Ancient Times
An empire that grew rapidly in part due to its intelligence apparatus, defeating the powerful Abbasid dynasty
The Mongol Empire
A critical technology invented in 1927 that is the main means of surveillance of individuals in public spaces
CCTV
Cyber espionage
Famous ruler who sent diplomats to spy before conducting military campaigns
Alexander the Great
A technology used by spies to pass information covertly between lines of texts, revealing the true message with the application of heat
Invisible Ink
The largest known intergovernmental intelligence alliance
Five Eyes
Consists of UK, USA, Australia, NZ, and Canada
The country that invented the 'dead spy', a spy that was intentionally provided false information
China
Sun Tzu was a famous Chinese strategist who wrote extensively on China's use of elaborate spy plots in the 5th Century B.C.E., including the use of dead spies
The US President who is considered the first 'spymaster'
George Washington
George Washington coordinated a spy network and used codes and ciphers to win the Revolutionary War
The term for hackers who use their skills to further a social or political goal
Hacktivists
Two ancient Greek texts which allude to acts of espionage in war
Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey
The country that created the first cryptographic unit (decodes secret messages)
India
A tool used to identify individuals by their physical attributes
Biometrics
This includes fingerprint scanning, facial recognition technology, and iris scans. Although these are not acts of surveillance in of themselves, they can be employed to monitor individuals and populations
The occupation of the majority of medieval spies
Priests and monks
Priests and monks were used as intelligence agents because of their ability to speak many languages and their existing networks
The name of the enciphering machine used by Germany in WWII that had a daily cipher system, making it almost impossible to break
Enigma Machine
The deciphering of the Enigma code is considered one of the cornerstones of the Allied victory in WWII. It was decoded by Alan Turing in 1940
The espionage technique of concealing information in other data, such as photographs
Steganography
Famously used by a network of Russian spies in the US before their arrests in 2010. It is believed they exchanged over 100 photos with embedded text