Times sure have changed.
One of the worlds oldest and most top secret institutions has pulled the curtain back on its operations just a little tiny bit.
Great Britains Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), popularly, yet erroneously referred to as MI6, now has a website. They launched it recently primarily to recruit new agents.
According to the site, SIS is responsible for providing Her Majestys Government with a global covert capability to promote and defend the national security and economic well-being of the United Kingdom. In other words, they spy around the world on behalf of the Commonwealth.
There are very strict nationality requirements for any new agents. You must be British with at least one parent who is a British national, and all candidates will be subjected to an extensive security clearance process. But the cloak and danger boys on the other side of the pond claim that SIS has a family-like atmosphere that stresses teamwork.
The clandestine organization once so secret they used to routinely deny their own existence, dates back to 1909 and Britains efforts to defend itself against German spies prior to World War I. Its establishment greatly influenced the formation of spy agencies in other countries, and a host of John le Carre novels, not to mention all of those James Bond movies.