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If you’re like me then you always wanted your own pair of covert spy glasses just like in a James Bond movie. Apparently a lot of people out there do as well because one company was able to raise over three hundred thousand dollars on Kickstarter.com to create glasses that record video from the perspective of the wearer. What would you use “spy glasses” for?
ZionEyez, a Seattle startup recently offered to sell you a pair of their Eyez video recording glasses if you made a $150 donation to their KickStarter fund, and wow, did they get a good response. No wonder considering how awesome the promised specs are for Eyez. With their donation drive coming to an end, ZionEyez has raised $343,415 (more than six times their original goal of $55k) from 2106 donors.
Ultraviolet Spy Pen – $9.95
Do you long to be a secret agent? Sorry we can’t make that happen, but we can help you pretend! You just need to get yourself the Ultraviolet Spy Pen from the NeatoShop.
With the fabulous Ultraviolet Spy Pen you can write all the secret grocery lists your heart desires. No one ever needs to know you are dealing with that slight constipation problem. Yippee for invisible ink!
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more amazingly Geeky Gifts!
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Among hundreds of women who acted as spies during the Civil War, Elizabeth Van Lew stands out as one of the most effective. She was a prominent member of Richmond society who opposed both slavery and secession, but kept quiet among the fervent Confederates around her. Van Lew and her mother volunteered to care for Union prisoners at Libby Prison, where they gained many contacts. Word got back to Gen. Benjamin Butler, who recruited her as a Union spy.
By June 1864, Van Lew’s spy network had grown to more than a dozen people. Along with the agents in government service, she relied on an informal network of men and women, black and white—including her African-American servant Mary Elizabeth Bowser. The group relayed hidden messages between five stations, including the Van Lew family farm outside the city, to get key information to the Union. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant later told Van Lew, “You have sent me the most valuable information received from Richmond during the war.”
Despite her bravery and the Union victory, Van Lew was regarded as a traitor by her neighbors and found it hard to support herself after the war. Read her story at Smithsonian. Link
(Image credit: The Granger Collection, NYC)
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Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has leved an accusation that Facebook is "the most appalling spy machine that has ever been invented."
Assange said he believes Facebook is a giant database of names and records about people, maintained voluntarily by its users but developed for U.S. intelligence to use.
“Everyone should understand that when they add their friends to Facebook, they are doing free work for United States intelligence agencies, and building this database for them,” Assange said.
While Assange doesn’t claim that Facebook is actually run by U.S. intelligence agencies, the fact that they have access to its records is — in his view — dangerous enough.
“Now, is the case that Facebook is run by U.S. intelligence? No, it’s not like that. It’s simply that U.S. intelligence is able to bring to bear legal and political pressure to them,” he said.
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader.
From Uncle John’s Dustbin of History, here’s the final installment of our story about the person most responsible for making Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 as devastating as it was. Part one is in this post.
BEFORE THE STORM
On the evening of Saturday, December 6, 1941, Yoshikawa sent what would turn out to be his the last of his coded messages to Tokyo:
VESSELS MOORED IN HARBOR; NINE BATTLESHIPS; THREE CLASS-B CRUISERS; THREE SEAPLANE TENDERS; SEVENTEEN DESTROYERS. ENTERING HARBOR ARE FOUR CLASS-B CRUISERS; THREE DESTROYERS. ALL AIRCRAFT CARRIERS AND HEAVY CRUISERS HAVE DEPARTED HARBOR. …NO INDICATION OF ANY CHANGES IN U.S. FLEET. “ENTERPRISE” AND “LEXINGTON” HAVE SAILED FROM PEARL HARBOR. …IT APPEARS THAT NO AIR RECONNAISSANCE IS BEING CONDUCTED BY THE FLEET AIR ARM.
Though Yoshikawa provided much of the intelligence used to plan the attack on Pearl Harbor, he did not know when -or even if- it would occur. (“To entrust knowledge of such a vital decision to an expendable espionage agent would have been foolish,” he later explained.) He learned the attack was underway the same way that Hawaiians did: by hearing the first bombs go off as he was eating breakfast, at 7:55 a.m. on the morning of the 7th.
INFAMY
Yoshikawa had been feeding the war planners in Japan a steady stream of information for eight months, and his efforts had paid off. The Japanese military accomplished its objective with brutal effectiveness: The naval strike force, which included nine destroyers, 23 submarines, two battleships and six aircraft carriers bristled with more than 400 fighters, bombers, dive-bombers, and torpedo planes, had managed to sail more than 4,000 miles across the Pacific undetected and then strike at the home base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet while its ships were still at anchor and the Army Air Corps planes were still on the ground.
Twenty American warships were sunk or badly damaged in the two-hour attack, including the eight battleships along Battleship Row, the main target of the raid. More than 180 U.S. aircraft were destroyed and another 159 damaged. The destruction of the airfield on Ford Island, in the very heart of Pearl Harbor, was so complete that only a single aircraft managed to make it into the air. More than 2,400 American servicemen lost their lives, including 1,177 on the battleship Arizona, and another 1,178 were wounded. It was the greatest military disaster in United States history.
more …
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, remains one of the most infamous events in U.S. history. Yet the spy who played a key role in the sneak attack is a forgotten man, unknown even to many World War II buffs.
UNDER COVER
On March 27, 1941, a 27-year-old junior diplomat named Tadashi Morimura arrived in Honolulu to take his post as vice-consul at the Japanese consulate. But that was just a cover- “Morimura” was really Takeo Yoshikawa, a Japanese Imperial Navy Intelligence officer. His real mission: to collect information about the American military installations in and around Pearl Harbor.
Relations between the United States and Japan had been strained throughout the 1930s and were now deteriorating rapidly. In 1940, after years of Japanese aggression in China and Southeast Asia, Washington froze Japanese assets in the U.S., cut off exports of oil and war material, and moved the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet from southern California to Pearl Harbor, bringing it 2,400 miles closer to Japan.
The fleet was in Pearl Harbor to stay. But if Japan wanted its funds unfrozen and the crippling economic embargo lifted, the United States insisted that all Japanese troops had to leave China and Southeast Asia. This was a demand that Japan was unwilling to meet. Instead, it began preparing for war, and by early 1941, the eyes of Japan’s military planners had turned to Pearl Harbor.
THE AMERICAN DESK
Yoshikawa had become a spy in a roundabout way. He’d been a promising naval academy graduate, but his career hopes were dashed in 1936 when, just two years after graduation, stomach problems (reportedly brought on by heavy drinking) forced him out of the Japanese Navy. The following year he landed a desk job with Naval Intelligence, where he was put to work learning all that he could about the U.S. Navy.
From 1937 until 1940, Yoshikawa pored over books, magazines, newspapers, brochures, reports filed by Japanese diplomats and intelligence officers from all over the world, and anything else he could find that would give him information about the U.S. Navy. “By 1940 I was the Naval General Staff’s acknowledged American expert,” he recounted in a 1960 article in the journal Naval Institute Proceedings. “I knew by then every U.S. man-of-war and aircraft by name, hull number, configuration, and technical characteristics. I knew, too, a great deal of information about the U.S. naval bases at Manila, Guam, and Pearl Harbor.”
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James Bond is one of the best and coolest guys in the film world. He is capable of almost anything, and has a ton of tricks up his sleeves. From the author who brought you 55 Tricks of Jason Bourne, here are 69 Tricks and Tools of James Bond, from the first five Bond films, Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, and You Only Live Twice. From Goldfinger:
5. When in the enemy’s bathroom, Bond inspects the room for peepholes, and covers them with his clothing and shaving cream. In addition, he detects a two-way mirror, which lets him know a peephole is close.
6. In a guarded cell, Bond managed to jump to the ceiling and stay there temporarily to lure the guard in and escape.
7. Bond always keeps an eye on the person who has the keys to his handcuffs, so when he is dead, Bond can grab the keys.
Link – via squealingrat
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by squealingrat.
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Mata Hari was the stage name of Margaretha Zelle, an exotic dancer who was lured into the spy business during World War I. The French, who recruited her, suspected her of being a double agent and sentenced her to death. Read an eyewitness account of her execution on October 15, 1917, from Henry Wales, a British reporter who covered the event. Link -via Cynical-C
