Slashdot Mirror
Spy Gadgets: A Visit With the Real-Life Q
AlistairCharlton writes in a neat article about night vision watches, video recording glasses, and other real-life spy gadgets. "Q (real name Jeremy Marks) has run SpyMaster for 20 years and has three branches in central London. The company sells a wide range of covert equipment, from recorders disguised as chewing gum wrappers and watches with night vision cameras, to body armour and home security. Far from meeting our Quartermaster deep in the bowels of MI5 or at an abandoned Underground station, we were invited into SpyMaster's flagship store just off Oxford street; it's a glass-fronted shop just like any other - no M, no whiskey cabinet (so far as we could see) and no ejector seats in sight. "
I was thinking of the other Q and was wondering just how much of what Q from Star Trek (TNG) could do can you achieve today in real life, aside dressing in a starfleet "pijama".
So the article was a bit disapointing. Plus there were 2 videos about DotCom autoplaying at once on that page.
Curiously yours, crip.
It was a covert light-sabre, the reporter obviously missed it.
That is how good it is!
rm -rf --no-preserve-root /
Are these gadgets too costly? I wonder if i have one video recording glass.
The last six comments are a waste of space ..
This an ad for a well-established shop in London that allows individuals to invade other people's privacy, run on the premise that you could imagine the security services using this stuff. Which they don't. The shop isn't new or novel.
Spy Gadgets: A Visit With a Real-Life Guy Who Runs a Shop
Far from meeting our Quartermaster deep in the bowels of MI5 or at an abandoned Underground station, we were invited into SpyMaster's flagship store just off Oxford street; it's a glass-fronted shop just like any other - no M, no whiskey cabinet (so far as we could see) and no ejector seats in sight.
Yes, because he doesn't work for MI6 (which is where Bond works, not MI5 as above). He runs a shop.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Not sure, did a quick search on amazon. Many of the better rated smaller 'spy' cam devices run into $50's+.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
... and most of the items are probably bought in china - the "spy watch" and bug detector both look like something you can find on dx.com... My favorite source of cheap disposable stuff :)
I used to work down the road from them in them, so I thought I'd pop in and see what they had for sale. They are the the most insufferable arseholes I have ever met. Basically they gave me the bum's rush. Every word, every gesture, their condescension, their posture, in fact every fibre of their being indicated that normal people were not their customers. I asked to see their catalogue and they told me it cost £600.
Buy from someone who values your custom.
Dear god this must be a slow news day - I have never seen such a blatant slashvertisment in all the time I have wasted here.
If you are tired of reading ads then read about the interesting stuff the mars rover found the other day, or maybe about this interesting comet
Please Slashdot - don't make me hate you!
Small fry... I had a tour and a wander round one UK police Force's Scientific Support unit a few years ago. Crazy stuff going on there.
Wiring up a villain's target vehicle with covert gps, monitoring equipment etc and leaving it looking 'untouched'. Same done to vehicles left as bait for car thieves.
Calls pulled off mobiles, sms intercepted, mobiles of criminals used as gps units without their knowledge. Phones can be remotely turned on and the data read...
Yes this stuff happens. Not to small time criminals to my knowledge, we're talking violent gang related villains.
Oversight and sign off provided by UK Home Secretary. Not that that will help ease the tinfoil hat brigade.
Why would there be? A gentleman wouldn't touch anything other than a single-malt Scotch.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
All that junk is on eBay, Maplins have been selling half of it for years.
There is no music - home taping killed it.
How is this the real life Q? Did he work for MI6 at some point?
None of that stuff got anything on stuff created by the real OTS or whatever the MI6 version is called.
Besides the real trick is not building the gadgets, it's getting them in place in a secure location. I challenge one of you guys to buy any of those 'bugs' and get the in place at even a low security national security site, like an embassy office or something. Try it.
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
It's nothing special.
Was watching Star Trek TNG the other day so the context was just all wrong for me.
Good ones? yes they are costly. But there are a ton of garbage quality spy cameras on ebay and amazon.com at prices under $500.00 the good ones that actually look right and will record decently enough to get evidence that is admissible in court cost over $500. which is dirt cheap considering what it cost just 10 years ago.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Minimum I'd have expected for the voice activated recorder built into the power connector would have been that it stores a compressed audio format, and optionally supports PLC to be able to retrieve the data without entering the room and without making it visible via WiFi...
Trolling is a art!
Why would there be? James Bond drinks Martini (and apparently, since lately, beer).
Ebay and amazon.com. Sorry buy people that run these "shops" are never experts, and never truely honest. From what I see most of their gear is the cheap china crap. I also highly doubt that they have enough knowledge to make anything custom.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
apparently, since lately, beer
*cough* Product Placement *cough* *cough* *cough*
I could maybe understand 1 video set to autoplay but 2 is begging to be added to AdBlock.
what i find bizzare is the BBC thing of having video "ads" on A SERIES VIDEO PAGE (hint if im going to a page to see an episode of a series that is the Only Video That should be on that page).
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Greetings new SlashDot editors. Please understand that "the real life Q" = John de Lancie on this forum.
So this has nothing to do with John de Lancie http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0209496/
I read a very interesting book called Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to Al-Qaeda. The book chronicles the history of the Office of Technical Services, which provides bugs, cameras, radios, forged documents, and other tools of the trade for spies in denied areas. I was surprised to learn that America had been operating so blatantly and effectively in the former Soviet Union.
A great story concerned a US operative on a sting operation trying to buy weapons from an arms dealer. At the closing table, the arms dealer asks for the operative's (fake) passport, and looks it over. He hands it back and says, "You told me you were in Yemen so I wanted to check your passport." Of course, the operative was never in Yemen, but the CIA techs had even forged an Yemeni entry stamp onto the fake passport. The OTS also forged the documents in Operation Argo, now playing in a theater near you.
On top of all the tech are many stories of humans. A touching story concerned three OTS agents who were betrayed, arrested for spying in Cuba in 1960, then imprisoned for three years. The US government disavowed them, but despite harsh conditions and torture, they never admitted they were CIA agents. Instead, to a man, they steadfastly maintained their cover stories that they were just tourists who happened to be carrying high-tech spy equipment. From the book:
And while in prison, they used their technical skills to defuse a bomb that guards had planted as a self-destruct contingency if the US invaded, and also built a radio from discarded scrap. Their arrest was a secret even within OTS. An agent working as part of a team preparing care packages for operatives in the field saw an old tech preparing a care package by himself. He asked why the old timer was working by himself, and the guy said, "This is for our boys in Cuba. The others don't know that." Eventually, the CIA swapped them for four Cubans arrested in NY for espionage.
It's a great book, and I highly recommend it for nerds like us.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/