Fun Glimpse into Spy
Stories of spies and hackers are always thrilling and intriguing as I often experience from movies. When on vacation to New York City in February 2018, I had a chance to take a closer look and ‘participate’ in the world of spies and hackers.
This took place at SpyScape HQ, a preeminent spy museum just opened in Feb 2018 and located a few blocks from the famous Time Square. The next two hours after I entered were extremely interesting, informative, and definitely interactive. For an admission fee of $40-ish, it’s worth the money and worth my while.
A participant will get a wrist tag that will activate exhibits inside the museum. It also tracks how you perform tasks and will compile your profile into what kind of spy you are!
Silver posts like the one in the picture above let you engage in discovering your personalities, brain power, and risk taking. They are distributed throughout the museum; no need to wait in line at the first few one you see near the starting point.
Encryption
This is the first section you will experience. Alan Turing, the Enigma, and the Bombe (or Christopher in the Imitation Game) await to fully immerse you into the world of cryptography in the World War II era. In simple terms, cryptography is about encoding and decoding messages to make sure that a message you send can only be read by whom you intend. At the end of this exhibit, you will have a chance to help an Allies agent whack some German (I got Limpy Lady) by encoding and decoding.
Deception
The second exhibit down the flow is about the worst double spy in the US history: Robert Hanssen. The story of how Hanssen started and how FBI tracked him down eventually is breathtaking. An activity of how to read whether a person is lying is also very fun and real! At some point, you could feel your heart beat faster.
Surveillance
A double-edged sword like ubiquitous surveillance cannot be excluded from the world of spy. Exhibits include how surveillance cracked down slavery in modern fishing industry and why Snowden did what he did. The activity in this section asks you to be alert and look for something from 30+ monitors!
Special Ops
The real-world version of Jason Bourne is of topic here. I remembered I laughed out loud when I saw a sketch of an explosive rat. But hey, that’s real spy gimmick! The activity in this section is the most fun: laser obstacles! I got out with a bit of panting and a lot of fun.
Hackers
Inevitable in the forever more-digitized world are cyber hackers ranging from doing it for fun and doing it for crime. LulzSec and Stuxnet are the exhibits in this area.
What kind of spy are you?
I finished all categories of the activities, but not every single task. At the debriefing area, the museum compiled how I performed and determined what spy role that best suits me. I’m a special op (think of Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible) with three main traits: agility, courage, and composedness. You can opt-in to receive a full profile report sent to your email as well. My report says (if I were a U.S. citizen and became a spy) I’d be at the border fighting ISIS. What a fun, right?!
So, my verdict to this new museum is a five-star rating considering the right amount of information and a lot of interactive activities. It fits for a solo traveller, a group, or a family. If you like spies, codes and hacks, you will like this museum. SpyScape HQ adds a new accent to a collection of NYC’s classic attractions.
