age-old tactic of wooing them, an operator can approach a high-ranking official and get anything they require. Although numerous leaked and declassified reports show that it still functions despite it being so evident that it shouldn't, it does.

One particularly well-known instance of the "honey trap," as the method is known, was Mata Hari, a German spy who was found guilty of wooing French officers and passing their secrets to Germany during World War One, even though some historians have questioned her guilt. Then there is the story of Marita Lorenz, who the CIA allegedly hired to murder Fidel Castro after allegedly having a romance with him. But just as the CIA was about to launch yet another attempt against the Cuban prime, she suddenly changed her mind. These instances are hardly unique either, as some of the most effective intelligence services of the period, including the KGB and Mossad, often utilized sex for espionage.

It is challenging to catch all of the suspected spies when there are many of them close by. A canary trap has become a rather reliable defense that has been used against that throughout history. Give each of the suspected spies various bogus bits of information, and then watch to see which one leaks. Like every effective espionage method throughout history, the term was originally used by Tom Clancy in his 1987 bestseller Patriot Games, but it has been around for much longer than that.

Canary traps are also widely employed in the corporate world, where the theft of intellectual property is quickly emerging as a big issue, to strengthen cyber security, so it's not simply military espionage. We-FORGE, a data security system created by researchers at Dartmouth College, employs AI to produce distinct but logically equivalent copies of a document for network storage.

State secrets, spy data, patents, drug design information, and pretty much anything else that might be useful might all be included in this. The leaked file would show the particular location and method of any attack on the system, allowing the cyber-security team to immediately identify the weaknesses that need to be fixed to fortify the network against future attacks of a similar nature.

The term "steganography" refers to the broad art of concealing information in a place that is open to the public. While several of the other items on this list, such as invisible ink, would fit under this category, they are merely examples of a broad field of research, much like cryptography. Steganography, like cryptography, has a lot of potential applications in espionage.

Despite the technique's extensive use throughout history, it has become even more pertinent in the age of computers and the Internet, particularly for counterterrorism and cybersecurity. As a simple illustration, hackers frequently encrypt dangerous information to evade detection software by hiding it in the least significant areas of a file, which could be anything from a document to a movie.

Even in 2001, there were some allegations that claimed Al-Qaeda was utilizing pornographic files to transmit information to its operators around the world, however up until this point, no proof of this has ever been discovered.

A dead drop is a technique used in conventional espionage to transmit information without the need for face-to-face contact between the parties and instead uses covert locations. Although though the term "dead drop" was just recently invented by an FBI special agent, this straightforward method has been employed throughout history to safeguard the identity of specific spies. Its widespread use during the Cold War is known to us thanks to recently made public documents.

Although using a dead drop physically works best, it can also be utilized digitally for a variety of applications. As an illustration, online dark web sellers frequently employ it as their preferred delivery method, combining it with cryptocurrency, anonymous browsers like Tor, and the age-old practice of "trusting a stranger." Simply finish the transaction online, conceal the box in person at the desired spot (for example, behind a bus seat), and provide the customer with pictures showing the package's exact location.

Even though, once again, we only learned about it because someone was captured, a dark web market operating out of Moscow frequently employed this tactic. Given its effectiveness, dead drops are probably still used frequently by spies, journalists, internet drug traffickers, and a variety of other people who need to maintain their identity in order to function.

Due to its reliance only on the decentralized Internet rather than a specific communications network that may be watched and sabotaged, email has always been a useful prospective method of conveying secret information since the invention of the Internet. Emails used to be a reliable form of communication, but as counterespionage technology improved in tracking them, it has become nearly impossible.

While it might appear that there is no way to address the issue, there is; simply store the email as a draft instead of sending it. Since quite some time, operatives, particularly terrorists, have been observed using this method to successfully send and receive messages, and counterterrorism experts claim that it is highly challenging to disrupt. There is no digital signature left behind that may be used to identify the sender or recipient of the message. The messages in the drafts could even be further encrypted using obscure, cryptographic languages.

Nowadays, invisible ink might seem too simple to be an effective espionage tactic, but that is only because spy movies have featured it so frequently. Yet, such wasn't the case during World War One, when the idea was still mostly unheard of.

Invisible ink was not only frequently employed by spies during the war, but there were also numerous ways to achieve so, according to recently disclosed documents. One method involved coating a starched handkerchief with nitrate and soda, which, when dipped in water, transformed into invisible ink and allowed for the quick writing of coded messages.

The traditional method of using lemon juice as invisible ink was also adopted extensively by both sides. It was an efficient method of transmitting coded signals at a time when cryptography was still in its infancy because the messages could be decoded simply by heating the paper.

It is a well-known truth that the Nazis were skilled at setting up devious booby traps to disable allied forces searching for supplies or weapons as they withdrew at the close of World War 2. The normal bomb-rigged food or cartridge boxes were also provided, but they were solely intended for the lower-ranking personnel. Yet, the higher-ups weren't fooled by gleaming weaponry or tasty meals. The Nazis had the bomb with the skewed picture for them.

This trap, which was frequently set up in abandoned military buildings, included purposely tilting a picture on the wall in a peculiar direction. Officers, on the other hand, were more inclined to care about framed art and fix it, but lower-ranking soldiers rarely bothered with something like that. When they did, the frame would detonate in their face, killing or immobilizing them instantaneously.

It's challenging to consider animals as potential clandestine agents, partly because it's challenging—practically impossible—to teach them about the complexities of contemporary geopolitics. It would be unfair to fully rule out the possibility, though, given the large number of officially unsubstantiated claims of nations deploying animals for spies in recent years.

Consider the recent report of the discovery of a beluga whale in Norwegian seas, complete with a mount suitable for holding a camera or a weapon and a tight harness bearing the words "Equipment of St. Petersburg" inscribed inside. Norwegian experts were certain that it was one of numerous Russian animal spies hired to gather intelligence in the area, despite Russian authorities' refusal to admit it was one of their own.

Then there are the claims that the US military used dolphins to detect mines in the Persian Gulf in 1987 as well as to secure its fleet during the Vietnam War. One ex-Navyman who claimed to have participated in a clandestine dolphin-training program went so far as to say that some of these dolphins had been taught to use carbon dioxide syringes to kill spies.

Double agents are one of the main issues in spycraft because, regardless of how competent your spies are, there is always the terrifying, albeit remote, possibility that they have defected and are now working for the enemy. The Art of War, a treatise on warfare published by the renowned Chinese strategist Sun Tzu in the 5th century BC, offers a number of very easy-to-follow strategies to resist this.

One of these was the "doomed spy," which involved acting in specific ways solely for the agents who could be lurking in your camp. It differed from the traditional double agent in that it required little effort to send the information you wanted the adversary to know, without having to go to the trouble of finding spies and persuading them to join your side because you never knew how many of them there are.

It is safe to state that many intelligence agencies still employ Sun Tzu's methods to develop their military strategies because they continue to be effective and are still applied in the field today. But once more, it wouldn't be a very effective strategy if we knew which ones they are.

False flag operations have their origins in naval warfare, when hostile ships would purposely display the flag of a friendly country to deceive a fleet into allowing them board amicably, and then, well, you know how war works. Since then, it has come to be used to describe any espionage operation that aims to accomplish a certain strategic goal by placing the blame on a party other than the party committing it.

As a false flag that everyone is aware of is not technically a false flag, it follows that we have no real examples of such operations. Nonetheless, a great deal of recent events have been linked to alleged covert operative false flag operations. One of the most infamous instances is the 1933 fire at the Reichstag, the location of the German parliament.

While the incident was directly attributed to a communist named Marinus van de Lubbe and used as a pretext to prosecute government officials who supported communism, many historians believe that the Nazis themselves were responsible. But we might never know, just like with the majority of successful false flag operations.