CREDIT: Jason Payne, The Province Spy Zone’s night-vision binoculars offer a SWAT-team level of performance.

Spy gear has come a long way from periscopes and pen cameras. The latest espionage accessories are high-style and high-tech.

Today’s sophisticated spy cameras are no longer limited to buttonholes and duffle bags. Virtually any office or household item can be outfitted with electronic eyes.

Among the most practical are cameras masquerading as working alarm clocks (Spy Zone’s wireless, coloured camera model is $260), pencil sharpeners, TV antennas, smoke detectors, baby monitors, cigarette packs, exit signs, VCRs, plants, cellphones, table lamps, teddy bears and books.

Think you could spot one of these covert appliances? Don’t forget to look up: a replica ceiling sprinkler ($495 US; www.spystuff.com) serves as an aerial Big Brother.

Outdoor monitoring requires heavy-duty hardware such as night-vision goggles. Spy Zone’s Starlight infrared night-vision binoculars offer SWAT-team style performance, amplifying nighttime ambient light to create an image field ($999; www.spyzoneonline.com).

For outdoor, after-dark recording, Purely Security’s Dual Wide Angle Night Vision Wireless Cameras let you switch channels for two different infrared camera views ($215 US). Or create your own after-dark recorder using a night-vision wireless unit the size of a sugar cube ($50 US; both available at www.purelysecurity.com).

No modern-day Mata Hari should embark on a mission without stocking her purse with portable spy goodies: a lipstick-sized camera for powder-room photos ($180 US; www.cctvwholesalers.com), a peephole reverser to see into hotel rooms ($150) and sunglasses with mirrors to check for tails ($15; both www.spycityonline.com).

Don’t forget spy pens and paper: The latest pens write upside down and under water, detect counterfeit bills with special ink or use disappearing ink. Spy paper dissolves when wet (pens $12-$20, paper $10; www.spycityonline.com).

Need to give an anonymous tip? Placed over any phone receiver, the Micro Voice Disguiser ($69.95 US; www.spyworld.com) can even make a woman’s voice sound like a man’s.

Meanwhile, cyber sneaks and computer hackers are having a field day with spyware.

Keystroke loggers allow users to capture and record keystrokes: everything from e-mail and bank passwords to website addresses. This gizmo can wreak havoc on a user at a public internet terminal ($159; www.thespystore.com). Phone jammers can circumvent call display by faking numbers using software such as CIDMAGE ($59.95 US; www.artofhacking.com).

For every spy there’s a counter-spy, and counter-surveillance gear is key to stopping security threats.

Bug detectors will unearth listening devices, wireless cameras, cellphones and taps ($240; www.spyworld.com).

To foil bugs you can’t find, room sound barriers such as the AJ-34 Audio Jammer will generate a masking hiss that desensitizes microphones or recorders ($129 US; www.thespysource.com).

If you want to scramble spy cameras, video detectors will identify oscillation field emissions and sound an alert.

To clear your phone line, telephone tap detectors can pick up line taps and radio-frequency signals from body wires and automatically mute conversations ($350 each; www.spycityonline.com).

MISSION CLASSIFIED

Not every mission is possible. Nor every spy gadget practical.

No one knows this better than the CIA. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of its Directorate of Science and Technology in 2003, it curated an exhibition of its silliest surveillance inventions.

Absurd espionage experiments include a 1970s project to fly a minibug into a room using an actual mechanical insect.

Luckily, scientists realized that a bumblebee robot would fly too erratically before they got too far.

Then they tried a dragonfly spy prototype before researchers discovered the “insectothopter” could be brought down by wind.

They weren’t all failures. The agency successfully used listening devices disguised as tiger droppings in Vietnam and flew pigeons with tiny cameras strapped to their chests above enemy targets.

It also tested a rubber robot catfish named Charlie that was designed to swim undetected in rivers.

His mission is still classified.

© The Vancouver Province 2005