1. High-Tech Surveillance and an Eye in the Sky

In the spy game, if you can listen, you can learn, and gaining that crucial ability to eavesdrop has required some deeply creative ingenuity.

2. Deadly Poisons

For some covert missions, the goal is not information, but assassination, and lethal toxins have been deployed by spy agencies to kill perceived foes.

3. Sexspionage

As long as there has been espionage, sex and the promise of it have been powerful tools of persuasion and blackmail — practices that continue today.

4. Clandestine Collection

Methods for covertly capturing sensitive data have grown infinitely more advanced as the devices used to do so have become exponentially smaller.

5. Covert Communication

From old-school "dead drops" to high-tech digital transfers: Learn how intelligence officers actually acquire the information collected by sources.

6. Special Ops and the Saboteur

Special ops require the very best people to execute them. But some of the most famous missions in modern history relied on elite technology as well.

7. The Code Breakers

Encryption is a key tool for keeping valuable information secret — but some ingenious minds have managed to crack seemingly impenetrable codes.

8. Recruiting the Perfect Spy

What leads someone to spy against their own nation? Motivations vary but tend to fall into one of four categories, as notorious cases demonstrate.