Many people might find it surprising but much of the field-craft that goes into such things as surveillance detection and special protective operations—even some of the sexier stuff—can be applied in your own life as well. For example, the three-part article series about Circles of Security (part 1, part 2, part 3) I wrote a… Read More Applying Covert Field-craft in Your Daily Life
What makes covert operations so interesting, and even funny at times, is that things are purposely not what they seem. I often find myself explaining to people that despite its ‘cool factor’, a covert operation isn’t just conducted for fun. It’s a tactical method for achieving very specific goals, and it can be expensive, risky… Read More Covert Operations – Stories From The Field
What follows is Chapter 12 of my new book Surveillance Zone. The book gives you an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look into the mysterious world of private-sector espionage, surveillance detection and covert protective operations. By this point in the book, some of you are bound to start asking how you, too, can get in on the action and become… Read More So You Want To Be a Covert Operator
I had a great time on SOFREP Radio recently. For those of you who haven’t heard of SOFREP, check it out. These guys do lots of good and provide great content, insights and commentary. It was a true honor to be invited on.
What follows is Chapter 9 of my book Surveillance Zone. A technology conference somewhere in Silicon Valley, 2013. The tech conference was coming along well, and thousands of attendees were busily going in and out of the convention center during their lunch break. I was on my third day working undercover and was becoming quite… Read More Lessons From The Field: Covert Operations
The Surveillance Zone book is out! Go behind the scenes of corporate surveillance detection & covert special operations. Get a first-person account of actual covert operations I’ve participated in. Learn the secrets of the trade, and discover a hidden world that’s all around you. Amazon & Kindle: http://amzn.to/2qJo9gq iBooks: http://apple.co/2qPJ9RP Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/2sz6dFK Surveillance… Read More The Surveillance Zone Book
“Fail Often so you can succeed sooner.” —Tom Kelly. Mistakes and failures in surveillance, surveillance detection and special protective operations are things I write about quite frequently. I’ve examined them from every which way, explained how they look, discussed many case studies and talked about how to avoid them. One aspect I haven’t touched on… Read More Big Mistakes & Embarrassing Failures
OK, let’s take a fun little look at Hollywood depictions of surveillance, surveillance detection and general covert operations. First, understand that I’m a huge movie buff, so I’m not about to pour any scorn on the film industry for what it gets wrong. Movies and TV shows are for fun and so is this article… Read More Hollywood, Surveillance and Covert Operations
Surveillance Detection (SD) is thankfully receiving increasing amounts of attention in recent years, as more and more industry professionals (and even some non-industry professionals) are waking up to its potential benefits. As positive as this development is, it does create the need to abolish some misconceptions regarding SD, and to better explain how it can… Read More SD Enabled Security
Towards the end of every year, there’s a fantastic Close Protection Conference which is organized by the International Protective Security Board (IPSB). In the conference a couple of years ago, I was hugely honored to do a ‘Tac-Talk’ (think TED Talk, just for security professionals) about surveillance detection, and I thought it might be a good… Read More Let’s Talk About Surveillance Detection
