Use your personal cell phone
Keep a separate phone for work only, and buy a ‘throwaway’ sim card for each call. With each new sim card, your track is clean again.
What’s Your Spy-Q?
CIA surveillance reaches almost every street corner in the world. It’s a 24-7 operation that depends on those who work in the shadows—experts at manipulation, sleuthing and dodging danger.
To find out if you have what it takes, step into the shoes of a CIA agent assigned to the Berlin field office. Your goal: Uncover the source of a data leak in the U.S. embassy’s security system. Test your spy skills as you attempt to rendezvous with a fellow spook and decode an encrypted message from an enemy agent.
Good luck, Agent.
She’s M.I.A.
Select an option to move forward.
Or
Find a payphone
These favorites of drug dealers are dwindling in number and rarely run on coins anymore. And you run the risk the security service has a tap on it.
Best Location
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Train station locker
The stuff of fiction and amateurs, these are too public, can only be accessed with a key and are likely on security cameras.
Or
Inside a gutter
Obscure locations work best, whether in plain sight or out in the woods. Files can also be shared electronically through peer networking in another discreet form of dead drop.
Train breaks down
Select an option to move forward.
Take a taxi
These are plentiful in cities, and by varying your route, you reduce the risk of being tailed.
Or
Request official transport
Don’t rely on bureaucrats. If you send a message to the nearest CIA station, it might take three days for the desk officer to respond.
A Child Appears
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Continue your mission
Resist the urge to help or talk to the child. Turn on your heel and leave, postponing until the coast is clear.
Or
Abort your mission
It’s safer to consider the child as a possible enemy agent, or, a potential witness.
A package arrives
Select an option to move forward.
Don’t touch it
And if you weren’t expecting a delivery, you should vacate the premises. Someone knows you are there.
Or
Open the package
Although the unexpected delivery could be an important part of your investigation, opening it, even with protective gear, could be too risky.
How to know
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The battery blinks
Hackers and spy software work insidiously in the background, usually without your knowledge.
Or
Apps function as usual
There’s often no visual or functional indication that your phone or other smart device is being bugged.
Getting Out
Select an option to move forward.
Use your GPS
Any tracking software not part of a secure network is subject to exposure, and could mean mission failure or even death.
Or
Follow the tourists
Your goal is to appear as if you are living as normally as possible. Blending in with the crowd helps you avoid detection.
Your Spy Score
Share your score
This is h4
Restart
To infiltrate Berlin’s underground web of spies, visit BerlinStation.com
Berlin Station premieres October 16th on EPIX at 9 P.M. ET/PT.
Sources: Central Intelligence Agency, Crypto Museum, International Spy Museum, Stanford University, and former operatives who shall remain nameless.