How To Find Hidden Cameras
While it was easy to spot cameras twenty years ago due to their large size, this has become increasingly difficult during the last decade. Cameras have become much smaller and consume a fraction of the power they did ten years ago. Due to this, stealthy installation in nearly any imaginable place is possible.
During the last few years the number of surveillance cameras has grown out of bounds. Cameras have been installed in many public and semi-public places such as universities [1], streets, supermarkets, gas stations, parking garages, cinemas, bars, shops, busses, train stations and even discos.
About 25 million CCTV1 cameras are estimated to be in operation worldwide. Some countries, notably Great Britain, are trying to fully cover every corner of public life with cameras.
Ease of use and the dropping prices highly contributed to the popularity of subminiature cameras. There is a growing number of reports of covert cameras spying on unsuspecting persons in showers, bedrooms and changing rooms.
One important reason for finding hidden cameras can be concern about privacy and personal freedom
The focus of this paper will be on electronic cameras because electronic cameras are more flexible to install and operate. They facilitate real time analysis and can be installed in places that are not easily accessible, since there is no need for changing films.
You are going to gain all the information on methods frequently used for hiding cameras as well as methods to detect and locate covertly installed cameras in this manual.
Following topics are covered in this manual:
- Introduction
- Types of cameras and lenses
- CCD cameras
- CMOS cameras
- CID cameras
- Popular hiding places for cameras
- Distant and off-scene cameras
- Two-way mirrors
- Ceiling and surroundings
- Dome cameras
- Cameras behind LEDs
- IR pass filters
- Liquid Crystal Displays
- Outdoor surveillance
- Taking over pre-installed cameras
- Other hiding places
- Electronic aids for finding cameras
- Metal detector
- Non-Linear Junction Detector
- Time Domain Reflectometry
- X-ray inspection systems
- Detecting video transmitters
- RF transmission
- Wire bound transmission
- Optical video links
- Communication networks
- Detecting the camera’s emissions
- Detecting the clock signal
- Detecting the line frequency signal
- Detecting thermal emissions
- Detection by means of a Laser
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgement
- Appendix A Construction of a VLF receiver
- Appendix B Construction of a resonant ferrite coil
- References
