Spying on your Colleagues a Cinch

With corporate espionage rearing its head in the news of late (think Microsoft and Morningstar), it’s decidedly apt that new spy gadgets are being designed to blend in with your typical professional office trappings.

The spy pen is an old standby, but check out this new and improved model: it’s a five-in-one extravaganza, hiding:

[1] a pocket audio recorder;

[2] a full color video camcorder with approximately 60 minutes recording time;

[3] a desktop webcam with stand (yes, this set-up does start to look a little suspicious)
[4] a 2GB USB flash data drive to store stolen docs; and
[5] you guessed it – the ultimate cover of actually being a functional ink pen to boot.

This $99 contraption (6 inches long and half an inch in diameter) comes with a portable emergency recharger for its built-in lithium ion battery.

Besides a pen, what is the one other item you and all your colleagues (no matter their level) are expected to carry on their person at all times while at work?

Yep – their ID cards.

It’s crucial to have your ID card with you, but who ever checks you’ve got the right one? Indeed, run-of-the-mill ID cards barely get a second glance these days (in fact many don’t even display employee photos), so it’s the perfect contemporary office cover. The delight in using a security-oriented tool for surveillance is, of course, an added, if somewhat ironic, bonus. Courtesy of Japan, you can now purchase a fake ID badge with a built-in, uber-stealthy 1.3 migapixel video camera – its 4GB of memory allowing you to keep rolling for well over an hour. Once you’re out of that incriminating meeting, you can transfer the evidence to your PC via USB. Pure espionage genius for about $155.