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One of the most common requests we get in our stores is to educate people on the different types of surveillance methods used so they can try to counter them. What does a GPS tracker look like? What does a bug look like? Can someone really put software on your cell phone so they can hear what you’re saying at all times? Answering these common questions can be useful in some cases in helping someone figure out what’s going on. But a lot of times, it just leads to more questions and eventually people wind up getting worked up over obscure possibilities rather than probabilities.
I have a couple of these type of discussions per week and sometimes they help, but often the possibilities overwhelm people and they stop listening to what I’m saying and let their imaginations run wild. Just because laser microphones exist doesn’t mean that someone went out and spent thousands of dollars on one to hear your everyday conversations. Just because devices that will emulate cell phone towers and knock out encryption exist doesn’t mean that someone spent tens of thousands of dollars and is risking serious jail time to hear your calls.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed and feel like things are coming at you from all directions and that the person you think might be responsible for doing surveillance on you would go to any lengths to do so. But there are some basic common sense questions you can ask yourself that will help you slow down and see things a bit more rationally.
The first and most important question to ask is, does the person I think is doing surveillance on me have a financial interest in doing so? If the answer is no, then in a good majority of cases you can stop worrying right there. The fact is most people are not willing to throw lots of money into surveillance equipment to keep tabs on your day to day life unless there is a promise of significant financial return in doing so.
The second and third questions after you eliminate a financial motivation are who and why? If you can’t answer these questions with a clear answer right away, chances are you can stop right there. Random strangers or neighbors that you have little or no interaction with generally aren’t going to pick you and make your life miserable for no good reason.
The reality is that outside of corporate espionage and perhaps some divorce cases where there is a lot of money at stake, most situations where someone may be doing surveillance on you can be handled with common sense, keeping a level head, and some basic methods of counter-surveillance like a Radio Frequency Detector, our basic camera finders and very thorough physical inspection.
If you would like to know more about this subject, please feel free to stop by any of our stores for a demonstration of any of our basic counter-surveillance equipment. You can find our basic counter-surveillance equipment here on our website.
I have had several customers ask me if there is some way to put a motion sensor outdoors and whenever the sensor trips, a siren would sound. Well we at Spy Centre Security have created that exact solution. We sell a product by the name of Voice Alert. The product is a wireless outdoor motion detection system that you can add up to six sensors to. Each motion sensor has a wireless transmitter that sends a signal back to the Receiver/Base Station when ever motion is triggered. On the Receiver / Base Station there are alarm inputs and alarm outputs on the back side of the unit that correspond with each transmitter. We were able to plug a cable in to the output of Motion Sensor #1 (This can be done on any of the 6 outputs) and ran the cable to the siren outdoor. Now when ever Motion sensor #1 detects motion it sends a signal to the Receiver / Base Station the Base station closes the contact for the output of Motion Sensor #1 which will activate the siren. The Siren we used was programmable to generate several audible messages to alert who ever triggered the Motion Sensor to leave immediately.
Now, let put this in a particle scenario.
Lets say you have a storage shed in your back yard. You might keep all you lawn care products, Pool equipment, Automotive parts and tools, or anything of value that can not be stored in the house. How do you protect them without spending an arm and a leg especially if the shed is not connected to the house nor does it have any power. The solution above is perfect because you can mount the motion sensor on the shed, the siren on the back side of the house and you can put the Receiver / Base Station in the house close to a window that faces the back yard. That way the signal from the motion sensor will reach the Receiver / Base Station also you will not have to bury any cable from the Receiver / Base Station to the siren. Making it very difficult for someone to defeat the system. You can get this entire system for around $200.00 making it a very economical solution.
For more information on this just give any of us a buzz or post in our forums.
S. Sutherland
Recently we received in our new 1280 x 960 8Gig video pen recorder with audio. So I had an opportunity to sit down with this product and give it a good old fashion testing, by that I mean I dropped it and instantly broke it……Yes that was a terribly lame joke
This pen is a larger pen like a Montblanc pen its a bit taller than its predecessors by maybe a half an inch or so, it feels solid and its got some good weight to it, so yes it can double as a paper holder on a windy day. Not a whole lot has changed as far as use time goes, it still only runs for about 60 minutes on a full charge, upside is a full charge only takes 45 minutes now as opposed to 2 hours.
Some other neat features of this unit are as follows:
So I tested all three functions of this pen starting with the video. It was straight forward, click the button once on the top of the pen and it turns on the unit, click it one more time and the blue light begins to flash and your recording video. Playback was just as easy, plug it into the USB port with the provided USB cable and download it, no software required, video was clean and the audio was surprisingly better than I would imagine giving that the older models where nothing to get excited about audio wise.
The second function I chose to test was the the cameras snapshot ability. Now I am happy they added this feature to the pen because I get a lot of customers who have asked for this. The camera is 2 mega pixels so nothing super hi-res, the picture quality was decent, but for those spies who want to be able to read letters on 8 x 11 in Times New Roman 10 you will be sadly disappointed. Once again super easy to download to the PC.
Lastly I tried out the audio detection recording function otherwise know as voice activation but I like to fondly refer to it as noise activation. That’s exactly what it did any noise it heard it woke up and recorded the video footage, I was surprised by how well it worked, I didnt have much faith in it and honestly its not exactly built for this function, although neat its still a pen with very limited battery life, ya you may say toss it on the table and let it go, sure do that and get that fantastic sideways shot you always dreamt of along with half the table blocking out the picture.
Now the real cool part of this unit is that you can record with it while its plugged in charging, none of the other pens we carried previously could boast such a feature, yes I know its still limits you but hey its a step in the right direction, use your imagination or find a neighbor hood kid and use his!!!! Still though that’s very cool it allows a new user of this device to plug it in and get the hang of it before heading to his or hers appointment.
Now I know most video pens have the time and date stamp function but some of them are very difficult to set, I found this to be one of the easiest to use, there is a software disk that comes with the unit on the disk it has the date and time setup file already saved on it, all you have to do is set your date and time save the file then plug in your pen and load the date and time file right on the pen and your done.
Overall I was happy with this pens performance. I liked the new hi-res at 30fps and the ability to take snap shots, I felt the pen was pretty simple to operate, I was disappointed that this pen was a bit larger in length than its cousins, I do also like that the button is flush along the top of the pen instead of sticking out like the older pens do. Its a meatier pen than some of the previous pens and its a bit weighty which could cause problems when placing it in a shirt pocket, super easy to use though and in the end thats the most important feature of all. I would not shy away from using this pen.
SCS4
