The Survivalist Pledge:

To help all that can be helped,
To defend all that can be defended,
To save all that can be saved,
To free all that seek freedom,
To stay alive as long as I can and stay free as long as I live.

In this day and age, if someone wants to listen to your conversations badly enough and has the money to buy equipment, he's going to be able to "bug" you. But there's a lot you can do to keep your privacy and thwart the efforts of over-zealous government snoops and criminals who have no business knowing what you're doing and saying in private. With this in mind, let's look at some of the equipment designed to eavesdrop on us "common folk" as well as countermeasures you can take. One simple edge you can give yourself is to shift locations of important conversations frequently. This is an important point for you to keep in mind since it greatly reduces the chances of part or even all of a conversation being overheard by someone spying on you. If you carry on all sensitive conversations in one room, all an eavesdropper has to do is place his bugs in a few key rooms and he has you. Even if your home is thoroughly "bugged", if you wander from room to room discussing things in a low voice, anyone spying on you will be more apt to lose information from time to time. This is because it is nearly impossible to cover each room completely even if several bugs are placed in it. Furthermore, you'll be more likely to discover attempts to bug you since more equipment will be needed to hit you if you're a "moving target."

What type of equipment might be used to spy on you? As most readers know, "bugs" are devices that pick up face-to-face conversations. "Taps" are gadgets that allow a user to listen in on phone conversations or receive data transferred by fax, computer, or telex via a phone line. Both are often hard to detect and--if anything--are becoming harder and harder to detect. Even if you could afford to have your house "swept", chances are good that one or more bugs or taps would be missed by even the most skilled of experts. Of the various devices an eavesdropper has at his disposal, the audio bug has the greatest potential for capturing your most secret of conversations. Modern bugs consist of a small microphone--dwarfed in size by a penny--coupled to a preamplifier/transmitter or a recording device if the bug will be retrieved at a later date.

The basic features of a bug are simple in concept. But the actual bug can be quite complex with IC (Integrated Circuits) giving a tiny bug the equivalent of hundreds of transistor, capacitor, and resistor parts. Use of compression (making soft sounds louder and loud sounds softer), filtering, and other special effects to enhance the signal sent from the bug will all quickly add to the complexity of the device. Often a small receiver and switch are added to a bug or tap so the unit can be toggled on and off remotely. This enables an eavesdropper to shut down the device to conserve its batteries or avoid detection if he believes a search is being conducted for it. Solid state "recorders" may also soon find their way into use as bugs or taps. These devices record and store information digitally. These could be designed to send a high-speed burst of recorded information rather than broadcasting continuously. This would make them less likely to be detected since they'd be sending out an intermittent RF signal.

Sometimes a bug or tap may consist only of a mic on a long cable. This cable can be snaked through a wall from the area being bugged to the eavesdropper's recorder. This arrangement allows the bugging of a room without actually entering it. The eavesdropper just drills a small hole that extends into the room he wishes to bug and then extends a small mic through the hole into the neighboring room. Such a set up is rare and will work only in situations where the eavesdropper can secure a room next to those being used by those he wishes to steal information from. (The directional mic might also be thought of as this type of bug; more on these devices later.) Extending a mic into a surveillance area with a long cable through a wall might also be employed to place the majority of the components of a bug or tap in one room with its mic in the next. While this would make the bug more apt to be detected visually, it would create a bug that would be hard to detect with some types of electronic "sweepers" since the bug's electronics would be some distance from its mic and the area actually being bugged.

Another variation on this type of bug, and one that won't be spotted in a sweep, can also be created by using a speaker in an intercom or stereo system. A cord is attached to the speaker (which acts as a microphone whenever it isn't actually being used). The main shortcoming to this system is that the cord must run off the speaker. If you carefully inspect stereo speakers, radios, etc., having a speaker that might be exploited for this type of bug, you'll generally be able to detect it. The wires will usually lead to a remote RF transmitter, (though occasionally a listening post may be set up in a nearby room if the bug is planted in a hotel room or in a nearby apartment).

The message transmitted from the bug to the eavesdropper's recorder is often processed to increase the clarity of the speech. The simplest processing consists of using a band-pass and/or equalization filters that remove frequencies of sound most often outside the tones found in speech and--occasionally—a narrow band within the speech frequencies to remove noise sources that obscure speech. Complex eavesdropping setups often incorporate several bugs, giving the eavesdropper the ability to switch from one sound source to another to obtain the best coverage of a conversation or to reverse the polarity of one of the sound tracks, thereby creating a filtering effect to remove background sounds originating close to one of the bugs. Your home computer can also be "bugged." These bugs pick up the signals a computer creates and then relays them to the eavesdropper's recorder or computer. These signals can then be processed to duplicate the information being manipulated on your PC.

So how do you keep these bugs out of your home? The best way to prevent bugging is to keep a would-be spy out of sensitive areas. Make some effort to keep people out of your home who don't belong there and try to develop methods of telling if someone has defeated your locks and entered your home without leaving any clue of their entry behind. (The old trick of placing threads or a match stick in a doorway to see whether or not it has been opened still works, PROVIDED you don't make things too obvious.) If you suspect that a bug has been placed in your home or apartment, often you'll be able to detect it with a careful visual search. Check your home from the foundation to the roof searching for wires or electrical devices that don't belong or are out of place, areas in the earth that have been freshly spaded, small patches of new mortar, dry wall repair, or repainted surfaces. Other tell-tale signs are small mounds of sawdust or plaster dust which may point toward an area above them where a bug has been embedded into a wall. Check wall outlets, vents, light fixtures and other areas where a bug might be hidden should be disassembled if necessary and inspected. Flooring should be checked to be sure it is secure. Look behind and under furniture, cabinets, and appliances.

If you're really worried about being bugged, one of the more common types of equipment that can be used to locate a bug is the "sniffer." Sniffers carry price tags ranging from $75 to the hefty $1,500 range. There are three different types of sniffers: the diode detector, the field strength meter, and the grid dip meter. All detect the changes in strength of electromagnetic fields that will radiate from a bug or tap that broadcasts a radio signal. Sniffers aren't without their shortcomings. They tend to pick up all types of transmissions without being able to distinguish between a powerful radio station a mile away and a weak bug within an office. And you home PC will also set these devices off so be sure to turn it off if you use one of these devices. Talented spies may avoid detection by sniffers by using bugs that are remotely activated; these can then be shut off when he suspects you're sniffing out his bugs. So don't tip your hand by telling someone you're looking for bugs. Otherwise he'll shut his bugs off. (This might be useful in order to force someone to quit bugging you for a few moments so you could speak freely—but it wouldn't be surefire. And you might get a poor eavesdropper who couldn't shut off his bugs--and would hear what you were saying!) Another type of bug detector is the "sweeper." Prices of these ranges from $6,000 to $42,000 making them out of most of our pocketbooks. However, sometimes you can hire a person using a sweeper to check out your home for you. In such a case, "renting" the sweeper for a few hours is considerably cheaper than buying it outright.

Sweepers, as their name suggests, search for RF (Radio Frequency) bugs by sweeping through a wide band of frequencies to actually detect the bug or tap's radio broadcast. Use of audio feedback on a sweeper makes it possible to create a feedback squeal when the band the bug or tap is detected. This squeal makes it simple to detect a surveillance device, but also alerts the eavesdropper since he'll likely hear the sound and may flee his listening post or otherwise pull out making it impossible to actually catch him. Therefore, the best sweepers use headphones to signal the location of a bug or tap. This makes it possible to locate bugs without alerting the eavesdropper. The best sweepers have a tunable receiver that allows very narrow bands in the RF frequency range to be inspected. These gadgets take longer to use and are more expensive, but also are more apt to find a sophisticated bug that broadcasts on a very narrow frequency range.

Spectrum analyzers are also expensive with typical costs running from $8,000 to $10,000. These devices are similar to a sweeper, but use a video screen to display various frequencies and modulation modes of any bugs that are detected. Non-linear junction detectors are also used for locating bugs. Prices run from $17,000 to $20,000 for one of these. The non-linear junction detector generates a special microwave that will be reflected off the transistors or ICs used in a surveillance device. This radar-like reflection can then be used to locate a bug or tap once it is detected. The non-liner junction detector can also locate a bug that isn't broadcasting which gives them a real edge in detecting bugs.

Bug technology isn't standing still. LED (Light-Emitting Diode) transmitters, for example, are becoming more readily available on the commercial market. This makes it likely that you might be bugged by a device that frequency-modulated signals and sends them over a beam of infrared light to an optical receiver some distance away. (Such a signal would not be in the radio frequency band, so conventional RF sweeping equipment wouldn't detect it. While the distances over which an LED can send a signal are quite limited, it would also be possible to create a series of LED transmitters and receivers leading to a conventional RF transmitter. Or it can be coupled to a laser modulator, similar to those used to send CCTV signals from one location to another, giving the bug a range of up to one mile.) Since LED (and laser transmitter bugs--more on these in a moment) will show up with night vision equipment, if you have such devices you might want to give the outside of your home the once over from time to time to visually sweep for any LEDs including those operating in the infrared region. When you find a bug, you have several routes you can take to counter it. One is to leave it in place and then feed false information into it. This is tricky, however, and if you're dealing with a government entity, you might be hearing what you say in jest played back in earnest in a court; don't say anything that can be misconstrued by an ambitious prosecutor!

If you don't suspect a government entity of spying on you (or suspect that rouge agents are operating outside of the law), then you may wish to report the bug and let law enforcement put some pressure on whoever is spying on you. If you do this, care should be taken not to touch devices which you discover since they may have fingerprints or other "clues" which could later lead to the conviction of the eavesdropper. (New DNA identifying procedures promise to make it possible to identify and link the owners of bugs to their devices.) When one bug is present, others will likely be there, too. So if don't stop searches just because you've found a single bug. Unfortunately, bugging doesn't even have to have discrete devices located in the area being bugged. It is now possible to "remote bug" without ever entering an area so a few words on these is in order.

Directional mics are one type of bugging device that has become very sophisticated. These are often employed by TV news and sports crews to pick up conversations over some distance—often to the horror of politicians or athletes. Needless to say, these same devices can be employed to pick up your conversations outdoors or through open windows. Therefore, avoid conducting important conversations in the open or near windows opening to the outside. The range of directional mics is limited to several hundred yards at the most; noisy environments will drop this distance considerably so, if you must speak outside, do so in noisy areas.

The very most diabolical of remote eavesdropping devices is the "laser listener." This gadget sends out a tight beam of laser light toward the area to be bugged. The laser bounces off the window or an object inside the room. As it bounces back, its wavelength is altered ever so slightly as the object it ricochets from vibrates from sound within the room. This slight modulation can be read by an optical receiver which demodulates the laser's beam, stripping off the "sound" in the process. Some lasers function with light in the visual band; but the most suitable for a laser listener operates in the invisible ultraviolet or infrared ranges. These can be operated without ready detection by anyone not wearing night vision goggles-- which is one way of detecting the use of a laser listener at night. At one time, the laser listener could be thwarted by placing a white noise generator on window glass or even simply gluing a small transistor radio speaker to a glass pane. Either of these caused the window to resonate so loudly from the white noise or music that it was impossible to pick the softer vibrations of conversation within the room. Newer laser listeners have become capable of bypassing the window and using a hard object (such as a mirror, shelving, metal door, etc.) inside the room being bugged as a resonator for the laser beam. Thus, the practice of placing a speaker on a window no longer protects it from being bugged by a laser listener.

One counter device that may work is an ultrasonic sound generator. Human beings won't be able to hear ultrasonic vibrations, but the high-pitched sounds will cause objects in the room to vibrate. The harmonics created by this movement disrupt the carrier wave on the laser listener--in theory at least. The catch is there's no good way to test an ultrasonic sound generator to be sure it's functioning--or whether it's broken down. Consequently, the ultrasound generator isn't all that great to use as a countermeasure. A better solution is to block windows with opaque glass or soft curtains coupled with a white noise generators on each window-- or talking in rooms without windows. You should also remember that the old idea that vehicles can't be bugged it totally false. Nearly all the bugs mentioned above will make it simple to collect information from conversations in cars or vans. Finally, remember that anyone you talk to can be "wired" with a small transmitter or tape recorder to bug your conversation with them. Such devices can be placed in a briefcase, shirt pocket, or carried under clothing. Another class of eavesdropping devices is the phone bugs or "tap." These present extra security problems since a phone line can be tapped at any point between the two phones in use. This means that even if you have sniffers, sweepers, spectrum analyzers, and non-linear junction detectors, you still may not be able to detect a 25-cent bug placed on the phone line outside your home.

To date, NO type of device will detect every type of tap that might be in place on your phone (advertising to the contrary).

The only way to be positive a line isn't tapped is to inspect every inch of it from one phone to the other--and often that's not too practical. The good news is most spies don't have the time and can't take the risks involved in attaching a bug to most points that are hard to inspect. Too, new fiber optical telephone lines are nearly impossible to tap into. Consequently, most taps can be detected by fairly simple counter- surveillance methods. But you should be remembered that NO phone is entirely secure and data transmitted from one phone to another--say with a computer modem--can be waylaid. Especially insecure are cordless and cellular phones. Tapping these only requires a receiver that operates on the same frequency your phone is using. (Southwestern Bell and several other companies have marketed cordless phones with scrambler features that jump between several different FM frequencies used by the phone transmitter/receiver. These give a degree of security but such signals might still be capable of being "read" by a skilled wire tapper. Don't assume these phones are secure, either.)

If you must use a cellular phones, the Drid Sac portable has a "STU-3" (Secure Telephone Unit #3) feature which many experts feel is fairly secure. These telephones also have a modem feature that allows a computer to be utilize the scrambler as well. Standard phones can also have scramblers mounted on them. Costs run from $500 to $14,000 per phone with at least two keyed scramblers necessary to carry on a conversation. Unfortunately, some of these aren't all that good. Perhaps the worst of the phone scramblers are those using an audio masker or jammer. These add the sound of modulated "noise" to the telephone transmission. This noise masks the speaker's voice until it is filtered by a second phone with an identical device. The problem is that filters capable of removing this type of noise are readily available. In fact, many telephone companies implement such devices into their systems to reduce line noise so these phone signals are often capable of being heard WITHOUT the jammer telephone. So you're better off not spending $400 to $3,500 for one of these "jammers" since the phone company may defeat it before it even gets to the person you're calling. Quality scramblers are a bit better but you should never assume they aren't capable of being defeated.

Whether scrambled or standard over-wire phones are being used, there are several points that taps can easily be used to pick up their signals. One of the more common points to connect a tap is at the junction box or--with large businesses--the "punch-down box" outside the building where company phones are routed to the telephone system's wiring. The simplest taps are simply connected to the phone lines with allegator clips. These are often easy to detect, PROVIDED the box is inspected. So be sure you check from time to time. You'll have to inspect the junction box carefully since more skilled wire tappers will use a wires the same color as those found inside the box so that even phone company personnel will not notice the addition to the punch-down box during casual inspection. Security personnel looking for taps should inspect the inside the junction box. So it's a good idea to be familiar with what does--and doesn't--belong in your junction box so you'll know if something is amiss. Taps placed on your phone line's wiring are harder to spot because wiring is often snaked inside structural members in building framing, above false ceilings, or along walls behind furniture. If a wire tapper has the time to do so, placing a tap on a phone line hidden from view can be very effective and it can be located only by careful inspection or RF sweeping. The only tools necessary for making the tap are a pair of wire strippers, the tap, and a little know-how. So you need to be very vigilant to locate one of these taps.

The old-style tap that could be dropped into the mouthpiece of a phone has become all but obsolete with the variety of phones that have exploded onto the marketplace with the breakup of AT&T. However, similar taps (which are actually bugs placed on the phone since they generally contain transmitters) are available which can be placed within a telephone receiver. These work well and are very hard to detect except by the use of an RF sweeper. One cheap way of detecting these is to purchase one of the new transparent phones sold in some discount stores as a novelty item. These have a clear plastic body that allows the insides of the phone to be inspected without taking the phone apart. This makes it ideal for quick bug/tap inspections without dismantling the phone.

Many modern taps are "parasitic." They draw power from the phone itself. These can sometimes be detected by the voltage they pull. The simplest detection device is an electrician's voltmeter connect to the line; there are also devices that can be connected in series between a phone and its cord that will achieve the same level of detection. Some of these are quite sophisticated and will detect changes in capacitance and resistance in the line as well as voltage changes. Prices for these devices ranges from $50 to $700. Telephone analyzers are also used to locate taps. These devices are similar to voltmeters/tap detectors but considerably more sensitive. Cost runs from $3,000 to $5,000 making them out of the reach of most of us. Neither the telephone analyzer or tap detectors will nab more sophisticated devices, many of which only draw very minute amounts of power. And neither will detect any bugs beyond the junction box or on the phone being called if it's outside the company's system. So users of detectors that warn of taps must not put too much faith on the tap detector's abilities.

Another interesting bug/tap is the "infinity bug" which is created by modifying the electronics of the phone itself. Once modified, the phone won't ring when a coded signal is given to it; but the phone behaves as if it had been lifted from the hook with the sounds in the room being picked up by the phone's earpiece. These sounds are then transmitted over the phone, making it possible for the person on the other end to hear what is being said around the area the phone occupies.

One sure sign an infinity bug is on your phone is people tell you they've been trying to call but your phone is busy (and you weren't on it). Another give away is when you pick up the phone quickly and it takes longer than normal for the dial tone to start up (because the eavesdropper must disconnect his phone connection before a dial tone will sound). The infinity bug can be defeated by physically removing your phone from the line. This is simple with many "modular" plugs.

But it also removes the ringer from the line so you don't know when you have incoming calls. If you purchase a phone with hold and line buttons, you can also disconnect your phone from the line when you have a conversation that is better not overheard by anyone. Both of these techniques will also disable "parasitic" taps on the phone since they get their power from the phone itself since the power will be cut when the phone is unplugged or its line buttons disengaged.

You can also modify your standard phone so the headset is cut off when the phone is hung up. Or you can have a switch added to it to turn the headset off when you're not using it. This way, the receiver can't transfer its sound to the phone line until the receiver is lifted from its cut-off hook. Infinity bugs can be discovered by placing a high-gain transistorized amplifier to a phone line. If the phone has been compromised, you'll be able to hear what's being said in the room over the amplifier. If you have a number of phones lines in your home, you'll need to remember to test each pair of wires since any one might contain an infinity bug. If an infinity bug is discovered on your phone, you might be able to catch the wire tapper in place in several ways.

One would be to contact the phone company (on another phone) and ask them to trace your calls. Another way would be to use one of the devices that displays a phone caller's number (these were available from Sears stores for a time). When you're away from home, remember that restaurant tables, homes, cars, or other places can be bugged (or simply have a cassette recorder hidden in them). More than a few people have been recorded and overheard when private detectives or the government were working on cases not involving those who were inadvertently eavesdropped on. While, in theory, such conversations are illegally obtained, an unscrupulous detective or government agent might use the information against you or even initiate tapes or bugs against you. So, "be careful out there!" While it is impossible to be completely safe from wire taps or bugs these days, a few simple precautions and taking the time to inspect your living area from time to time will minimize your chances of being successfully bugged.

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