Category: Simple Knowledge

  • Behind a Gang of Diamond Thieves [Robbers]

    I love these articles. The lastest describes a well-trained gang of diamond thieves and their escapades.

    Each member of the gang did his or her job perfectly. The attractive young woman seduced the son of the jewelry store owner in Rome to find out where the safe was in the owner’s house. She also discovered that the owner needed builders for repairs. Some of the others secured the renovation contract and cased the house. The get-away driver spent weeks learning every one-way road and stop sign in downtown Rome. And eventually the safe-cracker, the smallest in the group, hid himself inside a false-bottomed chest that the others left on the balcony of a bedroom where the safe was located.

    As luck would have it, he didn’t even have to break into the safe, which was hidden behind a painting. The jeweller’s other son left it open for 15 minutes, plenty of time for the diminutive safe-cracker to remove the diamonds and make his escape to the street, where the driver was waiting for him. Back in their rented apartment in Ostia, near the Fiumicino airport outside Rome, the gang met up and celebrated.

    Inside a world-class ring of diamond thieves via Neatorama

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  • A Code That’s Uncrackable [Code]

    A code that is uncrackable. Unsolvable. Intriguing…

    Almost 20 years after its dedication, the text has yet to be fully deciphered. A bleary-eyed global community of self-styled cryptanalysts—along with some of the agency’s own staffers—has seen three of its four sections solved, revealing evocative prose that only makes the puzzle more confusing. Still uncracked are the 97 characters of the fourth part (known as K4 in Kryptos-speak). And the longer the deadlock continues, the crazier people get.

    Mission Impossible: The Code Even the CIA Can’t Crack

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  • A Profile of a Master-thief [The Steal]

    Mmmmm. I love this kind of story. The full story of a brilliant thief, his empire and his demise.

    Blanchard wasn’t listening. He was noting the motion sensors in the corner, the type of screws on the case, the large windows nearby. To hear Blanchard tell it, he has a savantlike ability to assess security flaws, like a criminal Rain Man who involuntarily sees risk probabilities at every turn. And the numbers came up good for the star. Blanchard knew he couldn’t fence the piece, which he did hear the guide say was worth $2 million. Still, he found the thing mesmerizing and the challenge irresistible.

    Art of the Steal: On the Trail of World’s Most Ingenious Thief

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  • Spot a Gun [Graphic]

    I loved the following infographic on how to spot a handgun:

    Megan Jaegerman’s brilliant news graphics via BoingBoing

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  • A Japanese Gang is Infiltrated [Gangs]

    Check out BoingBoing’s article for the whole story, but what I really enjoyed about the article was the decription of the gang, the yakuza:

    Unlike in America, where someone’s word is as light as a feather, some of the yakuza guys have demonstrated incredible loyalty. If they promise something — if they give their word — they honor it, even if that promise is no longer convenient or even detrimental to keep.Bushi ni nigon wa nai. (“A warrior does not have a forked tongue.”) Once you’ve said it, then you’ll do it. A promise is a promise. It’s so rare to meet anybody in this world who has any sense of honor, who puts actual importance in keeping their word. That’s one of the nicer things about them.

    Meet Jake Adelstein, a Jewish reporter who thinks like a Japanese gangster

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  • When You Call 911 [Emergency]

    “Operator! Give me the number for 911!”-The Simpsons

    Emergency! Call 911. In that type of situation, you should always be aware what you should do. First, before you do anything else, say your current location and whether you need police, fire assistance or an ambulance. This is done so that the operator can dispatch the assistance immediately.

    Another good thing to know is that almost all phones, including phones with discontinued service and pay phones without coins inserted should be able to reach 911.

    Looking for more? Check out this wiki article and this About article for more details.

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  • An Informant’s Story [Secrets]

    The New York Times had this article on North Korean spies.

    The informers themselves remain of limited use to American and South Korean spymasters, in part because the North has no broad cellphone network, making it easier for the authorities to eavesdrop on calls and harder for handlers to direct operatives in real time.

    As one senior American intelligence official put it, “You’re not going to find the North Korean uranium project from these guys.” So the traditional methods of intelligence collection — using satellite imagery, phone and computer intercepts, and informants and agents of South Korea’s intelligence service — remain the main sources of information.

    North Koreans Use Cellphones to Bare Secrets

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  • Making an Agent [Become One]

    Ever wanted to join the secret service? While I won’t discourage you, I won’t pretend it is not hard work. In a past article in the Washington Post, we discover the journey of an agent in training.

    “Use the force necessary. You can hit them with your car, stab them with a big pin,” Mixon says. “We in the Secret Service are super Type-A personalities, people who want to take control and win at all costs.” […]

    All day, instructors say, Do sweat the details:

    “I expect neat hair! No goatees!”

    “If you wore boxer shorts, it’s the last day you do!”

    “Cut off [alcoholic] drinking eight hours prior to range practice!”

    The Making of an Agent

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  • The 81 Master Tricks and Tools of Jason Bourne

    Jason Bourne. The trained assassin who has an arsenal of strength, tricks and gadgets to complete his missions. This article aims to dissect the original Jason Bourne film trilogy, and the later two films, so that you can soak up as much information on Jason Bourne as possible.

    Highlights

    • In the Identity, the watch Bourne wears throughout the trilogy is a TAG Heuer’s LINK Chronograph.
    • In the Supremacy, Bourne uses a Rotring 600 pen.
    • When trying to temporary restrain another agent, Bourne hands him a zip tie to use as handcuffs and put them on his wrists in the front and cinch them using his teeth.
    • In the Ultimatum, Bourne uses a monocular, which is basically half of a binocular, and is more compact and subtle.
    • In the Legacy, after emerging from frigid water, Cross uses an emergency survival blanket.
    • In Jason Bourne, Bourne uses a lockpick set to enter an electrical control room.
    • In Jason Bourne, he uses a GPS tracker. We recommend Tile, which is light and barely noticeable.

    The Bourne Identity

    The Tools

    The Tricks

    • When Bourne is on the ship, recovering from his loss of memory, he continues to work out, doing pull-ups, etc. The lesson here is to always stay in shape.
    • After Bourne assaults two police officers, he ditches his coat to remove potential identifiers.
    • Bourne uses lockers provided by train and bus terminals to stash bags filled with money, weapons and identities he can use. This idea of creating caches was also detailed in Emergency by Neil Strauss.
    • Bourne fights using a type of martial arts that is a combination of Filpino Kali and Jeet Kune Do.
    • Bourne has a tiny laser projector in his hip that contains his bank account number.
    • When going removing items from his safe deposit box, he takes everything except the gun. While some may discount this as a stupid move, I consider it a smart one. Sometimes, carrying a gun with you can draw more attention and/or bring trouble.
    • Updated: When spotted by foreign police, he quickly enters the U.S. embassy, a place where the foreign police have no jurisdiction. If you are in a foreign country and are being chased by police, entering the embassy of your country might fend them off for a couple minutes. (Thanks Mosh!)
    • When attempting to escape from the embassy, he grabs an emergency map from the wall, then knocks out a soldier and removes his communications device, so that he can hear where the soldiers are.

    • Bourne pays a girl $20,000 to drive him to Paris. While I don’t recommend this (most would get suspicious and alert the authorities), the tip here is that you can almost always use large sums of money to get what you need. Simple, right? (We also see this later in the film, when Bourne bribes a morgue worker to see a body.)
    • The re-dial button on the phone is your best friend. You can use this on landlines without call logs, or if the phone does have a call log, you can use that as well. The point here is to retrace steps and discover agendas. (i.e. redials to the airport, taxi service, hotel, etc.) In the film, Bourne uses the re-dial button to discover another lead on his identity.
    • Bourne is an expert of fighting based on his surroundings. In a high action fight in his apartment, he reaches around for a makeshift weapon, settling on a ballpoint pen, which he uses to stab the assassin with. Use your surroundings!

    • During a high speed car chase, Bourne instructs his companion to look away from the police. This is most likely to avoid the confirmation of who is in the car. Your instincts are usually to constantly look around, but that’s more likely to burn you.
    • When Bourne ditches Marie’s car, he makes sure to wipe down everything. Later, it is proven a smart move when a police officer says something like, “You’ve been here for 3 hours and you still can’t find a fingerprint!?!”. Create dead ends for your followers, and leave no traces of yourself.
    • The check in, or list of visitors is a great source for information. At a morgue, Bourne rips out several sheets to examine later for links to the person who took a body.
    • In one scene, Bourne is placing duct tape over a car window. While he may be mending the broken window, this may also be just to block the view in, or it might be to prevent gun shots from shattering the windows.
    • Updated: In a fight with another assassin, Bourne uses a shotgun to blow up a gas tank, creating a large smoke screen for cover. If you are in need of a distraction, or a screen, blowing something up (at a distance) might be a good idea. (Thanks Nick!)
    • When instructing a friend to lay low he says, “No friends, nothing familiar.” This basically sums up what you should do if you want to ditch your identity.
    • Bourne attaches a tracking device to a vehicle he suspects after luring agents to his specified location.
    • This mention definitely deserves its own “don’t try this at home”. Several flights up, Bourne needs to get down the stairs fast. Grabbing the nearest dead guy, he jumps, positioning the cadaver below, and landing hard. Using a corpse to cushion your fall may not be the closest thing in your situation, but you could use something similar. (You might be asking what would be similar to a dead body, so here are a few suggestions: mattress, inflatable life raft, etc.)

    More

    A video on how to fight like Jason Bourne.

    How to Kick Someone’s Ass With Everyday Objects

    Watch The Bourne Identity

    The Bourne Supremacy

    The Tools

    • After overpowering two officials, Bourne copies the SIM card of the agent who received a call from the CIA, using a gadget he can then use to listen in on the calls. Here is some more information on the process: the how-to and the gadget. When doing this, he uses a product from CHIPDRIVE and a GSM plugin SIM adapter. The prop used for this can be found here.
    • Bourne uses a Rotring 600 pen.
    • Bourne uses a Siemens ME45 phone.
    • Bourne uses a Sig Sauer PRO gun in Moscow.
    • In all of the movies, when Bourne uses a cell phone, he uses a hands-free accessory to talk. A Bluetooth headset is much more discrete but its signal can be intercepted more easily.

    The Tricks

    • Bourne, when detained and questioned, says nothing, assuming a sort of poker face. Some may say the law is on his side, and this is a smart move for Bourne. Others may think this is stupid. At any rate, Bourne accomplishes what he set out to do.
    • Bourne then steals a car for transportation. This is highly illegal, so please read our legal section before learning more. This and this could help.
    • When trying to temporary restrain another agent, Bourne hands him a zip tie to use as handcuffs and put them on his wrists in the front and cinch them using his teeth.
    • In fighting another agent, Bourne again relies on his surroundings to use a rolled up magazine as a weapon. The type of fighting he uses is called Escrima, an old Philippine martial art. In ancient times, it used sticks, but now you can use everyday objects, such as a rolled up paper or a pen.
    • In order to kill someone Bourne uses an electrical cord to strangle him. When fighting, be sure to stay away from cords that might be used to strangle you.

    • After realizing that backup has been called in, Bourne places a magazine inside a toaster, starts toasting it, then breaks open a gas line to create a makeshift bomb. In minutes, when agents are about to enter the house, it blows up, leaving Bourne a nice exit.
    • Bourne affixes a fake license plate he got from his bag to a car he stole to prevent police from finding him quickly.
    • When setting up a meeting place, Bourne always picks the best possible location. In a particular scene, he chooses a location which is set to be the location of a protest march. This makes it difficult for surveillance, and using the protest as a cover, he manages to carry out his mission. When he then realizes that his target is wearing a wire, he brings her into a room on the subway system to block the wire from broadcasting more. You can use this knowledge to perform similar feats if necessary.
    • Bourne uses a prepaid phone card at a phone booth for security and privacy to prevent tracing.
    • When looking for a target he thinks is staying in the city, he calls the major hotels in the city, looking to speak to her.
    • Bourne asks the front desk to call a room (that he knows is already on the phone) so that he can see the room number displayed on the phone.
    • Bourne uses vodka to disarm one cop in Russia by throwing it in the man’s face. He also uses the same bottle to disinfect a gun shot wound, something I don’t recommend for even a paper cut. Alcohol works as a disinfect in a pinch, but it can also damage your wounds.

    More

    Watch The Bourne Supremacy

    How to Be Jason Bourne: Multiple Passports, Swiss Banking, and Crossing Borders

    The Bourne Ultimatum

    The Tools

    1. In the film, Bourne uses a monocular, which is basically half of a binocular, and is more compact and subtle. 
    2. Bourne uses a Dual Tone SIG Pro SP2022 in the beginning of the film, and other than the other guns he removes from agents and officers, he uses another SIG Pro.
    3. Bourne buys a pre-paid phone at Waterloo Station, then activates it and drops it in his target’s pocket. This is done to make sure that other agents can’t listen in on the call.

    The Tricks

    • In a car, drowning in water, Bourne gets a good breath of air by swimming to the roof where an air pocket formed.
    • Bourne begins to start his new life, grabbing what he had hidden around the house. He hides his passports behind a photo frame and money behind his desk drawer.
    • When calling a journalist who is under agency surveillance, Bourne calls a co-worker who then lets the journalist use her phone. This is done so that the CIA can’t listen to the call (they only have his work and cell lines tapped.)
    • Bourne instructs the journalist to do several things to prevent agents from getting to him. The first is to let the agents target someone else, in this case, a unknown man in a hoodie. Bourne instructs the journalist, Ross, to approach the man, and turn around, to turn suspicion to the man in the hoodie.
    • Next, Bourne instructs him to move into the station as soon as a bus comes, to block the cameras from following him.
    • Bourne has Ross tie his shoe for several minutes, to shake the team of agents trying to track him down.
    • Bourne coaches Ross on how to stay out of the CCTV’s scanning, by keeping on a path that would not be picked up by the camera.

    • When ever usually-moving security cameras stop moving, it usually means that they are off, and when they are suddenly turned off, it usually means that another power is about to do something they don’t want on camera.
    • In order to turn attention towards a specific door, Bourne takes a flashlight, some tape and a fan, and attaches the shining light to the fan, to create the illusion of someone pacing under a door.
    • Knowing that agents on the other side will be arriving shortly, and needing to buy some time, Bourne calls the cops, telling about Americans who are shooting, then fires several times to get others to call in, then leaves. When the agents arrive a minute later, they get detained by police.
    • In Tangiers, Bourne is traveling over roofs, evading police. In order to out run the police, he grabs some clothing off of a clothing line, and wraps it around his hands in order to get over glass covered walls.
    • In order to obtain the voice of a safe’s owner to open a voice activated safe, he calls him, recording him say his name.
    • This, per se, is not so much a Bourne trick as a method used by an ex-agent, who completely dismantles her cellphone so that the agency can not track her down via cellular triangulation. Even when your phone is off, it can still send signals if hacked. In addition, (as FYI in the comments pointed out), she also uses it to indicate to Bourne where she went, like breadcrumbs.
    • Bourne improvises another everyday as a weapon in a fight scene: a hardcover book, which he uses to brutally smash a guy’s head with. In the same part of the film, he also uses a towel as another improvised weapon.

    More

    The actor behind Desh shows how they filmed some of the stunts and gives an interview.

    James Bond vs Jason Bourne

    Watch The Bourne Ultimatum

    The Bourne Legacy

    The Tools

    The Tricks

    • Cross’ wilderness fire is built with logs upright, presumably to protect the fire from being blown out by wind.
    • To keep wolves at bay, Cross uses a lit torch of fire.
    • He splits up with his partner when he has a bad feeling.
    • To prevent tracking signals from being sent, Cross uses a metal and foil tin to act as a sort of faraday cage.
    • Knowing that his tracking device detects body heat, he puts it in a wolf to replicate the heat signature.
    • A fire extinguisher is as a makeshift gun/propulsion device.
    • A saw is used as a sound distraction device.
    • Cross uses a disposable camera to de-magnetize digital passport chips. Normal people shouldn’t need to do this, but you can use an RFID blocking passport envelope.
    • There’s an old con artist lesson that’s used in the film: act confident, act like you belong and people will believe you belong there too.
    • By forcing an emergency shutdown, Cross helps provide cover for his escape.

    • Aaron Cross, just like Jason Bourne, speaks a ton of languages. Duolingo can help you master many.

    Watch The Bourne Legacy

    Jason Bourne

    The Tools

    The Tricks

    • Meeting in the middle of a protest, seeking out the chaos, makes it more difficult to be tracked.
    • A bandaid kit tin is used to contain a USB drive.
    • Catching an attacker off guard, Bourne slams the door open.
    • Bourne uses the train system to avoid being tracked through plane travel.
    • Setting off multiple fire alarms to cause a distraction is straight out of the Bourne playbook.
    • When finding an assassin, Bourne points a spotlight to temporarily blind him.

    Watch Jason Bourne

    What tricks and tools do remember? What did you like about the Bourne trilogy? Let us know in the comments!

    Sources for this article included Wikipedia, IMDB, this article, and watching the films more times than I care to say.