While "cyber-security" dominates news stories in our era, I try to remember that for several thousand years, it was (and still is) the eyes and the ears of spies or other observers that told a people what was happening with their world.   Scouts were in constant use by Native peoples both around their villages and in the general vicinity of the land they claimed as their hunting and living territory.  The work done by trusted scouts was not only considered honorable, it was also life saving - just like today.