As cameras and listening devices have become smaller and more affordable, there's a growing fear that this technology could be used to spy on us and our families.
This fear, stoked by high-profile news stories, has generated a market for anti-spy devices.
There's lots of different anti-spy gadgets on the market, but many are the same gadget rebranded by different companies.
I bought one of the most popular options I could find, which is a three-in-one camera finder, RF detector scanner, and magnetic field scanner for under $50. The aim was to see if, well, it would do anything.
It can detect 1.2G/2.4G/5.8G wireless cameras, stealth miniature cameras, wireless audio bugs, GSM/CDMA/DECT cellular audio video bugging devices, unwanted GPS trackers, and other bug devices and bug transmitters.
The specs say it can pick up RF signals in the frequency of 1MHz to to 8GHz. The first thing I was interested in was how the camera finder works.
It turns out that, along with your detector, you're going to need your eye - because the device works by using a ring of red LEDs to shine out, and a lens you look through shows up camera lenses as bright red dots.
One downside of the device is that you do need to be looking at the lens within a cone of about 15 degrees from the center of the lens to see it clearly.
This issue means that if a camera lens is well hidden, you will need to move around a lot.
The other downside of the device is that you do have to rely on your eyes, and you need to look for the cameras.
There's nothing magic or automatic about this detector.
Next up, I tested the device's ability to detect magnetic fields.
That said, I'm not sure how useful this device would be for detecting something attached to a vehicle.
There's a lot of places to stash a transmitter on a vehicle, and the detect range of this tracker isn't all that huge, and you do get a lot of false positives when prodding the probe into crevices.
Also: How to find and remove spyware from your phone.
Then there's the issue that surveillance devices don't necessarily transmit all the time.
The RF detector is a feature that works, but I'm not sure how useful or effective it would be.
It also takes a bit of time to become proficient in the use of this detector, and beyond the camera finder, I think the value of this tool is small.
The camera finder is really good, and the gadget itself is interesting and actually does what it claims to do.
So with that in mind, and the fact that you can get one for under $50, there's no harm in picking up an anti-spy camera finder and bug detector.
This Cyber News was published on www.zdnet.com. Publication date: Thu, 30 May 2024 18:43:05 +0000