ESPIONAGE ENCYLOPEDIA K-O
L
LEGAL: Intelligence agent who operates in a country using an official position such as a commercial attaché at the embassy as his cover. British SIS officers for many years were rather too easily identified as the Embassy Passport Control Officers. Legals may now be ‘declared’ to the house country.
LEGEND (cover): The complete cover story developed for an operation.
LINK ENCRYPTION: The application of online crypto-security to a communications link ensuring that all information using the system is totally encrypted.
LISTENING POST: Can be used to describe anything from a covert surveillance site in an embassy to a major monitoring site like Menwith Hill.
L PILL: A ‘lethal’ cynanide capsule issued to intelligence operatives who would prefer to take their own life rather than be caught and tortured.
M
MAIL COVER: Intelligence agency request for the mail authorities to examine the exterior only of mail addressed to a particular target in search of helpful information such as return addresses, postmarks and the like.
MAJOR DOCS: The principal identity documents used to authenticate an alias identity.
MASINT: Measurement and Signature Intelligence (techint; metric, angle, spatial wave length, time dependence modulation and hydromagnetic data; also, air and water samples.
MATINT: Materials Intelligence
MEASLES: ‘A case of the measles’. A murder or assassination carried out so efficiently by an intelligence service that death appears to have been from accidental or natural causes.
MEDICAL INTELLIGENCE*: Intelligence as the health of leaders of potential or actual hostile nations.
MICE*: The four motivations for people to become spies are usually; Money Financial problems such as being deeply in debt, having an extravagant life style or a mistress or two, are fertile grounds for agent recruitment. This has proved successful in both the Communist and Western worlds. Ideology The belief in the ultimate superiority of a political, religious or social cause has produced a large number of agents whose spying activities often end with an unforced defection. Compromise The first step in the recruitment of many agents has been to identify an element in a person’s lifestyle or a flaw in their personality that offers the chance of blackmail. Sexual, particularly homosexual, or criminal behaviour has traditionally offered the best levers. Ego Case officers are often trained specifically to appear to a target’s vulnerability to intellectual flattery in order to recruit them. The request to write articles for publication on the grounds of the candidate’s ‘expertise’ and the importance of their views. By the time the target is requested for more sensitive material they are already trapped by the lifestyle provided by the earlier payments.
MICRODOT: A photographic reduction of a secret message so small it can be hidden in plain sigh or buried under the period at the end of this sentence.
MISSION: The task, together with the purpose, that clearly indicates the action to be taken and reason therefore. In common usage, especially when applied to lower military units, a duty assigned to an individual or unit to task.
MOSCOW RULES: The ultimate tradecraft methods developed for use in the most hostile of the operational environments. During the Cold War, Moscow was considered to be the most difficult of the operating environments.
N
NAKED: Operating entirely alone and without the availability of immediate assistance.
NEED TO KNOW: A determination made by an intelligence agency to restrict the numbers of individuals entitled to hold or consult a particular classified document.
NEGATIVE INTELLIGENCE: Intelligence known to be compromised or to have been acquired by a hostile intelligence service.
NETWORK: A group of undercover agents or illegals working in a foreign country or countries and who have a common HANDLER. Often broken down into individual and independent cells for added security.
NEWS: Usually taken to be ‘Bad News’.
NIGHTCRAWLER: A talent spotter prowls bars and night-clubs looking for government employees, military personnel etc. who can be compromised using booze, drugs or sex.
NOC: Non-offical cover.
NOTIONAL AGENT: Fictitious agent or mole, usually part of a disinformation campaign.
NUGGET: British intelligence term for money, political asylum or sexual services used as a ‘bait’ for a potential defector.
O
ONE TIME PAD (OTP): Sheets of paper or silk printed with random five-number group ciphers to be used to encode and decode enciphered messages.
OPEN SOURCE - OSINT: Open Source Intelligence (unclassified sources; sometimes OSCINT).
OPERATIONAL INTELLIGENCE (OPINTEL): Intelligence used in the planning of operations in a given region or theatre of war.
OPERATIVE: An intelligence officer or agent operating in the field.
OPSEC: Operations Security - maintaining secrecy and avoiding surveillance.
ORDER OF BATTLE - ORBAT: Intelligence describing the unit identity, strength, command structure and disposition of an opponent’s military forces.
OVERT INTELLIGENCE: Information collected openly from public or open sources such as the news media. Also known as OSINT.
OWVL: One-way-voice-link; shortwave radio link used to transmit pre-recorded enciphered messages to an operative.
LEGAL: Intelligence agent who operates in a country using an official position such as a commercial attaché at the embassy as his cover. British SIS officers for many years were rather too easily identified as the Embassy Passport Control Officers. Legals may now be ‘declared’ to the house country.
LEGEND (cover): The complete cover story developed for an operation.
LINK ENCRYPTION: The application of online crypto-security to a communications link ensuring that all information using the system is totally encrypted.
LISTENING POST: Can be used to describe anything from a covert surveillance site in an embassy to a major monitoring site like Menwith Hill.
L PILL: A ‘lethal’ cynanide capsule issued to intelligence operatives who would prefer to take their own life rather than be caught and tortured.
M
MAIL COVER: Intelligence agency request for the mail authorities to examine the exterior only of mail addressed to a particular target in search of helpful information such as return addresses, postmarks and the like.
MAJOR DOCS: The principal identity documents used to authenticate an alias identity.
MASINT: Measurement and Signature Intelligence (techint; metric, angle, spatial wave length, time dependence modulation and hydromagnetic data; also, air and water samples.
MATINT: Materials Intelligence
MEASLES: ‘A case of the measles’. A murder or assassination carried out so efficiently by an intelligence service that death appears to have been from accidental or natural causes.
MEDICAL INTELLIGENCE*: Intelligence as the health of leaders of potential or actual hostile nations.
MICE*: The four motivations for people to become spies are usually; Money Financial problems such as being deeply in debt, having an extravagant life style or a mistress or two, are fertile grounds for agent recruitment. This has proved successful in both the Communist and Western worlds. Ideology The belief in the ultimate superiority of a political, religious or social cause has produced a large number of agents whose spying activities often end with an unforced defection. Compromise The first step in the recruitment of many agents has been to identify an element in a person’s lifestyle or a flaw in their personality that offers the chance of blackmail. Sexual, particularly homosexual, or criminal behaviour has traditionally offered the best levers. Ego Case officers are often trained specifically to appear to a target’s vulnerability to intellectual flattery in order to recruit them. The request to write articles for publication on the grounds of the candidate’s ‘expertise’ and the importance of their views. By the time the target is requested for more sensitive material they are already trapped by the lifestyle provided by the earlier payments.
MICRODOT: A photographic reduction of a secret message so small it can be hidden in plain sigh or buried under the period at the end of this sentence.
MISSION: The task, together with the purpose, that clearly indicates the action to be taken and reason therefore. In common usage, especially when applied to lower military units, a duty assigned to an individual or unit to task.
MOSCOW RULES: The ultimate tradecraft methods developed for use in the most hostile of the operational environments. During the Cold War, Moscow was considered to be the most difficult of the operating environments.
N
NAKED: Operating entirely alone and without the availability of immediate assistance.
NEED TO KNOW: A determination made by an intelligence agency to restrict the numbers of individuals entitled to hold or consult a particular classified document.
NEGATIVE INTELLIGENCE: Intelligence known to be compromised or to have been acquired by a hostile intelligence service.
NETWORK: A group of undercover agents or illegals working in a foreign country or countries and who have a common HANDLER. Often broken down into individual and independent cells for added security.
NEWS: Usually taken to be ‘Bad News’.
NIGHTCRAWLER: A talent spotter prowls bars and night-clubs looking for government employees, military personnel etc. who can be compromised using booze, drugs or sex.
NOC: Non-offical cover.
NOTIONAL AGENT: Fictitious agent or mole, usually part of a disinformation campaign.
NUGGET: British intelligence term for money, political asylum or sexual services used as a ‘bait’ for a potential defector.
O
ONE TIME PAD (OTP): Sheets of paper or silk printed with random five-number group ciphers to be used to encode and decode enciphered messages.
OPEN SOURCE - OSINT: Open Source Intelligence (unclassified sources; sometimes OSCINT).
OPERATIONAL INTELLIGENCE (OPINTEL): Intelligence used in the planning of operations in a given region or theatre of war.
OPERATIVE: An intelligence officer or agent operating in the field.
OPSEC: Operations Security - maintaining secrecy and avoiding surveillance.
ORDER OF BATTLE - ORBAT: Intelligence describing the unit identity, strength, command structure and disposition of an opponent’s military forces.
OVERT INTELLIGENCE: Information collected openly from public or open sources such as the news media. Also known as OSINT.
OWVL: One-way-voice-link; shortwave radio link used to transmit pre-recorded enciphered messages to an operative.