article-body Spy agencies love solving a puzzle or two. After all, getting a useful answer to a pressing problem is one of the main reasons they exist. So, when it comes to recruiting a certain kind of candidate, it makes a lot of sense that puzzles become the go-to marketing tool for applicants to test themselves to see what it takes to make it to the first interview, then probably a year or so of intrusive security vetting.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) and the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) have all used puzzles as part of their outbound marketing, with ASD arguably the Australian Intelligence Community's most committed games master, not least because of the sheer volumes it now needs to process. But the intelligence agency that flies the highest, silently, with eyes literally all over the world, is far less known, even if it is hiding in plain space: the Australian Geospatial Organisation, formerly known as the Geospatial Intelligence Organisation, part of the Department of Defence. While the ASD snoops on communications satellites, internet communications, and other sorts on the classified spectrum, AGO analysts get the job of looking at, interpreting and assessing pictures all day.
Pictures are usually taken from space, spy planes or even good old-fashioned Google Maps (famed for snapping...
Julian Bajkowski.