- You can buy a Spy Ear for a dollar! (or less)- It can amplify sounds up to 60 dB or a factor of a 100.- It has a self limiting property and adjusts the gain so that the amplified signal volume is always just right.- It runs of two LR44 1.5 volt button cell alkaline battery, so it's perfect for portable projects.- Many of today's projects, such as in robotics, require analogue front end for sensing the environment and the Spy Ear circuit is just right to fill in as a multi-purpose front end amplifier.- It is simple enough to reverse engineer.So, the Spy Ear is a fantastic cheap, small and rugged circuit for modding and hacking! (more)
(Modern Canterbury Tales. On our way to 1984.)
At least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets here in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software from an American-financed company to recognize automatically the faces of police suspects and detect unusual activity.Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens.Data on the chip will include not just the citizen’s name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord’s phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China’s controversial “one child” policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card.Security experts describe China’s plans as the world’s largest effort to meld cutting-edge computer technology with police work to track the activities of a population and fight crime. But they say the technology can be used to violate civil rights.The Chinese government has ordered all large cities to apply technology to police work and to issue high-tech residency cards to 150 million people who have moved to a city but not yet acquired permanent residency. (more)
UK - CCTV operator Wayne Tomlin spends his working day helping to catch criminals on camera, but he was caught out driving at more than twice the speed limit by a spycam.
The 25-year-old computer technician, who works for Sunderland Council's surveillance team, was rushing to carry out urgent repairs when he was caught speeding.A mobile police camera clocked him doing 66mph in a 30mph zone on Springwell Road, Grindon.He has been banned from driving for 42 days and ordered to pay a £400 fine.Brian Chapman, defending, said "Mr. Tomlin had accidentally broken the speed limit while hurrying to repair a camera which protected council staff at a city centre office." (more)
Eavesdropping techniques have changed dramatically in recent years. So has society's perception that eavesdropping is an immoral and unacceptable business practice.
Old-school wiretapping was captured most perfectly in "The Lives of Others," last year's Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, about surveillance by Stasi agents of the former East Germany: the long hours listening to conversations as a reel of tape wound round and round. Those were the days when "wiretap" meant using alligator clips to literally tap into a phone wire.
Watching wiretapping, Hollywood-style, has become so scintillating that some people fear we are being inured to the potentially sinister and abusive side of its uses. (more)
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe “signed into law the controversial Interception of Communications Bill, which gives his government the authority to eavesdrop on phone and Internet communications and read physical mail.” In order to defend the law, which has been called “the dictator’s tool kit,” Mugabe’s spokesperson pointed to President Bush’s wiretapping program:Communications Minister Christopher Mushowe said Zimbabwe is not unique in the world in passing such legislation, citing electronic eavesdropping programs in the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa, among other countries. (more)
(Cautionary Tale - Spies need to protect their information. You should too.)
UK - A major security alert has been sparked after the theft of a computer database containing thousands of top secret telephone records from police investigations into terrorism and organised crime.
Worried police chiefs throughout the UK launched a massive inquiry into the removal of the sophisticated computer and other IT equipment from a private firm specialising in gathering evidence from mobile phone calls made by suspects. (more)
Mata Hari had a weakness for officers, and it didn't much matter which side they were on. In 1917 the exotic dancer who delighted audiences by wearing very little was convicted of espionage by the French government and brought before a firing squad at the age of 41.
Was she really the conniving femme fatale French authorities said handed over state secrets to the Germans, leading to the deaths of 50,000 Frenchmen? Pat Shipman sets out to answer that question in her engrossing "Femme Fatale: Love, Lies and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari." (more)
Deric Bownd pointed us to an excellent article on why spying is an innate urge in humans, and animals.
The power of a pair of eyes is strong. Eyes - even ones carved in wood or drawn on paper - can force subtle changes in behavior. This is why totem poles and Nazar Boncuk's work. Hiding eyes can also provide a feeling of protection; the primary purpose of masks and often the primary purpose of sunglasses. Fascinating, as eyes often are. (more)
"My name is Daniel Harrison. I’ve spent a number of years in the security and surveillance industry, as a consumer, surveillance gadget designer, and as a product supplier.My experience has shown me that it is very difficult for customers in the security and surveillance industry to find what they are looking for. Spy Review provides information, reviews and advice relating to the security industry. I hope you enjoy the site!" (more)
Dan runs a great site for keeping up on cool spy equipment available to everyone. This should scare you into checking for bugs periodically. Call us. We can help.
How can a man with no formal robotic education create funny and awesome robots out of electronic parts he finds in the junk heap? Mr. Woo found a way, and created so many robots his wife has threatened to leave him (partially because he burned the house down in doing so).
Among the more impressive ones are an actual working rickshaw robot that takes him and the wife to town (no idea how it's powered), along with a junior rickshaw robot that takes the kid to town as well. (more)
The most likely way to get eavesdropped on is in the last 100 feet whether that’s through a wire (through layer 2 hijacking) or wireless LAN connection. To enable Server to Client encryption, you simply check a simple option to enable SSL and... (more)
A December trial date has been set in the illegal-eavesdropping case against former Lafayette Police Chief Randy Hundley.Hundley and three other officers - all of whom have left the department - were indicted in June 2006 in an investigation of secretly recorded conversations at the desk of the chief’s secretary. (more)
Computer security experts don't appear to be gaining ground on electronic eavesdroppers in the battle to safeguard wireless Internet connections, the head of Harvard University's network operations told a nationwide legislative conference Tuesday.That means investment in public Wi-Fi projects could end up putting masses of sensitive data such as credit card numbers in the wrong hands if public users aren't educated about the risks of using such networks.
"It's extremely convenient, but it's inherently insecure," Harvard's Jay Tumas told state government information technology specialists at a National Conference of State Legislatures session on Wi-Fi risks. (more)
We have tools which discover corporate wireless LAN hacking. Call us to schedule an inspection.
India - Many prestigious public schools of the city are hiring detectives to spy on their students, if private detective agencies are to be believed.According to these agencies, the schools want them to track the movements of the students whom they suspect of indulging in ‘undesirable’ activities. These students are the ones who are irregular at school and often reach home late after school.
Have they found anything amiss about the conduct of the students? "On tracking the movements of suspect students, we found that students who told their parents they were at their friends’ place were actually freaking out at bars, pubs and cinema halls," says Ashish Mathur of Trident Investigation Network. (more)
NH - Timothy Quick has sued his estranged wife, Cynthia Quick, claiming she violated federal wiretap laws by sneaking into his online e-mail account.
The lawsuit charges that Cynthia Quick, or someone acting on her behalf, somehow “surreptitiously and without authorization” got the password and access to Timothy Quick’s America Online e-mail account. (more) (the lawsuit)
- You can buy a Spy Ear for a dollar! (or less)
