Learn About Anti-Spy Equipment and How to Protect Yourself from Electronic Observation

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Counterintelligence or Anti-Spy Equipment

Anti-spy equipment can be confusing and complicated. Discovering who might be spying on us is a daunting task. However, there are three main ways of conducting counterintelligence with anti-spy equipment:

  • Signal Detection - In this step you determine that someone is actually spying on you.
  • Evasion - Hiding a transmission, whether by using an unusual frequency or method of transmission. This is primarily for your own transmissions, whether outgoing or incoming.
  • Signal Jamming - This is a method of disrupting a surveillance signal from someone else so that their equipment does not work properly or at least that they cannot receive an intact signal from their equipment.

Whichever method you plan to use, you cannot do this on your own very easily; you will need some extra equipment. The hard part about doing all this is that you have to know what you are looking for.

Signal Detection

When trying to overcome someone’s electronic observation of you, the first thing you have to know is how the person is observing you. Several types of observation are possible, including:

Detection is the hard part. You can use an all-in-one bug detector - like this one found on Amazon - that shows the strength of various wireless signals and can also find phone taps and even GPS signals in your car, should you suspect you are being tracked when out and about. Once you know there is a signal, you can start working to minimize invasion or get rid of it altogether.


Evasion is basically hiding. This can take place either as a preventative measure before you know for sure that someone is observing you or else after you have figured out for sure that you are being watched. White noise generators or even audio CDs can make it difficult for people to listen in on conversations. If somebody is using electronic means to spy on you, normally those means are restricted to a certain area and can be defeated through rather low-tech solutions. For example, if someone is using a video camera to spy on you, moving out of range of the camera solves that problem. Destruction also works, as long you know the operating parts of the device. Some instruments are not susceptible to water damage, so submersion is not always an effective solution.

Signal Jamming

Signal jamming comes in two methods:

The low-tech version involves a signal overload, essentially supplying more information than can be easily analyzed. This does not jam the electronics, but most often the human analysts who are trying to gather information. This can mean coding a message in a way that is difficult to interpret or it could mean simply giving so much false information that it is hard to weed through it all to find the factual information.

Electronically, you can jam a radio signal, such as GPS tracking signals and radio-wave signals of different frequencies that might be used for remote audio listening devices and video cameras. The downside to jamming signals is that it is not possible to just jam one signal. That is, you can’t block a GPS signal tracer without also blocking your own GPS access. Or if you are jamming a wireless signal, such as from a camera, you will also be jamming your own signals in the same frequency range.

References for Anti-Spy Equipment

Photo of cell phone signal jammer by G0SUB.