The Tuesday Zits cartoon in my morning paper got me thinking about how much things have changed.
In another life, I was assigned to a surveillance team that concentrated on the subjects who commuted by underground and train. Of course this required extensive training. One whole day was spent on how to use the newspaper as a prop. This was essentially teaching us how to fold it like a lifelong commuter so we wouldn’t look out of place. I guess PDA’s, iPod’s, and all manner of similar gadgets might make that unnecessary today, but if it isn’t, there’s a web site to teach anybody that arcane skill.
Weeks were spent memorizing all the lines, schedules, and stations. Then came memorizing where all the station payphones were located and learning to constantly look for and remember the location of the nearest public telephone. Today’s cell phone makes that unnecessary too. Many cell phone cameras are better than the small format cameras we were given as is, or as part of certain props. I do wish I had been able to keep one of the Rollei 35 B or later Rollei 35 S cameras though.
Surveillance Book
This book’s title is deceptive: No Tech Hacking: A Guide to Social Engineering, Dumpster Diving, and Shoulder Surfing (It appears on our Books page)
Every surveillance operative should read this book for its description of what one can learn from proper observation. It is also a must-read for IT security people for its description of these attack methods. This book is about compromising somebody’s security through surveillance and deceit. It also includes many tips for improving what you observe and report as an Investigator.
According to a news article in the Summit Daily News, a private investigator from Glenwood Springs, CO, was arrested Thursday after placing a tracking device on a car. The tracking device was for a divorce case the investigator was working. A witness saw the investigator crawl under an SUV and then drive away. The witness called the police who found the device attached under the SUV. The police treated the unknown device as a bomb, evacuating the area and calling in the bomb squad. Read the whole story Click Here See also Denver TV News
In Canada the use of a vehicle tracker requires a warrant pursuant to CCC S. 492.1.
Doing surveillance was once how I made my living. I’ve always enjoyed watching people as they go about their everyday lives. Of course you must learn to carefully look for the unusual details, to look at faces, walking gate, and peculiar habits. The sense of accomplishment from observing things most people would miss is something hard to describe. Unfortunately, as city traffic turned homicidal, doing a surveillance became a survival ordeal. The old habit of constantly looking around and watching for unusual behaviour has remained and sometimes adds amusement to my dull life. Continue reading ‘The Shopping Mall Chameleon’
Andre Ramshaw, Financial Post Published: Saturday, March 01, 2008
The closest I came to executive protection during my tenure as a private detective was keeping a takeout coffee from spilling onto the floor of my boss’s minivan during a particularly dull stakeout.
For most of Canada’s private investigators, keeping CEOs safe takes a distant back seat to tracking insurance claims. No femme fatales in dimly lit alleyways, no Maltese Falcons, no Ferraris — just hours squatting in the back of an anonymous van fitted with tinted windows, sipping coffee from a flask, videocam at the ready.
In other words, surveillance, surveillance, surveillance…
Researchers at Purdue University are working with the state of Indiana to develop a system that would use a network of cell phones to detect and track radiation to help prevent terrorist attacks with radiological “dirty bombs” and nuclear weapons.
Such a system could blanket the nation with millions of cell phones equipped with radiation sensors able to detect even light residues of radioactive material. Because cell phones already contain global positioning locators, the network of phones would serve as a tracking system, said physics professor Ephraim Fischbach. Fischbach is working with Jere Jenkins, director of Purdue’s radiation laboratories within the School of Nuclear Engineering…
Tiny solid-state radiation sensors are commercially available. The detection system would require additional circuitry and would not add significant bulk to portable electronic products, Fischbach said.
The mobile telephone has become a modern-day slave bracelet for so many people, now it might also become a national security appliance.
EASY TO PLANT CAMERAS IN HOTEL ROOMS
THE recent sex DVD scandal involving former Malaysian Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek shows how easy it is to rig a spy camera and film someone without their knowledge.
Experts tell The New Paper on Sunday that it takes anyone just 30 minutes to rig a spy cam.
It takes the professionally trained even less time…
If you really need a quick, cheap surveillance helicopter check-out the Pimp Your Copter! at Metacafe.
Every Private Investigator should have one!
The January 2008 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine has an excellent article titled Surveillance Society: New High-Tech Cameras Are Watching You. This article outlines some of the new video surveillance technologies and how they are used.
I wrote about the dangers of mobile telephones a while back. Now we have a new term for the abuse of GPS tracking associated with mobile telephones — Geoslavery.
This story links geoslavery to the probable murder of Stacy Peterson.
An article entitled Stalked by a cell phone: Who’s spying on you? warns of the danger of downloading software to your cell phone, connecting to the Internet from a mobile phone, and the dangers of letting it get out of your sight.
Taiwanese electronics corporation Misumi has what it claims is the smallest camera ever, a tiny cylinder measuring only 4.4mm in diameter and 15mm in length, capable of 320×240 pixel QVGA capture. Featuring a 1/18” colour CMOS camera chip (which might be the smallest currently available), Misumi’s MO-R803 is a “snake camera” on a bendable wire. It’s available with two different lenses – one with a 55 degree field of vision, the other a wide-angle boasting 105 degrees.
Its tiny eye being less than half a centimetre in diameter, the MO-R803 will get into a lot of hard-to-reach places, making it a useful medical tool, a very handy pipeline inspection device, and an interesting surveillance device.
