Spy-catcher

Spies, hate 'em or hate 'em, they are inevitable. So how can you counter them?

Well let's talk to an ex-spy and see what we can learn :

Well I don't know too much about spying given my short career doing it. I can tell you that the only reason I wanted to spy was out of sheer boredom in my old alliance before it dissolved. It really isn't all its cracked up to be unless you have a good reason for doing it. Spies tend to work best it seems when they are closely related to the people they are spying for and not just a free agent.
I have noticed two major spying methods. The first involves low activity maybe on banking resources and seems to result in eventually being kicked. The second is what I did. I was as active as possible as much or more than most people in the alliance. A lot of people seem to have issues with this kind of spying because they end up feeling betrayed. I will say though that I'm not even sure how I was caught. I could have been ratted on or it could have been a script tracking me.
I would say don't spy if you want to hold large cities and be a solid player. Spy if you have nothing to lose and don't fear having your reputation tarnished.

Some may argue that the above guy was not actually a good spy since he got caught! Good spies will be hard to catch but some counter-measures can be adopted to keep them on their toes.

1. Implement a banking system for your alliance where every member has to pay set amount each week. This amount should be adjusted appropriately to your alliance economy.

2. Track alliance finances, implement a regular saving of alliance finance page and import them into an excel file to track geos. Here is an excel file made by Jabotabek to help you do that. PM me if you want help using it.

3. Try to engage with every member in your alliance, unless the spy is really cold it will become more and more diffcult for them to keep betraying you.

++Update++

From GEWarriors forum found this relevant post by robotguy4:

PROJECT FAKE SPY

In this strategy you have a person who has just joined your alliance send out invitations for selling information about your alliance. The people then take the bait, and you send out FAKE'd info for geos. Great fund raiser for noobs. Probably can only be done once, and then BOOM! No more spying problems. Ever. Act outraged like it was a real spy.

continued here

Also from the same post this little ironic gem:

REMEMBER:
According to General Patton:
"The only way to stop people is to make them stop playing the game."