A Growing Problem..

Industrial espionage or corporate espionage is espionage conducted for commercial purposes instead of national security purposes.

The term is distinct from legal and ethical activities such as examining corporate publications, websites, patent filings, and the like to determine the activities of a corporation (this is normally referred to as competitive intelligence). Theoretically the difference between espionage and legal information gathering is clear. In practice, it is quite difficult to sometimes tell the difference between legal and illegal methods. Especially if one starts to consider the ethical side of information gathering, the border becomes even more blurred and elusive of definition.

Industrial espionage describes activities such as theft of trade secrets, bribery, blackmail, and technological surveillance. As well as spying on commercial organizations, governments can also be targets of commercial espionage—for example, to determine the terms of a tender for a government contract so that another tenderer can underbid.

Industrial espionage is most commonly associated with technology-heavy industries, particularly the computer and automobile sectors.

Espionage takes place in many forms. In short, the purpose of espionage is to gather knowledge about (an) organization(s). A spy may be hired, or may work for oneself.

 

 

Bugging Devices

A bugging device is a piece of electronic equipment used to intercept someone’s room or telephone conversations without their knowledge. bugging device are usually sold by spy shops and stores.

The real issues surrounding a bugging device are legal and quality related. In the United States and most countries of the world, it is illegal to eavesdrop on someone's private conversations when they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. As a matter of fact, illegal eavesdropping is a felony in most all countries.

Most bugging devices are sold by retail and Internet based spy shops and spy stores. The is an obvious question about whether is it legal or illegal to sale a bugging device. However, it is much like legally owning a gun – it may only be illegal when you use it for illegal purposes.

Many people who seek to purchase a bugging device have expectations that they are buying something with the same quality as found in a James Bond movie. In reality many of bugging device sold for hundreds of dollars could be made with only a few dollars in parts. Many bugging devices have a very limited transmitting range and very poor audio quality.