Existing comment:
Drain Pipe Bug:
This bug was designed to automatically run a connecting wire from the bug to a remote listening post. It was concealed in a section of pipe used to drain rainwater from the roof of the newly constructed Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC.
A US intelligence agency installed the drain pipe while the Embassy was under construction in the early 1980s. After the building was completed, technicians sent a radio signal to the bug, which set off a tiny explosive burst and released a small parachute into the drain shaft. A spool of wire was attached to the parachute.
The first time it rained, water rushing through the pipe carried the parachute, along with the wire, through the building and into an underground sewer system. A technician retrieved the parachute and connected the wire to the listening post.
Vibro-Acoustic Microphone:
In 1976, Soviet technicians discovered a microphone ("bug") in the Soviet Trade Consulate in London. The British device was clipped to a piece of steel reinforcing bar (rebar) inside a concrete wall.
Originally designed as an earthquake detector, this bug picked up the vibrations of human conversations as they hit the concrete wall, causing it to vibrate. The bug enabled technicians to easily pick out the sound of voices from other types of vibrations in the room.
Soviet technicians were so impressed by the performance of this design that they installed similar devices in the US Embassy in Moscow when it was under construction in the early 1980s. |