Thursday, October 2, 2008

TECHNOLOGY NEWS: Infidelity spies get smart


IF you're having a fling behind your partner's back, it won't be the lipstick on your collar or the receipts from expensive hotels that give you away.
New hi-tech spy gear can read every text message you've sent or received - even the deleted ones - as well as track your every move and listen in on all your conversations.
There's even an over-the-counter semen detection kit that can unequivocally reveal infidelity.
It all sounds like gadgets from a James Bond movie, but Brisbane retailer Craig Mitchell is struggling to keep up with demand.
"We have difficulty keeping stock up with the SIM Card Recovery Pro," says Mr Mitchell, who owns OzSpy security systems at Tingalpa on Brisbane's eastside.
"The beauty of that product is that it can read deleted messages off a SIM card.
"But our biggest seller when it comes to infidelity products has always been the CheckMate kit which is a semen detection kit.
"We'd sell about 100 of those a month across our nine stores around Australia. Same with the SIM Card Recovery Pro."
Other spy gear includes a key logger which can capture and decode every letter you type as well as a device which looks like an electrical extension cord but has a mobile phone transmitter and microphone embedded in it.
Suspicious partners can silently call the cord from anywhere in the world and listen in to conversations occurring within a 15m radius of the device - perfect surveillance equipment to catch out an office affair.
According to private detective Frank Morgan, the number of spurned spouses looking for evidence of their partner's infidelity has doubled in Brisbane in recent times. He puts it down to tough financial times.
"When money is not running well there are arguments and men tend to shag the blonde around the corner to make themselves feel better and women do it with the gym instructor for the same reason," says Mr Morgan, who has been a director of Morgan Turner Freeman investigations for more than 40 years.
"We carry about 90 live jobs here in Brisbane at any one time and half of those would be matrimonial ones."
Many people are simply looking for the truth, Mr Morgan says.
"Not everybody is after evidence they can take to court," he says. "They simply want to satisfy themselves that their marriage is definitely over before they pack up and move on."
Mr Morgan says the new spy gear on the market has changed his modus operandi dramatically.
While once he would have staked out suspects and followed them by car all day, he now fits a device to a vehicle or installs a program into a mobile phone and is able to tap into every move and conversation.

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