Access to knowledge providers is key to getting ahead. But can people keep their knowledge providers secret from structurally equivalent rivals, i.e., those coworkers they perceive as connected to many of the same knowledge providers as themselves? And to what extent can people detect knowledge ties of their perceived rivals? Bringing together research on rivalry and network cognition, we provide a new approach to the strategic deployment of deception and detection in social networks. We conducted two experiments that showed that structural equivalence induces feelings of rivalry that, in turn, lead people to engage in hiding and seeking relative to structurally equivalent rivals. A third, field study, used time-separated data from all 73 employees in the HQ of a chemical company. Our analyses supported both the idea that people hid their knowledge sharing ties from colleagues they perceived to be structurally equivalent rivals, and that people sought to detect these rivals’ ties. Success in seeking ties of rivals and hiding ties from rivals translated into increased compensation. Surveillance and secrecy in the context of rivalry is surprising given the importance of knowledge sharing in organizations. Individuals who exercised vigilance with respect to knowledge sharing relationships vis-à-vis rivals achieved advantage.