When we think of methods that governments and big corporations use to spy on us, we often think of computers, smartphones, and maybe surveillance cameras. As you are about to find out, these are hardly the only things that can be used to keep tabs on us.

Seemingly innocuous items like toothbrushes, headphones, and children’s toys can be turned into potent espionage devices. This really shouldn’t be a surprise, considering that every manufacturer wants to connect their products to the Internet these days. Big Brother (or at least big business) is watching . . .

10 Robot Vacuums

Robot vacuums can be quite convenient, but they can also spy on you. The Roomba iRobot i7+, for example, has been caught spying, and so has the Dongguan Diqee 360.

The iRobot i7+ is capable of making a map of your home when it cleans. Romba says the vacuum needs to create a map of your home so that it knows its way around. The map can also be useful if you want to order the vacuum to clean a specific room. However, Roomba revealed that the iRobot i7+ will also share the map of your home with other smart devices. Why does a vacuum need to share a map of your home?

Well, Roomba did not explain, but you can guess why, considering that the vacuum was jointly developed by Google, the king of spying. While Google insists the sharing is just to allow the robot to integrate with its digital Google Assistant, it’s hard not to imagine them making money off this somehow.^[1]

One robot vacuum that is clearly spying on us is the Chinese-made Dongguan Diqee 360. The vacuum has Wi-Fi and night vision-capable 360-degree cameras. Worse, hackers can hack the cameras of the Diqee 360 to spy on you, when Dongguan isn’t spying on you itself.

9 Cars

Our cars spy on us, and we’re not referring only to smart, self-driving models; we mean regular cars. They might not be smart, but they aren’t dumb, either.

Almost every vehicle produced today contains an event data recorder (EDR). The EDR records information about the vehicle, including its location, average speed, condition of the road, and the preferred route of its owner. This information is automatically sent back to the automaker.

Automakers say they use this data to study the behavior of their vehicles during accidents and offer improvement. This information is also shared with law enforcement to detect the cause of accidents. However, this does not mean automakers won’t use this information for other things.

For one, we don’t even know how much information carmakers gather from the cars. We don’t know who owns the information, either. Is it the car owner or the maker? Also, most car owners don’t even know they are being tracked. Automakers and salespeople aren’t very keen on revealing this information, either. So the spying continues.^[2]

8 Headphones

You might be wondering how headphones could spy on us. Well, they’re basically microphones. Headphones and microphones work the same way. It’s just that headphones convert electrical signals to sound, while microphones convert sound to electrical signals.

Interestingly, they can be easily converted to work the other way around. Headphones can be turned into microphones by just plugging them into the dedicated microphone jack of your computer or the the single jack shared by the headphone and microphone in phones and laptops. Talk into them, and they become microphones.

This technology can be exploited to turn headphones into spy microphones—if some corporation, law enforcement, or government spy agency isn’t doing so already. Security researchers at Ben Gurion University in Israel have even created malware that turns headphones into microphones to spy on people.

The malware, which they called Speake(a)r, works by converting the output jacks of the computer into input jacks. The headphones can be used to listen to a person’s conversation whenever they are plugged into the computer.^[3]

7 Toothbrushes

Toothbrushes are slowly moving from dumb plastic rods with soft bristles to gadgets. And as with every other gadget these days, they are being connected to the Internet to spy on us. In 2014, Oral B released a smart toothbrush that connects to specialized Android and iOS apps via Bluetooth.

The toothbrush records every brush stroke and presents it to the user at the end of every brushing session. The toothbrush offers suggestions about how the user could improve their brushing habits and can even send the information to their dentist. Speaking of dentists, they can also use the information to create brushing programs for their patients.

Kolibree also released a similar toothbrush around the same time. It claimed it helped users “outsmart their dentist.” It also added that users could share their brushing information with “dentists and family.” Why should we share our brushing information with our family? Also, there were concerns that the toothbrush could be used to send information to dental product advertisers.^[4]

6 Alexa

Amazon’s digital assistant, Alexa, spies on you. You may not know this, but Amazon presently employs thousands of people to review voice commands users say to Alexa. The reviewers work nine hours a day, during which they analyze over 1,000 audio commands each.

These reviewers have listened to voice commands the users never thought Alexa or even another human could hear. They have listened to bank details, to private conversations that clearly weren’t directed at Alexa, and, at least once, to a woman singing in the shower.

Two reviewers once listened to what they believed was a sexual assault and reported it to Amazon. Higher-ups mentioned that it was not their responsibility to interfere. Some of these recordings happened when Alexa was switched off, indicating that Alexa either switched on by itself or when it heard something that sounded like an order to switch on. All of this has created privacy and spying concerns about Alexa.

However, Amazon does not call it spying. It says it only reviews voice commands to improve Alexa. Amazon explained, “We use your requests to Alexa to train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems.” However, the company never mentioned that humans—and not some sort of artificial intelligence—were involved in training Alexa.

While Amazon claims the commands are analyzed anonymously, we know this is not necessarily true. Reviewed recordings often contain the user’s first name, account number, and the product serial number, which could be enough to identify a person.^[5]

5 LED Lights

Believe it or not, 171 LED lights at Terminal B of Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey provide more than just illumination. They are rigged with sensors and connected to eight video cameras to surveil people in and around the terminal.

The terminal is maintained by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. It says the cameras are only used to recognize long airport lines, vehicle license plates, and suspicious activity. However, we all know the system could be used for more. The Port Authority stores any information gathered by the lights and could hand it over to the police on request.^[6]

4 Home Security Cameras

Security cameras are supposed to catch people trying to burgle our homes. However, we have discovered that they can—and do—spy on us, too. The fears of being watched by surveillance cameras have caused privacy concerns among owners and prospective owners of such devices. Users have become so paranoid about being watched by their security cameras that a startup even created one that turns around and faces the wall whenever you are home.

Concerns about spying were raised because security cameras can secretly take videos, pictures, and audio, which are all uploaded to the cloud. The audio capability is the most notorious because these cameras could record conversations that are supposed to be private and confidential.

There is also a flaw with the way the uploaded data is handled because a spouse can use it to spy on their significant other whenever they were away from home. Law enforcement could also order the cloud service provider to hand over the recordings without your consent.^[7]

For now, we have caught Ring, a security and doorbell camera maker and subsidiary of Amazon, spying on people with their cameras. Ring says it does not spy on users but only uses recorded videos to improve object recognition—the sort of thing Amazon said with Alexa. However, its reviewers have seen private videos of people kissing, stealing, and shooting guns.

3 Toys

Children often talk to their toys as if they were human and could reveal private information in the process. This is slowly becoming a problem with the advent of smart toys rigged with cameras and microphones. These cameras and microphones sometimes send information to servers operated by the toymaker.

Genesis, a Hong Kong/Los Angeles toymaker, was caught spying on children with its doll called My Friend Cayla. The doll transcribed conversation to text and sent it to third parties. Curiously, when children asked the toy, “Can you keep a secret?” it always replied, “I promise not to tell anyone; it’s just between you and me.”

Hackers can also hack these toys to spy on children, steal pictures, videos, and audio recordings, or identify GPS coordinates that could reveal the location of the child. The Smart Toy Bear by Fisher-Price (a subsidiary of Mattel) has also been discovered to be vulnerable to hackers after researchers at Indiana University found a security flaw that allowed them to access the camera.^[8]

2 Computer Mice

Everybody knows their computer spies on them, but most people seem to have ignored the spy capabilities of peripherals like keyboards and mice. Yes, that innocuous-looking mouse could be used to keep tabs on you. It has happened in Singapore.

In 2012, it was reported that Singapore employers were spying on their workers with different gadgets, including calculators, alarm clocks, and their computer mice. The spy mice looked and worked like regular mice, except that they were rigged with microphones and a built-in SIM card. The employer makes a phone call to the mouse, and it starts recording any conversation within 10 meters (33 ft).^[9]

1 Smartwatches And Fitness Trackers

Smartwatches, fitness trackers, and similar smart wearables are another category of spy gadgets that are slowly emerging. These gadgets are so smart that they can use several sources of information to identify the wearer. They can also determine if the wearer is walking, running, or just taking a car, train, or bus.

This isn’t surprising at all when you realize that these wearables can also monitor the wearer’s hand movements to determine if they are entering sensitive information like pin numbers or passwords. Wearables can correctly determine the pin number or pattern used to unlock a cell phone 64 percent of the time, the ATM pin 87 percent of the time, and computer passwords up to 96 percent of the time.^[10]

One of the best parts of classic James Bond films was the moment Q would pull out some wild new invention for the secret agent to use in his dashing exploits. Would it be a laser watch? Or would we see 007 wielding a set of bagpipes that doubled as a flamethrower? It turns out that the reality of spycraft is just as wild as the most fantastic films.

Here are ten of the weirdest bits of equipment a spy might find among their kit.

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10 Pipe Radio

Smoking is undoubtedly bad for your health but for CIA agents in the middle of the 20th century there were situations where smoking a pipe could save their life. The key to this pipe’s life-saving capabilities was found concealed in its stem – a radio receiver that could pick up transmissions and send them straight to the agent.

The pipe worked when the spy clenched it in their teeth. By vibrating the pipe was able to transfer sound directly into the ear via the bones of the skull. No one else would be able to hear what was being sent.

The CIA website which shows off some of the technology it has employed over the years doesn’t reveal whether the pipe could be used to smoke tobacco so best not to lend your spy pipe to anyone else.^[1]

9 Dead Rat

What do you do when you see a dead rat? If you leave it alone then you would probably make a poor spy. The CIA used dead rats to transfer information from their operatives. This was a very literal dead drop, which is the term used in spying when a secret location is used to pass things between agents without the two ever having to meet.

The rats were real – though hollowed out to provide a Velcro pouch for messages and money to be passed back and forth. The CIA was convinced to use them because there is no culture on Earth where people don’t recoil in horror from a dead rat. They were also impressed with the amount that could be stuffed inside one.

The only precaution needed was to dip the rats in Tabasco sauce before dropping them. While humans back away from dead rats a scavenging animal might want a bite of it – at least until they got a taste of the hot sauce.^[2]

8 Rectal Tool Kit

Being a spy is not all swanky parties and tuxedos. Sometimes a spy must go below and beyond to serve their country – they might be called on to hide the tools of their craft in their anus. The CIA rectal tool kit has everything a spy might need and all in a handy size for easy concealment.

Luckily for the spies the kit comes in a shatter-proof case so that they don’t get injured trying to remove it. Once out of its hiding place the kit opens to provide the secret agent with knives, drills, and picks. The kit offers everything that a spy might need to escape a sticky situation.

The rectal tool kit is an ingenious bit of engineering and miniaturisation that packs a lot of equipment into a small space. The British secret service might have come up with something similar. MI5’s official motto is “Regnum Defende” – “Defend the Realm.” It would be so easy to rebrand themselves to Rectum Defende.^[3]

7 Dog Poop Transmitter

If dead rats were used because people tend to avoid touching them then it was just a matter of time until dog poop was employed. During the Vietnam War devices referred to as Dog Doo Transmitters were placed along the Ho Chi Minh trail. Shaped to look like the droppings of “a medium sized-dog” the T-1151 contained a detector that transmitted back to American forces.

By dropping these technological turds along the trail US forces were able to monitor the movement of goods by opposition forces. Variants of this device were created to look like the droppings of indigenous animals. They could be used as both homing beacons to guide attacks or to transmit Morse code signals if an agent picked them up.

These devices were part of a trend in open concealment – where spy equipment was made to look like something that could be left anywhere. So people who don’t pick up after their dogs are just making spies’ jobs that much easier.^[4]

6 Hollow Coins

The ideal piece of spy kit is one that can be handled without anyone suspecting it is out of the ordinary in any way. You want to pick something that people see and hold every day. With coins being so ubiquitous they were an obvious target for espionage. In one case though it was a hollowed out coin that gave a spy away.

When a newspaper boy called Jimmy took a coin for his papers in 1953 he had accidentally accepted a piece of Cold War spy equipment. Dropping the coin he saw it break open and a miniature photograph fell out of the hollow inside. While it looked just like a normal nickel there was a miniscule hole drilled in the face that allowed it to be opened with a needle.

While the FBI was unable to decipher the numbers on the concealed photograph at first they were helped in picking up another spy when they found another hollow coin. Noticing the similarity to the coin Jimmy found they made arrests that broke up a Soviet spy ring.^[5]

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5 Pipe Dagger

While second-hand smoking can seriously damage your health there was one piece of British spy kit that could have proved deadly. While it looked like a normal pipe with a quick twist it could be opened up to reveal a lethal steel blade inside. If an agent found themselves in need of giving a foe a quick stab then they would always have a knife to hand.

The pipe was created by the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. They were responsible for producing equipment to help secret agents behind enemy lines. While much of their work involved creating gadgets to help spies avoid detection some of their creations were weapons to help them survive in tight spots.

The British had a fondness for offensive pipes and also manufactured a pipe that concealed a small calibre gun.^[6]

4 Spy Basket

Not all pieces of spy equipment were completely surreptitious. Some of them were pretty obvious if you knew where to look. During the First World War the Germans used Zeppelins to spy behind enemy lines and perform bombing raids. The drawback with Zeppelins was that they were highly combustible and slow moving. Ground forces could easily shoot them down. One way to hide was to keep them above the clouds.

When the Zeppelin was above the clouds though it was impossible for them to see their targets. To make up for their blindness they would sometimes lower a platform called a spy basket on a metal wire. A spy would sit in a wicker chair in the small vessel as it descended below the clouds and issue orders back up to the ship.

While people on the ground could hear the Zeppelin’s engines they would be unable to locate it with their lights and the spy basket was too small to be seen from below.^[7]

3 Glasses With Cyanide Pill

It is a tired old trope in movies that spies like to surround themselves with suicide pills. The moment they are uncovered they can gnash down on a glass ampoule of poison and perform one very final escape. One popular version is the hiding of cyanide in a fake tooth they can bite down on. One of the few places cyanide has not been hidden is in teeth – imagine if the spy grinds their teeth in their sleep?

The CIA has revealed that they once produced a pair of glasses with a cyanide capsule hidden in the tip of the arms. The agent could pretend that they were having a deep think while chewing on their glasses when in fact they were committing suicide.

In one real case Alexander Dmitrievich Ogorodnik, codenamed Trigon, a Soviet-diplomat-turned-US-spy asked his handlers for a pen with a concealed cyanide pill. Given the rough handling he could expect if the KGB ever picked him up it was a reasonable request. Trigon was arrested. When he was about to be interrogated he asked to sign his confession with his special pen. He removed the capsule, bit on it, and was dead before he hit the floor.^[8]

2 Insectothopter

Oh to be a fly on the wall. Flies would make the best spies of all time. They would be the best bug in all of espionage. But the first attempts to make an insect spy device were not an unmitigated success.

Developed in the 1970s and made to resemble a dragonfly this first mobile listening device was the brain child of the CIA. Under perfect conditions the insect-shaped unmanned aerial vehicle could cover 200m in 60 seconds. Unfortunately the awkwardly named Isectothopter was just as awkward in the air. A light breeze would knock it well off course.

The Insectothopter was supposed to be guided by laser beams which would deliver it to its target. But given the limitations of its propulsion system it was never used in the field. With 50 years of development though it is entirely possible there are bugs out there that are indistinguishable from real bugs.^[9]

1 False Scrotum

When a spy needs to contact their handler in a hurry they would not have to look far for a radio if they were wearing one of the CIA’s false scrotums. Designed to be worn on the appropriate area of a male spy the scrotum was capacious enough to hide a miniature escape radio.

The idea was even if a spy was captured and strip-searched then this realistic scrotum would not draw too much attention. The rubber hiding device was naturally textured and even had wispy hairs attached. There is no word on who provided the model for the scrotum. Only the most dedicated spy catcher would linger long enough to detect the deception.

The false scrotum (which is something that is always fun to say) was unfortunately never put into widespread use. Or at least that is what the CIA wants you to believe…

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