Customer Reviews

Bug Book: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Electronic Eavesdropping ... But Were Afraid to Ask

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I was going through a messing child custody battle and was worried about my phone lines. Turns out they were bugged. This book showed me how to locate and do away with the buggs. It also showed me how to do a little survallance of my own.

It covers the basic with balance and (like the Phone Book) appropriate language level. It is truly enough to get one started in the topic.

Much like much of other M.L. Shannon's works the material is not unique nor original, and is just overpriced drivel and of little to no value.

While reading the book I kept waiting for the author to make a clear point, but all I saw was the author grinding away at how evil the government was, how evil the companies that make the bugs, how stupid the public is, and how clever and enlightened the writer was trying to be.

I felt that most of the materials were not at all original, and that a great deal of it was regurgitated sales brochures and white papers that the author had pulled together, but which could be obtained for free from dozens of other online sources. In fact it appeared that to write this book the author had merely culled together a bunch of online materials mailing lists and website, added a few paragraphs of his own here and there to tie it all together, and then slapped a high price on it to create the illusion the buyer was getting something of value.

There is copius technical errors in the book, significant misrepresentations, quite a but of yellow or at least jaundiced journalism, too much sensationalism, and not enough well researched facts, or experiments.

The author appears to lack a strong technical background, and appears to possess nothing more then a general understanding of surveillance, with no technical depth or expertise.

Most of the material in this book appears to just be a rehashing of other materials he has in his other books, and his other books appear to just be a re-hash of this book, so it boils down to an issue of which came first the chicken or the egg. It seemed like the author had harvested materials from 3 or 4 web sites, and then used this harvested material to cough up a have dozen books, even though each book over lapped the other books by a good 85%.

This book also draws a great deal on other books written and published in the popular counter culture mindset, and one could almost say that the book seems to be aimed at explaining to drug users in San Francisco how to find law enforcement bugs that may or may not be on the line, and that the book inflames paranoia without providing workable solutions. The level of technical knowledge in the book is on par to that which you would see written by a bunch of high school sophomores, or a bunch of wanna-be script kiddies.

There are numerous serious technical errors in the book, and the reader risks damage to their equipment, and possible personal injury if they follow the instructions in the book.

This book is a waste of money, you can find the same stuff for free elsewhere on the Internet just by googling on TSCM.

In my opinion, if you buy this book, you will probably want to ask for a refund after you finish reading it, the book is just that bad. Do yourself a favor and start with books NOT written by this author, and come back to this author after you have read other peoples writings on the subject matter and can appreciate the drivel in this book as a work of fantasy. Also, rather then purchase this book you should borrow it from a library first, or browse through it at a bookstore to decide for yourself if you really should waste you money on it.

Most legitimate books store don't carry it on their shelf, but you should be able to find it at your local head shop, survivalist supply store, and other "fantasy world" kinds of books.

Don't waste your time, or money on this book.

This book seems to be intended as some kind of basic intro to surveillance. It does get a bit into techniques for black bag jobs, and he has some interesting views on the theory of transmitter range. But there is nothing specific on equipment. If you are looking for real information on building or acquiring those illegal devices, you'll have to look elsewhere.