cia
Gadgets
Spycraft Hits Paperback In Time for Father’s Day
6:00PM Wilson Rothman | Remember that awesome CIA gadget book, Spycraft, written by our spooky friends Bob Wallace and Keith Melton? Well, it just came out in paperback, people—$US12.24 at Amazon. Go git ‘em. [Amazon] More »
Press
PlayStation Cases, The Tools of International Espionage
3:20AM Mark Wilson | Harold Nicholson was a CIA operative convicted of espionage for selling CIA identities to Russia. Since 1997, he’s been in jail. But allegedly, his son Nathan has carried on the family business… More »
Screens
The CIA Shows Up to CES
5:40AM Mark Wilson | While I was waiting to watch Panasonic’s 3DHD demonstration earlier this week, I overheard what was surely the strangest conversation I’d ever eavesdropped at CES. More »
Entertainment
Ex-CIA Officer Laments Q’s Absence from Modern James Bond
4:30AM Gizmodo US Edition | Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond movie scheduled for release in mid-November might be a fine movie, but something is missing. There is no Q. More »
Gadgets
5 Reasons to Check Out the CIA Spycraft Book
1:00AM Wilson Rothman | Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs from Communism to Al-Qaeda goes on sale in stores today. I know you think I probably milked it for all it’s worth, but there’s actually a ton of mind-boggling spy gear in there that I didn’t have a chance to cover on Giz, such as:
Gadgets
CIA-Style Hide and Seek: Exploding Notebooks, Suicide Needles, Rectal Tool Kits and More
9:30AM Wilson Rothman | The freakiest thing about reading CIA gadget lore is that it’s all real. The nerds working for the agency’s Office of Technical Services were always devising and building gadgets to get people out of—or into—difficult situations. Here’s a rundown of crazy stuff from the Spytech book, not necessarily stuff you’d carry all at the same time, but stuff that, to paraphrase Dr. Strangelove, would help a fella have a pretty nice weekend in Moscow. Jump for all the pictures and descriptions:
Cameras
A Gallery of CIA Spy Cameras
5:30AM Wilson Rothman | In celebrating the launch of Spycraft, I’ve looked at all kinds of gadgets, but the bread and butter of Cold War CIA gear were tiny cameras and listening devices. The bugs aren’t so exciting to look at, though the stories of their placement make great reading. The cameras, on the other hand, always come in clever “concealments.”
Gadgets
CIA Inflatable Sex Doll Experiment: “Blow Up” Gets New Meaning
2:30PM Wilson Rothman | You know how, when KGB agents are tailing you, all you want to do is roll out of the car while your driver keeps going? Only those agents aren’t dumb: If they suddenly see one fewer head inside the car, they’re gonna know something’s up. Spytechs at the CIA figured that if you brought along something compact yet inflatable, you could quickly blow it up as you exited the vehicle, and nobody would see any difference. It was the early ’80s so, naturally, the researchers thought of sex dolls. More »
Vehicles
Camouflaged CIA Speed Boat Looks Like Junk, Runs Like Jet
10:00AM Wilson Rothman | It looks like your typical junk, tooling around on coastal waterways in Southeast Asia in the late 1960s. Think of it in Apocalypse Now terms: It was basically a water taxi for personnel on highly classified missions. OK, so then say that classified mission is somehow compromised—here’s what it looks like when it literally blows its cover: More »
Gadgets
