The human game, the field craft, open-source analysis, and the history that built all of it — taught straight, from public knowledge only. Not a recruiter's pitch. Not a how-to for harm. The analyst's lens: what's happening, why, and how you'd recognize it.
Almost everything worth knowing is dual-use. We don't water the subject down and pretend that's the subject. We teach the craft as it really is — and the course itself never runs an operation on anyone.
The line isn't "could this be misused." The line is the difference between teaching the discipline and handing someone a plan to harm a specific real person. We do the first and never the second.
Everything here is open-source, declassified, or historical. We hold no secrets — and that's the point. All public knowledge, taught well.
Eleven standalone courses that together cover intelligence end to end — nothing left as a footnote. Take one, or take all of them.
What intelligence is vs. proof; the intelligence cycle; the collection disciplines; the community and the foreign/domestic line; why connecting the dots is brutally hard before the picture is obvious.
Why people betray and cooperate (MICE / RASCLS); the recruitment arc as recognition; elicitation and how to notice it run on you; deception, social engineering, and how to resist it.
How physical and technical surveillance work; surveillance detection routes and spotting a tail; the defensive frame — for journalists, dissidents, and abuse survivors.
Dead drops, brush passes, cut-outs, compartmentation; the logic of cover and legends as theory; personal OPSEC — taught through declassified operations.
The most employable skill here. Public collection and, above all, verification; geolocation and chronolocation; spotting manipulated media; a full investigation, Bellingcat-style.
Turning information into judgment; structured analytic techniques (ACH, key-assumptions, red-teaming); the biases that fool analysts; expressing confidence honestly.
The insider threat and the mole hunt; double agents and dangles; vetting and the trust problem; the great real cases — Ames, Hanssen, the Cambridge Five — and what each teaches.
SIGINT and traffic analysis as concepts; cryptography and the history of codebreaking; cyber at an awareness/defensive level — understanding and defense, never an attack how-to.
What covert action is and isn't; how propaganda and disinformation are built and spread; recognizing and resisting manipulation — election interference, bot networks, narrative laundering.
Authorities and oversight; civil liberties and the line in a free society; the ethics of espionage; intelligence failures and accountability; security vs. liberty.
Spying from the ancient world through Walsingham, the World Wars and the Double-Cross system, the Cold War's great game, and how technology reshaped the craft. The backbone every course draws from.
Substantial briefings and real declassified cases. The screen is the classroom — nothing sends you into the field.
A described situation — a meeting, a message, a set of reports — and you call what's happening, why, and how you'd spot it.
Tap, drag, match, sequence. The app scores you instantly. No essays, no homework, no waiting.
Weekly mastery checks with a real pass bar — including a transfer problem you haven't seen. You move on when you've got it.
TRADECRAFT is a free educational course built from public, open-source, declassified, and historical material. It is AI-assisted and written for the curious adult and older teen. It contains no classified information and claims no insider access — everything here is already public.
It teaches the discipline so you understand it and can defend yourself — it is not training to conduct operations, and nothing here is a step-by-step guide to harm, surveil, defraud, or deceive a real person. Obey your local laws. We are not affiliated with any government or agency.