Practical Spying

I've always liked detective stories and investigation mysteries and dreamt of being a cop, detective, secret agent, etc. Naturally, this book was attractive. But more than that, it actually contains practical tips for surviving the real world.

The mind is the only weapon that a spy is guaranteed to discharge on a daily basis. Learning some spy tactics will help us be better prepared to face the troubles of daily life.

 
In the past, some spies followed The Moscow Rules:

1. Assume nothing.
2. Never go against your gut.
3. Everyone is potentially under opposition control.
4. Don't look back, you are never completely alone.
5. Go with the flow.
6. Vary your pattern and stay within your profile.
7. Lull them into a sense of complacency.
8. Don't harass the opposition.
9. Pick the time and place for action.
10. Keep your options open.


Spies need to develop mental and emotional strengths, and hence usually practice the following rules:

Thinking Like A Spy: The 10 Rules

1. No matter where you are, act like you belong.

• Stay calm and composed. Don't lose your nerve.

2. Behave purposefully. Especially if you have no purpose. 

• Don't stand around looking like you're waiting for something to happen.
• Occupy yourself with a harmless activity eg. reading a book.

3. Blend in. Become a "gray man" or woman. 

• Dress appropriately.
• Avoid too much chatting. It'll only draw attention.
• Be at the right place at the right time.

4. Develop your assessment skills. 

• Know your enemy. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, assess the players & guess what will happen next.
• Determine probable future events based on everything you know & factors involved.
• The more results you witness, the larger your statistical sample, and the more educated your next guess will be.

5. Learn to trust your instincts to make decisions - right or wrong, you will get better at it.

6. Never second-guess your decisions, but do analyze later. 

• Use common sense.
• Make well-measured and intelligent decisions.
• Take decisive action. Don't take too long to make a decision.

7. Be aware that you may be overlooking things in your surroundings, especially if they are familiar to you.

8. Accept the fact that some level of deception is a necessary part of the job. 

• If you want to get along with other people, you have to learn how to express yourself with tact.
• Many spy techniques rely on deception, or at least the withholding of certain information.

9. Don't be embarrassed to be suspicious of other people's intentions. 

• The people who make you feel the most guilty about being suspicious are the ones who are behaving the most suspiciously.
• Go with your suspicions.
• Don't be afraid to question people's intentions, especially if they are unfamiliar people who enter your life uninvited.

10. Upgrade your memory. 

• Spies need to have sharp memories.

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Although there are countless memory-improvement systems, or mnemonics, almost all are based on principles of "encoding", or creating an association between what you want to remember and a vivid and easy-to-recall mental picture.

5 Tips For Encoding Using Numbers

1. Streets.

• If you are familiar with a city that has numbered streets, make an association between the number you want to remember and something along the street with that number.

2. Initials.

• Commonly, banks allow you to create your own PIN number. To come up with one, you can convert the initials of a person/object you will remember to the corresponding position in the alphabet e.g. A=1, B=2, etc.

3. Rhymes.

• Choose an evocative word that rhymes with each number, such as "gun" for "one", "glue" for "two", and so on.
• Then create sentences or mental images using each word in a sentence.

4. Years.

• Four-digit numbers can be associated with events that happened in the corresponding year.
• You can also associate random numbers with important events, dates or even someone's age.

5. Telephone numbers.

• Write out the phone number along with the 3 or 4 corresponding letters from the keypad e.g. 2 = A, B or C. The numbers 0 and 1 have no letters, so they remain as "one" and "zero".
• If you're lucky, you can manage a word, or something resembling a word, out of some combination of corresponding letters. If not, you can create a sentence in which each word begins with a letter corresponding to the appropriate number.

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This would be especially helpful for a forgetful person like me.