167 lines
9.0 KiB
Plaintext
167 lines
9.0 KiB
Plaintext
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RADIO SURVEILLANCE (BUGGING) IN THE U.K.
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By Nigel Ballard 28 Maxwell Road, Winton
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Bournemouth, Dorset,
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BH9 1DL ENGLAND
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I suppose to most laymen, the word bugging, produces up visions of secret
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agents clambering up foreign embassy walls in the dead of night. This
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could not be further from the truth. Firstly anybody, and I mean anybody
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can get involved in bugging. And secondly, our respective security
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services have mostly moved on from the days when bugs were hidden in
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hollowed out books and secreted on some poor sods bookshelf. And from then
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on in, every time he/she passed wind, it was faithfully reproduced by the
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man down the road, hidden in the back of a van bearing the trademark
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'THE ACME WIDGET COMPANY'.
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If I were to categorise the users that joe public would have for
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bugging, then the two popular choices would have to be in divorces and
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industrial espionage. The hard done by wife seems unhappy with just the
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8 by 10 glossies, she now wants to hear the moans of passion coming
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from either the home wrecking harlot or the husband who has yet to know
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the financial pain of a Californian divorce.
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LOAD'S OF MONEY TO BE MADE AND LOST
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Industrial espionage on the other hand, opens up a whole new sphere of
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intrigue. Boardrooms are where the really big corporate decisions are
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made, and this is where the bugs quite naturally find their way. Large
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corporations employ companies to 'SWEEP' their offices either at regular
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intervals, or when they get a sniff of the dreaded 'HOSTILE TAKE-OVER'.
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There are a great number of companies involved in this lucrative trade.
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At the bottom of the heap you have the sharks who will plant a bug on
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the first sweep, only to discover it on the second sweep. You, the
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customer feel's it is money well spent, and the shark could care less
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whether Walter Cronkite is listening on the other side of the wall. Other
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sharks have been known to turn up with piles of unrelated, but none the
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less impressive hardware, pile the table high with valve rejuvenators
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marked 'BUG HUNTER MARK TEN' etc etc, and then proceed to fool you into
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thinking that they have brought along the latest in bug smashing
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hardware.
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CONFLICT OF INTEREST?
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Some companies sell bugging equipment and will even supply the personnel
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to plant them. On the other side of the hall they have a division that
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solely deals with customers who think they have been 'TECHNICALLY
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PENETRATED' (ouch! sounds painful). Now it strikes me as a conflict of
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interest if you are burning the bugging candle at both ends. And what
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happens if you are employed my Mr 'A' to bug Mr 'B', then two days later
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you are approached by Mr 'B' who wants to check out of he is being
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bugged by Mr 'A'. Sure you know not only that he is bugged, but where
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they are hidden, but you can't tell him can you? Or can you? It is a
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case of who's paying the most. Or is it like in the case of a lawyer,
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'Sorry buddy but I am already working for Mr 'A'. No, that would blow
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the cover and guarantee that no monies would be forthcoming from either
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Mr 'A' or Mr 'B'. And after all we're not a registered charity are we?
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Far from it in my experience.
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WHO WOULD I USE TO GET THE THOSE DARN BUGS OUT OF THE HOUSE
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I have found that the companies most reliable in the field of
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eradicating technical penetrations (there goes that word again) are
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those that don't advertise openly, they are quiet, professional, and
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could, if they were not so discrete, show you a very impressive list of
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past and present clients.
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WHERE WOULD I BUY BUGS
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Well, crystal controlled or shove it, that's my motto. There is nothing
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worse than going to the great personal risk of planting a device, only
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to return hours later with your super sensitive scanner to find the bug
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gone! Has it failed? No, it's just on a trip up and down the frequency
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band. One minute it's sat on the local FM radio station, the next it's
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hovering around a MUCH used coast guard allocation. Is the whole
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neighbourhood listening in I ask myself?
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OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
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RANGE:
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The greater the range, the greater the chances that somebody else will
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home in on your bug. You only need enough output to get down the street,
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or round the corner. The lower the power, also means the greater the
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battery life. Also, if you are employing a very high powered VOX device,
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the target may wonder why his bedside light flickers every time he
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speaks! You're kidding right? Yes of course I am.
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SIZE:
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The smaller it is, the harder it is to find.
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FREQUENCY BAND:
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The lower in frequency, the greater the range. Just remember to stay off
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well used allocations such as the public broadcast areas. Or worse the
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Police allocations in your area.
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TELEPHONE: If attached to the phone, either in serial or parallel, make
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sure the bug does not hold the line open or interfere with any
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attachments the target may have in his/her home. The local TELCO man
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will get called in if the targets phone goes screwy, and your possibly
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expensive and embarrassing bug will get found in minutes.
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VOX: Vox is a very good addition, if the extra space taken permits it's
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use. A bug hunter will still locate it, as most professional hunters put
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out a specific audio tone, and a fast tuning receiver filtering out all
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but an active carrier with that exact tone, will locate your bug VOX or
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not.
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REMOTE ACTIVATION: You are getting hi-tech now, these bugs have a
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built in mini-receiver and can be remotely turned on and off. Very tasty
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and very expensive. This method will thwart most detection methods
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except hunters using the likes of an NLQ, or non linear junction
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detector. These out of interest are what retail shops use to detect
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those annoying bloody clothes tags that always leave a wapping great
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pin-hole in your new cashmere sweater.
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BURST TRANSMISSION: Well they certainly do exist. To be honest I have
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never seen them advertised, but I do know they are in use. Basically,
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the bug stores up say five seconds of speech, compresses it and then
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puts out a half second digital burst. Very hard for a spectrum analyser
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to get a good fix.
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ENCRYPTED BUGS: Once again they are in use. But this king of James Bond
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technology is normally made in house for in house use. It would just not
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be cricket to let the opposition see how advanced and small your latest
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listening devices had got.
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SPREAD SPECTRUM: Still in the area of exotic species, they are around,
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and are being used safe in the knowledge that all the knob twiddling on
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an Icom R-7000 would not reveal one's existence. A good spectrum
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analyser though would show it up a treat.
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THE LAW (or EVENING ALL..WHAT'S ALL THIS THEN YOU ORRIBLE LITTLE MAN?)
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In the UK, you can go to the Tottenham Court Road in London, and from
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perfectly respectable shops you may purchase transmitting pens,
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calculators, ashtrays. Telephone bugs etc etc. Even a healthy yet
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expensive range of crystalled controlled variants. All made in Japan by
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the likes of CONY (producers of sales leaflets proclaiming 'SMALL BUT
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WITH GIANTS POWER'), and a lesser known company called RUBY to name but
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a few. Perfectly legal to buy one or all of the models on sale. But as
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soon as you put a battery into one, it starts transmitting R.F. Well the
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DTI who licence ALL frequency use in the UK, do not have an allocation
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for bugs, so you are now breaking the law. If it is a telephone bug, as
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soon as you connect it to the phone lines, you have now broken a
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different law. British Telecom who virtually control the UK monopoly on
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the phone system, only allow you to connect approved items to the phone
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line, they must have a BT GREEN CIRCLE on the product. And yes you've
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got it, BT do NOT put green circles on bugs.
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Then there is invasion of privacy, if they find it a sticky prosecution
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on either of the afore mentioned regulations, you can be sure they will
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get you on this one.
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A recent case involved a national electrical retailer trying to take
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over a larger competitor, somebody employed these two berks who located
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the home address of the opposing financial director, shimmied up his
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telegraph pole, clagged a pair of bell wires to his line. These wires
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were run down the pole and buried in the ground. They ran to a metal
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biscuit tin hidden in a bush (REAL CIA STUFF EH?). Inside the tin was a
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vox operated tape recorder. A TELCOM worker came across the wires up the
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pole by accident as he was connecting a new subscriber. The police were
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informed, and a trap was set. Everyday one of the men would come to
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refresh the batteries and swap the tapes. The next day he came, there
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was an unexpected welcoming party waiting in the bushes. The case
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continues.
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Once again that's if for now.
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Messages or general abuse directed at me on this BB please.
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Stay lucky
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Nigel.
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