The Naked Society. Vance Packard

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СКАЧАТЬ Society for Industrial Security, he cautioned that sales were “subject to pertinent regulation.” But he added: “I cannot be responsible for the integrity of the user. . . . I’m not going to ask the buyer what he does with it.” (A leading electronics magazine, incidentally, has advertised for $22.50 a “Be a Spy” correspondence course that includes instruction in bugging.)

      As for tiny tape recorders, their manufacturers have been conducting large-scale advertising campaigns in large-circulation newspapers and magazines. A full-page ad for the pocketsize Minifon cited not only its value in recording routine memos, conferences, etc., but pictured its “wrist-watch” microphone ... its “inconspicuous tie-clip microphone” . . . how the recorder could be “concealed” in one’s briefcase . . . and its “unique telephone pickup” for attaching to one’s telephone receiver to record phone conversations.

      In the course of my research I was given a number of demonstrations on the arts of bugging and de-bugging by people who were clearly experts. Those offering their services to the public as anti-intrusion specialists were perhaps most willing to discuss openly the problems involved. Raymond Farrell, manager of Bondwitt Sound Engineering Co., in New York, explained: “If we’re serving the public, we’re anti-intrusion specialists; if we’re serving the law, lawfully, we’re intrusion specialists.”

      As he and I were chatting in an office, he took out of his briefcase a transmitter the size of a small matchbook. At his suggestion we went down the hall to a room where two girls were chatting and with their permission placed it and its tiny microphone on a table several feet from them. We returned to the office where we had been talking. He closed the door and turned on his receiving box. The conversation of the girls came through loud and clear. He said the girls could be heard at least a block away, and perhaps two, depending on conditions.

      The most impressive demonstration was put on for me by Ralph V. Ward of Mosler Research Products, Inc., in Danbury, Connecticut. He is one of the leading authorities in the free world on surveillance devices. His company and its predecessors pioneered in making miniature surveillance devices for federal agencies, including some in the international field. As vice-president of sales he spends a good deal of time in Washington taking orders and soliciting research and development contracts. “We have not run out of wonders,” he said. The Mosler company now also makes much of its equipment available to state and city agencies and to licensed investigative agencies. And it offers to industry for slightly more than $300 a “security” kit that contains a host of tools for detecting bugging devices—but none of the bugging devices themselves.

      The amiable Mr. Ward generously spent most of a day giving me a chalk talk on the problems involved in both bugging and de-bugging and demonstrated, item by item, the tools that go into the pigskin satchels sold to federal and other official agencies. The filled satchels are produced in lots of a hundred and contain both bugging and de-bugging tools. One interesting item was a microphone mounted in rubber a quarter of an inch thick. It can be slipped under a hotel door. Another device was the spike mike: a microphone attached to a spike nearly a foot long. It can be driven into walls or doors, which serve as resonators.

      I shall try to describe here my understanding of the latest achievements in microphoning techniques and tools as they were explained to me by expert informants, including Mr. Ward.

      The challenge today is not to make the “bugs” small but to make them more undetectable, for use in spots where the occupants are security-oriented and likely to make checks. A transmitter, no matter how small, is fairly easy to spot by an anti-intrusion expert with room-“sweeping” equipment. He hears a squeal in his receiver when his electronic “mop” gets close to a hidden transmitter. A buried microphone with a tiny wire leading to a remote tape recorder is vastly more difficult to detect. Thus the transmitter is considered to be most appropriate for quick hit-and-run jobs, whereas the mike wired to a remote recorder is preferred for permanent installations.

      Some of the preferred places to tape hidden microphones in a room are at the back of desk drawers (because people usually don’t go all the way back even when searching), in the upholstery, or the underside of a bed. If a long-term bugging with a transmitter is planned, there is an advantage in putting the transmitter in an electric clock or TV set or in a light fixture so that it can draw its power from the building’s electric power source.

      Another favored spot for hiding bugging devices is within the frame of a picture on the wall. Mosler sells a nice pastoral scene that has a very thin transmitter pasted inside the paper covering the back of the picture. (Price: $215.) A visual search would not detect this transmitter even if the picture were taken off the wall. These pictures are particularly esteemed for installation in hotel or motel rooms where persons under surveillance are going to stay.

      The base of a telephone is also a choice spot for making a quick installation of a bug: Mr. Farrell demonstrated to me that it can be done within one minute. There are two ways of installing the bug. A two-wire tap using a small transmitter in the base gives you only the telephone conversation. A three- wire tap includes a wire that jumps the hook switch and thus broadcasts all calls and in addition all conversation going on in the room when the phone is not in use.

      As counterintrusion skills have advanced, the professionals have sought to place their microphones beyond the probing range of the metal-detection sweepers now widely used. This means placing the mike behind the wall—and as far away as possible. Mr. Ward explained:

      “Normally the best way to bug is through a pinhole that is too small to see in the imperfections of the woodwork or the plaster. Visually, you wouldn’t find the pinhole.” (Researchers are at work to develop pinhole finders.) But even with a pinhole the presence of a microphone buried in the wall may produce a slight signal on the metal detector if it is just inside the plaster behind the pinhole opening. Now, Mr. Ward indicated, the tube mike has been developed. This permits you to put the mike several inches back from the pinhole. The tube, which can be a plastic resonator, leads from the pinhole to the mike and reduces the chances that the microphone will be detected by any metal-detecting device. Dr. Leo L. Beranek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an authority on acoustics, has described devices that can be placed on the outside wall of a room under surveillance. Voices inside the room set up mechanical vibrations that may be detected by such a device placed against the outer wall. Most experts hired for counterintrusion work feel insecure unless they can inspect all rooms around, above, and below the room they are guarding for any signs of bugging activities.

      As for the highly directional microphones that reputedly can pick up conversations from great distances, a sizable folklore on the reach of such microphones has developed. Published reports that they can pull in voices from 1200 feet away or through closed windows are apparently without basis. But apparently some do bring in conversations 100-150 feet away under moderately noisy conditions and up to 500 feet if conditions are ideal (quiet).

      The first of these miracle mikes to receive much attention was the parabolic microphone, placed at the focal point of a reflector. Such giant saucers were first developed on a large scale during World War II, before radar, and proved to be much more sensitive than the human ear in detecting approaching aircraft. An effective parabolic mike requires a reflector with a diameter of at least three and preferably six feet. This makes it somewhat cumbersome for most sleuthing purposes, but it can be concealed behind bushes, or in an open truck, or in the darkened balcony of a conference room.

      Another kind of long-range mike is the so-called machine-gun type, consisting of a bundle of tubes of varying lengths, each of which brings the sound to a microphone at the rear. Such an arrangement of tubes tends to eliminate most sounds not almost directly to the front. Cumbersomeness is again a problem. The picture of the one I saw in operation indicated that the longest of the pipes was about seven feet. The man using it was behind bushes. A Senate subcommittee was told that this type of mike proved to be practical in gaining evidence of blackmail involving a motion picture actor in California. The blackmailer, СКАЧАТЬ