Hi /diY/, /tg/ here. I need your help gathering some tradecraft information and in a broader sense to play spy with gadgets.
There is a game where you play a secret agent against Yog-Sothery. It is called Delta Green and just got its new edition kickstarted and will be released next year. But we cannot wait, we need to play it now.
One of the major points is bringing the 90s setting into the present, and boy have things changed.
Now don't go all 007 on me just yet. These agents are not always fully licensed so to say, and while sometimes they can rely on sigint from the NSA and pass their strike missions to the military, quite often they have to make do with what is available in the field.
Areas of interest that immediately come to mind are
>surveillance
>security systems
>communications
>UAVs and remotely operated vehicles
as well as anything else that seems relevant.
And there should be several levels of complexity like
>Can be gathered at a Walmart
>Can be mailordered
>Is available from specialized vendors or can be custom ordered
>Is available to law enforcement
>Is available to military
>Is rumored to be available to clandestine services
Also this is not about technical details or specific instructions but about availability and general complexity.
Here's what the cops have to track cell phones with.
https://theintercept.com/surveillance-catalogue/
>>917353
FYI, you can get drones from Walmart now.
http://www.walmart.com/c/kp/quadcopters
The NSA leaks included information about an actual catalog of electronic surveillance devices that operatives could order. Presumably there's a lab in some basement in Washington that just churns them out. And that was years ago.
These things are pretty terrifying, and almost certainly used widely by spooks and sophisticated criminals
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker
Laser microphones have a similar "you can't hide" feeling.
Don't forget that your imaginary spooks will need HUMINT to find their targets--gadgets alone will leave you sorting grains of sand with a microscope.
One of my favorite tricks from the cold war--
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_%28listening_device%29
This positively boggles the mind. Today it would probably be possible to power even sophisticated electronics with a microwave beam. I imagine high value installations have detectors set up to counter it.
Rootkits and the like that turn electronic devices into a bug or betray the user's private data are so easily available and can be spread so casually, they're almost boring.
>>917417
I think small guided balloons could be the less sexy but more effective option--a long loiter time can be invaluable.