The
Story
|
Espionage is the process of obtaining secret or
confidential information about an organization or society without
the permission of the holder of the information. Unlike other forms
of intelligence work, espionage involves accessing the place where
the desired information is stored, or accessing the people who know
the information and will divulge it through some kind of
subterfuge. Espionage is usually part of an institutional effort,
and the term is most readily associated with state spying on
potential or actual enemies, primarily for military purposes. Many
nations routinely spy on both their enemies and allies, although
they maintain a policy of not making comment on this. A
spy, or intelligence agent, is a person
employed to obtain such secrets and who specializes in the
gathering, fusion, and analysis of information in order to provide
advice to their government. In general, intelligence agents are
recruited by foreign agencies to spy on their own governments.
These agents can be moles, who are recruited before having access
to secret information, or defectors, who are recruited after they
have the information. |
Incidents of espionage are well documented throughout history. The
ancient writings of Chinese and Indian military strategists contain
information on deception and subversion. The ancient Egyptians had
a thoroughly developed system for the acquisition of intelligence,
and feudal Japan often used ninja to gather intelligence. During
World War I, the infamous femme fatale Mata
Hari, although officially a neutral Dutch citizen, used
the art of seduction as a means of obtaining intelligence for the
Germans. The Cold War involved intense espionage activity between
the United States of America and its allies and the Soviet Union
and the People's Republic of China and their allies, particularly
related to nuclear weapons secrets. The Soviet Union has been said
to have had fielded the largest and most advanced spy networks
during its time, infiltrating some of the most secure places on the
planet, and causing many scandals. For three decades, the United
States has cultivated the field of communication and control. As
technology has advanced, the means and methods of espionage have
advanced, from Nixon-era wire tapping, through Reagan-era programs
like ECHELON
and Carnivore
, to surveillance of all electronic transmissions including cell
phone logs, voice mail, email, packet sniffing, trace routing and
wireless transmissions. |
The risks of espionage vary. A spy may be breaking the host
country's laws and can be deported, imprisoned, or even executed,
like Julius
and Ethel Rosenberg. A spy breaking his/her own
country's laws can be imprisoned for espionage. For example, when
Aldrich
Ames handed a stack of dossiers of CIA agents to his
KGB-officer "handler," the KGB "rolled up" several networks, and at
least ten people were secretly shot. When Ames was arrested by the
FBI, he faced life in prison; his contact, who had diplomatic
immunity, was declared persona non grata and taken to the airport.
Ames's wife was threatened with life imprisonment, and was given a
five-year sentence when her husband cooperated. Hugh
Francis Redmond, a CIA officer operating in China
without diplomatic cover, spent nineteen years in a Chinese prison
for espionage.
************************************************************************************* |
The
Mission
|
Like any good spy story, this puzzle is a riddle inside a
mystery wrapped in an enigma. Your mission, Gumshoe, should you
choose to accept it, is to put on your fedora and trench coat and
enter the world of espionage, where things are seldom as they seem
and never as they appear.
Your journey begins with a three-stage Training Challenge mission.
All three challenge puzzles are designed to teach you about various
espionage techniques and have been hidden online by various members
of an intricate network of operatives. Varying degrees of
driving are involved because the clues for locating and
accessing these puzzles have been hidden in micro caches throughout
north-central New Jersey. All training stages are hidden in
very public places, so extreme stealth is required!! The
posted coordinates will take you to the first micro cache
containing the information for locating Training Challenge 1. All
Training Challenge puzzles can be found online using the clues
provided in the micro caches without the need to contact any of the
operatives. To preserve the thrill of the hunt, all operatives have
been sworn to absolute secrecy and may, in fact, provide false
information if contacted directly. You must solve each portion of
the Training Challenge in order to advance to the next stage.
In addition to solving each puzzle to locate the next Training
Challenge stage, an encrypted message intercepted from the
Department of Geocaching Security has been placed
within each puzzle file. These three messages, when properly
decrypted, provide the location of a top secret stash of agency
field supplies. The encrypted messages have nothing to do with
solving the Training Challenge puzzles and are themselves the
puzzle for finding the final cache. However, these messages are
completely undecipherable without the agency’s secret
codebook, which you must earn access to. |
Once you have completed the Training Challenge and proven yourself
worthy of the title “Secret Agent”, you will have
earned the trust of an undercover agent operating from within the
Department of Geocaching Security who will provide
you with the whereabouts of the agency codebook so that you may
decipher the messages, solve the puzzle, and discover the location
of the secret stash. Should you fail in your mission, Pofe will, as
always, disavow all knowledge of your actions.
************************************************************************************* |
The
Rules
|
In order to preserve the difficulty level and fun of solving the
puzzles for everyone, the cache owner requests that you please
abide by the following rules while participating in this game of
Cloak & Dagger :
1. To log this cache, all participants much sign the
physical log at each of the various stages of the puzzle, including
the three Training Challenge micro stages, the codebook, and the
final stage. The owner will maintain a Cloak & Dagger Hall
of Fame listing all of the participants who have successfully
completed the mission. Each participant must physically travel to
all of the locations and sign the log for himself/herself. If
special circumstances require, you may sign for someone else
as long as they are physically present on the find. If you have
questions regarding this rule, please contact the cache
owner.
2. Working in groups is permissible. However, you may only
discuss information that all members already have in common. In
other words, please do not disclose locations of the micro caches
or locations/access codes to the online puzzles with members of
your group that have not yet solved the puzzles themselves or
traveled to the various locations to sign the logs. If you have
solved puzzles that other members in your group have not, you may
provide additional clues/hints as you see fit, but please do not
disclose the solutions to them directly. This rule is intended to
preserve the 5-star difficulty rating for all participants.
3. Feel free to post notes on the cache webpage telling
others of your progress and pictures of the physical logbooks
containing your signature. However, please respect the right of
others to solve the puzzles without aid and be mindful of what you
post. Do not include hints for puzzle locations or solutions, clues
revealing the locations of the various stages, pictures of cache
containers, or any other information that could be deemed
detrimental to the cache's top secret nature. All questionable logs
will be subject to deletion at the owner's discretion.
4. And of course, have fun!! 
Tremendous effort was put into making this cache as challenging,
fun, and educational as possible. The owner sincerely hopes you
have as much fun solving the puzzle as he did creating it. |
|
| Mission Completed |
Secret Agents |
Agents-in-Training |
| 1. Agent CondorTrax - 04 Sept 2007
(co-FTF) |
avgraphics |
addisonbr |
| 2. Agent Resolution/Greg2dot0 - 04 Sept 2007
(co-FTF) |
dollarbell |
bzdreamer |
| 3. Agent EagleTrax - 12 Sept 2007 |
fullhseluvr1982 |
chinster |
| 4. Agent Moya Crew - 12 Sept 2007 |
GRozecki |
gipsie |
| 5. Agent moozehead2020 - 18 Sept 2007 |
jsarche
(Colorado Agent) |
GranAndPap |
| 6. Agent GerIRL - 24 Sept 2007 |
mike380 |
joescout |
| 7. Agent KBer - 24 Sept 2007 |
Pirate & Crafty
(Pennsylvania Agent) |
PittCaleb |
| 8. Agent BlueOrca - 26 Sept 2007 |
- |
PTBilly |
| 9. Agent TwoCat - 03 Oct 2007 |
- |
RangerFan1 |
| 10. Agent ekitt10 - 06 Oct 2007 |
- |
smrich |
| 11. Agent ericles - 20 Oct 2007 |
- |
ThE MaD RuSsIaN |
| 12. Agent admo1972 - 03 Nov 2007 |
- |
Windux |
| 13. Agent gl2bear - 10 Oct 2008 |
- |
- |
| 14. Agent Sir Dipsalot - 17 May 2009 |
- |
- |
| 15. Agent Leglamps - 17 May 2009 |
- |
- |
| 16. Agent vanm - 22 May 2009 |
- |
- |
| 17. Agent trowel32 - 20 June 2009 |
- |
- |
| 18. Agent tmmiller - 25 August 2009 |
- |
- |
| 19. Agent Dkeato - 01 May 2010 |
- |
- |
| 20. Agent D'orrNights - 09 January 2011 |
- |
- |
| 21. Agent camelprodder - 17 April 2011 |
- |
- |
| 22. Agent seam2read - 17 April 2011 |
- |
- |
| 23. byronigoe - 28 October 2011 |
- |
- |
| 24. Agent BigA800 - 28 Janyary 2012 |
- |
- |