Dead drop

A dead drop or dead letter box is a method of espionage tradecraft used to pass items or information between two individuals (e.g., a case officer and agent, or two agents) using a secret location, thus not requiring them to meet directly and thereby maintaining operational security. The method stands in contrast to the live drop, so called because two persons meet to exchange items or information.

Overview

Spies (covert intelligence agents) and their handlers have been known to perform dead drops using various techniques to hide items (such as money, secrets or instructions), and to signal that the drop has been made. Although the signal and location by necessity must be agreed upon in advance, the signal may or may not be located close to the dead drop itself, and the operatives may not necessarily know one another or ever meet.

Considerations

The location and nature of the dead drop must enable retrieval of the hidden item without the operatives being spotted by a member of the public, the police, or other security forces—therefore, common everyday items and behavior are used to avoid arousing suspicion. Any hidden location could serve, although often a cut-out device is used, such as a loose brick in a wall, a (cut-out) library book, or a hole in a tree.

Alias (season 2)

The second season of Alias premiered September 29, 2002 on ABC and concluded May 4, 2003 and was released on DVD in region 1 on December 2, 2003. Guest stars in season two include David Carradine, Ethan Hawke, Richard Lewis, Faye Dunaway, Rutger Hauer, Christian Slater, and Danny Trejo. The thirteenth episode of the season, Phase One, aired after Super Bowl XXXVII.

Cast

Main characters

Recurring characters

USB dead drop

A USB dead drop is a USB device installed in a public space. For example, a USB flash drive might be mounted in an outdoor brick wall and fixed in place with fast concrete. The name comes from the dead drop method of espionage communication. The devices can be regarded as an anonymous, offline, peer-to-peer file sharing network.

An early USB dead drop network of five devices was started in October 2010 in Brooklyn, New York City, by Berlin-based artist Aram Bartholl, a member of New York's Fat lab art and technology collective. A similar "deadSwap" system has been run in Germany since 2009.

Members of the public are invited to drop or find files on a dead drop by directly plugging their laptop into the USB stick in the wall to share files and data. It is possible to use smartphones and tablet computers by using a USB on the go adaptor.

Each dead drop is installed empty except two files: deaddrops-manifesto.txt, and a readme.txt file explaining the project.

Benefits and drawbacks