Posted on 01/03/11, filed under News | No Comments
Police in Columbia, in the US, are currently testing recording equipment worn on headsets.
The product, manufactured by Taser, would replace lapel recorders that are used at present and would allow for hours and hours of footage to be stored for future reference.
The gadget, which comprises a spy camera and earpiece, is good news for prosecutors as it allows for more comprehensive evidence to be gathered. It is also good for officers as the earpiece allows easy access to police radio as well. Furthermore, a five-inch monitor that is kept on the belt allows for immediate reviews of footage.
To make a recording, the camera must be activated by pressing the record button, but it is actually constantly active so the 30 seconds before pressing the button will also be part of any recording that is made.
The device is also superior to the lapel cameras in terms of what they show. Lieutenant Chris Kelley explained the flaw with the old style cameras:
“You are not seeing the actions of the aggressor because the officer’s arms are in the shooting stance. With the headset, you are seeing what the officer is seeing.”
Posted on 28/02/11, filed under Spy Equipment | 1 Comment
Californian woman, Van Thu Tran, is facing 20 years in prison after scamming millions of dollars from casinos in Canada and the US.
She is one of a group of people who were working together to scam casinos, with 19 people arrested in the US in May 2007 and 25 more arrested in Canada. 42 have pleaded guilty.
The group used spy gadgets like microphones, transmitters and computer software when cheating casinos and are thought to have stolen as much as $20m.Tran, who formed the group with her common-law husband and her brother, was responsible for seducing casino employees and bribing them.
According to one casino surveillance manager, the group used a ‘false shuffle’ to carry out their scam, whereby a stack of cards appeared to be shuffled, but remained in the same order.
The player would communicate with another member of the group via a miniature microphone and they could then analyse the cards using a laptop. The analyst could then speak to the player, who would be wearing an invisible earpiece, and instruct them as to how to bet.
The false shuffle was devised by Tran’s common-law husband, while the team was fitted with security gadgets by her brother who bought them from a spy shop.
Posted on 25/02/11, filed under Spy Equipment | No Comments
Even though many of the tools used are now dated, taking a look at the CIA’s tactics in years gone by gives us an insight into the world of spying and reveals that James Bond style spy gadgets are really not
so far-fetched.
Among the many devices shown on the CIA’s new YouTube and Flickr pages are modified lady’s make-up compact. It doesn’t contain a camera or microphone (though doubtless it could). It is actually a means of deducing a code.
Codes are widely used by spies to ensure that even if messages are intercepted somehow, they are not understood. With this make-up compact, the spy can learn a code that is printed in the mirror, but only if it is tilted to the correct angle, at which point the text becomes visible.
Messages could be conveyed through all manner of tactics, including inside hollow coins. A hollow dollar would seem identical to other money and would prove virtually undetectable.
But while hidden messages might be hard to detect, people are not. Another CIA device is the seismic intruder detection device. These items, designed to blend in with whatever their surroundings happened to be, could detect movement up to 300m away. With a built-in receiver, they could then transmit the data in an encoded form.
