Non-personal communication (NPC) is a category of espionage tradecraft encompassing all methods of passing information between an officer and an agent — or between two intelligence services — that do not require the parties to meet in person. It is used when direct contact carries unacceptable surveillance or interception risk.[1]
John Kiriakou described several non-personal-communication techniques in use by the CIA and other intelligence services.
Concealment devices
A concealment device is an everyday object — or a natural object — that has been hollowed out or modified to hold documents, microfilm, or a transmitter. The critical quality is that the object must be one that no passerby would willingly touch or examine.[2]
Kiriakou described two examples from his own career and from a colleague:
- Dead rat. Kiriakou used a dead rat that a friend had gutted and stuffed with documents. The package was left on the side of the road: “Nobody’s going to touch a dead rat. Nobody.” The receiving party would pick it up, take it to the office, open it, and extract the documents.[3]
- Used condom. A colleague placed microfilm inside a used condom and left it on the roadside: “Nobody’s going to touch a used condom. Nobody.” The microfilm containing the secrets was retrieved by the intended party.[3][4]
Other standard concealment devices, Kiriakou noted, include objects designed to appear as rocks — hollow on the inside — and false-backed drawers with built-in transmitters.[1][5]
Signal sites and dead drops
The exchange of material through a concealment device requires a separate, low-risk signal to indicate that the drop has been made. After confirming he was not under surveillance — typically a two-to-three-hour surveillance detection route — the officer would place the concealment device at the pre-planned location, then drive or walk another two to three hours to a separate signal site: a piece of chalk drawn as an X on a wall, a mailbox, or any agreed-upon surface.[4][6]
When the receiving party saw the chalk mark, he would know the package was waiting. He would then run his own surveillance detection route — two to three hours — before proceeding to the pickup location.[6]
Burst transmission
When physical transfer of documents is impractical, intelligence can be transmitted electronically using a burst transmitter concealed in, for example, a false-backed drawer. Documents are photographed or otherwise digitized, fed into the transmitter, and sent in a fraction of a second — too fast to intercept under most circumstances. Kiriakou described this as the preferred alternative to a one-time pad when conditions allow.[5]