Tradecraft

For the UK fair trade organisation, see Traidcraft.

Tradecraft is skill acquired through experience in a (typically clandestine) trade. Within the intelligence community this means the techniques used in modern espionage and generally, the activity of intelligence. This includes general topics or techniques (dead drops, for example), or the specific techniques of a nation or organization (the particular form of encryption used by the NSA, for example).

The term tradecraft in this sense is frequently used in the books of John le Carré and Tom Clancy, where characters frequently comment on others' tradecraft (including those of agents from the opposing side).

Intelligence technology and techniques

• Agent handling
• Black bag operations
• Concealment device
• Cryptography
• Cut-out
• Dead drop
• Eavesdropping
• False flag operations
• Front organization
• Honey trap
• Internet police
• Interrogation
• One-time pad
• One-way voice link
• Steganography
• Surveillance
• TEMPEST — Protection devices for communication equipment
• Wetwork

See also

• Clandestine HUMINT operational techniques

External links

• Tradecraft Notes - via Professor J. Ransom Clark, Muskingum College