A former MI6 agent has revealed the best and worst spy gadgets available on Amazon – including a bag of crisps.
Former spy Harry Ferguson rated a variety of items in a video created by Strong Watch Studios for his new DEEP YouTube channel.
Created by former LADbible executives Thom Gulseven and Ben Powell-Jones, the channel posts two videos a week, each providing a window into an extraordinary life.
In this clip, former spy Harry tested a variety of items, including a “lie detector test,” a stash can disguised as a can of Heinz spaghetti, and a secret chamber detector, among other items.
According to the former intelligence officer, his goal was to tell viewers which of these readily available items “are really useful if you want to be a spy.”
Former MI6 spy Harry Ferguson (pictured) rates various spy devices you can buy on Amazon in a video on the new YouTube channel DEEP
Looking at the storage can first, he said, “Unlock the bottom and you can hide your secret documents there.” Now, I know what you’re thinking “that’s silly,” and you’d be right, but I actually ran into another spy who used one of these for real.
“He was an Iranian spy and we were trying to catch him because he was trying to get parts for airplanes, and we were looking for the documents for his purchases, and he had hidden them in one of these.”
However, Harry noted that the spy’s stash can was slightly better than the Amazon one. He explained: ‘He had taken it upon himself to make them yourself from an ordinary tin can. And the reason we found him is because he…he had been pretty smart.
‘He actually crushed it a little bit and hid it in the trash, and we almost lost it. I emptied the trash from him and almost let it pass. Only when I checked did I find it.’
The next item he looked at was a secret camera detector that plugs into his phone’s charging port. It emits a red light that is reflected when pointed at a lens, so you can find hidden cameras.
“This really works,” Harry said. ‘The problem is that you have to get very close for it to really work. And if someone has a secret camera in your room, they’ll see you wandering around inch by inch, staring at the wallpaper.
His third item was a pair of sunglasses that have mirrors on the side, which are supposed to help you see what’s going on behind you.
‘And they work: if you put them on… (and) turn your head a little, (you can) see what’s behind you. Again, it seems like a silly idea, but in fact, they are based on a device used by the CIA and make an important point about counter-surveillance.
One of the items Harry looked at were these rear-view sunglasses, which help you see what’s going on behind you if you tilt your head at the right angle.
‘That’s when you’re trying to spot people following you, the idea is to act normally, but then do something that catches them. That may be a maneuver. It could be using a shop window to get a reflection, or even if you did it selectively, using a device like this, just to get that glimpse, where they don’t expect you to see it.’
Moving on to the fourth item, a lockpick, Harry said it looks like a useful spy device and people could imagine that spies spend a lot of time picking locks.
But, he added, that’s not the case, and the main reason is that if they find you in a foreign country with a lockpick, the authorities “are more likely to think you’re a thief than a spy, but they’re probably going to arrest you or be more interested in you.” you”.
Plus, Harry said, you actually have to spend a lot of time practicing with modern locks, and they’re not as easy to open as many of the instructional videos on YouTube make it seem.
“And besides, most places you’ll need to access as a spy have electronic locks and other types of locks,” Harry said. ‘So the way spies do it is one of two ways.
‘Either they get a technical officer to come look at the lock and make a key for you, or (you use) a master key that will work in that lock so you don’t have to do any of that to open locks, or you find a way to get one genuine key from one of your agents and use it like that.
This hide-and-seek test and lie detector test were also evaluated. As Harry explained, lie detector (or polygraph) tests don’t actually work, as they only measure different physiological signs of arousal, such as heart rate. There are no machines that can detect lies.
The next device he evaluated was a cloaking device: something spies can use to hide information they’ve stolen. The example he looked at looked like a regular outlet, but it had a secret compartment on the back that would go into the wall, so to a casual observer it would look like a regular outlet.
But Harry noted: “Good search teams will test it to see if it works, because they’ll wonder if it also has a camera or audio bug – you can get plugs that do that too.” ‘
Hidden cameras were next, and the one he looked at in particular was on a necklace, but as Harry pointed out, you can get hidden cameras on all sorts of devices, including hats and pens.
Speaking about how useful they are, he said: “The problem with all of these devices, and I think I’ve used most of them at one time or another, is that you usually use them, not so much to record the person who’s speaking, because you could use an audio device for that.
‘They do it to make good television, but that’s not what spies do. We are not interested in good television. We are interested in the data.’
He added that the types of data that spies are interested in (for example, the numbers on a keyboard that someone enters) are difficult to film using one of these devices, since “it can be tremendously difficult to get the right angle.”
This means that while these devices seem useful, they usually aren’t, he concluded.
Another device that is not as useful to spies as you might imagine is this type of small recording device, whose short battery life makes them of limited use.
Lie detector tests were next on the list. Harry said: “Their correct name is polygraph tests, because all these tests do is monitor certain emissions from the body, such as blood pressure, breathing rate, etc.”
He continued: ‘The truth is that spies know they don’t work. There is currently no machine that can tell if you are lying. None of them work reliably.
Looking at more recording equipment, Harry next showed small spy cameras, which can be integrated into objects to hide them: books, cans or stuffed toys, he suggested.
But, he said, there is always a big problem with these devices: power.
“Now, the battery on this one will last about four hours,” he said. “So if you’re hoping to film activity at a location for a set period of time, this isn’t enough.
‘One solution is to use something like this, which is actually connected to the mains. Now this doesn’t have video, it has audio.’
The problem, he explained, is that people will move the objects in which you have the recording devices hidden and, since, if they are connected to the electrical network, they will be left on the ground, the audio will be terrible.
While laser traps (pictured) can be a good way to tell if an unexpected intruder has entered a specific room, they have their own problems, as Harry explained in the video.
“You can’t just plug them into a room and expect to hear everything, because with all these devices, what really counts is planning and imagination,” he concluded.
The last device Harry rated was a laser trap. They can be used to detect “if someone has entered his room, his office, his hotel room or any premises he wishes to protect.”
How do spies protect those rooms?
Harry said, ‘Well, one way… is with a laser trap, like this. Now, these are so common that, in fact, children use them to play.
‘The idea is… that they emit an invisible laser light that is captured by a receiver. If you break the beams, it sounds an alarm or triggers a camera or whatever the particular trap is.
Again, using these elements has disadvantages.
“The problem is that if you arrive in Tehran with this in your luggage, you’re probably going to be asked some questions,” Harry said.
So what do real spies do? The answer is surprisingly low-tech: they use potato chips.
According to Harry, potato chips are “probably the best intrusion detection system ever invented,” and you can eat them, as well as use them as a spy device.
“Chips are probably the best intrusion detection system ever invented, I’m not kidding,” Harry said.
‘Why are they good? Because you take a potato, any potato, and you put it under a rug in the room, or under the doormat, or somewhere someone might step on.
‘If they step on it, they will break it. Now as you can see these crisps have a very distinctive shape, once they have been broken there is no way to hide the fact that they are broken; Even if you run out and buy another packet of crisps, you won’t find a crisp like this.
“If I am stopped from going to a country, no one will question the fact that I have something like French fries, and the best thing of all is that not only does it work to detect if someone has entered your room, while you are away, but you can also eat the fries.
You can watch the full video and learn more about what Harry thinks about these devices and his real-life experience using them in in the full video on youtube.