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Dead Drop

143 statements
27 feature instances
10 referencing feature instances

Dead Drop	type	FeatureClass
Dead Drop	label	Dead Drop
Dead Drop	page	DeadDrop
Dead Drop	comment	Suppose you have something that you really need to get to another person without other people knowing—maybe you're a spy with important information, maybe you're a police informant with a piece of incriminating evidence, maybe you're a government agent paying off an asset in foreign territory. Your phone might be tapped, you can't leave the country, and you absolutely cannot walk up to the authorities' door, suitcase in hand. What do you do? A "dead drop" is one option. The gist of it is that there is a location, typically Hidden in Plain Sight, where one person can leave a message (or money, or just about anything that can fit in the container), then leave. Later on, someone else goes to the location and retrieves whatever was left at the drop. This allows for information or items to be exchanged without public interaction between the participants, which helps with Plausible Deniability: If the people in question never publicly (or even privately) associate, it's harder to prove any sort of connection between them. The obvious risk is that someone can (inadvertently or otherwise) find the message. In fiction, if the protagonist happens to find a dead drop that isn't meant for them, the party that set up the drop will often try to do one of two things: Welcome them into the fold or try to eliminate them. Compare Lost Property Live Drop.
Dead Drop	fetched	2024-01-25T11:00:44Z
Dead Drop	parsed	2024-01-25T11:00:45Z
Dead Drop	processingComment	Dropped link to BoobyTrap: Not an Item - FEATURE
Dead Drop	isPartOf	DBTropes
Dead Drop / int_13d88835	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_13d88835	comment	Cowboy Bebop (2021): Spike reveals that he's Not Quite Dead to his former friend Ana, and asks her to find out if his former enemy Vicious also knows he's alive. It's too dangerous for them to meet again, so in a later episode Spike makes contact with a sushi vendor working as Ana's cut-out with: "I hear the sake on Mars is only good when it rains." The vendor hands him chopsticks with the paper wrapper bearing a message: VICIOUS KNOWS.
Dead Drop / int_13d88835	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_13d88835	featureConfidence	1.0
Cowboy Bebop (2021)	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_13d88835
Dead Drop / int_247422c7	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_247422c7	comment	In the book Cauldron of Ghosts, Victor Cachat re-establishes contact with seccy allies from the previous novel by spending a day checking assorted dead drops, then leaving a return message at one of them.
Dead Drop / int_247422c7	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_247422c7	featureConfidence	1.0
Honor Harrington	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_247422c7
Dead Drop / int_268d08dd	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_268d08dd	comment	What the Cat Dragged In: In the epilogue of this Miraculous Ladybug crossover, once the Avengers decide (quite reluctantly) that Superman Stays Out of Gotham (with them being "Superman" and Paris being "Gotham"), one of the things Black Widow recommends Ladybug and Chat Noir to do before she leaves is set up one of these for them to communicate between each other in an emergency. A Time Skip to a few days later shows that they placed the dead drop somewhere in the rooftops of Paris.
Dead Drop / int_268d08dd	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_268d08dd	featureConfidence	1.0
What the Cat Dragged In (Fanfic)	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_268d08dd
Dead Drop / int_33fd91eb	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_33fd91eb	comment	In Hackers, after the hackers get evidence on the Salami Slicing plot by the Big Bad, the FBI arrest them and start hauling them away to the local branch office. As they pass, Crash Override tosses the disk into a trash bin near the exit. As they are being putting into the police cars, he sees Cereal Killer standing with a group of onlookers. Crash starts yelling, "They're trashing our rights!. They're trashing the flow of data! Hack The Planet!" Cereal yells back, "Hack The Planet!" and later finds the disk, and takes it to be exposed. Earlier in the movie, another disk gets stuck to a condom machine in a men's room, with this location communicated to others as "where I left that thing that time". Which makes the ensuing scene of the very-female Acid Burn (Angelina Jolie) walking into the men's room and using the condom machine hilarious (and titillating for the guys in there).
Dead Drop / int_33fd91eb	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_33fd91eb	featureConfidence	1.0
Hackers	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_33fd91eb
Dead Drop / int_43f52aa9	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_43f52aa9	comment	A system of dead drops is used by the Dark Brotherhood in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to assign new assassination contracts and to transfer payments to you. One quarter of the way through this part of the quest line, however, it is hijacked by a traitor and you are instead sent to assassinate the entire Brotherhood leadership. Youâ€™re none the wiser until you are approached by Lucien Lechance, the agent who recruited you, after you kill the Listener.
Dead Drop / int_43f52aa9	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_43f52aa9	featureConfidence	1.0
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Video Game)	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_43f52aa9
Dead Drop / int_48987d73	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_48987d73	comment	In the Infamous games, dead drops are used as a source of background information not normally available to help the player understand the full scope of various situations.
Dead Drop / int_48987d73	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_48987d73	featureConfidence	1.0
inFAMOUS (Video Game)	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_48987d73
Dead Drop / int_4a2c8c06	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_4a2c8c06	comment	In one mission in Thief II: The Metal Age, you follow a Pagan sympathizer from the City Watch to the edge of a plaza where she drops a letter to her Pagan contact. You then have to read that letter discreetly, then put it back so the contact in question can pick it up, and then you have to follow that contact.
Dead Drop / int_4a2c8c06	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_4a2c8c06	featureConfidence	1.0
Thief II: The Metal Age (Video Game)	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_4a2c8c06
Dead Drop / int_58a0656b	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_58a0656b	comment	In PAYDAY 2, players can request dead drops of supplies during heists to aid them. With the introduction of the Dentist, it's now possible to strategically place the drops in different locations on some heists.
Dead Drop / int_58a0656b	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_58a0656b	featureConfidence	1.0
PAYDAY 2 (Video Game)	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_58a0656b
Dead Drop / int_66fd192f	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_66fd192f	comment	In The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), the people who actually carry out the bank robbery, who are never allowed to see the mastermind's face, drop the stolen money off in a trash container at Cambridge Cemetery.
Dead Drop / int_66fd192f	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_66fd192f	featureConfidence	1.0
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_66fd192f
Dead Drop / int_6bbd7b36	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_6bbd7b36	comment	The Fourth Protocol. A British politician suspected of stealing secrets makes his way across London to visit an ice cream store. The MI-5 Watchers are forced to follow every delivery to see who he's making contact with. One of the recipients is a diplomat in the South African embassy, who later makes a wrong number call to the ice cream store. The protagonist has a computer expert work out the odds of this happening by coincidence, which turn out to be astronomical. In the movie a pizzeria is used, and Michael Caine's character gets suspicious when the manager personally hands a pizza box to the man who turns out to be the South African diplomat. Several of Frederick Forsyth's other books also had the characters utilizing dead drops.
Dead Drop / int_6bbd7b36	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_6bbd7b36	featureConfidence	1.0
The Fourth Protocol	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_6bbd7b36
Dead Drop / int_6c1d09b4	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_6c1d09b4	comment	In Fallout 4, dead drops are how members of The Railroad, a group of rebels who help Synths escape The Institute and get new lives, communicate and get their assignments. In their case, it's not so much for plausible deniability (since the wasteland of the Commonwealth has no real ruling government) but survival. The Institute can teleport an army of Synths, or worse, Coursers, directly to The Railroad's hideouts the instant they know where they are. Thus The Railroad has to be as secretive as possible at all times.
Dead Drop / int_6c1d09b4	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_6c1d09b4	featureConfidence	1.0
Fallout 4 (Video Game)	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_6c1d09b4
Dead Drop / int_70814599	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_70814599	comment	Stargate SG-1: After the events "Touchstone," a group of rogue NID agents are unable to return to Earth, but they are able to send some pieces of alien tech they have found back to Earth by depositing the tech at a dead drop for their mole Colonel Makepeace, leader of SG-3 to pick up and deliver to the NID.
Dead Drop / int_70814599	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_70814599	featureConfidence	1.0
Stargate SG-1	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_70814599
Dead Drop / int_7e88ac08	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_7e88ac08	comment	The Equalizer: In one episode, an innocent bystander is mistaken for the next link in a courier line of spies. A package is dropped off to the doorman of his apartment (the real courier). When someone turns up to murder the doorman and steal the package, he hastily scribbles an address on it to make it look like normal mail. Unfortunately, the killer is not fooled and steals the package, assuming that the address is for the next link in the chain which he's trying to shut down.
Dead Drop / int_7e88ac08	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_7e88ac08	featureConfidence	1.0
The Equalizer	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_7e88ac08
Dead Drop / int_95e0c73c	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_95e0c73c	comment	Operation Finale. The Mossad team communicate with their leader in a cafe, with him putting a message in a teapot, which is then carried by the waiter to another table where it's removed by the agent.
Dead Drop / int_95e0c73c	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_95e0c73c	featureConfidence	1.0
Operation Finale	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_95e0c73c
Dead Drop / int_97a70962	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_97a70962	comment	The Professionals. In "Servant With Two Masters", Bodie and Doyle are jogging through a cemetery, see a man in a bowler hat hanging around and start making spy jokes. (Turns out he's actually there to make contact with them).
Dead Drop / int_97a70962	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_97a70962	featureConfidence	1.0
The Professionals	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_97a70962
Dead Drop / int_b8c3cc30	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_b8c3cc30	comment	The Young Justice (2010) series has the Team (and sometimes, their Justice League mentors) use dead drops when they're operating under plausible deniability ops to insert teams or their gear when they can't do things overtly.
Dead Drop / int_b8c3cc30	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_b8c3cc30	featureConfidence	1.0
Young Justice (2010)	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_b8c3cc30
Dead Drop / int_baa97a52	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_baa97a52	comment	Used to communicate through time in Tenet. The antagonist Andrei Sator buries a Time Capsule, usually in a radioactive area that people will stay away from for centuries, and leaves instructions on its location where his sponsors in the future can read it. He then has the capsule dug up to retrieve the contents—gold, weaponry or instructions that have been sent back in time. Though from his point-of-view the burial and retrieval would seem almost instantaneous. Sator doesn't worry about the risk of radiation poisoning because he's dying anyway.
Dead Drop / int_baa97a52	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_baa97a52	featureConfidence	1.0
Tenet	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_baa97a52
Dead Drop / int_bf797086	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_bf797086	comment	Children of Men: Because they're officially a terrorist movement wanted by the government, the Fishes can't contact Theo through normal channels after their first meeting; so, Luke gives Theo a missing poster of a lost dog and tells him to pin it to the notice board at Camden tube station if he ever decides to accept their offer. When he finally does, Theo's left in the dark up until a woman approaches him at the dog track with the poster and directs him outside. Not only does the woman actually own the "lost" dog, but this is just a pretext to get Theo onto a bus where he can meet up with Julian and Luke for the mission.
Dead Drop / int_bf797086	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_bf797086	featureConfidence	1.0
Children of Men	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_bf797086
Dead Drop / int_c509980c	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_c509980c	comment	Discussed and averted in The Cardinal of the Kremlin: The chain of handoffs between "Cardinal"—a high ranking Soviet official who provides intelligence to the US—and the CIA's Chief of Station in Moscow has no dead drops. It's acknowledged that this bears the risk that the KGB could "pull the thread" by working their way back through the handoffs, but the information that Cardinal provides is too sensitive to be left in a dead drop.
Dead Drop / int_c509980c	featureApplicability	-1.0
Dead Drop / int_c509980c	featureConfidence	1.0
The Cardinal of the Kremlin	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_c509980c
Dead Drop / int_c75d67d	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_c75d67d	comment	Person of Interest: Radical privacy group Vigilance are understandably paranoid about government surveillance, so this is one of the techiques they use to operate below the radar in a world where Big Brother Is Watching You for real. In "Mors praematura", Reese and Finch find an apparently empty lockup with a message written on the wall in infrared paint. Unfortunately it's also rigged with gasoline sprayers and an igniter, to burn the evidence and anyone else who comes poking around.
Dead Drop / int_c75d67d	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_c75d67d	featureConfidence	1.0
Person of Interest	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_c75d67d
Dead Drop / int_d461f757	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_d461f757	comment	At the start of the third season of Battlestar Galactica (2003), the resistance are receiving information from a source inside the Cylon government leaving information inside a filing cabinet and a flipping a nearby dog bowl over to indicate a delivery has been made. Tyrol, who collects the information, doesn't know who's making the deliveries and explains that it's safer for everyone that way. The audience quickly learns that it's Gaeta, President Baltar's aide, who's been making the drops. Once the Cylon occupation has been dealt with, Gaeta reveals he was the source by describing the drop method in front of Tyrol, information that saves him from being executed as one of Les Collaborateurs.
Dead Drop / int_d461f757	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_d461f757	featureConfidence	1.0
Battlestar Galactica (2003)	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_d461f757
Dead Drop / int_d59a2ecb	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_d59a2ecb	comment	In Next Breed of Thief, this is the typical communication method between Elsha and Fireboy—the usual implementation is a false rock placed along a jogging route, though Fireboy also uses a potted plant.
Dead Drop / int_d59a2ecb	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_d59a2ecb	featureConfidence	1.0
Next Breed of Thief	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_d59a2ecb
Dead Drop / int_de3c1389	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_de3c1389	comment	Accident. The client pays off the crew of professional killers by leaving a packet of money in the backseat of an unlocked car in a multilevel garage, with the bay number sent to him by text.
Dead Drop / int_de3c1389	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_de3c1389	featureConfidence	1.0
Accident	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_de3c1389
Dead Drop / int_e19505d3	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_e19505d3	comment	Le Bureau des LÃ©gendes: A physical dead drop is used when spying on hackers, who presumably would be able to uncover any virtual communication.
Dead Drop / int_e19505d3	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_e19505d3	featureConfidence	1.0
Le Bureau des Légendes	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_e19505d3
Dead Drop / int_e8bcf4d8	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_e8bcf4d8	comment	In Aquarium, it is described that for most spies under diplomatic cover, all their work consists of either checking and filling Dead Drops, or driving around so that the police won't be able to pinpoint these. Actual contacts with agents are to be made as few as possible.
Dead Drop / int_e8bcf4d8	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_e8bcf4d8	featureConfidence	1.0
Aquarium	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_e8bcf4d8
Dead Drop / int_f0c816fb	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_f0c816fb	comment	Breaking Bad occasionally showed these being used as part of drug smuggling or payment for such, complete with an explanation of what they are. For example, Mike and Jesse gradually develop an Odd Friendship in Season 4 over the course of visiting multiple dead drops in each day and being forced to spend long stretches of time together. In another case Mike screws with a DEA observer by apparently using a playground trash can as a dead drop, conspicuously leaving something near it just before leaving the playground with his beloved granddaughter. When the observer sees nobody coming to pick up whatever Mike put there, he goes to see what it was... and finds a note that simply reads "Fuck you".
Dead Drop / int_f0c816fb	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_f0c816fb	featureConfidence	1.0
Breaking Bad	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_f0c816fb
Dead Drop / int_f53fe2fa	type	Dead Drop
Dead Drop / int_f53fe2fa	comment	A dead drop is often how Mission: Impossible agent Jim Phelps received the tape recorder and photographs that detailed his newest mission. Drop points have included a cathedral, a public fountain and a museum.
Dead Drop / int_f53fe2fa	featureApplicability	1.0
Dead Drop / int_f53fe2fa	featureConfidence	1.0
Mission: Impossible	hasFeature	Dead Drop / int_f53fe2fa

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Dead Drop	processingCategory2	Espionage Tropes
Dead Drop	processingCategory2	Stealth Tropes
A Thing of Vikings (Fanfic) / int_f990ea58	type	Dead Drop
The Cardinal of the Kremlin / int_f990ea58	type	Dead Drop
The Fourth Protocol / int_f990ea58	type	Dead Drop
The Quest for Karla / int_f990ea58	type	Dead Drop
Deutschland 83 / int_f990ea58	type	Dead Drop
Mission: Impossible / int_f990ea58	type	Dead Drop
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Video Game) / int_f990ea58	type	Dead Drop
SsethTzeentach (Web Video) / int_f990ea58	type	Dead Drop

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