>From - Sat Mar 02 00:57:23 2024
Received: by 10.114.145.17 with SMTP id s17mr1076713wad.0.1239526811813;
Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:00:11 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <jm..._at_tscm.com>
Received: from swip004.ftl.affinity.com (lvs00-fl-swip004.ftl.affinity.com [216.219.253.14])
by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTP id m37si1429021waf.4.2009.04.12.02.00.10;
Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:00:11 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 216.219.253.14 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of jm..._at_tscm.com) client-ip=216.219.253.14;
Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=neutral (google.com: 216.219.253.14 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of jm..._at_tscm.com) smtp.mail=jm..._at_tscm.com
Received: from [72.70.98.196] ([72.70.98.196]:48069 "EHLO Raphael.tscm.com")
by swip004.ftl.affinity.com with ESMTP id S753331AbZDLJAE convert rfc822-to-8bit
(ORCPT <rfc822;T..._at_googlegroups.com>);
Sun, 12 Apr 2009 05:00:04 -0400
Message-Id: <7.0.1.0.2.20090412045811.121775f8_at_tscm.com>
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.0.1.0
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 04:59:33 -0400
To: TSCM-L <TSCM-..._at_googlegroups.com>
From: "James M. Atkinson" <jm..._at_tscm.com>
Subject: Bug Sweep Wisdom - April 12, 2009 Version
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT
X-Mail-Filter-Gateway: Not scanned
X-Mail-Filter-Gateway-SpamDetectionEngine: not spam,
SpamAssassin (not cached, score=3.828, required 10,
autolearn=disabled, DRUGS_ANXIETY 1.33, FB_GET_MEDS 1.10,
MIME_QP_LONG_LINE 1.30, RDNS_NONE 0.10)
X-Mail-Filter-Gateway-SpamScore: 3
X-Mail-Filter-Gateway-From: jm..._at_tscm.com
X-Mail-Filter-Gateway-To: tscm-..._at_googlegroups.com
[Any additions or suggestions are always appreciated
-jma
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Pearls before Swine Series
Bug Sweep Wisdom
April 12, 2009 Version
By James M. Atkinson, the Sun Tzu of Bug Sweeps
Ex uno disce omnes (From one person, learn all people)
A brave man dies but once, but a coward dies a thousand deaths.
It is always better to die on your feet, then to live on your knees
Always dance like nobody is watching.
Do not go gently into that dark night
Do not bring a knife to a gun fight
Forgive your enemies, forget not their names.
Animis opibusque parati (Prepared in Mind and in Resources)
A closed mouth attracts no foot.
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
Some friends will help you move, but real friends will help you move bodies.
A brave and honest man will still stand up to do
the right thing, and will lift his voice and
speak the truth when it is appropriate to do so.
A coward will sit in the back of the room and keep his mouth shut.
The racking of a shotgun speaks loudly in any language, and any culture.
"Sie vie pacem, para bellum" (if you want peace, first prepare for war)
Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything... - Wyatt Earp
When you are traveling always check into your
hotel at least one hour before sunset (or 6 PM
whichever is first), and always call ahead for
reservations. Otherwise, you will end up paying
too much for your room, you will get a bad room, or you may get no room at all.
At a minimum always call the actual hotel itself
to confirm that they have you listed as a guest,
and get specific instructions about their actual
address, driving directions, nearby restaurants,
major highways, and other information before you
actually arrive. Also, when you call to confirm
the reservation, ALWAYS write down the name of
the person you spoke to, the time you called, and your confirmation number.
Assume that hotels will always screw up your
reservations, so always have a backup plan for an
alternate hotel, and then an alternate for your
alternate. Dont forget to cancel the backup
reservations that you do not use once you have checked in to you room.
When everything is coming your way, you are in the wrong lane.
Use the high jump as your professional model, not the limbo.
It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's
the size of the fight in the dog.
If you actually think you can drive your car
after a few drinks (or any quantity of alcohol),
you should consider driving a powerful motorcycle
instead. Do not wear a helmet, and sign an organ
donor card as soon as possible!
The most important thing in your house is the
mattress, linens, and blankets on your bed. Not
the sofa, not the big screen TV, not the stereo.
Keep your priorities straight, and invest in a
good nights sleep and buy a good bed.
If you stay in a hotel try to stay with better
large chains of business hotels, but take care
not to stay at conference hotels as the rooms
will be at least 4 times more expensive then a business hotel.
Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem
laeseris (It is human nature to hate a person whom you have injured)
When you are performing a sweep try to stay at a
hotel that is ten miles or more away from the
site, twenty to thirty miles away is often the
best option. While the driving to and from the
site may be a bit of a hassle, it will give you
time to detect and then throw off any
surveillance that may be directed on to you. The
30-45 minute commute will also give you emotional
distance from the site. This will give the
caffeine in your morning coffee time to fully to
kick in, and will give you more hotel options.
This will also give you an inventory of quality
hotels within your coverage zone so that you tend
to use them as a remote base of operation that
are each spaced 60 or so miles apart. A list of
15 regular hotels will be sufficient for you to
cover a radius of 200 miles of work space (or at least 20-25 million people).
When you travel you should bring your own sheets,
and get the kinds that are bug and insect proof
and hypo-bacterial. This also applies to your
pillow case covers, your own blankets, and if
possible your own quilt or blanket.
In a hotel room the nastiest, most disease-laden
items are the TV remote control, the telephone,
and the bed spread. Lysol is available in small
cans for just this sort of thing, but you should
consider bringing your own remote control, telephone, and bed spread.
Never eat out of, nor drink out of the mini-bar
in a hotel room and avoid the vending machines.
Use room service instead, or better yet go visit
a local grocery store after you check in and buy
$20 worth of groceries, beverages, and snacks.
The difference between the word Cop and Con is one letter.
Trust is hard to gain, and very easy to loose, never forget this fact.
It takes a very long time to gain trust, but only
one second to completely loose it.
Nemo me impune lacessit (No one provokes me
with impunity). Ancient motto of the Kings of Scotland
Never stay at a hotel that does not have some
kind of room service available 24 hours a day,
but only use it on rare occasions.
Breakfast is always the best room service meal, not dinner.
Room service food is always best before 8 PM, so order your dinner early.
If you use room service for dinner it will permit
you more time to work on your report and get
caught up on your E-Mail. It is also more likely
that you will get a better night sleep.
If you eat in any restaurant, be sure to have
reservations, and try to be seated at or before 7 PM for the best food.
A good restaurant will always require a gentleman
to wear a jacket for the evening seating, but a
truly good restaurant will loan him a properly
sized jacket should he not be wearing one.
At a proper establishment, no member of your
group sees you pay the check as it is never
presented at the table, or if the check is
presented at the table, nobody notices that you have covertly paid it.
Always have a few good friends with whom you can
share your thoughts, fears, wants, goals,
desires, and disappointments, and whom will
always give you honest criticism and advice.
You will never have more then five really close
friends (not including family members) in your
entire life, and consider yourself to be blessed
if you have only three at any given time.
A good friend will always tell you when you are
being a too much of a geek or acting like a horses ass.
You have to learn the rules of the game. And
then you have to play better than anyone else. - Albert Einstein
Always have the backbone to stand up for what is
right, moral, and ethical. This is a rare
attribute in this modern age, but it is a critical thing in this profession.
Have the honor to do the right thing, and refuse
to just standby and let evil men pursue their deeds in darkness.
In this profession it is easy for someone to
slowly stray over to the dark side, but you must
resist this and always focus on doing the right thing.
Accipere quam facere praestat injuriam (It is
better to suffer an injustice than to do an injustice)
Have nothing to do with someone known to be a
criminal in any fashion, form, or substance.
Just because a wrongdoer has not been caught or
convicted yet, does not mean that they will not be at some future date.
Avoid people who you suspect are engaged in any kind of criminal activities.
If you have slightest reason to believe that
someone has a criminal history or are engaged in
criminal activities back away from them the
second that you find out about it. In fact not
only do you want to start backing away from them,
but you want them to hear you reloading the
shotgun as you do it, and you want them to hear you backing away.
O praeclarum custodem ovium lupum! (A most
excellent protector of sheep, the wolf is!) - Cicero
Always aggressively pursue an eavesdropper, a
spy, a wrongdoer, a crooked cop, a criminal, or a
felon. That is our job, and our chosen vocation,
and the responsibility of any member of the public.
Never assume that a cop, politician, or other
government employee is crooked, until they
irrefutably demonstrate otherwise three times.
If someone chooses to be an eavesdropper, then
your job is to relentlessly hunt them to the ends
of the Earth. It does not matter who they work
for, or what they claim their justifications is
if you are a TSCM specialist, you hunt for everybodys bugs.
If a person is a felon or a crook and they are
using electronics in their work, then you must
relentlessly stalk them until they are rendered impotent.
Make the eavesdropper be afraid.
Multi famam, conscientiam pauci verentur (Many
fear their reputation, few their conscience). - Pliny
When a spy, an eavesdropper, or felon lies down
at night he should be afraid to go to sleep. When
he has a nightmare about being caught it is the
TSCM'er who strikes fear in his heart, and terror to his soul.
When the eavesdropper lies on his deathbed and
the angel of death comes to take him away, we
want death to be holding a Scanlock or a NLJD
instead of a scythe in one hand and a 1059 Audio Amp in the other.
The spy must constantly be looking over their
shoulder and expecting TSCM specialists to pounce
on them out of the ceiling and start hounding
them with spectrum analyzers, ladders,
flashlights, and bizarre looking antennas.
Let the spy fear black boxes, and weird looking
antennas, let them eat Xanax by the handful, and
spend their days in terror and pain.
Make the spy have heart palpitations anytime they
see a silver aluminum briefcase, or a black
Hardigg or Pelican case and let them lose all
self control and go into a panic attack when they
see a spectrum analyzer being set up.
When the spy sits all huddled up in their
listening post we want them praying that their
target has not hired us to hunt them.
When the crooked cop installs an illegal bug we
will hunt them, when the phone company employee
wiretaps a line without a court order then we will hunt them.
When a government agency oversteps the legal
boundaries then it is us who will be watching and exposing their sins
When a spy shop is selling illegal bugs we will
be the one who bring about their demise.
Make the sure that the spies and eavesdroppers always are very afraid.
He was a Bad Man, So I took Him Out James M. Atkinson, 2004
Good service is always well tipped, but bad
service is also tipped at a lesser amount along
with a very discrete complaint to the management.
A gentleman tips for the service which he expects
to receive next time at the establishment, not
for the service he just experienced. Learn what
this means, and why tip money should always flow
freely to the appropriate people, but withheld
from others (i.e.: one does not tip the owner of a hotel, or restaurant).
In a restaurant or in any kind of personal
service, the tipping starts at 15-20%, and if you
have a larger party and a gratuity is
automatically added to the bill up to 20% can
still be added to the large group gratuity.
Remember, that waiter staff make their money off
these tips, so be generous, and they will always
remember you in a positive light if you do.
Be careful not to over tip, but when in doubt it
is better to tip a little extra, then a too
little. But take care not to over tip except in extremely special situations.
You do not tip for the service you have received,
but rather generously tip for the service that
you will be receiving in the future. Mediate on
this for a while, as it is one of the social
graces that many people never learn.
Nobody should ever see you tip, and the recipient
of the gratuity should not know that a gratuity
is being covertly passed to them until they feel it in their hand.
Only a crass person says anything about the tip,
and only a fool mentions it to the person to whom
it is being given. Instead the tipping should
always be silent, and should be passed in as covert a manner as possible.
The most powerful words in business are those of
Please and Thank You, and you should use them often.
Do not spend or obligate money that you have not
yet made, nor spend a check that has not yet
fully cleared the bank. It is alright to make
plans to spend money that has not yet arrived,
but never make business promises for money that is not yet actually in hand.
Credit cards should not be used to finance your
sweep or any other business operations. Instead
use them to obtain hotels rooms, airfare, and
rental cars. Credit cards are not to be used to
purchase sweep gear or for anything where you
have advanced notice of several days or weeks.
If you live on plastic you can die very quickly.
You should always have sweep work pending, sweep
work that is pre-paid and on the schedule, sweep
work that is in process, sweep work that you have
just completed but are awaiting payment, and then
follow-on or continuing sweep work or projects.
Big sweeps are the big bricks that hold up the
wall, but small sweeps are the mortar and cement
that holds the bigger bricks (or sweeps)
together. A wall that is made of either all
bricks or all mortar will be weak and will quickly collapse in bad times.
Without small sweeps you will starve, and without
the large sweeps you will not grow.
Even in good times, always except the small sweep jobs.
The fastest way to be a success in this business
is to get up before 5:00 or 5:30 AM, and to have
breakfast and be working everyday before 6:30 or 7:00 AM.
De inimico non loquaris sed cogites (Don't wish ill for your enemy; plan it)
To really gain an advantage over an eavesdropper,
be out of bed at or before 5 AM, eat breakfast
before 5:20, and be on site no later then 6 AM.
If you are on a sweep project that spans more
then a few days, be sure not to arrive at the
same day each day, but rather stagger the times
that you arrive and depart the project location to confound the eavesdropper.
Always approach the location of a TSCM service
from an indirect route, and approach the site
well before the time the client is expecting you.
Arrive in the building for all business meetings
at least 15 minutes in advance, but never present
yourself more then 5 minutes early.
It could be that the only purpose of your life is
only to serve as a warning to others.
When you arrive for a meeting, always visit the
bathroom before the meeting, wash your hands and
face, check your clothing, and freshen up.
When possible, visit the site of a TSCM service
several days in advance of the scheduled date so
that neither you nor your vehicles will look out
of place or new-to-the-site on the day of the project.
Pay for new equipment and training out of the
revenues of larger multi-day sweeps, but never
from the revenues of small sweeps.
Spectrum analyzers are fragile creatures, handle
with great care, and use plenty of external
limiters and filters. Always have at least two of
everything that involves a spectrum analyzer,
including having two or more identical spectrum analyzers.
A huge selection of filters is one of the most
important tools that a TSCM person can own, these
are typically used to knock down overly strong
signals that are interfering with your delicate
measurements, or are used to band pass only a
very narrow sliver of the spectrum where
eavesdropping device are historically known to occupy.
Dictum sapienti sat est (A word to a wise person is sufficient)
No matter how your customers pay you, always
deposit all funds into your bank account.
If a customer pays you in the form of cash, be
sure to record the revenue in your books, and not
merely to pocket the cash for personal use as it
shows a lack of self control and self discipline.
This will ensure that you are not cheating your
own business operation, which is a mistake that
has caused many small business owners significant
grief. Remember that all funds (including cash)
go into the bank, not into your mattress.
Engage an accountant who can organize your
records on a monthly basis, and who can produce
detailed monthly accounting reports for you. The
contents of these monthly reports should always
confirm what you already know about your
operation, and pay attention when they dont.
Do not waste your own time trying to do your own
accounting, taxes, or book keeping, your time is
best spent doing sweeps, doing things to get
sweeps lined up, or working on your equipment or education.
Collect receipts, and write notes on recipient
for anything even remotely involving your
business operations. Turn these in to your
accountant or book keeper every month.
None of your receipts should ever mention your
client by name, but rather by a mnemonic or code
so that your accountant or book keeper will not know who your customers are.
Until you have three dozen employees: you and you
alone collect funds from clients, and only you
alone make the bank deposits, collect the mail,
open the mail, or have anything to do with incoming monies.
After you have three dozen employees you should
hire a full time book keeper and office manager,
but only one who is bonded and working full time
on-site, and under the supervision of a CPA who produces a weekly ledger.
The first thing you always do on every Monday
morning is to study the ledgers from the prior
week, and the past trailing 90 days.
The second thing you do on every Monday morning
is review the schedule of upcoming projects to
ensure that you will have a stable cash flow in the next upcoming three months.
Make your own bank deposits, and open all your own mail.
Know your banker, postman, accountant, and attorney on a first name basis.
The more money you pay yourself out of your
business the faster your business will suffer and fail.
Only take out only a very small amount of money
from your operation each month for personal use,
and plow as much as absolutely possible back into your operation.
Increase your business assets, before you try to
increase your personal assets. This is one of the
great secrets of how to run a successful TSCM enterprise.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes (Who shall keep
watch over the guardians?) - Luvenalis
For every dollar you take out of your business
for personal use you must earn 16 dollars or more
to balance out what you removed. That fancy two
week $6,000 summer vacation for your family that
you paid for is going to cost your business at least $96,000 in revenue.
If you spend business funds on frivolous or
unneeded things you will need to earn 24 dollars
or more for every dollar you spent. The $4,475
leather couch you just bought for your office is
actually going to cost you at least $107,400 in revenues.
Allow all test equipment to warm up for at least
30 minutes prior to attempting to take a calibrated measurement.
When you bring test equipment into the building
in cases where the equipment was at sub-freezing
temperature in the truck, then permit the
equipment to warm up and thaw for at least 60
minutes before you plug it into the wall.
Keep all test equipment in calibration at all
times, and always have more then one set of
equipment so that you do not lose a project when
your equipment is out for calibration or repair.
Test equipment that is over ten years old is a
liability, and a disaster waiting to happen. Plan
to do major equipment upgrades at least every five years.
When possible, try to get at least three years
ahead of state-of-the-art so that you are using
specialized test equipment months or even years
before it is even announced to the general public.
Know what is being developed at the leading edge
of the communications industry so that you are
never blindsided by a new bug, based on new
technologies that you were not paying attention to.
Take time to think in the middle of doing. A few
minutes of thinking can save hours of doing.
Doing without thinking is dangerous; thinking
without doing is misguided. Sometimes we must do and think at the same time.
"It is not death that a man should fear, but he
should fear never beginning to live."
- Marcus Aelius Aurelius
Make sure that you control your sweep equipment,
and that it does not control you. Meditate on
this for a while, for it is one of the great secrets of the TSCM business.
Keep your sweep equipment in good repair, and
operational at all times. A few minutes of
checking out your equipment the night before you
start a sweep can prevent twelve hours of utter on-site chaos, or a missed bug.
Check the batteries in your sweep gear before you
start the sweep and then again before you put the
equipment away at the end of the sweep to minimize any unpleasant surprises.
Many TSCM specialists have missed bugs because
the batteries in their own equipment were either weak or completely dead.
More bugs have been found with a ladder and a
flashlight more then any other tool. Step back
and think about this for a while before you start
writing large checks for sweep gear.
No piece of sweep equipment can replace a
flashlight, a proper ladder, and the eyes of a
TSCM specialist. This is also one of the great
secrets of how to perform a proper bug sweep.
When in doubt always wear long sleeved button
down oxford shirts, a crew neck T-shirt, and a
tie. But, always pack a couple of polo shirts and
a blazer so that you can match your clients dress code.
Metallic watch bands, rings, cuff links, tie
tacks, ear rings, nose rings, eyebrow piercings,
or other electronic conductors have no business
being worn by a sweep person. If you do not grasp
why this is such an issue then you lack any kind
of formal education in electronics and are
playing your clients for a fool, while you yourself are a fraud.
When in doubt wear a dark suit, a white, long
sleeved, button down oxford shirt, and a muted tie.
Shoes and socks should always be black leather, as should the belt.
When you are traveling out of town for a sweep,
or for a meeting, always bring at least one suit
in case you have to perform an emergency high level meeting or presentation.
If you have a tattoo, keep it fully covered up
and concealed while on a sweep. Nobody really
cares what kind of motorcycle you drive, the
branch of the military you service in for two
years, the name of your first love, or your
relationship with your mother. It is alright for
you to have body art, just keep it concealed.
Attention, both genders
please wear a clean
white crew neck undershirt with sleeves under
your button down oxford dress shirt when working.
Long hair is fine for both genders, just make
sure that it is kept neat, freshly washed, and
kept tied back in a ponytail, or under a cap when on a sweep.
Please shower once in the evening and once in the
morning, and apply anti-perspirant, and use only
the slightest hint of cologne.
Fresh underclothes every morning is also a real
winner, and is something that many people do not
pay attention to much to the annoyance and disgust of their customer.
Fresh over-the-calf socks every morning is also a
must, and always bring at least two sets of shoes
so that you can rotate them and let them air out on alternate days.
Brush your teeth three times a day, always use
mouthwash in the morning and after every meal.
Floss every night, and after each meal ensure
that there is no debris between your teeth.
Carry a tin of breath mints and two handkerchiefs
on you are all times. One handkerchief for show
(or giveaway), and one handkerchief for blow.
Know when to wear a suit, and when to wear jeans
and a flannel shirt on a sweep.
A confident person in a clean black turtle neck,
and clean blue jeans will appear more
professional and successful then a slovenly or
poorly mannered person wearing a $3,000 designer suit.
Not all physicians wear lab coats, and not all
lab coats are worn by physicians.
Always carry a pocket sized notebook, a small
flexible plastic ruler, and two ball point pens or pencils on a sweep.
Learn to take copious notes, and always write
down the date and time of each note.
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
Cuiusvis hominis est errare; nullius nisi
insipientis in errore perseverare (Any man can
make a mistake; only a fool keeps making the same one).
Purchase and learn to use an old-school, plain,
full sized, two-page per day Day-Timer daily
planner or journal where you account for your
time in 15 minute blocks, and where you write
down every call you take or make, and every contact you make.
Always carry your current journal month and
upcoming month in the primary binder along with
the prior month. Keep the older or upcoming pages
in binders divided by year and keep at least two
years of fillers on hand at your desk at all times.
Once you have completed a years worth of a
journal, transfer the pages into an archival
binder, and store them on your book case in neat
rows so that 10 years from now you can reflect
back on what you did or planned on this day.
When complete, keep your journals and planners
for an infinite amount of time, and at least once
a year browse though your older ones to see what you have learned.
At no time should your journals ever reference to
whom your customers are. Thus if your journals
are ever lost, stolen, or examined nobody will
know who your customer have been.
When you travel, carry a streamlined version of
your journal, but ensure that you copy over all
of your appointments for the next 120 days forward.
Learn how to use a ball point pen or key ring as
an edged weapon, and learn when to use it to save your life.
Write a letter to the editor of your local paper at least once a year.
In the profession of TSCM and Bug Sweeping it is
critical that you be able to arrive at your
clients locations within 2 hours of being called
to any site within 100 miles of your office, and
that you always keep a vehicle or fast deployment
kit positioned so that you can leave right now for the engagement.
Do not cheat at golf, ever; it is the game of the honor of a true gentleman.
Be truthful on your golf handicap, tip your caddy
well, and never carry your own bags.
Other players will always remember your cheats
and mulligans, and will expect the same from you
in business and thus never trust you.
Golf is all about business and honor learn to
play it, you will learn much. Meditate on this
until you understand why this is so important.
Fortunatus sum! Pila mea de gramine horrido modo
in pratum lene recta volvit! (Isn't that lucky!
My ball just rolled out of the rough and onto the fairway!)
Learn to play chess well, and to moderate your
play to match your opponents skill level. It is
more about having a pleasant two way play, and
less about winning in seven moves or less.
Be able to both play chess and to teach chess.
The best way to learn chess is to teach it to a
child, and to never win more then 50% of your matches.
Sometimes it is about controlling yourself, and
reigning in your capabilities, and less about
winning. Learn why this is important in business.
There is the 10-year rule developed by Anders
Ericsson (prominent psychologist), but based on
studies first published in 1899. Ericsson
postulated that it takes at least 10 years, or at
least 10,000 hours of dedicated practice to truly
master a technical task. As this applies to TSCM,
you need to spend at least 10,000 hours mastering
your equipment, and mastering performing sweeps
in controlled conditions, before you start performing sweeps professionally.
If a person is very intelligent this
10-year/10,000 hour rule can be reduced to 7,500
hours for someone with an IQ of 150, or reduced
to only 5,000 hours by someone with an IQ of 200.
Difficile est tenere quae acceperis nisi
exerceas (It is difficult to retain what you may
have learned unless you should practice it). - Pliny the Younger
Learn to play blackjack and poker well, to the
point that you are not welcome in certain
casinos. Learn why this is important to TSCM and
Intelligence activities in general.
A wise person stays away from casinos except for
the occasional free buffet or to play the quarter slots on a rare occasion.
If you are highly skilled in mathematics you may
successfully play casino blackjack on your own,
but never as a team effort. Blackjack is a game
of pure mathematics, and is the only game in a
casino where you have even the slightest chance
of leaving with more money then you came with.
For this reason, casinos do not like really good
blackjack players, or they manipulate the games
to put the odds strongly in the houses favor.
Scientists, engineers, and physicians tend to be
very good with blackjack, but bad at poker.
Poker in all its forms and variants is the game
of the true sociopath, and it is all about
accurately reading and carefully manipulating
people. You can only play it well if you
understand both yourself, and other people.
Politicians, attorneys, salesmen, drug addicts,
and con artists all tend to be very good at poker, but very bad at blackjack.
If someone is good at playing both blackjack and
poker, they should be considered very dangerous
at anything they do, and to be the consummate
predator. Many spies, soldiers, and military
leaders can do this, and they make the most exquisite cold blooded spy hunters.
If you work for someone for a living do not try
to delude yourself into thinking your little
moonlighting TSCM jobs means that you are self
employed. Instead you have nothing more then a hobby-with-benefits.
You are only self-employed when you earn 100% of
your income from the work of your own hands, and
you answer to nobody but your clients.
Never conceal from your customers that you are
moonlighting, because someday your customer will
tell your employer about the projects you have
been doing for them so that he can make a
referral for your services. While your customer
has good intentions in doing this your boss is
never going to trust you again, and you may or
may not find yourself unemployed and not understand why.
If you are moonlighting, be sure your customer
knows where you work, and who your boss is to avoid ugliness.
If you are moonlighting, make sure that your
daytime employer knows about your
hobby-with-benefits, and that both your boss and
your supervisor know what you do outside of company time.
Do not use your employers equipment or use your
employers time or other resources in support of
your moonlighting unless you have express written
permission to do so, and update this written permission once a year.
If you are moonlighting, and using your employers
equipment or any resource of your employer
without express permission then you are stealing from them.
Stealing is stealing, and there is no gray area
is matters such as this, never forget this.
Schizophrenia is a disorder where a person finds
patterns or secret things where there are none.
They may or may not hear voices, or may or may
not see things that are not actually there, or
feel they have some kind of special insight or
knowledge that they claim to possess. Frequently
someone suffering from this medical problem will
claim to be receiving or sending secret messages
by thought, or may claim that other people are
controlling their various body parts, moods, or body processes.
With someone who is suffering from schizophrenia
they will genuinely believe in the things they
profess, even if those things have no basis in
reality. However, a bug sweep or vulnerability
analysis is not going to be helpful to them, and
may actually cause their problems to get much worse.
An anxiety disorder is where a person is fearful
or scared about something and that fear is making
them do inappropriate things, or is robbing them
of sleep, or of a productive or functional life.
The fear is usually based on an actual event or
issue, but the fear and anxiety becomes so out of
control that the person may not be able to
function. This fear not is not schizophrenia, but
rather a different problem which can lead to
schizophrenia. Someone who suffers from an
anxiety disorder needs someone to help them
address just how real the item they are afraid of
is, and then to neutralize or deal with the fear
though knowledge and empowerment. A bug sweep or
vulnerability analysis is often very helpful for
a person with this kind of problem.
An otherwise healthy person who is the victim of
eavesdropping or technical harassment may exhibit
symptoms which may mimic the medical condition of
paranoid schizophrenia where the person
misinterprets their experience as a victim of
eavesdropping, does not understand technology, or
understands technical espionage only from the
perspective of the popular press or movies.
Many victims of technical eavesdropping develop
an anxiety disorder, and may be afraid that
someone is watching them or listening to them,
and want the eavesdropping device found and
removed if indeed there is one present.
A very awkward situation can develop where a
technical problem which is so severe that the
person is living in fear, and this fear feeds on
itself until the person being spied upon if quite
terrified due the eavesdropping and unable to
think or function clearly until the eavesdropping mystery is solved.
An executive at a large company may not actually
be fearful of a bug being present, but merely
want to ensure that an area is secure, as he
knows that eavesdropping is a serious problem.
This is not based in anxiety, but rather involves
being professionally cautious.
Do not confuse a customer who is afraid,
concerned, scared, or terrified who has a
legitimate technical concern from someone suffering from a medical problem.
Cotidie damnatur qui semper timet (The man who
is constantly in fear is every day condemned). - Syrus
A polymath or universal genius is someone to can
find a pattern in otherwise meaningless or
complex data, or may figure out a secret code,
cipher, or information that is not readily
apparent to others but they can always explain
how they discovered the pattern, code, or cipher.
The polymath does in fact possess a special
insight, but very often their insight is combined
with years of experience and careful studies of a
subject of interest, and which are all based in science.
A polymath must have training and skills in a
wide range of subjects, and must at a minimum has
skills in the fine arts, the sciences, the
ability to build things, and must have at least a
basic level of knowledge of medicine and the healing arts.
The polymath has strong activity in both the
right and left sides of the brain, whereas the
universal genius may only be strongly active on
one side of the other (i.e.: Einstein, Tesla,
Edison, and Yardley are all examples of universal
genius, but DiVinci, Michelangelo, Benjamin Franklin were all polymaths).
The polymath does not hear voices that others can
not hear, they do not receive secret messages
beamed into their head, nor do they see things
that others can not see, or experience.
The polymath discovers new knowledge, patterns,
methods, or similar things, and can communicate
these things to others. All of what the polymath
figures out is based in reality, but they may
initially be met with some skepticism or
resistance as they are challenging the status quo.
Damnant quod non intellegunt (They condemn what they do not understand)
Polymath can be genetically inherited, or can be
the products of stimulating and supportive
environment. Polymath can and should be nurtured,
but it can also be obstructed.
There are also many types of Polymath, and in
some cases the true polymath in one area, may or
may not have a mild or even severe deficit in other area.
A scientist is someone who will only believe
those things which they can absolutely see and
measure, and those things which can be seen or
measured by others with the same or similar
results. The work of the scientist may lag behind
that of the polymath by weeks, months, years, or
even decades. Their greatest function is not so
much to discover, but rather to prove things once
they have been discovered, and then to expand the
breadth of knowledge about a subject.
As a TSCM specialist, you must have some basic
understanding of schizophrenia and related
disorders as you may have someone who is hearing
voices, seeing visions, and the victim of mind
control request that you perform a bug sweep for
them. They may be having medical problems, or
they could be having genuine technical or eavesdropping problems.
If a client is merely fearful, distressed, and
anxious but lack a technical understanding of
what is going on do not automatically assume that
they are having a medical problem.
Frustra laborant quotquot se calculationibus
fatigant pro inventione quadraturae circuli
(Futile is the labor of those who fatigue
themselves with calculations to square the circle). - Michael Stifel, 1544
A polymath, universal genius or scientist may
initially come across as suffering from
schizophrenia, until you gain a basic
understanding of what they have discovered or
what they are involved in. However, be aware that
some of the most brilliant polymaths and
scientists on Earth have also suffered from profound schizophrenia.
Learn to always anchor your sweep activities
firmly in reality, and force yourself and your
employees to apply rigid scientific methods and
procedures to the craft of finding bugs and wiretaps.
More power to you if you can stare at a spectrum
analyzer for 30 hours straight and derive tiny
voltage fluctuations to detect bugs, or if you
develop a methods to find bugs that others have overlooked.
Ensure that you do see ghosts in the equipment
from staring at the test equipment screens for
too long, and that you are not seeing or hearing
things that are not really there.
Quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo,
quando? (Who, what, where, with what, why, how, when?)
Institutional schizophrenia runs rampant within
the intelligence community as people are forced
to live in what is called a wilderness of
mirrors, or occurs when a veteran spy finds
themselves unable to properly function for the
first time in their adult life once they leave their government job.
Sadly, many of the people who wanders around the
wilderness of mirrors for most of their
government careers find is almost impossible to
function in the civilian word as what they know
is so compartmentalized that they can now see the
big picture and rather end up working in a low
paying, dead end job in the private sector.
If you chose to live in the wilderness of
mirrors it is wise to hop around a little bit so
that you get access and experience that you would
not otherwise obtain. It is also wise to take a
sabbatical periodically to return to an academic
pursuit in order to clear your head.
To learn a subject, try to teach it to someone else.
Become highly proficient with small arms, but
pray that you never need to use them except as a last resort.
To take another persons life is to place a scar
on your own soul, and even if it was a totally
justified killing, the scar will still remain for the rest of your life.
Always be discrete about small arms, and make
every effort to ensure that nobody knows that you are packing.
Cotidiana vilescunt (Familiarity breeds contempt)
A hit with a .22 is better then a miss with a .44 magnum.
Never draw a sidearm in anger, and never for
anything other then immediate self defense.
Only a fool fires warning shots or brandishes
sidearm in an attempt to scare away trouble.
Firearms are a projectile weapon, not an impact weapon.
Carry it in a proper holster, and not your waistband.
Dulce bellum inexpertis (War is sweet for those
who haven't experienced it). - Pindaros
New ways are not always better, neither are the
old ways. Learn why this is not always true, and
learn when to stay on course, and when to change your path.
There is no better discipline for a TSCM
specialist than to build a structure, a house,
office building, or a barn. The same hold true
for designing and installing computer networks,
phone systems, and data systems. This is one of
the great secrets of learning about TSCM and bug
sweeps, for if you know nothing about
construction and cabling you have no reason to be in the TSCM business.
All TSCM specialists must have some level of
knowledge and hands-on training and experience
with locksmithing and alarms systems, not so that
they can actually install and repair locks and
alarms for a living, but so that they can detect
poorly installed, manipulated, or weak locks and alarms.
If a TSCM specialist is a master locksmith and an
expert with alarm systems they can make a
significant income doing these things when they
are not doing sweeps. However, you should
specialize in only TSCM or locks, not both.
Learn to write computer programs from scratch in
C or C++ and develop your own TSCM software that
you use on your own sweeps and which you never
sell or give away outside of your own operation.
LabView is your friend; learn to write short
programs and drivers in LabView to make your test equipment do things.
At least once in your life delivery a baby into
the world, and then afterwards examine your life thus far.
The ability to wash your own windshield, fill
your own gas tank, and change the engine oil in
your car does not mean that you are an auto
mechanic. A true mechanic can rebuild an engine
by himself, and can strip the vehicle down to the
raw chassis rails and rebuilt it better that the
factory. Ditto with sweep equipment and a real
TSCM specialist, you are poser and a faker unless
you can Frankenstein your own equipment.
Facing a problem and fixing it is easier than complaining about it.
"Our games don't end in ties" - anonymous
Real men drink beer out of bottle or chilled
glass, not out of a can. They also know when to
stop drinking, and know not to drive after any
drinking. It is all about controlling yourself,
but still being able to drink a little.
Root beer, ginger soda, orange soda, and crème
soda are all to be consumed from a chilled or
frosted bottle or glass, and in the same fashion as any other bottled beverage.
Only a fool makes light of or teases someone who
prefers to be a moderate drinker, or someone who
prefers to avoid alcohol outright.
A good host will always ensure that non-alcoholic
beverages are always discretely available to all
guests, along with coffee, teas, and other non-intoxicating drinks.
Being out on a sweep, doesnt not mean that you
are on vacation, and that you are free to pickle
your liver and party until 2 AM.
Strippers, hookers, massage parlors, porn,
flirting, recreational drugs, alcohol, and other
such immature foolishness have no place when you
are on business trips. For that matter, most of
these things should have little or no place in
your personal life either (except for the
flirting). When you are on a project you must
always engage is professional behavior at all
times, even when not at the job site.
If you are bored at the end of the day while on a
sweep, and have trouble getting to sleep, then you are not working hard enough.
When you are on a sweep, be sure to eat an early
dinner so that there is at least 3-4 hours
between your main course being eaten and you going to bed.
At the end of each day, before going to bed write
yourself a memo where you summarize the previous
days work, and what you plan to accomplish during
the next day. This is called making a sweep plan,
and it is something that few people ever do.
The best cure for insomnia while in a hotel room
after a full day of sweeps is to work on your project report.
Be sure that you are getting a solid 8 hours of
actual restful sleep in bed each night, and eat a
really good breakfast before you head out to the job site.
Never forget that you are the most important
piece of sweep gear in your inventory, and that
you always need a full night sleep, and at least
two good meals each day to be most effective.
Try not to be on a job site or in transit for
more then 12 hours in any given 24 hour period.
Longer hours may occasionally be needed, but your
plan should be to work 8-10 hours per day, but
have the capability to extend this to 16-18 hours
when there is no other option.
Sweep people do not take lunch breaks that
involve more then 5-10 minutes, and then only so
that they can grab a can of soup or sandwich and
then to get right back to work.
Eavesdroppers will always be attempting to draw
the TSCM person away from the area being
inspected for a few minutes, or even just a few
seconds so that they can retrieve their bug
before you detect it. Once you are in a room, try
to stay there, or once you are in the building
try not to leave for quite a while.
If you want a one hour lunch then become a construction worker or banker.
The television at the hotel can cost you a
fortune in lost time and productivity. When on a
sweep (and stay at the hotel) you should limit
yourself to no more then 30-60 minutes of news,
and no more then two hours for a movie or your
favorite shows. All total you should not be
watching television or movies for more then 2-3
hours in the hotel when on a sweep project.
When staying in a hotel never go to bed with the
television left on, and never rely on the alarm
clock in the hotel to work. Instead bring your
own battery powered alarm clock to use as a
backup to the one the hotel provides.
When you stay in a hotel for more then one night,
obtain a copy of your bill every few days, and
then a copy the night before you check out. This
way errors, oversights, and fraudulent charges
can be removed from your bill before you appear
at the front desk to return your key when you check out.
Many hotels covertly add a small charge to your
bill for a daily paper, but most hotels do not
actually provide you with a paper. There are also
other small charges that you can be gouged with,
so always read and understand the contract when
you check in, and know what you will be charged with.
If at all possible, do not turn on the television
at a hotel room, but strive to keep it turned off for your entire stay.
While on the road, always read the local morning
paper over breakfast. It will help to ground you
to the area in which you are working, and ensure
that you have a leisurely breakfast.
Much business small talk involves talking about
the crops, the weather, the water, and the
cows. Learn how to do this, and learn what this
means. The morning paper is always helpful in this regard.
At least once a year you should drive round trip
Coast-to-Coast on a business trip or a sweep.
This will help to clear your head, and you should
stop often and take your time. Use this as a
working vacation, and be able to take calls on
your cell phone while on the road. Nothing is
finer then to close a sale while driving through the plains of Kansas.
Only use rental cars when absolutely needed, and
avoid commuter flights when the drive by your own
vehicle would only be a few hundred miles each way.
A shrewd businessman (or sweep person) can drive
250 miles, have a one hour meeting with one
client, a second one hour meeting with a second
or even third client in the area, and then drive
back home all in the same day with a little
planning and miniscule expense, and can take
several meetings by cell phone while en-route in both directions.
Learn to stay in cheap, but not nasty hotels and
motels when on the road. Any hotel that rents
rooms by the hour, advertised heart shaped tubs,
honeymoon suites, or adult movies should be avoided.
Amat victoria curam (Victory favors those who take pains)
A shrewd businessman knows how to drive a route
that avoids tollbooths, slow traffic, and
expensive hotels. While the drive may be longer
in miles, he can often get to the destination
faster by taking the longer and cheaper route.
All of your vehicles should have a really good
GPS system installed, but if you rent a vehicle
bring your own GPS system and make sure it has an external antenna.
Assume that all rental cars have covert GPS
tracking devices on them, so consider this
implication as it applied to keeping the location of the sweep private.
All cell phones can be used to determine your
location, so it is wise to ponder this issue if
you want to keep the location of the sweep private.
Know how to do special stuff to your cell phone
to render it difficult or even impossible to
track, or how to provide it with false
coordinates so that you are thought to be five
miles away from where you really are.
Consider using a compact Iridium phone or secure
INMARSAT terminal instead of a regular cell phone
to further confound someone trying to locate or track you.
Remember that both Iridium and INMARSAT phones
can use very high gain antenna, and that you can
sometimes bounce the signals for long distances.
Use both systems with strong external encryption,
and keep the numbers private as much as possible.
GSM phone systems are more secure then any other
kind of cellular phone system in the United
States, but you still need to add encryption
software to the phone to obtain even the most basic of privacy.
When you travel your land-line can be forwarded
to your cell phone, which can then the
transferred to a sat-phone or you can forward
from the land-line direct to the sat-phone. When
you do this properly nobody will realize that you are away from the office.
Never trust what a cellular phone salesperson
tells you about security or service coverage as
they will either lie to your face, or repeat lies
to you that have been told to them by others.
If it has an antenna, it is not secure. James M. Atkinson, 1981
Take time each day after the work is done to do
nothing. Just to sit quietly by yourself, to
think, and to clear your mind. Let your mind go
blank, and just let yourself breath. God invented
bathtubs, commodes, tree stumps, and comfortable
chairs for mediations like this.
Consider everybody to be honest, honorable, and
hardworking, until they show you otherwise on at least three occasions.
When on a sweep, you should be able to operate
your equipment right under the noses of your
customers employees without any of them having
the slightest idea what you are actually doing for at least two days.
One of the goals of a TSCM specialist is to blend
in inside the building, so that neither the
employees nor the eavesdropper have even the
slightest idea what you are really doing.
Until you can perform a two day sweep, during
normal business hours, and during normal business
hours, then you do not have enough tradecraft to
be successful in this business of hunting spies and hunting bugs and wire taps.
Dum tempus habemus, operemur bonum (While we have the time, let us do good)
Always try to generously and anonymously help
others, and never expect or ask for anything in return.
The fewer people that you involve in your charitable activities the better.
When you are ready to perform charitable acts
everybody will want to help you but they will
want a little of your charity to stick to them in
the form of political favors, publicity, or raw
percentages. Do not let the agendas or greed of
others contaminate your own charity.
Try to always do much more for others than they
do for you
but be quiet about it, and keep it private.
Altissima quaeque flumina minimo sono labi (The
deepest rivers flow with the least sound).
Business cards and stationary should always be
white 100% cotton, with black ink.
When you give to someone to help them out, give
until it hurts, and then give some more... this
is true sacrifice, and it is something you should do often.
Help feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, help
to bury the dead, and comfort the grieving.
Help your local community, neighbors, friends,
and family first before you waste time and money
trying to help someone who you do not know on the other side of the globe.
Remember, half the people you know are below average.
Visit people in nursing homes and hospitals,
because someday you may live in one and will be
lonely when nobody comes to visit you.
Learn how to suture a wound or injuries of
another person, both literally and figuratively.
Know how to give a hug and provide a strong
shoulder or arm, but also how to throw some 2-0
silk or apply a splint, swath, and sling.
Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film.
Abusus non tollit usum (Wrong use does not preclude proper use)
Learn CPR and First Aid well, and recertify every
six months. Pray you never need to use it, and
when you do use it pray that you remember your training.
Tenere lupum auribus (I hold the wolf by the ears).
Carry a set of reflective triangles, two gas
cans, jumper cables, spare tire, tow rope/chairs,
fire extinguisher, AED, oxygen tank, BVM, pocket
mask, and a first aid kit on all sweep vehicles,
and know how and when to use them as you can
relieve much suffering with these simple items.
Do not forget to include a couple of large extra
heavy wool blankets with your first aid kit,
along with several large tarps (silver on one side), and a roll of duct tape.
Convenience and Privacy are always Inversely
Proportional. James M. Atkinson, 1977
Giving a warm blanket, a good coat, new socks and
good shoes to someone who needs these things will
alleviate much misery in your fellow man.
Children often need these things, and well as the
homeless, the old, and the infirm. Learn how to
obtain and supply these things to others, but how to do so anonymously.
A hot meal, a warm blanket, a pillow, and a candy
bar have won more wars then any weapon.
Stay current on all your immunizations, and get a
flu shot every Fall, and a pneumonia shot every five to ten years.
Have an annual physical when in good health, and
more often if ill or elderly. These check-ups
should be at least 90 minutes long and should
check you out from head to toe, and should be as invasive as possible.
Always tell the truth to your physician, even if
it is an ugly truth, for they always have your
best interests at heart. However, there are some
truths that should not find their way into your
hardcopy medical records, and which should
remembered by the physician and not written down.
Doctors still make house calls, and they are only
slightly more expensive then an office visit but
will require that you have a long-term relationship with the physician.
The best hotels always have a list of physicians
who will come to the hotel to treat a guest.
Always assume that a physician who makes such a
visit will be paid in cash at the time of the
service. The hotel can tell you in advance
roughly what the charge will be, and in special
cases a better hotel can add this to your bill,
or provide the doctor at no charge.
Once a month treat yourself to a professional
massage that is 60-90 minutes in length, and if
you are so inclined get a facial, and get your
hair done (this applies to men as well as women).
Obtain a Commercial Drivers License, and Medical
Examiners card, and stay current on all your endorsements.
Most sweep vehicles are mandated by federal law
as commercial vehicles, so having a CDL, CPR, and
Medical Examiners card in your wallet is a real
quick way for a someone to determine if you are
for real or not and not just another poser.
Whores often pose in front of their equipment
collection for glamour pictures in a feeble
attempt to prove to the world that they actually
own more then a $99 bug detector. Quality
customers always see through this kind of
foolishness and will not engage you, but the
gawkers and stalkers will always beat a path to
your doorstep. However, the poor, inexperience
sweeper who does this look like a whore on
display in a brothel window. Ditto for the
TSCMer who feels that they need to prove that
they have such-and-such equipment for sweeps.
Both are whores, just of different types, learn why.
Learn what the word poser means, and do not become one.
As the wind blows, so all politicians bend.
The size of the dust cloud tells us little about the traveler.
The drive home or to your hotel from a sweep at 2
AM is always much longer than the drive at 6 AM
you took to get to the sweep location that morning.
Owning a lot of expensive cameras does not make
you a good photographer, deal with it. It only
becomes art when someone can see a soul in the
picture. Ditto for sweep gear, fancy test
equipment, and camera equipment means nothing and
are only childrens toys unless you own the methods and techniques first.
Diligentia maximum etiam mediocris ingeni
subsidium (Diligence is a very great help even
to a mediocre intelligence). - Seneca
Do not make a mistake by only using bug sweep
equipment made by TSCM companies, but rather use
some TSCM gear, some basic electronics test
equipment, some communications test equipment,
some construction and physical inspections tools, and other equipment.
Soldering irons are actually of minimal value on a bug sweep, learn why.
The majority of your equipment should not be
mostly TSCM equipment or you are setting up a
situation that will lead to your failure.
If a piece of equipment is important to you, then
you need to have at least two of them at all
times. This applies to ladders, voltmeters,
spectrum analyzers, TSCM equipment, and clean shirts.
Take all measurements three times, and then with
at least two different pieces of equipment. If
all six measurements do not match, or they are
not even close then you need to investigate why, or find another profession.
If you do not know, do not remain ignorant, but rather ask questions.
The wisest and most educated of men are never
afraid to utter the words I do not know after pondering a question.
For every 10,000 amateur photographers there are
5 true professional photographers, do not expect
this ratio to be different in the sweep profession.
When you first start offering sweep services you
need to keep all of your sweep work within 30
miles in each direction of your home or office.
As the years go by you can increase this distance
by ten miles for every year you are in business.
For the first six years in business you should
not be attempting sweeps beyond 75-90 miles of your home or office.
Once you have been in business for over eight
years, you can start handling sweeps that are
more then 100 miles away, and at the ten year
point you can start taking on projects 200 miles
away, at fifteen years projects 500 miles away.
At the twenty year mark you should be comfortable
in handling any sweep that is 1200 to 1500 miles
or more away to which you can drive to on very short notice, but do not fly.
If you opt to travel cross-country by air or rail
for your sweeps you will need to maintain a
specific set of equipment that is isolated from
the rest of your gear, so that you will not be
immediately out of business should your luggage
be stolen or your equipment seized or lost.
If a client is willing to pay you to drive your
sweep vehicle from your location that is 3000
miles away each way, for a sweep that is expected
to take 6 days once you get there (plus travel
time), and you are unable to take the engagement
and start driving within just a couple of days
then you are a total failure at TSCM and have
delusions of both yourself and your business.
There is much wisdom in the guidance found
herein, but many people prefer to learn through
their own pain and suffering, rather then the
experience and sagely advice of others.
When you first start out in the sweep business
focus only on projects that you can start and
finish in the same day, and never attempt a
multi-day sweep until you have at least 5 to 6
years in the business out on your own.
There is great wisdom in slow growth as it
ensures that you are providing a quality service,
that you are carefully becoming a master of your
craft, and that you have a good and solid reputation with your early customers.
Fire is hot, and will burn your skin. You can
take someone elses word for it, or you can smell
your own flesh burning
the choice is yours.
Always listen to the wisdom of others, or be ready to feel pain yourself.
Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus (Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon).
Never be afraid to send a customer to a
competitor if you are not able to help them in a
timely manner or if you are too far away from
their location to provide a cost effective service.
Clients will look at your shoes and tie before your resume.
Bring two full sets of clothes per day to every
sweep project to include extra boxed shirts, and
pressed silk ties. Do not be afraid to change
your tie and shirt every 3-4 hours while working.
Your client should never know that you have
brought extra clothes, and they should never
suspect that you have changed clothes.
Always assume that your hotel room and rental vehicle is bugged, always.
Assume that when you are away from your hotel
room, that the hotel staff or other people are
rummaging though your belongings and that they
may be stealing things, or leaving things.
Always leave tell-tales on all of your things to
know what has been tampered with.
Never leave a PDA, iPhone, laptop, cell phone, or
satellite phone in your hotel room unless you
would like it to be copied or stolen by a spy.
All hotels are responsible for the conduct of
their employees, and most mischief at a hotel is
performed by staff. To this end, a carefully
concealed video recorder left in your room while
you are way can often be used to convince
management to reverse your room charges due to staff misconduct.
Satius est impunitum relinqui facinus nocentis,
quam innocentem damnari (It is better that a
crime is left unpunished than that an innocent
man is punished). - Corpus Iuris Civilis
Never leave either your real toothbrush or real
razor in the hotel room when you leave the room
for the day. Instead always leave a toothbrush
and razor that you do not actually use.
When you travel always bring along your own roll of toilet paper.
When you prepare to travel always strip down your
luggage the night before your travel to ensure
that nothing has been added to your belongings
that could cause you problems or embarrassment
either at airport security or with clearing
customs. Once you have repacked your luggage, do
not let it out of your control for even a moment.
When you board an elevator in any building look
at the inspection certificate or permit to ensure
that it is current. If it is out of date, find
some other means of vertical travel, and bring it
to someones attention right away.
In any building you visit, always know and
memorize where the two nearest bathrooms are, and
know the location of at least two different emergency exits.
In any building know how to get to the
stairwells, and how many flights of stairs you
will need to traverse to get up or down to the
ground floor and out of the building to a safe distance.
Never be bashful about using the service
elevator, or the stairwells to enter or leave the
building in order to confound the spy.
If in doubt, always boil the water.
Always tip the maid who makes up your room at the
end of the week if you plan to stay though the
weekend, and then tip again on Sunday as it is often two different maids.
Never assume that an academic degree or title
means the person is smart, or well educated. Many
Ivy League graduates go broke every year, and
where you went to school is unimportant past your
first few years out of school.
Never assume that someone who never finished high
school is not well educated. Some of the richest
and most influential people on Earth never
graduated from the 9th grade, and are smarter then you will ever be.
No not assume that just because someone does not
have a long series of credentials after their
name that they lack credentials. It may just be
that they have so many credentials that they
would look silly posted after the persons name.
An academic degree or title only belongs on your
business card if you are a practicing medical
physician, a professor at a university, or
engaged in a similar activity involved in academic pursuits such as research.
If you went to college for eight or even ten
years, please feel free not to put it on your
business card. Your PhD, MBA, or MS is only
important when you are less then 30 years old,
after that age your academic degrees are best
kept out of sight and your reputation allowed to
speak for itself. Learn why this is true, and why
this is something that some people never learn.
Always assume that the person you are talking to
knows way more about the subject then you do, but
that they are just being polite by not correcting you.
A D.O., Chiropractor, Naturopath is not a real
medical doctor, and they are more likely to cause
you pain and misery when you really need to see a
real physician. Know when it is appropriate to
see a real doctor, and when it is all right to
seek out alternate or complementary medicine.
Be respectful of all clergy, even if they are not
of your own faith or denomination. This also
applies not only to the primary clergy, but also
support members, and members of the lay clergy.
Prayer and meditation work best when you listen, learn what this means.
You cannot work inside a 12-foot ceiling, by
standing on a 6 foot ladder. If you do not
understand why, then you are in the wrong
business. Always use the right tools for the job,
or you will get a crash course in orthopedics.
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas es (Knowledge is power). - Sir Francis Bacon
Know the phone number of the nearest emergency
room and 24 hour drug store with full time
pharmacy that is nearest to the hotel where you
are staying, or the job site where you will be working.
Obtain the direct dial numbers for the Emergency
Room Attending Physicians on staff and the Triage
Nurse and know when to call without going through the switch board at 3 AM.
If you are not seriously injured (i.e.: deathly
ill) always ask for a fast track so that you can
get in and out within 90 minutes for minor
illnesses, stitches, minor broken bones, or injuries.
Learn that a hospital that gets paid by an
insurance company will try to keep you in the
emergency room for five or more hours. If you are
paying cash (on the spot), most emergency rooms
can get you in and out in less than one or two
hours for non life threatening visits.
Always make sure you always carry $500 in cash to
pay your medical bills on the spot to help get
you out of the emergency room faster. Many
emergency rooms will let you settle your balance
in full in cash for minor emergencies. This is a
secret that hospitals really do not want the public to know.
Always carry a credit card on your person that
has at least $5,000 of available credit on a
single card. This way you will have the
capability to purchase airfare on an emergency
basis, will be able to rent pretty much any car
or truck you may need, and will be able to
receive favorable treatment at most hospitals.
Hospitals avoid telling patients how much their
charges will be in advance, and many Physicians
are very embarrassed that the hospitals do this
to patients. Be aware that the physician is not
in control of this matter, and that it is the
fault of the bean-counters at the hospital and
not the medical staff (learn the difference).
While this is a flagrantly unfair and deceptive
business practice on the part of the hospital
bean-counters, it is one that often actually
deprives patients of needed services and
supplies. It is also this dark accounting
practices which results in staffing level cuts to
a point that the hospital barely has enough
people on duty to help patients due to institutional greed.
Insurance companies only pay a small fraction of
the costs that a private party would pay for the
same medical service
hence; it is always cheaper
to settle your medical charges, if they will
actually tell you how much they will be.
Many doctors and hospitals automatically add a
30-50% fee onto any bill that goes to an
insurance company, or for any services that are
not paid for at the time they are given.
Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem (By
the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty).
Remember, that in many countries if you lack
insurance or hard cash in hand to pay for medical
expense that you could die if seriously ill for
lack of only a few hundred dollars in local currency.
If traveling to a foreign land, always carry your
own sharps and full suture kit. In many countries
these things are often re-used between patients,
and sterility is non-existent unless you bring your own.
Never eat fowl (birds of any kind) or swine
(pigs) when traveling on the road, nor should you
eat any kind of raw seafood, no raw eggs, nor
anything that is not extremely well and completely cooked.
When travelling, avoid eating fresh salads or raw
vegetables, or any kind of cold soup or similar
things that could provide a pathogen that could make you sick.
If you eat at a fast food restaurant when you
travel, keep your burger dry where you have it
special made (fresh) to omit anything other then
the bun, burger, cheese, and mustard. Avoid any
kind of vegetables or sauces of any kind as they
are the most common way to pass a food borne
pathogen, and to cause the traveler to spend six
hours hugging the toilet. Avoid ketchup when
travelling, and avoid using mayonnaise at all costs.
Never eat a garnish, or any vegetable that
appears to have just been added for appearance.
Never eat either chicken or fish from any fast
food restaurant when traveling, not even from
places that specialize in such foods. If you get
sick while at home the situation is fairly easy
to endure and contain, but if you are 1200 miles
from home when you get food poisoning due to some
bad chicken you are much more likely to die in
your hotel room in the middle of a pool of your own feces and vomit.
When you travel, and eat always keep the receipt
for the food, and ensure that the receipt has the
correct date and time on it, and the name and
address for the restaurant. Keep this receipt on
your person for 72 hours after consuming the food
so that the emergency room doctors can figure
what and where you ate and where you got food
poisoning when you are brought in unconscious.
Always travel with a three day supply of oral
rehydration salts in individual single serving
foil pouches to keep your electrolytes up. They
may taste nasty, but when properly used while
traveling they can keep you out of the emergency room.
If your physician is agreeable; travel with two
bags of 250ml bag of Normal Saline (.9% Sodium
Chloride), one bag of 250ml of Ringers Lactate,
one bag of 250ml of 5% Dextrose, 4 administration
kits, 4 micro-drip, and 4 macro-drip kits plus
all the appropriate set-up plumbing and flushes.
When traveling in areas with known health care
problems increase this to at least three bags of
Normal Saline (1000 ml each), two bags of Ringers
Lactate (500 ml each), two 250 ml bags of 5%
Dextrose, and increase the plumbing by a factor
of 3 times. Add to this two pressure
administrations pouches that will fit the 1L bags.
If your doctor is really, really agreeable get a
prescription filled for a kit that includes eight
double pre-filled ACLS syringes in individual
boxes (2ea Atropine, 2 ea Lidocaine, 2 ea Epi,
2ea Dextrose), and a couple doses of different
anti-arrhythmia drugs. Obtain professional
training on these medications and how/when to
administer them. Refill these prescriptions every
year to keep the medications fresh.
Always travel with a totally manual pocket adult
sized arm (both regular and large size), ankle
cuff, and pocket thigh blood pressure cuff, plus
a high quality stethoscope, pocket sized
ophthalmoscope, pocket otoscope, and pocket
torch, and learn how to use these simple
instruments both on yourself and others. All
three items will cost less then a total of $500,
and can often be bartered in foreign lands for
extended and significant medical services or
favors that far exceed the cash value of the equipment.
If you are a diabetic always check your own blood
pressure in both of your ankles on a weekly
basis. Demand that your doctor take this
measurement every time that you see them, and to
carefully inspect your toes, feet and ankles.
Failure to do this has caused many technical
security people to loose parts of their body due
to complications of poor circulations.
If you are a diabetic, have cardiac problems, or
circulation issues you need to have a similar
blood pressure performed at three sites up both
legs every 90-180 days or so in order to assess
the circulation in your legs and feet. This is
called a Segmental Leg Pressure, and most
doctors like to tell diabetics excuses why they
dont need the simple test. A doctor or a nurse
can perform this test for you in less than 15
minutes, or you can learn to perform it yourself
or have it taught to other family members.
If you are over the age of 50, you need to check
your own blood pressure once a day, and if you
are over 60 you need to check both your blood
pressure and SpO2 twice a day. This will ensure
that your days upon this Earth are long, and comfortable.
Cave quid dicis, quando, et cui (Beware what you say, when, and to whom)
No matter how old you are (above the age of 22,
and certainly above the age 30), you need to take
your own thigh blood pressure on both legs if you
fly in an airplane for more then a few hours. If
the readings are way off from each other you
should seek immediate emergency medical
assistance, either that or seek the services of a mortician.
Anybody who starts having trouble smiling,
suddenly starts slurring their speech, who has
sudden weakness on one side, or who starts
drooling slightly, of coughing up/vomiting blood
after flying by aircraft should be quickly taken to a hospital.
A couple of pair of Nitrile surgical gloves in
your pocket can save your life, learn why, and learn how to use them.
Never wear synthetic fabrics on any airplane or
ship or when sleeping at a hotel, but instead
stay with tightly woven 100% cotton or wool garments.
One of the best investments that someone can make
is extremely high quality, durable, hard sided
luggage. You will need a to start with a hard
sided briefcase (13 x 18) then a airline sized
carry-on roller case (13 x 21). The next purchase
beyond that should be a full sided hard sized
suiter case (not a garment bag) that you can
use to carry a full weeks worth of formal business attire.
Once you have your initial three pieces of hard
sided luggage then should you purchase a
soft-sided garment bag suitable for same day
business travel, and which can hold two full
sets/suits of business clothes for overnight
trips. This way you can fly out on day trips or
quick overnights with just the carry on garment
bag and your attaché case, and when you arrive
you can change into your neatly pressed shirt and
suit and look crisp for your meeting.
Do not expect that any soft sided luggage will last for more then one trip.
Fly first class when you can, if you plan
appropriately the seat will be only slightly more expensive then coach seats.
It is often possible to purchase a seat for your
more expensive and more critical sweep equipment,
so that you can fly right next to it on the
airplane. Most airlines limit this to 150 pounds
of so of equipment, and you have to be able to
seat belt it into place. Go with a narrow torso
sized footlocker (36x18x18) style roller trunk,
and you can pack three high end spectrum
analyzers plus half a dozen laptops in a single
case in the seat next to you. Obtain seat belt
extenders, and bring a couple of ratchet straps
so you can make sure that your package is securely strapped down to the seat.
For a one day sweep, in a far off city, this type
of torso case can contain all of the tools and
equipment you need for a limited gig, but your
more dangerous tools will have to be checked.
You need to own a set of six matching Hardigg
transit cases that are of suitable size to be
checked as commercial airline baggage, but which
to not exceed their airlines oversize rule.
This means that the combined outside length,
width, and depth should not exceed 60-62 overall
and it is safest to keep your cases around 56-60 inches around.
A lift off lid is more useful then a hinged lid
and you want the spring latches to be in the lid
and not the base (lest you cut your legs). The
cases should be lined with as least 1 inch of
solid, very dense foam on all sides, but you need
to ensure that the foam can be easily removed by
you for pre-flight inspections.
The large Hardigg cases are used as a carrier for
your smaller attaché case size equipment cases,
and you would do well to place a ½ inch piece of
sheet foam between each attaché case that you
place in the large cases. Of course the large
cases will need to have a padlock hasp, and a
permanently attached fragile medical equipment plates on all six sides
The cases should also have four removable casters
on the bottom of each (the removable part is very
important), plus ratchet straps so that you can
set up a three by two case configurations with
8-12 casters in contact with the ground depending
on how you arrange the cases. The plastic molded
handles are much more helpful and comfortable
then metal handles. The casters are only
installed when moving the cases, and they are
removed before the cases are checked, and stowed inside.
When fully loaded, each case should not weigh
more then 75 pounds, but just under then 50
pounds is ideal. It is wisest to have a series of
six cases with a modest weight then it is to have
four heavy, large cases. One person can easily
navigate these six cases of sweep equipment by
just themselves through the airports as checked
baggage, then to rental cars, and out to remote locations.
Join the commercial airline club rooms, and used
them as much as you can. They make modern air
travel fairly stress free and civilized. Get to
the airport, clear security, and check in at the
club room a solid two hours before your flight
leaves. These rooms are an excellent location to
get caught up on some work, or to have a meeting before or after your flight.
Club rooms at the airport usually have small
conference rooms that you can reserve in advance,
and which you can use to meet with clients at a
mutually neutral airport, or at an
interconnecting airport though which your client
may be traveling. These are a terrific resource
for a TSCM professional when properly used.
Learn about small airfield operations, and how
you can often secure really cheap, same day, long
distance travel arrangements on extremely short
notice with zero security hassles. These
operations are particularly helpful to the
sweeper who needs to fly coast-to-coast with half
a ton of equipment, or a half dozen people. This
also ensures that you stay away from the regular
commercial air terminals, which will frustrate
anybody who is trying to track your movements.
Small airfield operations do not make you pass
through a metal detector, they do not inspect
luggage, and an X-Ray machine is not something
that they fool with. This has major benefits for
people in the TSCM business as you will have zero
hassles with what you bring on the plane, and zero hassles with your equipment.
Learn about fractional private aircraft
ownership, and aircraft owned by your customers
who may be very happy to fly out and give you a
lift out to their other coast facility at no
cost to you, and no record of you ever having been a passenger.
When you travel always carry a color photocopy of
your passport on your person at all times, and
never leave it in your hotel room.
It is acceptable to show your passport to the
desk clerk at a hotel when first check in, but
you should never actually give it to them as it
may be held hostage until you pay for room charges that you do not really owe.
Outside of this country, one passport or drivers
license is good, but two or more may also be of
value in saving your hide someday. Use with
considerable discretion, and only with great
caution. Same face as yours, but different names, or country of nationality.
Make sure that you are fluent in at least two
languages, and never visit a country unless you
can survive without an escort or interpreter.
Hike the entire Application Trail slowly from
end-to-end at least once in your life. Start in
the early spring in the South, and complete it in
the North as the late Fall begins and the leaves
begin to change. Stop and play in the water along
the way, bring along a tent, and live life simply
for six months along the trail.
Drive from Chicago to Los Angeles along the old
highway 66 road, and stop and appreciate what you
find along the way. Make this trip take 15 days
in each direction, and use either a motorcycle or
vintage convertible for the trip.
At least once in your life your should visit New
England in the Fall for a few weeks, when the
foliage is in full bloom, and be in utter awe of
the colors as seen from the mountains. Spend some
time along the coast, some in the mountains, and
some driving the rural countryside, visit
roadside antique shops. Explore old covered
bridges, and old book stores. Stay at some of the
rambling old grand hotels, and stay at least one
weekend at a quaint bed and breakfast.
Buy a quality motorcycle, not one designed for
speed, nor one that some 16 year kid would be
driving to high school. Rather purchase one that
is comfortable to drive for 6 hours, makes low
rumbling sounds, and take it out a couple of
times a month on Sunday afternoons. You will
learn to appreciate this simple machine the
longer your ride one, and at least once in your
life drive it cross country with a group of friends.
Washington, DC is a city that you need to visit
and spend at least a few weeks each decade of
your life exploring on foot. Take a tour of the
Pentagon, several national museums, the great
presidential monuments, a White House tour, and
spend at least a full day attending Congressional
hearings, visit the Capital, and absorb the majesty of the great city.
When you visit Washington, always coordinate your
visit with a formal appointment to meet with your
Senators and Representatives in person (or their
immediate assistant), and tell them face-to-face
what you really think of the job they are doing
in as respectful a way as possible.
Vote, every time you can. If you dont vote for
whatever reason, then do not complain about how
the country is run. Either vote or keep your mouth shut.
When travelling, and staying at a hotel; shower
every morning, and then at night before you go to
bed, and always wear pajamas or scrubs and socks
when you go to bed or are sitting around the
room. Have all of your valuable stuff situated in
such a way that you can scoop up your luggage
(along with all of your valuables) and be out the
door in under 30 seconds from a dead sleep.
When traveling, place copies of your passport,
identity documents, and medical data in your
socks so that if your wallet or shoes are stolen
or you are seriously injured the medical people
will know who you are and who they should contact
in an emergency. Medical people always check the
socks for ID and medical information.
Always travel with a five day supply of Imodium,
Ibuprofen, and NSAID of your choice, an
expectorant, a cough suppressant, chewable baby
aspirin, long acting Sudafed, a wide spectrum
general purpose antibiotic, Benadryl, a stool
softener, some kind of sleep aid, a strong muscle
relaxant, and a small supply of a prescribed
narcotic pain killer. Make sure that you have
written prescriptions for all of these when or
where possible, and always keep them in their
original bottles, with their original labels.
Take a multi-purpose vitamin every day, and
double up just prior to and during travel.
Vitamin B (100 mg) and C (500 mg) are great for
overcoming jet lag, excessive drinking, or working driving long distances.
Medical oxygen (15 minutes at 6 liters) gets rid
of hangovers and jet lag with astounding speed.
Lesser amounts will help you wake-up in the
morning faster then three large cups of strong coffee.
If you have a hangover the next morning (more
then once a month), or ever vomit after drinking
(more then once every six months) then you are an
alcoholic, and you really need to get
professional help before you end up homeless,
unemployed, unloved, and penniless.
The more excuses that you come up with why you
are not an alcoholic or drug addict, the more you probably are.
When traveling by air, get up stretch your legs, and walk around once an hour.
Wear full leg compression stockings if you plan
to sleep on any flight. They may chaff, but you will have a better flight.
It is wise to take a baby aspirin before flying
to keep from throwing a thrombus during or after the flight.
Learn what a thrombus is, and how it relates to
airplanes, long range driving, sitting all day, and high altitudes.
As basic as it seems, if you ever vomit, cough
up, or defecate blood at home or abroad go to the emergency room right away.
If you have any back pain, shoulder pain, or arm
pain along with profuse sweating, take a couple
of baby aspirin, call 9-1-1 and get to emergency
room right away
you may only have minutes left to live.
If you have any chest pain, take a couple of baby
aspirin, call 9-1-1 and get to emergency room
right away
you may only have minutes left to live.
When in doubt, call for an ambulance
it is
cheaper and far simpler then calling for a mortician and a hearse.
If you are allergic to aspirin, then do not take aspirin.
Age quod agis (Do what you do well)
Never rely on a single credit card while
traveling, but rather purchase all air fare on
one card, ground transportation on a second, use
a third for hotels, a fourth to pay for food or
incidentals, and so forth. This is to protect you
against being stranded due to credit card fraud
in the event that the desk clerk at the hotel skims your card.
If possible, only use each card once on each trip
so that you can identify where a leak of your credit card number took place.
The more that a credit card crows about how it is
honored world-wide, and how you should not leave
home without it, the more you should. Meditate on
this for a while as many TSCM specialists have
been stranded when their credit card company
cancelled their card by accident while on
business travel due to travels beyond where they normally charged or traveled.
Always remember that credit cards, airplane
tickets, rental cars, and cell phone usage leaves
a paper trail, and that your client may not
appreciate a trail that leads from you to their neighborhood.
The use of cash does not always prevent a paper
trail, and can cause other problems when used.
Know when to charge, and when to pay cash.
Always buy a round-trip ticket when you travel, always.
Never drink alcohol while on an airplane, nor while at the airport.
Replace the crankcase oil in your car or truck
every 3000 miles, get a wash and wax every 300
miles or less, and replace the brake pads, battery, and belts every two years.
Always check the dates on your tires once a year,
check for wear, any dry rot, or other damage
before you end up with a blow-out at high speed,
or have an accident because your tires failed
while you were braking hard. Tires actually do
have an expiration date, but most people do not
know how to read them, and thus have a blow out
and wreck their vehicle for no apparent reason.
Every year, sixty days before your yearly safety
inspection you should have your mechanic comb
over every inch of your vehicle, and write up a
list of everything they needs to be repaired or
replaced, or anything that could be expected to
fail or malfunction in the next 18 months. At
that time, have a full tune up and oil change
performed, have all belts replaced as needed, all
brakes checked in detail, and all tires carefully inspected for damage or wear.
Replace the oil, oil filters, air filters, PVC
valves, and related engine heath components
every 3000 miles, or 5000 miles if you are a
moderate driver in an area where the weather
never drops below 40 degrees, or above 100 degrees.
Replace all batteries in your motor vehicles
every three years, and never skimp on quality. A
really good battery only costs $120, and a cheap
one costs around $35. A jump start or tow can cost many times the difference.
Annual vehicle safety inspections are there to
protect you, and not just to poach money on
behalf of the state. Never try to bribe the
inspector, and never have your vehicle inspected
at a place that lets you pass despite your vehicle having problems.
A new engine and transmission is cheaper then a new car.
For non-critical injuries or illnesses it may be
timelier to drive 20-30 miles away from where you
are currently to be seen in an emergency room in
a small community instead of the emergency rooms
of a major city. Very often the smaller hospitals
can get you into an ER bed right away, and can
get you discharged in under two hours. Call in
advance to see if they are busy and to see if they can accommodate you.
Never fake a medical problem in order to get an
ambulance to take you to the emergency room, and
do not fake symptoms while at the hospital to get
medical assistance that you do not really need.
The EMTs and medical doctors have seen every
trick that you can think of, and will not be
amused that you are wasting their time.
The fastest way to get a bed in an emergency room
is to arrive by ambulance, but if you do arrive
by ambulance you can expect to stay for at least
a solid 4-6 hours. If you have a serious injury
you can plan to stay in the emergency room for 12
hours or more. If you are seriously ill this
extra time is to observe you and ensure that you are stable enough to go home.
Patients with insurance tend to get stuck in a
hospital bed longer then those who do not. Very
often, the better the insurance, the longer the
hospital visit. This may not appeal to you if the
injury is actually quite minor or you do not like hospitals.
All hospitals, old houses, graveyards,
battlefields, colleges, and churches are haunted, get over it.
If you only need an antibiotic, a muscle
relaxant, or a half dozen stitches to close an
open wound there is no reason for the hospital to keep you for 12 hours.
Always ask to see your own X-Rays and hardcopy
test results, and insist that the doctor spend at
least 15 minutes explaining each X-Ray in detail
with you, and at least 5 minutes discussing the
actual test results with you and never just let
them glaze over the test results or blow you off.
If you fall from any height above your knees you
should be seen by a doctor in an emergency room.
If you fall from any height above your shoulders
you should go by ambulance to the nearest
emergency room. If you banged your head in a fall
or accident (or you cant remember everything
about a fall or accident) then you need a CT scan
and possibly an MRI and should be taken to the emergency room right away.
A CT or MRI scan of a head wound may not show
anything for several hours after banging your
head, so be patient, wait in the ER, and listen to your doctors.
Absolutely do not fly for at least two weeks
after injuring either your head or neck, as you
could die while in flight. Also, do not fly for
at least one week after recovering from a chest cold, head cold, or pneumonia.
Assiduus usus uni rei deditus et ingenium et
artem saepe vincit (Constant practice devoted to
one subject often outdoes both intelligence and skill). Cicero
Always be nice to everybody in the emergency
room. Just because you have been there for four
hours to have a splinter removed from your pinkie
finger, does not mean that you have been
forgotten about. Rather it may be that the
patient three rooms away may be about to die and
the ER staff has been fighting valiantly to save
the patients life for the past four hours.
If you are in pain when you arrive in the ER,
please request some kind of pain medication
shortly after your arrival so that your time in
the ER is a pain free as possible. This will help
you from becoming impatient and crabby, and will
allow people who are much more injured then you
to be tended to first. If you are arriving by
ambulance ask the paramedics for something (by IV) to alleviate your suffering.
If you call an ambulance, you should expect an IV
if you are seriously hurt, but since the profit
margin on a bag of salt water is unbelievably
high some ambulances just give everybody an IV
and oxygen even if they need them or not.
Remember, that you are actually in control of
everything that is done to you, and that you can
ask questions and refuse or accept treatment. A
good rule however, is that if you or someone else
dialed 9-1-1, then you may very well need fluids in the form of an IV.
If you do not like the way that you are treated
in the hospital immediately ask to speak to the
attending physician, the patient advocate, or the
head of nursing. Hospitals really do take
complaints seriously, but since so few patients
know how to properly complain they very rarely hear about problems.
Do not start threatening medical staff with
attorneys, legal actions, boycotts, and the
plagues of Egypt as they will think you are a
mental patient, and will treat you as such.
Instead, be rational, be polite, but be firm and you will get the best results.
You can refuse to have a specific medical person
not touch you, so if you do not want medical
students or a particular grumpy nurse from
touching you, you can tell them to go away and
not to touch you. But use this with caution as
the nurse you fire may be nicer then the one that replace them.
However the grumpy nurse is often the best one
on staff, and you are just being a really
difficult patient. Never loose sight of this, and be nice.
Remember, that doctors and nurses talk about
patients behind their back, so be nice to
everybody, smile, say please, and say thank you a lot.
If you get a grumpy nurse or doctor, explain to
them that you can understand that they may be
having a bad day, and explain that you are having
a pretty bad day as well, but you appreciate them helping you.
When in the hospital or emergency room, listen to
the advice of your doctor, but only if they have
completed their residency and are either a fellow or attending physician.
The phrase medical student, intern, and
resident should always raise warning flags.
An M.D. after a persons name just means that the
graduated from medical school, not that they have
the experience required to treat you. An intern
is still a medical school student, and a resident
is someone who has just recently graduated from
medical school, but who lacks the experience to
yet be fully trusted by the hospital. All should
be working under the close supervision of an
attending physician. When in doubt, ask to be seen by the attending physician.
Always keep in mind that medical school students,
interns, and residents are still in training. It
is OK for them to talk with you, interview your,
to examine you, poke and probe you, to give you
stitches, and perform minor procedures, but you
can always request that these people not treat
you (and you can wait for hours until the attending has some free time).
Not everybody in a hospital is a doctor or a
nurse, and there are many, many technicians and
aides who actually know little or nothing about
medical care and who are barely making minimum wage.
In most teaching hospitals, over half the people
who work therein are not doctors or nurses. In
fact, in most hospitals, actual doctors with over
four years experience out of medical school are in the minority.
You can always ask for an IV nurse or doctor to
draw your blood instead of a lab technician, and
can ask for a nurse to help you instead of a
nurses aid or assistant. Learn how this applies
to bug sweeps and TSCM, and why one highly
trained TSCM person can be better then twelve
warm bodies who know not electronics, and why this does not always apply.
Some nurses, nurses aides, and lab technicians
actually hate and resent their patients, but this
is the only job they could find. Be nice to them,
they have a miserable job, and everybody rags on
them all the time, so your politeness and
graciousness towards them will brighten their day.
The patient is always in charge of their medical
care, never forget this cardinal rule.
Your doctors and nurses should not be offended if
you ask them to change their gloves or wash their
hands or instruments before touching you. In fact
most will have already done just this just before entering your room.
Only trust medical advice that comes from a
medical doctor who has more then four years of
experience out of medical school (not some 20
something wonder kid who still wears a short coat).
Remember that Nurses are not medical doctors,
despite their belief to the contrary.
Receptionists, administrative assistants, and
billing clerks are not medical doctors. Their job
is to minimize the amount of time you can spend
with your doctor, when you can see them, and how
much you have to pay for the privilege. Very few
doctors actually run their own offices or their
own practice
value those who do.
Some physicians and nurses are sadists and
control freaks, find and only deal with those who are not.
A big name, a big practice, a fancy office, and a
big car do not indicate the amount of compassion or care the physician has.
A small practice, a modest office, a practical
vehicle, and physician who still makes house
calls, and who gives away his cell phone, home
number, and E-Mail address to patients makes his
patients feel like family, and is the consummate
physician and a master of his or her art.
Never forget that a doctor needs to make a living
as well, pay them well, pay them often, and treat
them with the utmost of dignity and respect.
Always send your personal physician, dentist, and
other medical folks a Christmas card.
Aegroto, dum anima est, spes esse dicitur (It
is said that for a sick man, there is hope as long as there is life)
Carry an abbreviated medical history on your
person at all times, to include all allergies to
anything, any medications you take (or have taken
in the past three years), drugs, supplements, or
herbs you are taking, what current medication
conditions you have, or have had. Include all
your emergency contact data, and include your
insurance data or your credit card numbers. This could save your life.
Always have a will, and have a close friend,
spouse, or family member designated as the
executor of your estate and who also has power of
attorney over your affairs. Have someone who is
reliable and trustworthy designated to act or
speak on your behalf should you ever suddenly
become disabled or unable to function (sick, but
not dead). Make sure that this person has studied
your will, knows its contents, understands how
you want your medical care to be handled, and
knows how you want all other things handled.
When you first get married or engaged, buy a
cemetery plot large enough for the family you
expect to have, in the city where you intend to
live and be buried. Buy a headstone well before
you need it, and have your vital information
carved into it while you are still alive, so that
after you die they need only carve in the date of your death.
You can be buried in a cheap plywood coffin for
under $100, and a simple cardboard burial box for
under $25. There is no reason to be buried in a
$6,000 coffin when the funeral home can rent you
one for the funeral service and transfer your
remains to a plywood or cardboard box for the
actual burial. You will be just as comfortable in any coffin they bury you in.
Once a year, re-write or review your own
obituary, and add a current picture that you want
listed in the obituary that is a fairly recent
and favorable. You can often pre-file your
obituary with the newspaper, and pre-pay for the
listing years in advance. Alternately, you can
give your obituary to your attorney, along with
sufficient funds for the listing.
Once a year, re-write or review your resume, and
add a list of ten things that you intend to complete in the upcoming year.
Always have a clean single page, current resume
available at all times, along with a list of 100
companies that you would like to work for. Then
cultivate three contacts in each of these
companies without circulating your resume to them, yet.
Executive recruiters and headhunters must be used
very carefully, unless you enjoy long periods of
being unemployed. They are best used while you
are still employed full time, and where you set
up a relationship years before you are interested in a job change.
If you are unemployed, never believe the things
that a recruiter tells you until after your first
few paychecks at the new job fully clear the bank.
Never engage the services of an employment agency
to help you look for work. The state run
employment agencies can do a better job, for free.
Be careful when answering employment jobs in the
newspaper, some of them are totally bogus, some
are employment agencies that will rip you off,
quite a few are make-money-fast or multi-level
marketing scams. A legitimate employment
advertisement will always list the full company
name, phone number, address, and contact name. Do
not waste your time of cryptic advertisements.
The help wanted pages or employment sections of
the newspaper are actually quite valuable to a
TSCM person as it tells you about the volatility
of a company, and about companies undergoing
explosive growth. If tracked over a couple of
months this can provide you with an easy list of
500 companies that need sweeps in your immediate area.
Always maintain a list of 100 companies within
100 miles of your home or office that you think
need sweeps, and cultivate five people at each
company who could engage you on the spot to check
their office for bugs. These should be your
golden contacts, and should be developed and nurtured over the years.
At least twice a year you should go on a job
interview, even it you are not looking for work.
Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem
(Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even). - Horace
Attend job fairs on a quarterly basis, even if
you are gainfully employed, and feeling secure at work.
Once a week on Sunday, read the help wanted ads
so you can see what kinds of jobs companies are
looking to fill, so that you can develop an
alternate skill that someone may be looking for.
Most TSCM people find that the business is not
for them after only a couple of years, and it is
critical that you always have a strategy to
quickly transition into another line of work
during your first five years in the sweep
business. After five years in the sweep business,
you should focus of developing and enhancing your skills.
When you travel always carry a full one to two
week supply of medications (beyond the duration
of your expected travels) with you in your carry
on luggage. Then always keep your carry on
luggage with you at all times when you are
traveling so that if your hotel room gets robbed
you will still have plenty of your meds
available. If you have to consume any medication
out of your carry on kit you should refresh it as soon as possible.
If you ever travel overseas purchase a special
insurance policy for emergency medical
evacuation, and designate in the policy which
specifically hospital(s) they can take you to.
In the hospital, the best bed is usually the one next to the window.
Before you travel out of town, always visit your
local pharmacy and obtain a printout of every
medication that you have had filled in the past
year, or peel the labels off of your old
prescription bottles and stick them to a piece of
paper. Most pharmacies will refill a small amount
(72 hour supply) of a non-narcotic medication for
you based only on these labels.
ICE your phone, your wallet, your passport, and
your luggage. Learn what this means.
Purchase a special medical insurance policy that
states that anytime you are hospitalized that you
get a private room, on a private floor, with an
optional private dedicated 7/24 nurse.
A degree from a diploma mill or Distance
College will always make you look like a
complete fool; it is just that you may be too
obtuse and uneducated to realize it.
Learn what the word obtuse means.
If you did not have to stop at DOT scales when
you crossed the state lines and maintain drivers
logbooks, then you have the wrong kind of sweep vehicle.
Its OK to be a nerd, but never be dork
learn the difference between the two.
The best way to learn is in the Socratic and
Didactic methods, learn why, and learn to master
both methods as both a teacher and a student.
Discere docendo (To learn through teaching)
When in any classroom; learn to talk to the
teacher, ask questions, and actually make an
effort to learn something from each other.
Predict, practice, perfect and practice again, then repeat endlessly.
Teaching is always a two way group effort, and it
requires that the teacher do more then stand in
front of the room and spew forth dry materials to bored students.
Unless the teacher or instructor can see the
light behind the students eyes, they have no
business teaching and should seek other pursuits.
Learn what this means, and apply it to both your
own educations, the education of your family.
If you are teaching and you can not see that
light or see inside the heads of your students
then you are wasting everybodys time.
Never confuse a teacher with a babysitter, or a
teacher with a salesman. Learn what this means.
If a teacher does not get an amen from the
students periodically then they are not actually
teaching. Learn what this means.
As a student you should never just passively sit
and say nothing as the teacher will not know if
you are absorbing the materials being presented.
Most students never engage the instructors, and
most instructors never engage the students. Learn
to be both a good student, and an engaging
teacher, as you will be in both positions many times in your life.
A good teacher was first a good student.
Teach Sunday school to children, and be amazed to
learn of love, grace, and faith from them in its
purest form. They will also ask you questions
that you can not comfortably answer, and that you
need to go learn about yourself.
A teacher must master the materials before they
can teach it, and they must be able to see inside
the minds of the students in real-time as they
teach to see if what they are teaching is being
absorbed by the student or they are not actually
teaching but rather just lecturing and wasting everybodys time.
A good TSCM person has mastered his craft to the
point that he can explain technical material in
simple, non-technical understandable terms to
anybody from a six year old child to a multi-billionaire CEO.
White hair and a beard do not indicate
experience, just an illusion of such. Learn when this is not always true.
Never assume that the person for whom you are
working knows nothing about electronics,
surveillance, intelligence or military matters,
or that they have never had a sweep performed
before. This assumption can lead to great
embarrassment when your client ends up having a
PhD in electronics, but is too busy running his
billion dollar corporation to do his own bug sweeps.
The more honest a man is, the less he has to tell
you about it. Along these same lines, the more
references or endorsements a person provides to
you and the more names they drop the more of a
true charlatan you can expect them to be.
All real bug sweeps and TSCM require the use of a
ladder. If you do sweeps professionally you need
lots of ladders, and vehicles that allow you to
transport the ladders inside the vehicle.
As you will usually need a six and eight foot
folding ladder on all sweeps, and periodically
need a twelve foot folding ladder or 20 foot
extension ladders. Thus the inside cargo area of
your vehicle will need to be at least 12 to 15 feet long.
People who perform bug sweeps do not provide
references, those who do are not to be trusted.
Word-of-mouth is always the best advertising
method, but it is your clients who should be
speak well of you, and not you trying to push your own services.
Never try to sell-a-sweep, as client will
naturally come to you in their moment of need,
and the more that you push them to have the sweep
performed, the less they will trust you.
Let potential customers know who you are, and
what you do, and leave it at that. They will call
you when they need you, as this is the nature of our profession.
The harder you push a customer to perform a sweep the less they will trust you.
Inspect your ladders before and after any use, as
it is quite unpleasant for you to come crashing
the ground when the laws of gravity decide to
teach you a painful equipment lesson.
Never trust a client who will not look you in the eye and shake your hand.
Ad praesens ova cras pullis sunt meliora (Eggs
today are better than chickens tomorrow)
The taller the ladder the more likely it is that you could get hurt.
While crashing to the ground from the top of a 15
foot ladder is pretty serious, you can also
suffer lethal injury by falling off a 4 foot step ladder.
There is no place for wooden or metal ladders in
our business; fiberglass could keep you from getting killed.
A ladder with fiberglass side rails, rubber, a
plastic top step, and aluminum climbing steps is
the all around best choice for TSCM.
Purchase a highest grade of ladder you can find,
or one rated for 325 pounds as they will be the most stable.
Never use the top two steps of any ladder.
Your belt should never be higher then the top
step of any ladder on which you are standing, nor
should you ever move on a ladder in any way that
causes your belt buckle goes beyond the side rails of the ladder.
Ensure that if you are on a ladder, and fall off
that you have someway to call for help, and that
your corpse will not be found 3 days later. A
safety spotter or assistant is always a good
idea, but remember that the more people involved
in a sweep the weaker security will be.
When on a ladder keep a little neon bulb circuit
tester in your pocket and touch it to any ceiling
track before you touch it. Ditto for any conduit
or lighting fixtures you find. This may well save
your live, or at a minimum keep you from serious injury.
Keep a little money in the bank, a little in your
mattress, but the majority of it in your
education, the tools of your trade, and your
business operation. Of these, the time and monies
you spend on your own education will result in
the greatest return-on-investment, and will
result in the strongest long term stability of your finances.
Keep at least six months of personal expense
money for food, rent, utilities, etc. in the form
of cash in the bank at all times, and another six
months stored in a fire-proof safe in your house.
Keep this money separate from any business funds,
and only use it to personally support yourself in
an emergency for at least one year. As time goes
on you should built this up to at least three
years of monies, do not consider this is be
retirement money, but rather only personally
emergencies or survival money. This is not for
medical bills, down payments on houses or
vehicles, legal bills, bail money, or even money
that you can use for your kids college fund.
Rather this is for actual life safety and
personal emergencies where you may have to either
evacuate, hunker down, put out the fire, buy a
generator, clean the guns, stock up the larder, and so on.
Purchase insurance on everything that is
important in your life, this should include not
only your equipment, vehicles, property, and
assets, but also your own health, possible
medical disability or yourself, and even the
lives of yourself, all close family members, and
all sweep people or critical employees who work for you.
Open a retirement fund when you are very young
and still in your teens, and add part of your
paycheck to it on a regular basis. This must be
an ultra-low risk investment, and U.S. Savings
Bonds purchased every payday and placed in a
safety deposit box are always a real long term winner.
You must have some type of investments that are
volatile in nature and risky in order to make
significant profits on your investments. But do
not stray into this mine-field until after you
have both your emergency funds and retirement
funds established and well developed.
Mus uni non fidit antro (A mouse does not rely on just one hole). - Plautus
Do not invest any money in stocks unless you read
the Wall Street Journal from cover to cover every
single day for at least one year, and understand
what forces drive the market. Be prepared to lose
every penny you invest in the stock market, and
never delude yourself into thinking that any stock is actually safe.
Treat your employees like family, pay them all a
good wage, be liberal with all perks and
benefits, and give them part of the proceeds of
any project they are involved in as a bonus.
Do not wait until the end of the year to give
away bonus money, but rather let it flow freely
throughout the year as it is earned.
Give all employees feedback on their performance
as often as possible, but do so with tact and in
private if there is a problem.
All employees should get some kind of feedback
from you at least once a week about their
performance, more often if you can
but be sincere.
Employees should respect you, not fear you. Learn when this is not true.
Anybody who will steal for you will steal from
you. Never trust them, and discharge them from your employ as soon as possible.
Make sure that all of your employees are
comfortable financially, emotionally, socially, and physically.
Learn why a genuine pat on the back will always
get you more in the long run then a kick to the behind.
Animis opibusque parati (Prepared in minds and resources)
Never lend money to an employee, if you want to
help them out then pay them more, or do something
indirect to assist them, but it is unwise to give them money directly.
When you do assist an employee in this manner
nobody else should know anything about it in your company.
Money can actually be toxic in some relationships, learn what this means.
Know your employees problems or weaknesses, help
them overcome them, and never exploit them.
Employees do not work for you for the money
alone. They also work for you because you are a
good leader, and you give them a pleasant working
environment. The money must be secondary, and
never be so obtuse as to threaten someones paycheck over their performance.
Learn what the word obtuse means.
If your employees are not happy at work then it
means they have a bad leader. Back up and read
this item again until you realize what this means.
Happy cows, produce lots of milk. Happy chicken
produces lots of eggs. Happy employees produce lots of profits.
A farmer that does not feed his animals well, who
does not take care or them well, and who does not
keep them content all the time will find the farm
to be failing, and he and his family will starve.
Learn and understand how this applies to business
in general, and why you must always look after
the needs of your subordinates and employees.
To grow corn, you need a stream supply of water,
either though rain, or though artificial
irrigation or sprinklers. If you do not bring
water to the fields, you will not grow much corn.
Learn how this applies specifically to the TSCM business.
Leadership is all about being able to do the job
yourself, but inspiring others to follow you and
to assist you in getting the job done.
At its core, leadership is always about doing it
yourself, never forget this fact.
Leadership is all about making clones of
yourself, and letting them do your job.
Always praise your employees publically, and only
criticize in private. Even then, only criticize
very rarely, and do it with the utmost of compassion and respect.
Learn to sweep your own floors, make your own
coffee, and answer your own phone. There is much wisdom in this, learn why.
Always try to get a tour of your customers
factory or business operation well before you
perform any sweep work for them, so that you have
a better understanding of what they produce or create.
Never smoke in your office, nor permit others to
do so. If you prefer to smoke, or you like to
share a cigar with a customer be sure to do it
someplace other then the main office where you
may be meeting with your other clients (some of
whom will be offended by the smoke smell in your office).
Never run up a total amount of credit card debt
that you can not pay in full every month.
Ideally, you should be able to pay off all
plastic debt with your paycheck or profits for two weeks or less.
If you use a credit card, learn how to make
anticipatory payments when you travel or make
large purchases. This will annoy your credit card
company to no end, learn why. This will also
ensure that you are never late on a bill, and why
your credit limits and credit scores will be way
higher then anybody else you know.
If your banker is not in your office just to say
hello every 90 days or so then you are not
dealing with a real banker, or you are not a real business customer.
If you ever have any problems with your bank
accounts you should expect your banker to visit
YOUR office or home at the time that is
convenient to you to help resolve the problem,
and to apologize for the error and not the other way around.
Real bankers are always available outside of
normal business hours to take care of their more valued customers.
Learn what Private Banking means. However, you
may not actually be a valued customer to your bank.
Give everybody who calls you at least 15 minutes
of your time, 5 minutes if they are trying to
sell you something, and less then 30 seconds if it is a repeat sales call.
Work within the time the client allowed you to
access the premises. Let your clients wants,
needs, and access always direct your efforts.
But, do not let the client tell you how to do a
sweep, but rather let them define the parameters
under which you have access to the area.
The client should never have to conform to your
needs, but rather the other way around.
If the person who you are dealing with cannot get
a retainer check cut, and sent to you within 48
hours then you may not want to be dealing with
them as they likely lack the authority to engage
you in the first place, and you may never see the
money that you are due for the sweep.
Sweep payment terms are always half up front
(plus anticipated expenses), and the balance when
the report is provided. For some projects you may
want to get the entire balance up front, well in
advance. In other cases, for established clients
you may let them pay at the end of the service.
Some executives only want to issue one payment
for the TSCM services, and they are more then
happy to provide this payment well in advance of
the services actually being provided. When this
happens always give the customer much more then
they are paying for, and go out of your way to do a fantastic job for them.
While it is permissible to provide terms of 10/0
Net 10 you do not provide terms of Net 15, Net
30, Net 45, etc unless you are an utter fool.
The more paperwork that you provide to your
clients accounting department the more likely
that it is the secrecy of the sweep will be
compromised. With this in mind the executive who
engages you should arrange for a check to be
manually cut to them which they send to you in
order to keep you out of their regular accounting
systems for at least a few weeks after the sweep is completed.
If your client sends you checks or documents by
express mail or FedEx it is wisest for them to
personally deliver them to the FedEx office or
Post office, and not to merely place the outbound
envelope and leave it with the shipping
department. If a spy is really astute they will
be watching for indications as to whom the
executive is sending stuff, and their hottest
target will be the FedEx and UPS log books.
Hence, if the client goes directly to the FedEx
depot or Post Office and send the envelope from
there (and pays the postage in cash) there will
be no trace within the company of anything being
sent out, but the client will have to be discrete
with what they do with the receipt from the post
office, and not leave it in any location where a spy may find it.
The goal is to carefully conceal that a sweep is
about to take place, who is going to be
performing the sweep, and to conceal when a sweep
person may actually be performing services on-site
Set up a merchant account, that allows you to
take a customers credit card number for a sweep,
but set up the account in such a way that a the
name that shows on the customers bill is not you
or your companies name. Rather, set up a third
company name that you can use to accept payments,
or which you can use to have your clients
accounting department issue checks to so that
their accounting department has no idea who is
actually being paid. An example, is to set up a
legitimate business operation, under a legitimate
company name, but located at least 200 miles from
your own location, and under a name that
indicates a high cost service that the executive
maybe purchasing on behalf of his company.
Historically, a very successful method you can
use is to have the check issued to an attorney in
a city that is far away from you, but which is
close to your client (but the attorney actually
works for you or the client), and the law firm
will cash the check into a trust account for you.
The check is actually made out to the law firm
(with retainer for fees written in the memo),
and once it clears the law firms bank account,
then they deposit the monies into your regular
account. This usually does a good job in
confounding a spy, but the law firms who handle
this type of processing for you have to understand how to handle the activity.
For purposes of client confidentiality the
ultimate method of engagement is for your client
to go to their attorney, and have the law firm
engage you for the project. A confidentiality
contract is prepared by the attorney where you
are engaged by the law firm to provide
confidential services to the client, via the
attorney. While the customer may be present
during the TSCM services being provided, the
report actually goes directly to the attorney, and not directly to the client.
To add one extra layer of privacy and protection
for your client, the law firm who works for your
client (who engaged you), also sends along an
attorney or one of their own private
investigators to assist you, and to act both as
an independent observer, and who can assist is
arranging for suitable cover operations to
conceal that you are actually performing a sweep.
Learn why most rumors and leaks originate from
the accounting department, sales and marketing
departments, shipping, and then the computer/MIS
department. Accept this fact, deal with it, plan
appropriately, and make sure none of these
departments know anything of your project.
Some computer security experts are just
glorified systems administrators; learn the difference between the two.
Some security experts are just glorified
criminals and con artists; learn the difference
between a true expert and a criminal charlatan.
Some security people barely make a good night
watchmen, floorwalkers, or bodyguards. But there
are quite a few really honest, and really good
night watchmen, floorwalker, or bodyguards who
you should seek out, train, and promote into more
trusted positions. Unless they possess a very
strong technical background none of them would
make a good sweep person, even though they may be your most trusted people.
Seek out employees with honor and integrity, and
those who are willing to make the hard ethical
choices. These are the most valuable people in
the organization, and you would be wise to pay them well.
Sometimes, youre most valued and trusted
employee is the one that disagrees with you, and
tells you so. Always respect and listen carefully
to those employees who tell you that you are wrong.
It can be hard to do the right thing sometimes, but always do it nonetheless.
Just because somebody has the word security in
their title does not mean they know anything about it.
Sometimes you can only get into an office for
one, single frantic 16 hour session as the office
is only available for a very narrow, single shot
sweep, and other times you can spend 3-4 days
inside a single room. Have the capability to
operate under either condition or everything in between.
With some customers you can come rolling in with
twelve TSCM people and eight thousand of pounds
of equipment and then run six or more people in
the office 24 hours a day for an entire week, but
in other cases the client can only get a single
person in with a couple of briefcases, for one afternoon or evening.
If you come to believe that a law enforcement
agency has legally bugged your client, then you
should give the customer all of their money back,
and excuse yourself from the engagement. However,
the key here is that it must be a LEGAL bugging,
and not something that is being done off the books.
There is actually very little legal and
legitimate, court ordered bugging in the United States.
It is reasonable to assume that any bug you find
is illegal and/or not court ordered until absolutely proven otherwise.
Unless a Judge sitting on the bench in a
courtroom tells you in writing to keep your mouth
shut about a bug you found you are not obligated
to keep your mouth shut about the discovery, and
you can tell your client about the discovery
Never lie to a customer, about anything
do not
speak even half truths, but rather give them the
whole truth in what every color or form in which appears.
Do not try to deceive a customer about what your technical capabilities are.
Do not be ashamed that your spectrum analyzer
only goes up to only 3 GHz or whatever the upper
range of your particular unit is, but rather
become amazingly proficient with the unit within
the range in which it operates.
At a minimum you should be checking to 3 GHz on
any sweep that is five hours or less in duration,
and to at least 40 GHz on any sweep that takes more then a full day on-site.
The more hand-held bug detectors a TSCM
specialist uses the more of a fraud they are likely to be.
Never try to put lipstick on a pig.
The more talkative your customer is with you
which you are trying to perform the sweep, the
longer the project is going to have to take. If
the customer keeps interrupting you with
questions the sweep could take three times as
long as originally estimated. Make sure that your
customers ask you a lot of questions before you
start the sweep, and then ask you a lot of
questions at the end of the sweep, but they
should try to minimize the interruptions while
you are actually doing to the project.
Most bug sweeps are best handled by only a single
person, who is extremely discrete in how they
operate as they will be five times more effective
at the end of the day against the spy then two sweep people.
Government sweepers tend not to like to work on
ladders, which is why most government sweep teams
do not find bugs in ceilings. Ponder this for a
few minutes until you realize how dangerous of a situation this creates.
In order to double the effectiveness over that of
just a single TSCM specialist you need a sweep
team of at least four, and preferably six people.
A sweep team of two people will be a greatest
benefit once the sweep move into an evaluation of
the wires in a building, and will be of minimal
value until that time, but rather will provide a
huge liability to the secrecy of the sweep.
The leader of a sweep team should not have a span
of control (or supervision) over more then four
or five other people. However, by supervising the
work of four or five other sweep people the team
leader will not be able to actually do technical
things as it will be a full time effort just to
coordinate the efforts of the rest of the team.
It requires at least six people to run any full
time sweep efforts where there are only two people at a time are on site.
The spy will always be waiting for periods when
the TSCM specialist is not on-scene or is
distracted in order to retrieve their bugs, or
will be waiting for the TSCM person to look away from their work.
By working a six person team against the spy,
they will have no opening in which to remove the bug.
It is not necessary for all six people on the
sweep team to be TSCM experts, although it is
quite desirable. Instead some sweep teams have
one TSCM expert, a general electronics person, a
computer person, a telephone person, an
electrician, and then one or two people who fill in where needed.
A full sized, full bore, maximum effectiveness
sweep team requires at least 18 TSCM people, all
of whom are TSCM experts, with graduate and post
graduate degrees and electronics, and each with
over 20 years of field experience. Add to this
group a half dozen apprentices or support people,
and you can end up with a minimum of eight people
always in and around the building at any given
time. This is however, extremely expensive and
should only be undertaken in extreme circumstances.
The spy will also be attempting to distract the
TSCM specialist at all costs, and will be trying
to detect the TSCM specialist being summoned to
the site, or to detect his arrival.
Thus, learn to smoothly operate on sweeps with a
minimum number of people on-site, and to be as
invisible to the eavesdropper as possible.
The spy must not be aware that you have been summoned.
The spy must not detect or assume that a TSCM
team is active in an area until very late into
the sweep when it will be impossible for the spy not to be caught.
Ideally, the spy will never know that a sweep has
been performed
but this is not always possible
as the last part of a very thorough sweep
involved activities or signals that are
characteristic of a bug sweep. It may be prudent
to omit these later parts of the inspection in
order that the spy never knows that you were there.
Quite a bit of any bug sweep is performed at a
considerable distance from the area of concern.
Try to get close to the area of greatest concern,
but no actually right in the room of concern.
However, when you do not have the luxury of time
you will often have to set up your equipment
right in the room or in the next room over from
that you are trying to inspect, but that is not an ideal situation.
Maintain a detailed database of every radio
transmitter within 5 miles of the project
location for low powered devices (100 watts or
less), 75 miles for anything over 100 watts up to
1000 watts, and 200 miles for anything over 1000 watts.
Maintain a database of any microwave signals over
2 GHz, out to a distance of at least 200 miles in
all directions (including up).
Know what signals may be overhead while you are
going to be performing a sweep. This should
include any aircraft, satellites, UAVs, or any
other signals that may originate above ground level.
Try to start the TSCM RF inspection from a
distance of over 1000 feet out in order to
inventory signals that appear on the airwaves,
and try to collect data from three of more
positions at or beyond this distance. Then move
in to be only 300 feet, and then 100 feet from
the location you will be checking. Finally, move
your equipment close to the sound stage and start
checking the airways that originate inside the
building, and then move finally to a position
that is right on or next to the sound stage.
Make every effort to be invisible.
Non-Linear Junction Detectors, wire tracing, and
detailed physical examinations will tip off a spy
that a sweep is in progress faster then anything else.
Do not use a NLJD, wire tracer, or initiate a
physical inspection until all other inspection
methods have been fully exhausted.
If you are going to be performing sweeps
professionally you must keep the following tenets
in your mind at all times, and repeat them in
your mind until they become deeply integrated into all of your activities:
Know your client
Know your clients eavesdropping threat or concerns
Know why your client really needs a sweep
Know your own sweep equipment, intimately
Know your own technical weaknesses and strengths
Know and understand bugging equipment
Know the espionage and intelligence industry
Know who the eavesdroppers are in your area
Know and understand the eavesdropper
Know the laws of physics, and how they effect what you do
Understand your clients business
Understand what secrets of your customer would be of value to an eavesdropper
Work within the time you are given by your client
Work with what equipment you have on hand
Take great care not to tip off the eavesdropper
Cover all the bases from a business, legal, and technical perspective
Overlap all equipment coverage
Pay careful attention to details, for it is the
details that we use to catch the eavesdropper.
Keep a written notebook that contains a record of
everything you did on the sweep.
Miss nothing; take your time to do a good job.
Always keep your clients secrets
Institute steps to retire client records as quickly as possible
The best sweep is one where all records are
destroyed as quickly as possible afterwards
Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened?
At least two smoke and carbon monoxide detectors
on every floor, plus one at the top and bottom of all stairways.
One carbon monoxide alarm close to the floor, and
ten feet away from anything that burns, heats, or
cooks something, plus one carbon monoxide alarm
and smoke detector in each and every bedroom.
Always refuel your fuel tank before it reaches half-empty.
Stopping for gas is easier then walking for gas.
Diesel is better then gas for large vehicles, a wise man learns why.
Gasoline and diesel engines do not like each other, learn why or pay later.
Diesel engines do not like water in the fuel supply, learn why or pay later.
Never assume that there is a gas station at the
next service plaza or exit, and never assume that
a gas station is open after dark, or you will
find yourself walking around in the dark with a gas can.
All TSCM people know what NIMS, ICS, COG, COOP,
EOP, EOC each mean, and perform their sweep
activities to be fully compliant with these
matters. If you do not know why, then learn or find another occupation.
It is wise to modify all of your procedures so
that they can be plugged into NIMS for eavesdropping incidents.
You can use ICS to manage a sweep which may be small, or quite large.
Never forget to fart, and learn to take pride in it.
Buying a violin at a pawnshop does not make you a
concert violinist. Buying a pile of bug sweep
equipment on E-Bay does not make you a competent bug sweeper.
He who laughs last thinks slowest.
After the sweep is finished, the final report (if
any) is written, the final check is cashed, and
all of your customers questions have been
answered, then you should wait for 10-14 days to
pass, and then destroy all of your records and documents regarding the sweep.
Some of lifes best lessons were best learned early in Kindergarten:
Always wash your hands.
Do not run with scissors.
Play nice with the other kids.
Bring enough candy for everybody.
Solve Your Own Problems.
Don't hit other people.
Keep you hands and feet to yourself.
Dont call other people names.
No yelling or cussing.
Never hurt anyone on the inside or the outside.
Play fair.
Work as a team.
Always do your best.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Be a good listener.
Respect others and their property.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Dont whine and complain all the time
Dont be a tattle-tale
No temper tantrums
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Use kind words.
Flush.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some
and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
When you go out in the world, watch out for
traffic, hold hands and stick together.
And finally,
Acta est fabula, plaudite! (The play is over,
applaud!) - Said to have been Emperor Augustus' last words
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James M. Atkinson Phone: (978) 546-3803
Granite Island Group Fax: (978) 546-9467
127 Eastern Avenue #291 Web:
http://www.tscm.com/
Gloucester, MA 01931-8008 E-mail: mailto:jm..._at_tscm.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the
enemy until it is ripe for execution. - Machiavelli, The Prince, 1521
Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:23 CST