Preface

Secret agents are dealers and brokers of information. Information that's rare or difficult to acquire has the most value. Getting, analyzing, and sharing this kind of intelligence requires a skilled use of specialized tools. This often includes programming languages such as Python and its vast ecosystem of add-on libraries.

The best agents keep their toolkits up to date. This means downloading and installing the very latest in updated software. An agent should be able to analyze logs and other large sets of data to locate patterns and trends. Social network applications such as Twitter can reveal a great deal of useful information.

An agent shouldn't find themselves stopped by arcane or complex document formats. With some effort, the data in a PDF file can be as accessible as the data in a plain text file. In some cases, agents need to build specialized devices to gather data. A small processing such as an Arduino can gather raw data for analysis and dissemination; it moves the agent to the Internet of Things.