Seduced by Secrets takes a radically different approach to the history of the East German Ministry for State Security (MfS/Stasi) by bringing the story into the realm of intelligence history and distancing itself from politically charged commentary. By examining the interplay between secrecy and technology at one of the most effective and feared spy agencies and secret police in the world, we can also do what all spy agencies fear: reveal the Stasi's secret spy-tech methods and sources.

Despite the little-known fact that almost half of all its agents planted in the West were stealing scientific and technical secrets and that more than eight thousand staff members at headquarters worked on providing James Bond–like technology to support espionage and security, the Stasi is primarily associated with the omnipresent informer. The general public already knows that husbands spied on wives and children on parents and that East Germany was probably the most spied-upon country in world history.

What the general public does not know is that technology was at the heart of the KGB's (Soviet Committee for State Security) and the Stasi's spying operations against the United States and the West. Whereas the Soviet's foreign intelligence operations have been extensively documented, books on the Stasi continue to emphasize solely the internal repressive arm, yet they too operated like the KGB abroad.

Not only did the MfS steal technology from abroad, they also created some of the spy world's most inventive technological gadgets at home.