Spy things. Sophisticated Cold War Spy Gadgets

The subject of elusive spies has been very popular at all times. Cinematic spies became objects of increased interest from the audience of millions of viewers. Everyone wanted to imitate them and use various multifunctional gadgets in life, which are small and easily disguised. Now modern technologies are ready to offer a very impressive range of portable gadgets for all interested users.

To date, spy gadgets have been developed not only for adults, but also for children. Therefore, this group of products has a large target audience, which constantly monitors all new products and tries to purchase them at a reduced cost. This article will present interesting inventions that today everyone can buy in foreign online stores. It remains only to choose the product you like and place an order online.

Foreign manufacturers of spy gadgets are trying to please absolutely everyone. Therefore, they often dilute their initial assortment with interesting novelties that young children will definitely be interested in. If the boys know who James Bond is and what exactly he is capable of, then the teenage target audience is trying in every possible way to imitate him. Now anyone can turn into a secret agent to clean up their own yard or school breaks.

Chinese manufacturers have made good progress in this field, who are accustomed to instantly respond to the numerous requests of their target audience, and in the shortest possible time to issue a completely new product that has no analogues in the whole world. Another advantage of choosing Chinese products is the low cost, which differs significantly from higher competitive price tags. However, do not forget about the relatively short period of operation, in practice it is very difficult to extend it.

If we consider in more detail the beautiful, but useless accessories, then we should mention the "luminous hands" or "disk blaster". These options will suit fans of the inimitable Freddy Krueger. LED tubes in the form of fingers look very impressive in pitch darkness, but they are short-lived and do not imply any other benefit. The blaster is capable of firing plastic discs at a distance of 20 meters. But, these products are still in great consumer demand and are real hits due to the low price tag. The cost of 300 rubles "does not bite" and allows you to diversify your free leisure time with new activities.

Gadgets for children's audience

The next item is "night vision binoculars" specially designed for little kids. Its cost is also not too high and in some Chinese stores it is 400 rubles. This gadget is equipped with an attached flashlight, thanks to which the same night vision effect is achieved. Thus, the review will be visible at a distance of 7 meters. If you learn how to use it, then it is possible to see anyone at the declared distance.

Specialized online stores offer to order motion sensors. These products are not particularly original. They are very primitive, because they allow you to capture any movement within a radius of 1.5 meters. If someone accidentally crosses the invisible beam, then an audio signal will instantly appear. The device in question will attract the attention of not only children, but also an older audience of consumers. In the field, it is better not to place high hopes on such a technique, but it is worth choosing something more serious.

"Cheat Watch" is a wrist watch-cheat sheet, that will appeal to every schoolchild or student. Regarding this product, the target audience is already clear. The product sells out instantly, because many students do not want to study and memorize in the classroom, but everyone is interested in getting a high mark on an exam or test. Such an electronic cheat sheet can easily flip through the pages, as well as block them so as not to arouse any suspicion among the teacher. Locking is performed with a single click, allowing the gadget to reincarnate again as a regular watch. The developers have provided several formats that the cheat sheet supports. The text must be uploaded in jpeg or txt format.

Other popular devices for any audience

1. compact radios;
2. a pen that writes with invisible ink;
3. special voice encoders to maintain confidentiality when making phone calls.

The above products are focused on a specific target audience and have a higher price tag. They can come in handy in everyday life. They have more serious functionality that benefits their owners. But, nobody canceled the short-term period of operation of this or that device.

Features of disguised voice recorders

One of the most famous manufacturers of small voice recorders is the foreign company EDIC-MINI. If we consider the key features of this product in more detail, then it is worth considering the following points:

1. acceptable specifications;
2. compromise cost, which fluctuates in the range of 8-12 thousand rubles - these goods can be afforded by consumers with an average income level;
3. compact dimensions, allowing you to put a small device in your breast pocket;
4. capable of recording sound using as many as 5 distribution microphones;
5. recording is carried out at a maximum distance of 15 meters in a certain direction;
6. during the creation of an audio recording, background noise is reduced;
7. long battery life does not exceed 64 hours;
8. The total weight of the recorder is 12 grams.

Currently, more pumped devices are known, which are distinguished by an extended functional range and a higher cost. Before ordering the selected product, we strongly recommend that you determine exactly how much money you are willing to pay for a gadget that will record conversations.

Bugs for professional wiretapping

Foreign online stores offer to buy "bugs", which are also sound recording products. If you want to know their distinctive features, then study the following list:

1. it is better to activate these electronic devices for wiretapping online or to a selected remote media;
2. GSM-bugs and FM-bugs are now very popular among consumers;
3. FM bugs carry out sound transmission at a distance of 250 meters, and are also capable of constantly working for 110 hours;
4. to listen to the air, we recommend turning on the FM receiver - it can be a car radio, a mobile smartphone with the option of tuning radio stations;
5. GSM bugs are disguised as computer gadgets - technologies allow you to hide in network filters;
6. in order for the GSM option to function smoothly, he will need a SIM card, which the “spy” should call;
7. telephone bugs are on sale, which are put on a specific phone to record conversations - this method will be useful if various threats are received on your number, and you want to have “iron” evidence that an unknown person is threatening you.

Benefits of micro cameras

If you have already familiarized yourself with common wiretapping tools, now you are offered micro cameras, which are also actively produced by Chinese manufacturers. It turns out that now a small camera can be mounted in any chosen object, then to make it a spy. We are talking about men's and women's things. Thus, it is worth hoping for a huge target audience of buyers. Such devices have the following advantages:

1. such a camera is capable of creating video in the popular HD format - video is obtained with a resolution of 1280 * 960 or 640 * 480, depending on the model;
2. easily penetrates into hard-to-reach places;
3. in addition to video recording, the device performs other useful options, for example, an alarm clock camera;
4. continuous video recording is carried out for 90-120 minutes - this indicator depends on the capacity of the available battery;
5. gadgets with disguised cameras have an average price tag, which in most cases does not exceed 5 thousand rubles, but it all depends on the chosen model and manufacturer;
6. devices can have additional built-in memory up to 8 GB, which is a nice bonus that encourages a purchase;
7. some inventions allow unlimited video recording - a significant limitation may be the actual size of the SD card used;
8. the resulting video file is converted to avi format and can be played without any difficulty on any computer or tablet devices.

Before you buy a product you like, be sure to familiarize yourself with its technical characteristics, which may differ greatly from the above advantages. Determine your financial capabilities in advance so that the purchase of a portable device does not hit your wallet too hard.

Proven tracking systems and their capabilities

When talking about gadgets, we should not forget about tracking systems. Often, online stores provide an opportunity to purchase a set consisting of several webcams, which differ significantly in their quality. These are far from all the possibilities that such devices can boast of. The list of features consists of the following items:

1. There is special software allowing you to synchronize the image with each camera on a multi-screen;
2. the budget version of such a system has a price tag of up to 10 thousand rubles - the set consists of 2 webcams, a powerful hard drive, software; if you want to get at your disposal a more functional model, then get ready to fork out extra.

A closer look at a more expensive kit called Record Combo-kit #3, the current cost of which is 20 thousand rubles, it becomes clear what exactly consumers give their money for:

1. the presence of a 4-channel triplex digital video recorder, having a folding 7-inch screen;
2. built-in 320 GB hard drive - such an impressive media is quite enough for continuous 4-channel video recording for 5 months;
3. additional 2 video cameras for outdoor installation - they have IR illumination, the range of which is 15 meters;
4. each camera is supplied with a combined 25m cable;
5. the DVR is supplemented with special software, remote control;
6. the registrar is able to “compress” analog video to convert it to MPEG format;
7. video files are recorded with a resolution of 640 * 272 at a speed of 50 frames / second.

Night vision gadgets

If you like to hunt or fish in your spare time, then you should definitely be interested in Recon products. Now your attention will be presented to two models of monoculars, each of which has its own distinctive features.

1. approximate cost up to 10 thousand rubles;
2. it is possible to conduct video and photography;
3. 4 modes were provided for the operation of the display at once (green, red, black and white, high contrast mode);
4. There is a special socket for connecting external devices, for example - works in video input and video output modes.

Recon X550

1. a more expensive model, the price tag of which reaches the level of 20 thousand rubles;
2. the zoom is 5.5 times;
3. maximum range - 250 meters;
4. the incoming signal is processed thanks to the Sum Light option.

A warning

If you liked any spy gadget in a foreign online store and want to order it, then we advise you not to do this. On the territory of our country, the sale, distribution, as well as the acquisition of devices that are designed to secretly obtain information is prohibited by law. Every ignorant consumer can be held criminally liable. Thus, the commission of such actions will be punished in the form of a fine of up to 200 thousand rubles or imprisonment. Therefore, you should not once again risk freedom to get the device you like.

This article contains comprehensive information about the various and present, which today are very popular all over the world, such as technology. Manufacturers continue to delight their target audience with unexpected new products. Often, new models have a more extended functional range that will surprise any demanding customer. Companies care about quality and offer the most modern products at affordable prices. Today, the goods in question are available in foreign specialized stores for online orders.

spy gadgets invented and used by the KGB, CIA and other organizations in the past, in operational work on the territory of a potential enemy, can now be found in the international espionage museum, located in Washington.

What to do if there is a “cold war” in the yard, a spy was discovered, and she urgently needs some kind of weapon to “settle things”? Of course, take out a lipstick loaded with one 4.5 mm cartridge from your purse and give the enemy the most “kiss of death”!

Ajax is the codename for a hidden camera developed by the KGB in the 1970s. The camera lens fit into a raincoat button, and in order to take a picture, the carrier had to activate the trigger located in the pocket. Interestingly, this is just one of the many models used in those years by both the USSR and North America with Europe.

The ideal gadget for a cold-blooded killer who imagines himself a gentleman - an umbrella that can "sting" with poison - was developed by specialists from the KGB. A similar device was used in the assassination of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, who was killed in 1978 in London.

Markov was walking past a bus stop and felt a prick in his shin. Turning around, he saw a gentleman with an umbrella. The owner of the umbrella apologized and left in an unknown direction.

Georgi died three days after a strange injection, having managed to tell about the episode with the umbrella before his death. During the autopsy, a tiny metal capsule with ricin was found in the calf of Markov's leg, which was responsible for the poisoning of the writer.

It is not clear - what is worse - to be caught by the enemy and have a chance to be rescued with the help of tools located in a capsule hidden in the anus, or a capsule that accidentally opened during its "transportation" by a spy. But this set for desperate daredevils was used back in the 1960s.

You have probably heard of such a thing as a cyanide capsule intended for captured spies. In the 1970s, such a capsule was hidden in "surprise" glasses worn by intelligence officers, who had a choice - to be killed in the process of torture or to commit suicide quickly and painlessly.

One of these pistols was used by Soviet security agent Bohdan Stashinsky to eliminate the leaders and other figures of the Ukrainian nationalist movement Lev Rebet and Stepan Bandera in the late 1950s.

The weapon, which Stashinsky hid in a rolled-up newspaper, fired hydrocyanic acid explosive capsules into the victim's face, causing her to go into cardiac arrest.

"Bug" in a shoe

Spy games were not the preserve of the superpowers alone. This boot, which has a radio transmitter embedded in the heel, was used by the Department of State Security of the Socialist Republic of Romania (or simply Securitate) from the 1960s to the 1970s to spy on American diplomats.

Diplomats preferred not to buy shoes in local stores, and ordered them from abroad. The Romanian agency intercepted the package and installed a "bug" in the heel, which allowed remote listening to the wearer of the shoes. Witty, especially considering that the search for bugs in the diplomat's office did not give any results, because the transmitter was on the diplomat himself.

This is not animal excrement, as one might assume from its appearance, but a real, well-camouflaged CIA transmitter - a homing beacon that indicates to bomber pilots targets that should be destroyed. The radio beacon was used in the 1970s.

This product was produced during the Second World War for the British Special Forces. It used small bullets and allowed you to shoot the enemy at close range. To fire a shot, it was enough to turn the two parts of the tube relative to each other.

This device is a product of post-war (meaning World War II) Germany. He let the agent take a picture under the guise of checking the time on his wristwatch - there was no viewfinder, so you had to rely on luck and shoot at random. The disc-shaped film held eight photographs.

In the early 1970s, the US Intelligence Agency installed an artificial tree stump in a wooded suburb of Moscow that contained a radar that intercepted the communications signals of the Soviet missile system.

The intercepted signal was stored and transmitted to an American satellite, after which it landed at a military base located in the United States. The top of the stump is opaque at first glance, but sunlight penetrated through it into the model, falling on the built-in solar panels, which recharged the built-in battery.

Ultimately, the KGB discovered and neutralized the original "bug".

In the 1970s, when even a pocket camera was a fairly large device, the CIA developed three different designs of compact spy cameras disguised as mundane items like a lighter, a fountain pen, and a key ring.

Ogorodnik managed to hand over hundreds of classified documents to the US before he was exposed by the KGB. A diplomat who betrayed his homeland committed suicide with a poison capsule hidden in a fountain pen.

Developed by the KGB in the 1950s, a hollow coin could be useful for a spy to store microfilms and microdots. The “cache” was opened with a needle inserted into a small hole on the front of the coin.

This piece of coal is actually an explosive, and guess what will happen if you throw it into the boiler of a steam locomotive, steamer or potbelly stove?

A precursor to the CIA called the Office of Strategic Services developed a special kit in the late 1940s for painting explosives black and disguising them as a piece of coal.

Developed during the Second World War by the US Navy, a pistol made it possible to eliminate an enemy operative without even taking off his gloves. All that had to be done to make a shot was to poke a “finger” (which is a trigger) into the body of the victim.

Another World War II assassination weapon was invented by the US Intelligence Agency - a soldier's flask filled with explosives, intended mainly for sabotaging enemy camps by resistance groups.

Cameras were widely used during the First World War for shooting enemy dispositions and making topographic maps.

But how to take a picture of the enemy's dispositions without endangering the pilot's life? Of course, by launching pigeons with miniature (at that time) cameras attached to them. It was easy to remove the location of the enemy and not be noticed at the same time.

In the 1950s, the USSR State Security Committee developed hollow cufflinks that could fit all sorts of microfilms and transfer them across the border.

The Ministry of Health was right - smoking can kill you. Especially if you come across a pack of cigarettes from the KGB, issued in the 1950s, that can shoot pistol cartridges quite well.

This compass button, sewn to the trousers of the scouts, helped them determine where the border was - it was enough to build a compass from two halves of the button, where two points pointed to the north and one point to the south.

Popular wisdom says that a word that has flown out is not a sparrow - you won’t catch it! This proverb is an instruction for protecting information that wise ancestors left for us. Prometheus was the first to create spy stuff with his own hands. He made an unauthorized transfer to people of the technology of obtaining and using fire.

Kings constantly sought to find out about neighboring rulers, merchants and businessmen about competitors and buyers, wives about unfaithful husbands, husbands about the list can be continued indefinitely ...

All these people needed spy stuff. With your own hands, which is very simple to create in our technically equipped age. Let's look at one of the most accessible ways of espionage using software as an example.

mobile bugs

At the moment, more and more passions flare up around listening to mobile phones. And what is interesting here is that the more functional the mobile phone, the easier it is to do spy stuff with your own hands.

It turns out that with the help of various programs you can:

Visually photograph the environment;

Conduct video and audio tracking in the area of ​​10 meters from the mobile device;

Know about all outgoing and incoming phone calls, SMS and e-mails;

Have an idea of ​​the location of the subscriber with high accuracy;

Remotely turn on the microphone from great distances;

Listen to the conversation even when the battery is removed (function is possible for modern mobile phones).

The development of mobile phone technology has led to the fact that they have become more like computers than simple means of communication. Therefore, getting into the phone program and creating do-it-yourself spy stuff for programmers is no longer a problem. Therefore, special programs have appeared that allow spying on the owners of mobile devices. Let's take a closer look at the most common utility from the entire spy arsenal.

Her Majesty Spy Phone Suite

By the speed of installation, the program resembles spy stuff for children. After all, it can be installed and configured in five minutes. It does not require any additional devices. Once installed, you will be able to access caller information from any computer connected to the Internet.

You will be able to hear the tapped phone as if it were your own. In addition to software products, hardware devices are also very interesting, which are mainly produced as toys for children.

Spy toys

There is, perhaps, no such child who would not dream of playing the famous “007 agent”. To realize such a dream, the developers have created various spy stuff. Toys are so interesting that they capture not only kids, but also adults. Among the variety of products, it is worth highlighting:

With flashlight;

Devices for transmitting classified information;

Special "bugs" for listening and tracking;

Motion detectors, etc.

Such a list can be continued indefinitely.

Spy devices not only provide us with the necessary information, but also give us the pleasure of revealing someone's secret. After all, each of us has a feeling of curiosity, so why not satisfy it?

The popular website Wired.com published an interesting overview of spy gadgets invented and used by the KGB, CIA and other organizations in the past, in operational work in the territory of a potential enemy. Lipstick gun, "Houdini rectal kit", bugs in the heels of shoes and much more you can find by clicking...

All of the following "spy things" can currently be found in the international espionage museum, located in Washington. It was this museum that provided all the photographs present in the article.

What to do if there is a “cold war” in the yard, a spy was discovered, and she urgently needs some kind of weapon to “settle things”? Of course, take out a lipstick loaded with one 4.5 mm cartridge from your purse and give the enemy the most “kiss of death”!

Ajax is the codename for a hidden camera developed by the KGB in the 1970s. The camera lens fit into a raincoat button, and in order to take a picture, the carrier had to activate the trigger located in the pocket. Interestingly, this is just one of the many models used in those years by both the USSR and North America with Europe.

The ideal gadget for a cold-blooded killer who imagines himself a gentleman - an umbrella that can "sting" poison - was developed by specialists from the KGB. A similar device was used in the assassination of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, who was killed in 1978 in London.

Markov was walking past a bus stop and felt a prick in his shin. Turning around, he saw a gentleman with an umbrella. The owner of the umbrella apologized and left in an unknown direction.

Georgi died three days after a strange injection, having managed to tell about the episode with the umbrella before his death. During the autopsy, a tiny metal capsule with ricin was found in the calf of Markov's leg, which was responsible for the poisoning of the writer.

It is not clear - what is worse - to be caught by the enemy and have a chance to be saved with the help of tools located in a capsule hidden in the anus, or a capsule that accidentally opened during its "transportation" by a spy. But this set for desperate daredevils was used back in the 1960s.

You have probably heard of such a thing as a cyanide capsule intended for captured spies. It was such a capsule in the 1970s that was hidden in “surprise” glasses worn by intelligence officers, who had a choice - to be killed in the process of torture or to commit suicide quickly and painlessly.

One of these pistols was used by Soviet security agent Bohdan Stashinsky to eliminate the leaders and other figures of the Ukrainian nationalist movement Lev Rebet and Stepan Bandera in the late 1950s.

The weapon, which Stashinsky hid in a rolled-up newspaper, fired hydrocyanic acid explosive capsules into the victim's face, causing her to go into cardiac arrest.

"Bug" in a shoe

Spy games were not the preserve of the superpowers alone. This boot, which has a radio transmitter embedded in the heel, was used by the Department of State Security of the Socialist Republic of Romania (or simply Securitate) from the 1960s to the 1970s to spy on American diplomats.

Diplomats preferred not to buy shoes in local stores, and ordered them from abroad. The Romanian agency intercepted the package and installed a "bug" in the heel, which allowed remote listening to the wearer of the shoes. Witty, especially considering that the search for bugs in the diplomat's office did not give any results, because the transmitter was on the diplomat himself.

This is not animal excrement, as one might assume from its appearance, but a real, well-camouflaged CIA transmitter - a homing beacon indicating targets for destruction to bomber pilots. The radio beacon was used in the 1970s.

This product was produced during the Second World War for the British Special Forces. It used small bullets and allowed you to shoot the enemy at close range. To fire a shot, it was enough to turn the two parts of the tube relative to each other.

This device is a product of post-war (meaning World War II) Germany. He let the agent take a picture under the guise of checking the time on his wristwatch - there was no viewfinder, so you had to rely on luck and shoot at random. The disc-shaped film held eight photographs.

In the early 1970s, the US Intelligence Agency installed an artificial tree stump in a wooded suburb of Moscow that contained a radar that intercepted the communications signals of the Soviet missile system.

The intercepted signal was stored and transmitted to an American satellite, after which it landed at a military base located in the United States. The top of the stump is opaque at first glance, but sunlight penetrated through it into the model, falling on the built-in solar panels, which recharged the built-in battery.

Ultimately, the KGB discovered and neutralized the original "bug".

In the 1970s, when even a pocket camera was a fairly large device, the CIA developed three different designs of compact spy cameras disguised as mundane items like a lighter, a fountain pen, and a key ring.

Ogorodnik managed to hand over hundreds of classified documents to the US before he was exposed by the KGB. A diplomat who betrayed his homeland committed suicide with a poison capsule hidden in a fountain pen.

Developed by the KGB in the 1950s, a hollow coin could be useful for a spy to store microfilms and microdots. The “cache” was opened with a needle inserted into a small hole on the front of the coin.

This piece of coal is actually an explosive, and guess what will happen if you throw it into the boiler of a steam locomotive, steamer or potbelly stove?

A precursor to the CIA called the Office of Strategic Services developed a special kit in the late 1940s for painting explosives black and disguising them as a piece of coal.

Developed during the Second World War by the US Navy, a pistol made it possible to eliminate an enemy operative without even taking off his gloves. All that had to be done to make a shot was to poke a “finger” (which is a trigger) into the body of the victim.

Another World War II assassination weapon was devised by the US Intelligence Agency - a soldier's flask filled with explosives, intended primarily for sabotaging enemy camps by resistance groups.

Cameras were widely used during the First World War for shooting enemy dispositions and making topographic maps.

But how to take a picture of the enemy's dispositions without endangering the pilot's life? Of course, by launching pigeons with miniature (at that time) cameras attached to them. It was easy to remove the location of the enemy and not be noticed at the same time.

In the 1950s, the USSR State Security Committee developed hollow cufflinks that could fit all sorts of microfilms and transfer them across the border.

The Ministry of Health was right - smoking can kill you. Especially if you come across a pack of cigarettes from the KGB, issued in the 1950s, that can shoot pistol cartridges quite well.

This compass button, sewn to the trousers of the scouts, helped them determine where the border was - it was enough to build a compass from two halves of the button, where two points pointed to the north and one point to the south.

Before the advent of drones, the most obvious method of surveillance was to send a live agent equipped with the necessary equipment to the place of interest. A camera around the neck and a tape recorder protruding from under a raincoat could attract too much attention, so the inventors strove to develop miniature cameras and recording devices that could easily be disguised by clothing.

The result of such research was, for example, the Steineck A-B-C watch with a built-in camera. The German government involved employees of Steinheil, the famous Munich company producing optics and photographic equipment, to create watches. The watch, which was born in 1949, instantly became a hit among European and American special agents.

Ten years later, the idea was rethought by the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service: military neutrality and ostentatious indifference does not mean at all that the Swiss are not watching their neighbors. With the help of professionals from NAGRA, a company that manufactured audio equipment for television, the first watch with a built-in microphone appeared in 1960.

In an effort to modify clothing and accessories, the KGB went one step ahead - in the truest sense of the word. In the early 1960s, Soviet intelligence officers got their hands on boots with transmitters hidden in their heels. In order to listen to specific locations, spies simply had to walk around in a relaxed manner. The idea was quickly picked up by the Romanian secret service Securitate, whose agents even built similar equipment into the shoes of an American diplomat (a parcel with boots ordered in England was intercepted at the post office).

To obtain very high-quality photographs, the KGB officers used the Tochka-58 and Ajax-12 cameras. The first, developed at the Krasnogorsk Mechanical Plant, was hidden around the neck of an agent, and its lens was disguised as a tie clip decoration. Despite the fact that the very fact that a Soviet person had a frilly tie clip should have aroused suspicion among others, the camera was popular among spies.

Ajax-12 was more invisible: the camera was in the lining of the coat, and its lens looked like an ordinary button. By the mid-1970s, not only Soviet agents, but also representatives of the CIA and MI6 began to use such outerwear.

However, intelligence officers were attracted not only by miniature devices. In 1970, the Stasi (intelligence of the GDR) converted several Trabants to spy on their own citizens. This product of a gloomy genius, included in all possible lists of the worst cars in history, was very popular in East Germany (it is understandable, there were no others) and absolutely did not attract attention. Trabants, with microphones and infrared cameras mounted in their doors, drove around the streets at night and monitored suspicious residents of Berlin.

Sometimes, in order to maximally divert suspicions from wiretapping, the special services used deliberately large and attention-grabbing receivers. So, for example, it happened with a thing that received from the Americans the original name "The Thing" (The Thing). This name was the best fit for a hefty and frankly kitschy wooden panel depicting a bald eagle, a symbol of the United States. The panel was presented to the American Ambassador Averell Harriman by a delegation of Soviet pioneers in 1945 as a token of a joint victory over fascism. Inside it was an endovibrator - an eavesdropping device developed by Lev Theremin (the inventor of the theremin), which did not require external power sources.

The design preferences of Harriman and the following ambassadors played a role: a flagrantly tasteless panel hung in the American embassy for seven whole years. The “Thing” was exposed by the radio operator of the British Embassy, ​​who scanned the Moscow airwaves and heard the negotiations in English.

The CIA did not remain in debt: for several years, the best American engineers figured out the principle of operation of the endovibrator and tried to create something similar. British engineer Peter Wright, who was recruited to work, was the first to figure out the device, but revealed this secret not to the Americans, but to MI5's native security service. Already in 1953, the Marconi company, which collaborated with MI5, began to produce umbrellas equipped with a SATYR listening device (twenty years later, Bulgarian intelligence found umbrellas).

In the end, the Americans figured out the endovibrator, creating analogues of the Easy Chair Mark I, Easy Chair Mark II and Easy Chair Mark III. The latter, abbreviated as ECIII, was developed jointly with the Dutch at the secret NRP laboratory in Noordwijk; it was decided to use it to listen to the Soviet embassy in The Hague. The opportunity presented itself quickly: the employees had just ordered a new furniture set. Thanks to a successful special operation, in December 1958, an eavesdropping table appeared at the embassy. Unfortunately for the Americans, the table was exposed instantly, because it is difficult to fool people who are able to encrust a camera into a button, and a receiver into a disgusting wooden panel.