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ABOUT FACTS NET
Things
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Spy Devices and Weapons
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These are the things of James Bond, those slick gadgets that amaze us, those deadly gadgets that frighten us, but these spy devices are real. Source: CIA |
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This OSS "Beano" grenade exploded upon impact.
This uniform button is really a compass. |
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The easily concealed ‘Liberator’ pistol. The pistol was
actually quite a piece of junk. Caltrops were designed to puncture tires. |
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A deck of playing cards conceal a map which would be revealed when the
top layer was soaked off. |
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Acetone Time Delay Fuses for limpet mines to be used against ships. A 16mm Kodak camera in the shape of a matchbox. |
| With today's technology there are so many ways to code
items and send messages. When looking through the contents of an electronic
mail (e-mail) message, it is not difficult to spot an encrypted message.
It looks like a bunch of characters following some well-defined format.
Sending such a message alerts anyone monitoring that there is perhaps
something to hide. "Steganography" is the art and science of
communicating in a way that hides the existence of the communication.
In contrast to cryptography, where the enemy is allowed to detect, intercept
, and modify messages without being able to violate certain security premises
guaranteed by a cryptosystem, the goal of steganography is to hide messages
inside other harmless messages in a way that does not allow any enemy
to even detect that there is a second secret message present.
Steganography includes a vast array of methods of secret communications that conceal the existence of the message. Among these methods are invisible inks, microdots, character arrangement (other than the cryptographic methods of permutation and substitution), digital signatures, covert channels, and spread-spectrum communications. A message in ciphertext may arouse suspicion while an invisible message will not. (Source: National Counterintelligence Center) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What is really unusual today is the fact that you can spy on someone without ever leaving your desk. Certain worm programs open up a person's computer to complete control by anyone. Every item on the machine can be copied and examined without you ever knowing it. It is possible to have the contents of a computer copied and sent anywhere using today's technology. Some people, including myself, believe that any computer connected to the internet or even a phone line is inherently unsafe, no matter how it is protected. I remember a challenge that took place several years ago. I can't remember the names of those involved but I do remember that a government site was said to be hacker proof. A code breaker armed only with a Mac (Apple computer model), was allowed to try and break in to test the security. This person was very good at his job and within two days he was in. At the time it was said that the security on this site was the BEST we had to offer. All I could think about at the time was the fact that this must have made our nukes vulnerable also. So what this all boils down to is someone in a terrorist country can use hundreds of hackers to try and break into our most secure sites and they have time on their side. Now these sites don't even have to be military. Much damage can be done by hacking ordinary sites like electric, water, etc. The danger boggles the mind. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U-2 Spy Aircraft And now for one of the biggest pieces of spy gear, the U-2 Airplane which was designed to fly above the range of Russian missiles. We all know what happened when we tried that, don't we?
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