![]() The two most important limitations of the hardware detection solutions are their false detection of mics and their false positive detections of ghost mics. Moreover, Salamandra has a novel location feature to find mics quickly a feature that is not available in most commercial detectors. Al- though a professional microphone search usually requires more complex hardware, we show that a simple SDR USB device and our tool can be used to detect the mic bugs accurately. The second phase presents our free-software, SDR-based tool to detect hidden microphones called Salamandra. The end goal of the first phase is to show the difficulty in using microphone bugs. It takes into account physical characteristics, frequencies, transmission modes, battery options, operational lifetime, operational listening distance, easiness of listening by the operator, advantages & disadvantages, configurations if any, and easiness of detection by various means. The first phase makes a deep survey of all the civilian- accessible microphone bugs. Finally, we conclude with a thorough analysis of our experience. Third, we perform several real life experiments on placing and detecting bugs to examine how difficult it was. Second, we develop our own free software detection tool, called Salamandra. First, we perform a survey of the state-of-the-art of mic bugs and their characteristics. One of the goals of this work is to debunk the fictional beliefs around mics bugs by performing a thorough study and real life experiments with them. The current literature about microphones bugs is disturbingly scarce, leaving most people to believe the myths distributed by the media. An example of these inaccuracies is the public speculation made by the Counselor of the United States President, Kellyanne Conway, who expressed that a microwave oven can spy as a camera the answer is NO, as refuted in article by WIRED. Most of what the general public knows about microphones bugs comes from movies and other fictional sources, which usually is far from real. This event was the trigger of our investigation and it raised our concern about how little we know about the reality of placing, listening and locating microphones. It is believed that the microphones were placed when he was detained in 2011, 4 years before their discovery. In October 2015 the activist and artist Ai Weiwei found several microphones bugs hidden in electrical sockets all around his home and studio. Index Terms-surveillance, microphone bugs, security, espionage. ![]() We hope that our study raises awareness on the possibility of being bugged by a powerful actor and the countermeasure tools available for our protection. Locating mics is the novel feature of Salamandra, which is released to the public with this work. In our experiments the average time to locate the mics in a room was 15 minutes. ![]() Also, most mics can be detected easily with the correct tools (with some exceptions on GSM mics). After more than 120 experiments we concluded that placing mics correctly and listening is not an easy task, but it has a huge payoff when it works. ![]() Given the lack of open detection tools, we developed a free software SDR-based program, called Salamandra, to detect and locate hidden microphones in a room. It included real life experiments trying to bug ourselves and trying to detect the hidden mics. Therefore, we performed a deep study on the state-of-the-art of microphone bugs, their characteristics, features and pitfalls. Our biggest concern was that most of the knowledge came from fictional movies. This situation raised our awareness on the lack of research in our community about operating and detecting spying microphones. Abstract - In 2015, artist Ai Weiwei was bugged in his home, presumably by government actors. ![]()
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