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Explore Washington DC through the eyes of a spy
- lsh123 3y agoThe FAQ is missing a critical question: “will you be arrested for playing a spy in DC?” ;)
- marymkearney 3y agoThis looks like great fun! Not a fan of guided tours, so this could be a cool alternative.
- showerst 3y ago“See the best of Washington DC” -> sends you to Rosslyn. Those poor tourists… Joking aside I love fun new excuses to explore the city, that’s a great theme for DC.
- wkat4242 3y agoIs that a bad area? Though I guess here in Barcelona tourists love crowding Raval which is also a really bad area full of narco flats.
- DJPocari 3y agoIt's not Washington, D.C. it's part of Arlington, VA
- showerst 3y agoNot bad as in unsafe, just a bland block of high rise offices that’s dead at 6pm. It’s on public transit and close to good stuff, it’s just funny as you’d normally never send a tourist there on purpose.
- burkaman 3y agoI used to live there and there were plenty of tourists coming through to visit the Marine Corps memorial or Arlington Cemetery. I agree though that the neighborhood itself is extremely boring.
- midoridensha 3y agoThere's nothing interesting in Rosslyn itself, however it's probably the closest subway stop to Georgetown. You can easily walk across the Key Bridge, which is a really nice walk when the weather is good. There's lots to see in Georgetown, especially restaurants, and also a nice waterfront area. You can also walk from Rosslyn to the Mt. Vernon trail, and to the nearby Roosevelt Island where there's some nice hiking trails and a big monument to Teddy Roosevelt in the middle where people like to sit and relax. There's fountains there, running at some times during the year. Then you can continue walking on the Mt. Vernon trail to Gravelly Point next to DCA airport and watch airplanes take off. If you want to keep walking, you can go to Old Town Alexandria, or even farther to Mount Vernon, but it's a lot better to use a bicycle for these treks.
- ohashi 3y agoOne of my favorite memories in DC is on Roosevelt island. My friend bought like 20 laser tag sets and had a computer, antenna and whatever other gear needed to setup your own laser tag. We played right there on the island next to the statue. There was a circular area, lots of bushes, what I imagine was a little water feature/moat without any water circling it. Don't think we saw anyone there outside our group.
- marymkearney 3y agoHey there
- wkat4242 3y agoI thought Roosevelt Island is in New York? Edit: Lol, I see Washinton DC has got one too.
- wiredfool 3y agoWalking to Mt Vernon is in the “marathon” category. Bikes advised, unless you do ultra or something.
- midoridensha 3y ago
- eganist 3y agoThere was a time when Rosslyn was a great stop, even if it was for just one reason, the Newseum. ...back when the Newseum was there anyway, before their poorly-decided move to DC and subsequent closure.
- SeanLuke 3y agoNo, it's a pretty nice area. But it's not in DC.
- tssva 3y ago> Explore the Georgetown and Rosslyn areas of Washington DC For starters it is in Virginia and not Washington DC as indicated by the website.
- tantaman 3y agoIt’s where the Iwo Jima memorial is so pretty common to send a tourist there. You can also pick up the mount vernon trail in Roslyn along with the Custis trail if you bike. They’re trying to make it more of a spot and do weekly free concerts in the park there these days.
- dccoolgai 3y agoI hope one of the "secret spots" is the Quarterdeck.
- tssva 3y agoTechnically the Iwo Jima memorial is just outside Rosslyn. Most tourists access it via the Arlington Cemetery metro rather than the Rosslyn metro stop since usually it is a combined visit to the memorial and to the cemetery. Most tourists likely never cross the street into Rosslyn.
- bitlax 3y agoI feel like if I sign up for a spy tour I'd rather see the Deep Throat garage than Ben's Chili Bowl.
- billyhoffman 3y agoIf it ends at Ben’s Chili bowl I’m done. That place is delicious
- cyclotron3k 3y agoIt would be funny if this was actually orchestrated by a foreign power as a way of collecting real intel. "Break into the oval office and take a photo of any documents you find there. Upload your photos to advance to the next level"
- caseysoftware 3y agoOr.. a way to throw up a ton of noise around interesting targets. Having hundreds of people showing up in various places, doing semi-suspicious things, generally getting in the way, etc is a good way to flood, annoy, and bury observers. Having the same people show up among each of the locations gives good cover for someone else to blend in. If it's a foreign power, this will probably cost them a fraction of what it will cost observer nations.
- gumby 3y agoI can see the Yelp reviews now: `That White House escape room was really too hard, though +1 for the “Guard”’s guns that gave me the impression they were firing real bullets! Don’t try if you are out of shape — a lot of running is required! Now I m stuck in the “prison” part of the game and haven’t been able to figure out how to get out and advance to the next level. Only two stars because it’s really too hard for normal people.’
- wahern 3y agoFree Fitbits to all active duty U.S. military personnel....
- Trouble_007 3y agoAnd 'Special' TikTok app
- Brendinooo 3y ago"This test is so outside the box, I can't-- I mean WON'T even tell you what you are looking for." "Congratulations, you managed to complete this absolutely meaningless test." https://i1.theportalwiki.net/img/e/e9/GLaDOS_mp_coop_radarroomend.wav https://i1.theportalwiki.net/img/e/e9/GLaDOS_mp_coop_radarro...
- jordibunster 3y agoJejune institute vibes
- SeanLuke 3y agoIn the late 1990s a friend of mine gave me a birthday gift: two tickets to Spy Drive. Now THAT was something that could only happen in DC. Oleg Kalugin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Kalugin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Kalugin) was a former head of the KGB at the Russian Embassy in DC in the 1980s. When Oleg returned to Russia, his criticism of the KGB led him to be stripped of his rank and eventually exiled to the USA to avoid serious recriminations in Russia. He was eventually tried in abstentia. It was in DC where he teamed up for a while with David Major, a retired spymaster for the FBI and former adversary, and together they did what could only be done in Washington DC: they ran a paid bus tour. You heard that right. For $80, we'd get on the bus, and then these two former spymasters on opposite sides of the cold war would get up in the front of the bus with microphones and take us to various dead drops, mark locations, famous spy meeting locations, and so on, and tell stories the whole way, and joke about how one was gonna arrest the other. It was insane. It was glorious. Both of them later were recruited to be on the advisory board of the Spy Museum, and it is my understanding that Oleg was very effective at acquiring a lot of stuff for the museum from the former KGB. Edit: in case people don't believe me... https://www.upi.com/News_Photos/view/upi/9cc8f17c411182bd874217388e940c54/Spy-Drive/ https://www.upi.com/News_Photos/view/upi/9cc8f17c411182bd874...
- etrautmann 3y agoThis is why I keep coming back to HN. I would never have come across this otherwise.
- ghotli 3y agoI've been to that museum and was most struck by the small section about Einstein informing the president at the time that the math meant nukes were possible and likely would exist in the short term. There's a lot of cool stuff in that museum, but that's the one that stuck with me. It's written with a typewriter and signed by Einstein, iirc.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoIt's rather famous. Written by Leo Szilard but signed by Einstein who later seemed to regret it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%E2%80%93Szilard_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%E2%80%93Szilard_lette... I don't understand why it would be in the Spy Museum.
- Trouble_007 3y ago>Take your time, progress at your own pace... Which Agency is recruiting?
- Arrath 3y agoThe Last Starspy
- Animats 3y agoElectronic Arts tried something like this once. It was called "Majestic". [1] It was sort of a mass-market conspiracy LARP. Unfortunately, it was launched just before 9/11/2001. [1] https://obscuritory.com/other/majestic/ https://obscuritory.com/other/majestic/
- phrotoma 3y agoMaybe the first ARG? Absolutely blew my mind as a kid. No install disk in the box. Just a sheet of instructions, a URL, and a form to fill in your email address, pager number, and ICQ number, and then you wait for the game to find you. Way ahead of its time.
- 6stringmerc 3y agoIf anybody can help me get back my ICQ # of 4860610 that'd be dope. Gah I miss those connections. Facebook ruined my marriage. ICQ helped me learn to appreciate different people.
- teddyh 3y agohttps://crzysdrs.net/dv/victim/275-our-new-office-passtime-is-messin-with-the-guy-who-plays-majestic/ https://crzysdrs.net/dv/victim/275-our-new-office-passtime-i... https://crzysdrs.net/dv/victim/283-messing-with-people-who-play-majestic-is-probably-a-really-bad-idea/ https://crzysdrs.net/dv/victim/283-messing-with-people-who-p...
- neilv 3y ago> What if the weather is bad? You're a spy. Suck it up, and take a lesson from the USPS. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."
- pjmlp 3y agoThat quote actually belongs to these folks originally, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pony_Express https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pony_Express
- lawrenceyan 3y agoThis is a genuine question: I don't really see how it's possible for spies to exist in the modern day. Our world is far too technologically advanced for espionage to work anymore right? Can someone correct me if I'm wrong.
- nobody9999 3y ago>This is a genuine question: I don't really see how it's possible for spies to exist in the modern day. Our world is far too technologically advanced for espionage to work anymore right? >Can someone correct me if I'm wrong. I don't have any special knowledge, but a DDG search for "espionage cases recent" returned a large number of results. Here's a sampling: https://news.clearancejobs.com/2020/12/30/the-top-5-u-s-espionage-cases-of-2020/ https://news.clearancejobs.com/2020/12/30/the-top-5-u-s-espi... https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-11-16/chinese-national-faces-sentencing-in-us-aviation-spying-case https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-11-16/chinese-n... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/us/politics/navy-nuclear-engineer-pleads-guilty.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/us/politics/navy-nuclear-... https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-cia-officer-arrested-and-charged-espionage https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-cia-officer-arrested-a... https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-nsa-employee-arrested-espionage-related-charges https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-nsa-employee-arrested-... https://apnews.com/article/sweden-government-stockholm-57182be4865a4657c0f243d980f1a547 https://apnews.com/article/sweden-government-stockholm-57182... https://news.clearancejobs.com/2021/12/27/top-5-u-s-espionage-cases-of-2021/ https://news.clearancejobs.com/2021/12/27/top-5-u-s-espionag... I'd note that none of these include any US/Western spies. If you're inclined to believe it (I have no idea one way or another), Evan Gershkovich[0] is another spy. [0] https://abc7chicago.com/evan-gershkovich-in-court-wall-street-journal-reporter-russian-jail-detained-russia/13147820/ https://abc7chicago.com/evan-gershkovich-in-court-wall-stree... You may well be right that it's impossible "for spies to exist in the modern day" but various governments don't seem to hold that view. Now you've got me curious. What's so different about now that would make espionage unworkable? I'd think espionage would be much easier due to technological advances, not harder. I'd be quite interested to hear your thoughts if you don't mind expanding on your comment. Thanks! Edit: I meant to also say that given the number of cases that are being prosecuted, it seems likely that many more folks are engaged in espionage who haven't been discovered or who have been discovered and are being used as a conduit for disinformation. Again, I have no special knowledge about that, but (at least to me) it makes sense that there would be more, possibly many more.
- Neil44 3y agoI’ve done a couple of these they’re good fun and a nice way to explore, we often tie one in to a city break. https://www.treasuretrails.co.uk/ https://www.treasuretrails.co.uk/
- rossta 3y agoThis reminds me of the Accomplice brand of immersive theater that’s been active in New York and other cities for years now. It’s part walking tour, part play, part mystery, part scavenger hunt. The best part is trying to figure out whether the people you come across are actually part of the play/tour or not—getting it wrong has led to some funny reactions. https://www.accomplicetheshow.com/ https://www.accomplicetheshow.com/
- australian 3y agohttps://docs.google.com/forms/u/0/d/e/1FAIpQLSc_IxgLSADvSYIYsQlS4BouOTJJSMObzsKpW_YMdPcR7Ero1g/formResponse/votes:-70%|50%/3ro https://docs.google.com/forms/u/0/d/e/1FAIpQLSc_IxgLSADvSYIY...