You need to know how to protect yourself, since your security department or any consultant may not be truly aware of these threats and therefore not dependable. Since September 11th, a number of businesses entered the security field with little to no knowledge of the trade itself; only of its profit potential. Even outfits that have been around for some time and well-established have not been able to stay current with the latest innovations.

Realistically, viewing your threat level has to be considered since everyone should expect some sort of impending privacy issue no matter how small. Thanks largely to the Internet you can arm yourself with much of the knowledge and equipment that the so-called experts use. If a respected agent of computer crimes for the Secret Service in NYC had his T-Mobile Sidekick hacked, who knows what else happens out there to others in any business.

Realistically, viewing your threat level has to be considered since everyone should expect some sort of impending privacy issue no matter how small. Thanks largely to the Internet you can arm yourself with much of the knowledge and equipment that the so-called experts use. If a respected agent of computer crimes for the Secret Service in NYC had his T-Mobile Sidekick hacked, who knows what else happens out there to others in any business.

We'll start acoustic ducting evaluation is the inspection of air ducts, baseboard heaters, coffee rooms, lounges, bathrooms or any way the architecture of a building can transfer sound. A simple example is to put your ear to a wall and listen.

Basically anything that requires the use of the naked ear is called an acoustic bug. Softer surfaces can help muffle sounds but there are more efficient means out there. So be aware that the way an office site is designed can act as a conduit for conversations. Also, be aware of any changes can have adverse affects. Simply playing music can do wonders for masking conversations.

Inspection of telephone equipment and wiring is called line analysis. This is trickier than it seems since sometimes a possible weakness has an actual purpose to the telecommunication system. Especially if it requires constant maintenance and software upgrades.

All instruments should be opened and inspected. Ideally they should be compared with a known safe phone or device. If you're not sure, just remove that piece of loose components and wiring and see if the phone still works. The wiring can be modified in a switch within the handset that essentially turns it into a microphone. If you bypass this hook switch, you can listen in from anywhere on the landline. Technical equipment won't be able to detect this. Time Domain Reflectometry is the sending of a pulse down a telephone line. If there is some sort of disruption; a wall outlet or wiretap; a portion of the pulse will be sent back to the device called a Time Domain Reflectometer (TDR). Then the time difference between the reflection and the continuous run is measured. This helps in determining the distance to the anomaly.

These devices can perform all sorts of diagnostics including mapping a wire network. That can be useful in locating a hidden phone. Hidden phones have several obvious uses such as making long distance phone calls to being placed in an office across the street to receive betting requests by bookies; a practice called back strapping. If you open up the modular jacks where you connect your phone, you'll usually see four wires. In most cases only two wires are connected; commonly known as ring and tip. If you see all four connected, be aware that is not usually consistent for most wiring situations, especially in homes. The other two wires could be used for a bugging device.

For instance, the microphone you use in a voice recorder can be cut in half. Connect the mike head to one set of unused wires anywhere on the phone wire. Then, so long as there are no breaks in the wire, connect the other end to the jack that connects to your recorder. Now place your recorder to be VOX (voice) activated and now you have an extremely reliable bug. By the way, this should be manually inspected for since using a specialized bug detector may see nothing wrong or inconsistent. A bug such as this that connects to a wire is called a direct tap.

The other general type is called an inductive tap. This is when an instrument is outside a wire but can still distinguish what