The History of Bugging

The word bug doesn't accrue the connotation of an electronic listening device, a concealed miniaturized microphone until after World War II. The most common use for electronic surveillance equipment in say the 1950s, mid century in America's eavesdropping capital, New York City, was for the litigation of divorce proceedings. This kind of little invention or this idea we go away from wiretapping to kind of really serious kind of political espionage is very old stories. And now it's just gone crazy. Now you've got now where you can have miniature cameras, ring cameras, all those things and crikey. I think you can get apps now to detect whether they're a camera lens is hidden