‘Spyshop toys’ enable hidden audio and video recordings
Posted on | July 16, 2009 | 7 comments
Spyshop toys. That’s what J.D. LeaSure, a Virginia Beach-based counter surveillance specialist, calls the trove of eavesdropping and peeping-Tom digital gadgetry readily for sale online.
LeaSure is the go-to guy CEOs call in to do security sweeps when they suspect someone is listening in and/or viewing strategic discussions that are meant to be kept behind closed doors. He says business has been booming in the past year and half.
Some of the devices available for purchase, simply by Googling “spy bug,” would impress Q, 007’s gadgets guy.
Take this $250 luminescent jawbreaker. It is really a motion-activated video camera and digital video recorder capable of capturing 33 hours of activity. A janitor could perch this somewhere inconspicuous on a Monday and retrieve it on a Friday.
Listening bugs in cables and matchboxes
Or for $300 you can acquire a 6-foot USB cable, about as mundane-looking as it gets. You plug one end into a printer or some other peripheral device and the other end into the computer’s USB port. No one would notice anything strange. The cable works for the intended purpose. But it also houses a sensitive microphone and antennae that continually transmits a UHF audio signal to receiver that can be up to 160 feet away.
LeaSure filed this report on the USB cable bug. “You can hear every whisper within the confines of the room,” he says.
Then there are dime-sized “contact bugs,” which anyone, say a groundskeeper, could stick to the outside of a conference room window, and micro video cameras that can stream video and audio over a microwave frequency to a small receiver100 feet away.
And check out this $300 “SIM recorder.” This matchbox-sized device comes with a Subscriber Identity Module, or SIM chip. It is essentially a supersensitive, listen-only cell phone with no ringer, no dial pad and no view screen. It is designed to be placed under a desk ledge or coffee table. There it will lurk waiting for you to call the phone number assigned to it. You can do this at anytime, from anywhere, from any phone. The device will “answer” by activating a series of three tiny microphones that enable you to hear on your handset everything going on in the room.
Criminal profile in flux
LeaSure says requests from corporate clients wanting him to do security sweeps of executive suites, conference rooms and other workplace venues are up 40 percent from a year ago.
“We go in and find these very items — spyshop toys that are readily available and fairly cheap,” he says. “Just in the last four years, the criminal profile has changed dramatically; now 75 percent or better of corporate espionage cases are coming from internal sources, either an employee or an ex-employee or a family member or a business acquaintance. There are more and more things out there to surreptitously monitor somebody’s activity using audio or video.”
–Byron Acohido
Comments
7 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Very informative article. I wish I had known about this threat sooner.
Comment by Paul H. — 7/17/2009 @ 8:43 am
We had no idea that the threat was so real, potentially so costly to our business interests, and that the cheap spying devices so readily available could easily be used to destroy our business. Great article. Kudos!
Comment by Jill — 7/17/2009 @ 6:44 pm
Wow! I need to call this guy!!!
Comment by Aviv — 7/18/2009 @ 6:57 am
“J.D. is fantastic !! He is there for clients “yesterday” in their time of need to ensure their businesses and homes are safe from persons who have negative intentions of invasion.”
Comment by Sheri C. — 7/20/2009 @ 8:28 am
Great article on this Byron … Leasure’s business is growing because there’s a lot more cheating going on. Then you’ve got this stuff out there,ESPN Sportscaster Erin Andrews Videotaped Nude Through Hotel Room Peephole. What is our world turning into.
You need to call this guy even if you rent an apartment!
Comment by Tony DiGirolamo — 7/22/2009 @ 2:15 pm
As a spy shop owner I would like to comment the opposite that “spy shop toys” are also used to save companies. I’ve seen many companies suffering financial damage from internal theft and fraude and where a discrete surveillance solution showed who was guilty. The tools needs to be used with common sense and I can assure you that in most cases it is.
Comment by spy shop — 8/5/2009 @ 5:43 am
Thank you for another great post. I look forward to many more entries with high quality info. I’m a marketer myself and your information always seems to get my business brain going!!
Comment by audio shopping — 11/23/2009 @ 7:07 am