How to Become a Spy

Spying is one of the most exciting jobs in the world. Learn how to become a spy.

Make no mistake about it. For you to become a top spy, you must have certain characteristics, and learn many skills and abilities.

This page lists what it takes to be a spy. Use it as your personal training curriculum!

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Characteristics of a Secret Agent

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There are certain character trades that are common amongst all spies. These aren't skills you can acquire, you must possess these characteristics if you want to be a top nodge spy.

• Guts!
  Spying is not for the feeble minded. You put yourself in unknown, and possibly dangerous, situations, with only your skills and wits to keep you out of harms way. If you want to know how to become a spy, ask yourself: do I have what it takes to be a spy?
  
  
• Intelligence
  There's a good reason why they've called spying "intelligence". You need to learn many skills and abilities, and fast! Each new operation calls for different skills, cover and legend, and you must be able to learn and internalize them in days.
  
  
• Creativity
  Spies find themselves facing all kinds of problems, each one calling for a fitting solution. Unfortunately, most of the time you cannot fall back on some super-duper gadget, issued by "Q", but you must make do with whatever you have at your disposal.
  
  

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Top Spy Skills

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Spy Disguises
A big part of becoming a spy is learning all the secrets that are used to keep things under wraps. A spy has to be able to pass information and do their job without being noticed or caught in the act. While there are a few things that they do to accomplish this, nothing is quite as important as a spy's disguise.

Shadowing People - They Will Never Know You are There
If you are looking for the best way to be a spy without anyone ever knowing, follow along on the mission and pick up a few tips on how to trail someone as invisibly as possible.

Making and Breaking Codes

Introduction to Codes and Ciphers
Codes and ciphers are all about keeping secrets. By nature, being a spy has to be a secret. If people know that the spy is looking for information, they won't tell their own secrets. If they get caught with secret information, spies wouldn't be able to do their job or their life could be in danger.

• The Ceasar Cipher - This cipher (aka. shift cipher) is a substitution cipher, where letters are replaced by a letter with a fixed shift in the alphabet.
• Pigpen Cipher - The pigpen cipher (aka. masonic cipher) is a very simple substitution cipher, that goes back all the way to the 18th century.
• Vigenere Cipher - The Vigenère cipher (which is actually French and sounds a bit like visionair) is a very old way of coding that's designed to mask character frequency (checking character frequency in a piece of coded text is one of the most well-known ways of breaking code).

How to Break Codes by Knowing your Language
Even though ciphers and codes are meant to be difficult to understand for the ordinary person, there are ways through which you can break codes. Actually, there are people who either as part of a job or just for fun, spend their time trying to crack codes and ciphers.

Real Spy Gear
Spy tools that real life spies use.

• Spy Surveillance Equipment - Spy surveillance equipment is used by spies to collect information when you can't be around to 'listen in', or to monitor their subjects.The spy equipment can is not necessarily visual but it can also be audio, email, fax or postal interception as well.
• Audio Spy Equipment - To be the best secret agent around, you'll need some pretty specific tools. Audio spy equipment allows you to do your job without anyone catching you.
• Spy Satellites - Spy satellites are a special type of artificial satellites intended primarily for espionage purposes.
• Gas Mask - Spies use gas masks to protect themselves from poison gas

Spy Dictionary
Learn how to talk like a real spy. This spy dictionary will teach you all the spy lingo you'll need, so that you know what other spies are talking about...

How to Improve Memory
A good memory is a spy's most used weapon. In fact, even if your not really a spy, but say, a student, or a manager, or an adolescent, a good memory can help you in life. A good memory can be a life saver when studying for an exam or when you're grilled during a sales presentation.

Visit the International Spy Museum
The mysterious and secretive world of spies is unlocked for visitors who are daring enough to test their aptitude, courage and skills at the International Spy Museum. This is a place where clandestine activities are encouraged, intelligence is applauded and the ability to figure out hidden motives will move you to the head of the class.

Watch Spy Movies
Watching spies is always good to learn more about spying. So, choose a flick of your liking, grab a bagof your favorite popcorn, and dig in!

Become a Spy... a Real Spy!
Here's our e-book explaining how to become a real spy, free for subscribers to our newsletter!

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