Use of Spy Cameras and Snooping Devices in India Reference ...



Aum Gung Ganapathaye Namah

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma-sambuddhassa

Homage to The Blessed One, Accomplished and Fully Enlightened

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Use of Spy Cameras and Snooping Devices in India

A Collection of Articles, Notes and References

Reference Chapter 5

(Revised: Wednesday, January 12, 2005)

References Edited by

Praise the Buddha

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.

- William Shakespeare

Copyright © 2002-2010 Praise the Buddha

The following educational writings are STRICTLY for academic research purposes ONLY.

Should NOT be used for commercial, political or any other purposes.

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8 "... Freely you received, freely give”.

- Matthew 10:8 :: New American Standard Bible (NASB)

1 “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.

2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,

3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,

4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—

5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

6 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires,

7 always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.

8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth--men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected.

9 But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.”

- 2 Timothy 3:1-9 :: New International Version (NIV)

The right to be left alone – the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by a free people

- Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. U.S., 1928.

Contents

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Educational Copy of the References (Q-X) with Personal Review

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Educational Copy of the References (Q-X) with Personal Review

FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.

Being educational in nature, some of the articles have personal reviews. Thought-provoking questions on morality, righteousness etc.

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Reference

Raman, B. (Monday, March 19, 2001) Sting Operations. Paper no. 212. South Asia Analysis Group.



…but, in many countries, it is illegal to use them clandestinely against another person in his or her house or office.

Only the FBI can mount a sting operation. No private individual, not even a journalist, can.

"Individuals, any and all entities must and shall comply with all applicable local, state, federal laws and regulations before performing or engaging in any recording, covert surveillance or any transmission of radio frequencies.

Be aware of your local laws prior to using ANY covert devices.

…but in India there are no laws regulating the use of covert investigative/surveillance equipment by private individuals.

Despite the legal safeguards in the US, there have been growing complaints of the misuse of such covert equipment not only by private individuals, but also by the law enforcement agencies, resulting in a violation or distortion of the rules of natural justice and particularly of the basic constitutional or legal guarantee that no person can be made to incriminate himself by using force or deceitful means.

Sting operations could be mounted only against persons against whom some evidence of criminality already exists and a sting operation is considered necessary for getting conclusive evidence.

Permission for sting operations must be obtained from appropriate courts or the Attorney-General. This safeguard has been laid down since those who mount a sting operation themselves commit the offences of impersonation, criminal trespass under false pretences and making a person commit an offence.

The Supreme Court has ruled: "The first duties of the officers of the law are to prevent, not to punish crime….”

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Reference

Sharon, Meghdoot. (Saturday, November 18, 2000) Eve-teasers murder father for protecting daughters. Ahmedabad, India: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.



Eve-teasers murder father for protecting daughters

MEGHDOOT SHARON

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AHMEDABAD, NOV 17: There are no tears left anymore. For Seema, Anita and Rekha, who saw their father tortured and killed before their eyes last Tuesday, all that remains now is shock and grief, etched into their lives forever.

Santram Upadhyay, 47, had objected to his daughters being harassed by two youths who were his neighbours and paid with his life.

In their one-room house at Premnagar slum in Amraiwadi, the girls are huddled together, numbed by the tragedy that has struck them. Their elder brother Rajesh arrived from Mumbai only yesterday. Their mother, Shantidevi, is still in a state of shock. She keeps staring at his picture, in between breaking into uncontrollable sobs. Rekha, the eldest daughter studying in class X, suddenly breaks the silence. ``My father died trying to save our honour. The sad fact is the whole `basti' watched him being clobbered to death but no one helped.''

Their ordeal goes back longer. An employee of a private security firm in the city, Santram, along with his wife Shantidevi and three daughters, used to live in the Premnagar slums. For the past few months, the girls had been subjected to constant harassment by two youths, who stay just across their house.

On Tuesday too, Santram returned home from work around 8.30 pm to find the youths teasing and harassing his daughters. The girls were studying in the verandah when the two brothers Dinesh Parsinath Thakore and Rajendra Parsinath Thakore, along with some friends, gathered there and began singing songs and whistling.

Family members said a quarrel took place after which Santram threatened the youths that he would call a cousin residing at Hatkeshwar to teach them a lesson.

Santram had reached the end of the lane, when the two brothers and a cousin rushed behind him with sticks and pipes and attacked him. Santram, whose skull had been smashed, was rushed to L G Hospital where he died on Wednesday morning.

``My father had tolerated this for long. He got enraged that night when they called him a `hijra' who could do nothing even as they teased us,'' said Rekha, adding that their problems began some months ago.

``When we attempted to study, they would blast the music system at full volume throughout the night,'' she said. Her sister added, ``They would bring their friends here and all would recite `shayris', adding our names in between lines.''

``They had threatened my father earlier too when he had attempted to stop them from harassing us,'' said the third daughter.

The two brothers, their father and cousin who have been named as accused are absconding. Their house, located exactly opposite that of Santram's, is locked.

Santram had approached Amraiwadi police a few months ago after a quarrel between the two families. He had stated in his complaint that Dinesh and Rajendra were harassing his daughters and when he had objected, they had threatened him with dire consequences. However, no action was taken.

Though the Amraiwadi police station is less than half a kilometre from the place where Santram was murdered, the police arrived after the accused had fled.

Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.

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Reference

Shiel, Fergus. (Friday, September 27, 2002) Cyber stalkers to be jailed for up to 10 years. Australia: The Age Company Ltd.



Cyber stalkers to be jailed for up to 10 years

September 27 2002

By Fergus Shiel

Law Reporter

Cyber stalking is to be made a crime under Victorian law punishable by up to 10 years' imprisonment.

And the law covering all forms of stalking is to be extended to cover stalking even where the victim is not aware that the offence has occurred.

Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls confirmed yesterday that new legislation outlawing online stalking would be introduced early next month.

"That means that if a person is stalked in a chatroom; if they are stalked by e-mail; if they are stalked on the Internet, it will be illegal," Mr Hulls said.

"We think that it is important that the evil of stalking itself is made a crime whether or not the victim has been harmed," he said.

"That occurs with the law of threat to kill at the moment, whether or not the victim is aware of the threat and we believe the stalking laws should be extended to that extent."

The Law Institute has endorsed the new law of cyber stalking, but opposes removal of the requirement that is central to existing stalking legislation that harm or apprehension of fear actually occur.

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Reference

Swami, Praveen. (Mar. 31 - Apr. 13, 2001) The Surveillance Scene. India: Frontline. Volume 18 - Issue 07.



COVER STORY

The surveillance scene

A run-down on currently available surveillance and counter-surveillance technologies and their applications, in the context of the Tehelka operation.

PRAVEEN SWAMI

SPIES, unlike Tehelka's team of journalists, would not really have needed to enter Defence Minister George Fernandes' home to find out just what was happening there. Using equipment available off the shelf, such as long-range parabolic microphones and shotgun microphones, they could have picked up conversations sitting in a hotel room 1,500 metres away, even through a 50 cm thick wall. Each time Fernandes picked up a cordless or cellular telephone to speak to officials, electronic devices costing just a few thousand dollars would have allowed the spies to listen in. And if they were equipped with state-of-the-art emission detection equipment, the spies could have read each line of text typed out on the computers at the Defence Ministry.

Encryption, code-making and code-breaking are all part of modern surveillance and anti-surveillance practices.

Tehelka's sting operation has shaken up India's intelligence establishment, and not for the obvious reasons. It has illustrated just how vulnerable defence and strategic establishments are to professional surveillance, and shown up the dismal state of counter-surveillance infrastructure.

In the world of modern surveillance technology, the miniature cameras used by Tehelka lie at the bottom end of the scale. Spybase, an online surveillance technology vendor, sells products like the VidLink 100 video transmitter system for as little as $39 9 (about Rs.18,800). Fitting into any object the size of a cigarette box, the VidLink transmits video signals from its miniature camera up to 1.6 km away, where they can then be recorded on tape. An amateur version of the VidLink is available for just $1 79 (about Rs.8,400) and allows for video transmission over some 250 m. High resolution systems are also commercially available. U.S.-based Communications Control Systems (CCS) sells a video camera fitted in a pen, with a lens just 3.6 mm in diameter, which can record colour images in just 0.5 Lux of brightness.

Systems like these have been widely used abroad, both by journalists and law-enforcement organisations, as well as for commercial espionage. A corporation might, for example, record the payment of bribes to politicians in order to prevent them from reneging on an agreement. Miniature cameras and video transmitters, concealed in devices as diverse as desktop clocks, electrical plugs, door knobs or even hollowed-out books, are routinely used to monitor employees in rooms where sensitive information is kept. Despite a fair level of information on such surveillance methods being available, criminals continue to be caught on camera. The producers of a recent British Broadcasting Corporation programme used covert cameras to blow the lid of trafficking in eastern European women. Police forces routinely use cameras fitted inside car radio antennae to keep suspects under surveillance. "All this is seen as essential equipment," says security equipment dealer Ajay Gupta, "not as expensive toys."

Why, then, have we not seen explicit images of corruption and narratives of scandal emerge from elsewhere in the world? The simple answer is that these techniques will not work in developed countries. Any office or home where sensitive material is stored, or secrets are discussed, would be protected with modern counter-surveillance devices that would detect any electronic intrusions. One major counter-surveillance tool consists of systems that can detect any transmissions, through a full range of 5 mega hertz to over 4 gigahertz. The minute a covert camera is turned on, for example, the counter-surveillance equipment would detect its activation. Users would also be alerted to the presence of any audio or video transmitter concealed in fixed devices planted inside a room. Kits are available to detect the covert use of audio and video recorders.

State-of-the-art equipment can feed false signals to those listening in, allowing images of bribe-taking, for example, to be replaced with innocuous footage. Other technologies exist to alert users that their telephones are being tapped. CCS' B-411, for example, monitors telephone lines for any changes in the electrical parameters, of the kind caused by transmitters, extension phones, or even plain tape recorders. The B-411 then generates a masking tone that makes eavesdropping difficult. Devices to prevent other kinds of surveillance are again available commercially. Audio jammers, which generate random noise, are available for around $100, and provide a high level of protection against microphones and tape recorders. Each jammer can protect conversations taking place within a 100 square metre room. Special shielding equipment is available to protect rooms from microphone surveillance.

Organisations in advanced countries, official and corporate ones, go to extraordinary lengths to protect their secrets. Telephone, fax and e-mail correspondence is, for instance, routinely encrypted. This provides users of counter-surveillance technology another layer of defence should their systems fail to alert them to bugs. A variety of devices are commercially available, ranging from cheap gadgets that distort voices, to full-scale encryption equipment. Anyone listening in to an encrypted telephone or radio conversation would hear only gibberish. Sadly, very few Indian establishments use encryption routinely. While the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) have secured some key voice and fax lines, many communications, including satellite telephones, remain unencrypted. That means anyone armed with a frequency scanner, or even just some copper wire, screwdrivers and ingenuity, can listen in to sensitive conversations.

New technology can resemble science fiction. Since the early 1980s, the intelligence community has been discussing technologies to protect the surveillance of emissions from computer monitors and printers. Technology exists to read this kind of text from up to 3 km away, using the electronic emissions generated by computers. The United States security establishment has rigorous standards, code-named Tempest, to protect these kinds of surveillance. Other standards, reportedly codenamed Nonstop and Hijack, exist to prevent the transmission of signals from radio frequency devices such as cellphones, pagers and cordless phones. German computer magazines reported in 1991 that authorities processing sensitive data in that country were required to use only Tempest-protected devices approved by ZfCH, Germany's Central Office for Encipherment. Ericsson is believed to be the market leader for such special computer security screens.

EVER since espionage began, code-breakers have been constantly at war with code-makers. Any technology to ensure secrecy is immediately challenged by counter-technologies, which are in turn beaten by new secrecy tools. Experts, however, believe that the war is finally being won by the code-makers. Simon Singh, the author of The Code Book, has suggested that the advent of quantum cryptography would make it theoretically and practically impossible to decipher an encrypted conversation.

Concerns about the intelligence establishment's communication security have been voiced for several years now. The May 2000 report of the official task force on the intelligence apparatus (see separate story) noted the need for the Intelligence Bureau to possess "a reliable and safe communications capability". The report said: "Many of the hostile groups operating within the country currently benefit from the expertise of foreign intelligence services, and are able not only to latch on to frequencies, but can also demodulate RF (radio frequency) transmissions that have been modulated and remodulated after transmission." "Almost all messages," the report concluded, "now need to be encrypted, and online encryption is a dire necessity." The report has been accepted by the Central government, but it is anyone's guess how long it will be before such major technological upgradation comes about.

Interestingly, one form of unbreakable encryption, based on what are known as one-time cipher pads, has existed for almost a century. A one-time cipher consists of replacing characters or digits with a randomly generated alternative. The hotline between the Presidents of the U.S. and Russia apparently use these pads, but the costs of generating genuinely random characters, and the difficulties involved in regularly disseminating pads, render the use of this method impractical for everyday use.

Big Brother is listening, but Indian intelligence officials are curiously blase about electronic surveillance. The U.S.-run Project Echelon can intercept almost all e-mail and fax correspondence and telephone conversations, using a network of satellites and earth-based receivers. The interception of conversations between Pakistan's military ruler General Pervez Musharraf and the Chief of General Staff, Lt. Gen. Mohd. Aziz Khan during the Kargil war would not have been possible had both sides used encryption. Technologies like Rivest-Adelman-Shamir (RSA), based on one-way algorithms, provide for near-unbreakable encrypted communication. The U.S. has imposed severe restrictions on the export of strong encryption software, but some products based on RSA technology, like the now-legendary e-mail encryption software PGP, are available for download from servers outside that country. Strong encryption necessitates enormous computer resources to decode, of the kind that can stretch the abilities even of the National Security Agency of the U.S.

Organisations like the RAW do possess significant technological capabilities, including equipment to sweep important installations for bugs and to protect communications from interception. The organisation, sources say, also has considerable capability to intercept telephone conversations. Military Intelligence, for its part, has formidable capabilities to decrypt enemy communications and gather intelligence by prowling the air waves. Such technology, however, is closely guarded, and finds little system-wide application. Visitors to top intelligence establishments and the Defence Ministry face only physical frisking, designed to detect not sophisticated surveillance tools but weapons. Any half-competent spy with access to any of these establishments would have little difficulty planting bugs, or taping conversations, or filming documents. Even rooms which house ciphering equipment are rarely shielded from the prospect of an electronic attack.

If Tehelka's investigative team members had instead been espionage agents, the consequences would have been calamitous for the country. None of the conversations of the Defence Minister would have been confidential. India's nuclear secrets, its defence acquisitions, its inner workings: all these would have been transparent. Decisions made in the offices of top military officials would have been known to India's enemies even as they were being made.

For all we know, this is already the case. Almost all of India's top officials receive civilian visitors, and there appears to be little regular audit of what they might have left behind. That Tehelka could record on tape politicians unconnected with defence is cause for nothing except sadness. That they could penetrate high-security offices with such ease underlines the urgent need to upgrade the technological resources available to India's defence and intelligence organisations.

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Vocabulary

blasé adj. Unconcerned; nonchalant: had a blasé attitude about housecleaning.

Personal Review.

Any half-competent spy … would have little difficulty planting bugs, or taping conversations, or filming documents.

Almost all of India's top officials receive civilian visitors, and there appears to be little regular audit of what they might have left behind.

Refer the sample scenarios provided by spy device victim and the current advancement of spy devices. The level of intelligence gathering that could happen at home as well as at office of many Indian “Babus” or bureaucrats through these modern spy devices is worth noting. But then, who cares? Many of these Babus are blasé as the author of the above article (Praveen Swami) notes sadly.

And if they were equipped with state-of-the-art emission detection equipment, the spies could have read each line of text typed out on the computers at the Defence Ministry.

Passwords, classified material etc, “open” secrets!

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Reference

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Cyber Crime - IT ACT, 2000. Chapter IX. Penalties and Adjudication. 43. Penalty for damage to computer, computer system, etc. India.



The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) - Cyber Crime - IT ACT, 2000.

IT ACT, 2000

CHAPTER IX

PENALTIES AND ADJUD1CATION

43. Penalty for damage to computer, computer system, etc.

If any person without permission of the owner or any other person who is in charge of a computer, computer system or computer network, -

(a) accesses or secures access to such computer, computer system or computer network;

(b) downloads, copies or extracts any data, computer data base or information from such computer, computer system or computer network including information or data held or stored in any removable storage medium;

(c) introduces or causes to be introduced any computer contaminant or computer virus into any computer, computer system or computer network;

(d) damages or causes to be damaged any computer, computer system or computer network, data, computer data base or any other programmes residing in such computer, computer system or computer network;

(e) disrupts or causes disruption of any computer, computer system or computer network;

(f) denies or causes the denial of access to any person authorized to access any computer, computer system or computer network by any means;

(g) provides any assistance to any person to facilitate access to a computer, computer system or computer network in contravention of the provisions of this Act, rules or regulations made thereunder;

(h) charges the services availed of by a person to the account of another person by tampering with or manipulating any computer, computer system, or computer network,

he shall be liable to pay damages by way of compensation not exceeding one crore rupees to the person so affected.

Explanation.-For the purposes of this section,-

(i) "computer contaminant" means any set of computer instructions that are designed-

(a) to modify, destroy, record, transmit data or programme residing within a computer, computer system or computer network; or

(b) by any means to usurp the normal operation of the computer, computer system, or computer network;

(ii) "computer data base" means a representation of information, knowledge, facts, concepts or instructions in text, image, audio, video that are being prepared or have been prepared in a formalized manner or have been produced by a computer, computer system or computer network and are intended for use in a computer, computer system or computer network;

(iii) "computer virus" means any computer instruction, information, data or programme that destroys, damages, degrades or adversely affects the performance of a computer resource or attaches itself to another computer resource and operates when a programme, data or instruction is executed or some other event takes place in that computer resource;

(iv) "damage" means to destroy, alter, delete, add, modify or rearrange any computer resource by any means.

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Reference

Thera, Ñanamoli. (Translated from the Pali) (Revised: Thu 17 May 2001) Anguttara Nikaya V.161. Aghatapativinaya Sutta. Removing Annoyance.



Anguttara Nikaya V.161

Aghatapativinaya Sutta

Removing Annoyance

Translated from the Pali by Ñanamoli Thera.

For free distribution only.

Read an alternate translation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

From The Practice of Loving-kindness (Metta) (WH 7), by Ñanamoli Thera, (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1987). Copyright ©1987 Buddhist Publication Society. Used with permission.

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"Bhikkhus, there are these five ways of removing annoyance, by which annoyance can be entirely removed by a bhikkhu when it arises in him. What are the five?

"Loving-kindness can be maintained in being towards a person with whom you are annoyed: this is how annoyance with him can be removed.

"Compassion can be maintained in being towards a person with whom you are annoyed; this too is how annoyance with him can be removed.

"Onlooking equanimity can be maintained in being towards a person with whom you are annoyed; this too is how annoyance with him can be removed.

"The forgetting and ignoring of a person with whom you are annoyed can be practiced; this too is how annoyance with him can be removed.

"Ownership of deeds in a person with whom you are annoyed can be concentrated upon thus: 'This good person is owner of his deeds, heir to his deeds, his deeds are the womb from which he is born, his deeds are his kin for whom he is responsible, his deeds are his refuge, he is heir to his deeds, be they good or bad.' This too is how annoyance with him can be removed.

"These are the five ways of removing annoyance, by which annoyance can be entirely removed in a bhikkhu when it arises in him."

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Revised: Thu 17 May 2001



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Reference

Walt, Vivienne. (Wednesday, May 20, 1998) Shelves of Snooping Aids Make Privacy Hard to Buy. USA: The New York Times Company.



May 20, 1998

Shelves of Snooping Aids Make Privacy Hard to Buy

By VIVIENNE WALT

LOS ANGELES -- A MAN stepped through the door of a spy store in West Hollywood and muttered that his company, a "major movie studio," was tapping his telephone. He needed a device to examine the phone, hunt down the tap and shut the thing off.

That might sound like an unreasonably worried customer.

But phone tapping is bigger than ever -- both the illegal kind and the legal kind.

Court-authorized government wiretaps reached a record two million private conversations last year, according to Justice Department figures released this month.

Americans might express outrage that Linda Tripp taped phone calls from her friend, Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern. But Ms. Tripp, it seems, has plenty of company. More than ever, Americans seem to relish listening in on other people's conversations and taping their own, electronics analysts and people who sell electronic devices say.

For do-it-yourself spies, the easiest surveillance -- taping your own calls -- is now so simple and cheap that there hardly seems to be a reason not to own the technology. Many new telephone answering machines have a button that, when pushed, will begin taping conversations without informing the other party. That is illegal in only 13 states; New York is not among them, although Maryland, where Ms. Tripp taped Ms. Lewinsky, is.

Several recording jacks on the market plug into a tape recorder on one end and a telephone on the other, allowing the user to put the tape on pause during irrelevant parts and so save various literary agents and reporters from slogging through hours of worthless chitchat later on.

"I'm not sure what people are doing with these, but they're very popular," said a sales assistant at a Los Angeles branch of Radio Shack, whose catalogue offers three such jacks, ranging from $19.99 to $34.99.

At the West Hollywood spy store, Spy Tech Agency, on Sunset Boulevard, engineers have modified regular voice-activated recorders so they can tape four hours on each side, which allows someone to tap a phone without having to baby-sit the action continually. With one of these, the owner can splice a connecting line into one part of the telephone wire -- which is called tapping into the line -- and then hide the recorder in some other part of the house.

Last year, said the Spy Tech Agency's owner, John Dresden, the device may have saved the life of a Spy Tech client, a suspicious husband who taped his wife's calls only to discover that she and her lover were plotting his murder. His wife found the recorder and smashed it, Mr. Dresden said, but the husband returned to buy another one and then handed the tapes to the police.

More recently, Mr. Dresden installed one of these recorders for a woman who wanted to record the calls of her teen-age son, whom she suspected of using drugs. The tapes exceeded her worst fears, Mr. Dresden said. "She couldn't believe the stuff he was doing," he said.

With all this gadgetry, anybody might be tempted to try tapping a phone. But beware: all states ban unauthorized third-party wiretaps, even though some judges have ruled that parents can record their children's calls because they pay the phone bills.

Despite the laws, private investigators say they are being bombarded with clients' requests for illegal wiretaps. "When I had an ad in the yellow pages, I'd get a few requests every week," said Tom Grant, a longtime private detective whose best-known client these days is Paula Corbin Jones. By far the easiest method of telephone tapping, he said, is bribing a technician.

Telephone deregulation has increased the number of telephone companies, and it has also changed the design of telephone boxes outside buildings, which connect the inside lines to the street. Since telephone companies no longer have sole authority over the inside wires, new boxes are designed with simple, modular jacks so an electrician can add a line. That means that a snoop with minimal technical know-how can plug a recording jack into the box without ever entering the house.

Still, new digital telephone systems are far more difficult to tap than the older, analog lines -- so much so that the Federal Bureau of Investigation won an agreement from the telephone industry to institute some changes in the system to make surveillance easier.

Under the deal, companies agreed to give government agents the ability to track cellular-phone users. But the F.B.I. is arguing for greater access to digital networks, including, among other things, the ability to monitor conference calls even after the agent's target has hung up.

Cordless and cellular phones can invite eavesdropping. Speaker Newt Gingrich was overheard in December 1996 by a Florida man and woman who were using a simple radio scanner in their car; they eavesdropped on a conference call with Republican leaders, hatching their response to ethics charges against him. At least one of the participants chose to talk on a cellular phone -- proving, perhaps, that many Americans are not aware of how leaky wireless telephones can be.

It is also true that the recorded phone call has become commonplace in some areas. Call a customer-service line, and a recording lets you know you are being taped. Answer a telemarketing call, and that the call is probably being taped.

"There's an acceptance that there are fewer opportunities for candid conversation," said Robert Ellis Smith, editor of The Privacy Journal, a newsletter based in Providence, R.I.

Government wiretapping is on the rise, too. A total of 1,186 requests were approved by Federal and state judges in 1997, which was an increase of 3 percent from the number in 1996, according to the Justice Department wiretapping report issued this month. As in the past, most of the requests, nearly three-quarters, were for drug investigations; the largest number were issued in New York, which had 304; in New Jersey, with 70, and Florida, with 57.

But for those who care about keeping their conversations private, there are a few simple rules. First and foremost, stay off cordless and cellular telephones: they act as radio transmitters. If you need a cordless telephone, buy an expensive, digital version. VTech makes telephones that include a digital scrambling system. Use digital, rather than analog, cellular phones for more private conversations. Another rule to remember is that even if your phone is secure, your conversation partner's may not be.

For sensitive calls to a specific person, two voice-scrambling devices are available to attach to both handsets. They will scramble the transmission and unscramble it on the other end. Spy Tech sells them for $300 each.

While scrambling devices can render wiretaps useless, some tap detectors on the market will alert you if someone's listening. Most of them work on finding radio signals transmitted over the line, a signal that there is a wiretap at work. But in large offices, finding a bug or phone tap needs far more complicated methods than anything you can buy from a catalogue.

"It isn't that simple, like in the movies, unfortunately," Mr. Dresden, of the Spy Tech Agency, told the studio employee who came looking for a wiretap detector for his office telephone.

"We'd have to come in and sweep the whole place -- it'll cost you around 50 grand," said Mr. Dresden, leaning against a cabinet of tiny transmitters in his blue jeans and cowboy boots. In an era when people are seeing alluring little gadgets for James Bond and Dick Tracy-type wristwatch computers, it was disappointing news. The man left empty-handed.

In the final analysis, many people seem not to care a great deal about whether their calls are being tapped. The news this month that the government was listening in on a record number of calls barely made a flutter in the news.

"Technology's already diminished our privacy a lot," said David Wagner, a computer-science graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley who helped crack the GSM encryption technology used in 80 million cellular phones a few weeks ago. "Two hundred years ago, if you wanted a private conversation, you went out into the middle of the woods."

Mr. Dresden cannot provide the woods. But in recent years, he has helped several financial companies come close to that experience by designing safe rooms for them where deals can be made without fear of economic espionage. One room in a downtown Los Angeles building, Mr. Dresden said, has vibrating noise generators built into the walls -- about $30,000 worth of electronic equipment alone.

For the studio employee who wandered into his store, however, Mr. Dresden offered his best advice for anyone needing privacy: "Don't use the phone."

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Published on internet: Thursday, October 31, 2002

1st Re-publish on internet: Thursday, July 10, 2003

Revised: Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Information on the web site is given in good faith about a certain spiritual way of life, irrespective of any specific religion, in the belief that the information is not misused, misjudged or misunderstood. Persons using this information for whatever purpose must rely on their own skill, intelligence and judgment in its application. The webmaster does not accept any liability for harm or damage resulting from advice given in good faith on this website.

Reference Chapter 4 Reference Chapter 6

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A Mini Homepage Index

• Use of Spy Cameras and Snooping Devices in India

• International Stalking and Cyberstalking in India

• Energy The Invisible Living Lord

• Miscellaneous Writings

• Readings

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“Thou belongest to That Which Is Undying, and not merely to time alone,” murmured the Sphinx, breaking its muteness at last. “Thou art eternal, and not merely of the vanishing flesh. The soul in man cannot be killed, cannot die. It waits, shroud-wrapped, in thy heart, as I waited, sand-wrapped, in thy world. Know thyself, O mortal! For there is One within thee, as in all men, that comes and stands at the bar and bears witness that there IS a God!”

(Reference: Brunton, Paul. (1962) A Search in Secret Egypt. (17th Impression) London, UK: Rider & Company. Page: 35.)

Amen

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