Singaporean Dickson Yeo’s pleading guilty in a US court last month to spying for China has cast a spotlight on the world of espionage. Observers say that every state is interested in classified information. And while technological advances have helped intelligence gathering to a large extent, states will continue to find and cultivate targets like Yeo to get an edge. Dr Benjamin Ho of RSIS said spying “is not just between the US and China, but even among countries that are supposedly ‘friendly’ to each other”. Research fellow Muhammad Faizal Abdul Rahman noted that intelligence services use open source intelligence and networking platforms to spot potential agent candidates.