Passive v. Active Eavesdropping
Most privacy breaches are simple and innocent. An employee's cubicle is near an executive's office, and they overhear confidential information. Or a board room has glass walls that leak sound to the adjacent workspaces. Sound masking alone will treat most of these cases. But often there's nothing innocent about privacy breaches, and you don't have to show up on 007's radar to become a target.
Consider:
- What would your competitors do with your latest R&D?
- Do you discuss critical - and confidential - company information at your board meetings?
- Where do you discuss or use confidential and/or legally-protected client information?
Closing Off Privacy Holes
Possible Sound Leaks:
- Walls, doors, and windows vibrate and can transmit sound
- HVAC ducts can carry sound far from the intended audience
- Telephones can be bugged
Elements of a Sound-Proof Room
Treating an acoustic environment sounds complex, but it is often described as "the ABC's." These describe the only methods of making a room truly "soundproof."
- You can Absorb the sound with acoustic panels
- You can Block the sound by building walls or furniture partitions,
- and You can Cover the sound by installing a high-quality sound masking system.
However, these three tools are not mutually exclusive. See why covering is the biggest bang for your buck.
Learn How to Sound Proof a Room
What is "Anti-Espionage" Speech Privacy?
Electronic Eavesdropping goes by many names:
- Technical Surveillance
- Electronic Espionage
- Industrial Espionage
- Electronic Surveillance
- Audio Surveillance.
All of them are methods to breaching speech privacy- or to put it simply, to eavesdrop.
Why You Are Smart To Shop For The Best Sound Masking Technology
The amount of speech privacy breaches is growing at a phenomenal rate. Every year the demand for the best in sound masking technology goes up, as sales of audio surveillance devices increase.
The facts:
- There are over 700,000 eavesdropping devices sold each year
- Over 6,500 incidents of industrial espionage occur in the United States each year with an average economic impact of $1.25 million per incident.
- Speech privacy breaches cost Fortune 1000 companies over $53 billion annually
How do people lose so much money when they don’t have proper sound masking technology in place to protect themselves? There are many important conversations that can be stolen: from human resource discussions, new product development, expansion/relocation plans, marketing strategies, potential mergers, and next quarter’s financial performance, to rumors of domestic terrorism and top-secret meetings with military defense contractors.
Ways to Breach Speech Privacy
- Conceal a listening/recording device (Bug) that transfers speech to another private location
- Use a laser microphone that transmits human voice vibrations and can be located up to half a mile away
MPS is the only company that carries complete sound masking technology solutions to protect breach points using a variety of sound masking equipment to completely protect your space.
Locations That Can Be Protected With MPS Sound Masking Technology
Typical locations for concealing electronic listening devices include:
- Hiding a small bug in the HVAC ducts allows the listening device to record conversations up to 4 or 5 offices away.
- Bugs can be positioned on a wall (above or below ceiling grid), in the wall, under a picture hanging on the wall, behind a sofa, or chair pushed up against the wall, under an electrical switch plate cover, in an electrical outlet duplex, in a plant next to the wall, or many other locations.
- Placing a bug on the door, or on a trash receptacle by a door allows for recording conversations through the door.
- Taping a bug on a pipe above the ceiling allows for the human speech frequencies vibrating on the pipe to be sent to a remote location where a computer can process them into an intelligible conversation.
- Sliding a bug through a conduit from floors away can locate the bug in an ideal location for listening to conversations.
- Sliding a bug from one room to another under the raised floor is an extremely easy and effective way to capture conversations.
- Whether a ceiling is metal, tin, hardboard, plaster, or an acoustical lay-in panel grid system, Hiding a bug, or sliding a bug from one room to another is another extremely easy way to capture conversations.
- A paging speaker is essentially a diaphragm. As human speech from within the room travels to the paging speaker located on the ceiling, it vibrates the speakers and sends the voice back through the speaker wire, in the reverse direction.
There are many ways for speech privacy to be breached and MPS is here to protect you from eavesdropping. Contact us to find out how to protect your confidential conversations today.
