Porsche Bugged by Babyphone
TTAC slots all its blog posts into categories. I sometimes have trouble figuring-out which box to tick. If I'm stumped, I can create a new category. But then I have to wonder how many posts will fit the new attribution, and the wisdom of creating a drop-down menu that's longer than an E85 producer's list of tax deductions. And then there's the name of the category. For example, this post could go into "We Can't Make This Shit Up," "and "Who Believes This Shit?" Or both. I mean, c'mon. If you wanted to eavesdrop on Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking– as Wendy's in full takeover mode looking to kick some major status quo ass– why would you use a baby monitor for the job? But it's true. Or not. Spiegel [via Automotive News, sub] reports that "a security firm found a switched-on babyphone behind a sofa in the room where Wendelin Wiedeking was going to stay for a supervisory board meeting of Volkswagen." In this brave new world of electronic eavesdropping, where experts can listen to conversation by pointing a laser at a window in the room, where a "bug" can be smaller than the chances of Jalopnik/Autoblog not carrying this story, why would a VW spy use a babyphone (a.k.a. baby monitor or kiddiespy)? If they did, what does that tell you about the automaker's mastery of technology. If they didn't, what does that tell you about Porsche's disinformation efforts? Crime and punishment? High Finance? Sure.
More by Robert Farago
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KISS... Keep it simple stupid. Baby monitor... cheap, effective, available. There is also an trace element of plausible deniably. "Oh! That is where I left my baby monitor. I was wondering where it was." Can't claim that with an obvious bug.
Despite the low tech equipment, this was definitely a professional job- note that they put the device BEHIND the couch instead of in front of it. John
What yank said. All the fancy high tech stuff is sourced from specific channels, most of whown are probably well known to the kind of investigators that Porsche could bring to bear on the case. And they probably know people that they could pull in favors with to get these vendors to squeal. Whereas baby monitors are dirt cheap, have REALLY sensitive mics, and can be bought at any toy or dept store. Pay cash for one, handle it with gloves on, and they'll never know where it came from or who bought it. Freakin' brilliant if you ask me.
Was it necessarily VW involved? Couldn't it be just about anyone wanting insider info? I know that's not much fun, but really.