I think the leader of a city/commune should be able to declare if there is a state of war or peace with another commune/city for certain anti-intelligence things.
1. During a state of war with a city/commune, any tells sent to a member of that city/commune (or maybe just known enemies from that city/commune?) would have a maybe.. 10-25% chance of being intercepted and put down in an Intelligence log, so the leadership has a chance of catching people who are spying on CT and sending warnings to the enemy to help them prepare.
2. Any letter sent to a member/known enemy of the city/commune you're at war with has a similar percentage chance of being copied and put onto a special Intelligence board (which is cleared after 6 days like logs), giving the Commune a chance at intercepting letters that contain logs or news posts, and finding spies.

Of course, there are OOC ways around this.. but if you took them, you're just a low life.

That would be extra handy. The number of spies these places are riddled with is infuriating. Treachery wouldn't be so bad if it was sort of a hidden motivation of these really important people, like Furloch, but when people just make random novice alts to support their OOC favourite city, the whole thing gets rather pointless.

It seems either no one wants to spy for Serenwilde, or Serenwilde players are the only group who don't use alts to troll for information.

Wait, actually, back up. Your idea wouldn't really help a whole tonne, BECAUSE of the stupid novice thing. They'd just make another alt, it would only punish the people who put a lot of RP into being a spy. (I guess that would still help, though.)

And yeah, I noticed how odd it was no one's spying for Serenwilde.

If they're RPing being a spy, then there SHOULD be the risk of being caught. Why do you think the spies they (being the US) sent into East Germany and the USSR in the Cold War had to be trained to kill and to resist torture? Because there was high risk to being caught, and if people want to actually RP out being a spy, then there should be the risk.

Sometimes I wish there was a 1 character per person rule.

Yeah, there should be a chance of being caught, but the thing is, it wouldn't solve anything. The spies are mostly just random newbies, so there really isn't any point. It'd punish those who RP it while changing absolutely nothing for everyone else, and since the ones who RP it aren't actually part of the real problem...meh.

unless your the city leader your probabbly not going to know if anyone if supplying information or not.

Yea, I see this as a bad idea.

What about clans? You see somone from an opposing city, but in the same clan as you, and want to discuss clan things. You send a tell. It gets caught, you get punished for spying, and so on. Some might agrue, you just have to inform that it was a clan thing. But, then what is there to stop those that are actual spies from saying the same things.

Same things can go, especially, for orders. It's a neat idea, just just overall, faulty.

While I think its infinitely better to RP a spy than to make an alt, I think there should be some way to find them (a failable way, mind you, but a way).
Perhaps you could moniter the tells of 5-10% of the citizens, which would intercept tells and letters from them randomly. People who are suspected spies could be found out this way, but it would not be fail proof.

Mindread was a cool skill.
We seem to be lacking eavesdropping skills in general though but I'm sure that will change. whats the blue chakra for anyways?

I assumed the Hallifax people would have something that would make the blue chakra not-pointless. They seem just the sort.