Bug Sweeping in Hollywood Has A Lot To Answer For
How bug sweeping in Hollywood is depicted has a lot to answer for! Over and over again we meet people appointed to design and maintain an organisation’s security, who have gained their knowledge of TSCM (technical surveillance countermeasures) via Hollywood movies and TV shows.
It still shocks us when a security director is expecting a Verrimus TSCM Operator to walk into the area of concern, wave a handheld electronic device around and declare the space ‘free from bugs’! That’s how it happens in the movies and on TV, that’s not reality!
Bug Sweeping In Hollywood – It’s Not Reality!
From Tig Trager in Sons Of Anarchy ‘sweeping’ the clubhouse before Church, to James Bond in From Russia With Love, the depictions of conducting a TSCM survey are wildly INACCURATE! The bit in FRWL where Bond enters his room at the Kristal Palas Hotel, searches the room for bugs, and finds one behind a painting. Then he takes a ‘phone bug detector’ out of a leather case and discovered that his phone was also tapped. He requested a room change, because of the “small bed”, and listened for a “pop” to confirm that someone had been listening in on the conversation. Laughable!
If Only…
As TSCM specialists, we would sincerely love it if countering technical surveillance threats was as simple as these inaccurate depictions. Life, for all of our operators, would be far easier if they could travel to a client’s area of concern, pull out a single handheld unit and scan the area. (What are they ‘scanning’ for specifically in these above depictions, by the way?) Our TSCM operators can only dream of not having to travel with ruggedised travel boxes of technical measurement equipment and tools. Just imagine a life without carnets and customs examinations of equipment, without loading and unloading peli-cases outside a busy city centre office or humping heavy peli-cases of equipment up flights of stairs when the client’s lift is out of order! Imagine being able to wave a ‘wand’ over a vehicle and instantly know there’s a tracking device attached. Or imagine being able to wave a wand at a wired phone handset and know that the line integrity has been compromised. Imagine a TSCM survey of a company’s CFO’s office taking no more than a few minutes!
Unfortunately, there still does not exist a single piece of measurement equipment that can measure EVERY threat domain and declare ‘all clear’. A TSCM survey, conducted by any professional, will include lots of different equipment to measure all domains and an experienced operator to interpret and analyse all of those measurements.
Clip joint: Eavesdropping | Film | The Guardian
