Bluffing the Eavesdropper in Anime and Manga.
- Hidoku Shinaide: While Scholarship Student Nemugasa is nearby clearly panic cramming for the coming exam as his grades are slipping, Maya casually mentions that though he too needs to cram, all he needs to do to pass is to make a cheat sheet. This gives Nemugasa the idea to do so himself which Maya notices. When Maya confronts Nemugasa on cheating, Nemugasa accuses Maya of doing the same, to which Maya reveals he didn't have to cheat to pass as he could just afford to get a tutor. He only suggested it aloud to get Nemugasa to do it so he can take advantage of it later for blackmail.
- Light did this with Kyomi Takada in Death Note: They were having one conversation for the benefit of the Task Force listening in, while secretly writing notes to each other containing the real conversation.
- Fullmetal Alchemist:
- Hawkeye needs to get Mustang a message about the identity of the homunculus Pride, but knows that Pride is observing her, so she signals Mustang by tapping her mug. They then have a long, apparently innocuous conversation about many women in Roy's life, but in reality it's a cover for a coded message communicating that Selim Bradley, the son of the Fuhrer (who is himself the homunculus Wrath) is Pride.
- Roy does this for an undefined amount of time, he's a well-known ladies' man so he acts like he's talking to one of his girlfriends in his phone while in truth he is giving coded instructions to his underlings.
- In an episode of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, the Major realizes that the Tachikomas are observing her meeting with Batou. She and Batou proceed to hold two conversations simultaneously: they speak audibly to mislead the Tachikomas, while using their neural implants to message each other wirelessly and say what they really mean.
- Happens in Girls und Panzer: Miho realizes the enemy is listening on their radio transmissions, so she begins giving false orders through the radio to lure the enemy tanks into ambushes while delivering her real instructions with her cell phone.
- Used against Ooarai by BC Freedom in Girls und Panzer das Finale. It is well known that Yukari is stealing intel from other schoolships before a match, so BC Freedom students act like their school is still divided by their previous class segregation when they were still two schoolships. When Ooarai adjusts their strategy on this supposed divide, BC Freedom proceeds to flank Ooarai when they're the least expecting it. Yukari is driven to tears when she realizes her intel fails her team.
- Combined with Bluffing the Murderer in The Kindaichi Case Files: On at least one occasion, Kindaichi stages a fight and pretends to go off alone in order to lure out the suspected killer.
- Maken-ki!: Takaki demonstrates why she's Tenbi's chief strategist by outwitting Jigoku, after Sui warns her of Jigoku's ability to detect sound across great distances. Then adds that even if they wrote their conversation down, he'd still be able to discern it based on the sound of their penstrokes. So Takaki feeds Jigoku false information by using her right hand to write a phony mission brief, while using the index finger of her left hand to relay her real strategy in midair. Gen follows suit, leaving Jigoku none the wiser.
- Sasuke did this in Naruto by giving his teammates a long and complicated password that the real Naruto would never be able to remember. They get separated soon after, and when they next see Naruto, he gives the correct password, and Sasuke correctly assumes this Naruto is an impostor using Transformation Jutsu who had been eavesdropping earlier. (The best he expected from the real deal is Naruto only remembering that there was a password, especially if it was a long one... which was the point.)
- Done rather humorously in an episode of Sonic X with a bugged prison cell. Knuckles caught on and interrupted the conversation about the Chaos Emerald with one about food. The pair of them began to lower their voices so the eavesdropper had to turn up the volume on his equipment to try hearing them better. Knuckles then quietly snuck up to the microphone, put his mouth next to it, and screamed "LEAK BUN!" at the top of his lungs to stun the guy on the receiving end.
- Done for laughs in Wild Adapter. Kubota, having guessed that they're being spied on, finds a bug in their apartment, and when Tokito asks what he is looking for, shows it to him and asks if Tokito has seen his glasses (which Kubota is wearing). Tokito takes a second to realize what's going on, and replies that they're on top of Kubota's head, playfully wondering if Kubota is growing old. The guys listening are then treated to an increasingly explicit dialogue that suggests the two are about to have sex, and are promptly disgusted. Cut to the duo sitting on their sofa with completely deadpan expressions, improvising the conversation before Tokito breaks the device, letting the listeners know that they've been found out and messed with.note
