Katrina Barillova’s Elite Forces Workout
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The Sunday Telegraph Magazine	February 25, 2004
La Femme Katrina	by Deborah Netburn

With her long elegant fingers Katrina Barillova dips a triangle of pitta bread into a little bowl of hummus and takes a demure nibble. "Sure I have been in fights," she says casually in a soft Czech accent. "Sting operations gone wrong, found out while doing surveillance. Over the years I have contracted over 17 scars on my face, and over 120 stitches in my mouth alone."

But looking at the skin on her long and lovely Easters European face, it seems flawless and smooth, revealing no signs of combat. One can't help wondering if Barillova's whole secret-agent story is a work of fiction. She seems like the creation of a Hollywood screenwriter: her sexy subtle accent. Communist bloc beauty, her arrival at the restaurant in a billowing black trench coat. But then...

"Do you see the little bumps on my lips?" she says, and, indeed, there they are, buried under a thick layer of lipstick. "Do you see the scar above my eyes?" She points to a thin white mark over a perfectly groomed eyebrow. "Here's one under my nose. If you looked closer, you would be able to tell. I'm a very good make-up artist."

Like any respectable secret agent, 30-year-old Barillova has lots of talents hidden under her skirt. Born in a former Czechoslovakia and trained by the government in the art of espionage from the age of...

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New York Resident	January 5, 2004
Spying the New Year	by Len Feldman

So it's the beginning of another new year and you've resolved once more to lose weight and get into shape. Well, how about adding another dimension to that yearly fantasy and train yourself to get into the same form that Secret Service and elite special government operatives have to keep themselves in? After all, New York can be a tough town.

Sound fantastic? Not really. Meet Katrina Barillova, 30, a drop-dead-gorgeous former secret agent who, through her company Why Not? Entertainment, has developed Elite Forces: Rapid Readiness Workout (eliteforces.us), an extremely slick, entertaining, and effective exercise DVD based on the actual firness techniques used by the military and elite special forces.

Having risked her life on more than a hundred undercover operations, Barillova, who was trained from age 14 to spy for the former Czechoslovakia, has also founded two technological development companies in addition to Why Not? and has invented and holds the patenrs to the next generation of smart cards used by security, emergency, medical, military, and Department of Defense personnel.

Totally intrigued with the story of this modern-day ex-Mata Hari, I arranged a rendexvous at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. My mission? To learn as many of her secrets as I could.

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Globe	Tuesday, December 2, 2003
Meet the real-life "Alias" super spy	by Len Feldman

Czech beauty, 30, does all the things Jennifer Garner does on the show - only they're for real.

When real-life former spy Katrina Barillova first heard about the hit ABC series Alias, starring Jennifer Bristow, her reaction was, "Hey! Who stole my life?"

"I think she's me", laughs Katrina, 30. "Jennifer in [playing] me."

The similarities are striking. This dazzling international ex-spy certainly can compete with 31-year-old Garner in the looks department.

And like the fictional Sydney, she was recruited for espionage training by the government - in her case, the former Czech Republic - while in school and warned not to tell her family or friends what she was really up to lest they become a national security threat and be sent away - or worse, killed!

"During socializm and upcoming communism, a lot of people's paths were chosen for them by the government," Katrina tells GLOBE. "They would control people's lives, in many cases with fear."

But while Sydney was recruited late in life, Katrina's future as a spy was decided when she was just 10 years old and exhibiting high IQ scores.

First, she became part of small, experimental class that was taught advanced math and...

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Markiza	Monday, December 15, 2003
Spoved slovenskej spionky	by Lubomir Tuchschner

Vycvicil ju byvaly rezim, v Amerike bola tajnou agentkou a bodyguardom.

Nedavno americky casopis Globe priniesol informaciu, podla ktorej je serial Alias inspirovany pribehom slovenskej emigrantky Katriny Barillovej. Potom, co u nas absolvovala specialny vycvik, pracovala v USA ako tajna agentka. Nasmu casopisu porozpravala o svojej minulosti aj o sucasnych aktivitach.

Nebojite sa, ze ste vystupenim pre media prezradili svoju identitu?

Nie, pretoze uz nepracujem ako sukromny detektiv alebo tajny agent. Ale mate pravdu, nemohla by som prezradit svoju identitu, keby som bola este stale aktivne zapojena v tajnych akciach. Mohlo by to potencionalne uskodit nielen mne, ale aj mojim spolupracovnikom.

Mali ste 14 rokov, ked ste sa zucastnili na tajnom vycvikovom treningu. Ako ste sa tam dostali?

Vybrali urcity pocet tinedzerov, ktori mali predpoklady tento vycvik zvladnut. Na cvicenia a rozne seminare sme museli chodit bez ohladu na to, ci sme o to mali zaujem, alebo sme boli proti.

Ako vycvik prebiehal?

Pocas styroch rokov sme alsolvovali niekolko kurzov. Zahrnali protiteroristicky vycvik, cvicenie so zbranami, riadenie vozidiel v extremnych podmienkach, pouzitie elektronickych zariadeni, napriklad navigacnych systemov, a podobne.

Suvisela s tymto treningom aj vasa byvala praca modelky?

Modeling mi dobre posluzil na utajenie skutocnej prace. Vacsina muzov, a to hlavne v zapadnych krajinach, si totiz mysli, ze ked je zena obdarena krasou, nepotrebuje si rozvijat intelekt. Preto bolo jednoduche niekam sa dostat a zistit dolezite informacie.

Ako ste prezivali november 1989?

Pre mna to znamenalo velmi vela.

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Markiza	Monday, December 8, 2003
Alias: O Slovenskej spionke	by Lubomir Tuchschner

Podla casopisu Globe sa slavny serial inspiroval osudmi nasej emigrantky.

Televiznym svetom otriasol novy skandal. Katrina Barillova obvinila spolocnost ABC, ze bez jej vedomia pouzili jej zivotny pribeh a nakrutili podla neho serial Alias. Pripad je vynimocny tym, ze Katrina pochadza z Ceskoslovenska a bola spionkou, aku hra Jennifer Garner.

Je dokazatelne, ze v case vzniku pribehov o Sydney Bristow, ktora zije dvojaky zivot, scenaristi mohli o Katrine Barillovej vediet. Serial totiz vznikol v roku 2001, co je takmer dva roky po medializacii zivota byvalej ceskoslovenskej agentky v americkej tlaci. Katrina totiz o svojich osudoch

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Entertainment Weekly	June 30/July 7, 2000
100 most creative people in the entertainment IT CYBERCHICK - Katrina Barillova

AGE 27 WHY HER?
Because her life story is right out of a 007 movie. As a teenage runway model in Czechoslovakia, Barillova was recruited by the government for spy training. Two years after the collapse of communism, she moved to the U.S., and worked her way from bagging groceries back into spying - this time for a private firm specializing in executive protection and intelligencee(read: industrial, espionage). After realizing that her surveillance know-how could be used by anyone with the right wiring, she helped found Charmed Technology last year. Base on research developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the company makes wearable communications devides like lapel badges that electronically swap business cards and gauge what interests the two people have in common. Adding to the come-on is "Brave New Unwired World".
Charmed's highly lucrative wearable computer fashion shows, which, Barillova says, "show people that technology is not evil. It can make you look sexy."

WORK RITUAL
Travelling. "It allows me to learn about new places, people, and habits... that in turn spurs ideas for new applications for our technology."

DREAM PROJECT
To star in a Bond movie with Pierce Brosnan. "I would make a good actress because I had to develop acting skills for my undercover work. The difference between movie acting and acting in a sting operation is simple: If you don't perform correctly as an undercover agent, you die."

NEXT
Taking Charmed public and getting the world online. "Our vision is to make computers that resemble everyday objects." says Barillova. "Only then will people stop fearing technology."

WIRED	April 2000
i-Spy	by Martin Lindsay

"A lot of the technology I used for undercover work inspires me," says onetime covert operative Katrina Barillova. Trained in espionage by the Czechoslovakian government, Barillova quit the spy business to cofound and serve as VP of InfoCharms (www.infocharms.com), an MIT Media Lab spin-off that designs wearable computers.

In May, the company launches Nanix, an open source operating system for body-mounted devices that employs just 3 Mbytes of code. To rev up development in wearables technology, InfoCharms will give away Nanix to nonprofits and sell it inexpensively to commercials firms.

So how does dodging bullets stack up with finding backing for a company? "Getting investors is scarier," says Barillova. "People put their dreams in your hands."