A hotel guest in Luoyang, Henan province, China built a makeshift tent in her hotel room to guard against hidden cameras while she slept.
The woman named Dang posted video of her creation to social media, showing how she built the tent MacGuyver-style with cheap and readily-available materials. She tied a long piece of rope to high points in the hotel room (e.g. cabinet handles, curtain tracks, or wall hooks) and draped a large furniture-covering sheet over the rope to form the tent. Just buying a tent would have been easier – but more expensive and too bulky to travel with.
You won’t find me doing this. Then again, no one is going to intentionally stick a camera in a hotel room to catch me in bed or the shower. Still, the video camera might be there anyway, and it’s really creepy.
Cameras are often concealed inside of devices you’d expect to find in a room like a clock radio, a smoke detector, or inside an air conditioning vent. Here’s a walk-through of how to find any hidden cameras in your hotel room or Airbnb.
@malwaretech Reply to @safarijackza How to find hidden cameras in AirBnBs #safety #travel
Here’s the basic advice:
- Check around the room for devices near where someone might want to record, such as a bed or shower.
- Check those devices for a camera by shining a light on them.
- Look for infrared sensors on devices, more likely in a bedroom than bathroom (since people don’t usually shower in the dark)
- You can also use a radio frequency detector to check for signals from devices
I’ve offered advice on finding any devices that may be in your room. Check for plaster near the wall or on furniture, because that could be from pinholes that were drilled. Look for unusual placement of objects (to get just the right angle on you). Look for new paint in areas. And listen for static from the hotel phone (which might mean a radio signal).
I’ve written about a woman suing Hilton for $100 million because an employee videotaped her in the shower and used the tape to blackmail her. There’s even been a subscription website where people paid to watch hotel guests being spied on in their rooms. Airbnb has a problem with hidden cameras in homes placed there by owners, too.
Of course in Japan you’ve been able to rent a room where you’re only charged $1 because they actually adverise that you’ll be livestreamed on YouTube.
I believe major chain hotels – as a brand standard – should conduct regular sweeps to ensure guest privacy. I’m not aware of any that do this.
(HT: @crucker)
Love this!!!
Pretty soon some hotel operators are going to start selling the materials to build in room tents as a new revenue stream.
Such things are probably inside jobs, the sweepers are either part of it or know to hide their stuff.
…”I believe major chain hotels – as a brand standard – should conduct regular sweeps to ensure guest privacy. I’m not aware of any that do this.”
Well it won’t be the franchisees !
Sadly most “brand” hotels in US are 3rd party management/franchisees and they are most likely to record.
I also believe that in the case of AirBNB and hotels – most of the time it may be a previous guest that installs the camera.
I actually think a major hotel chain regularly conducting “hidden camera sweeps” will cause legal problems for the chain.
In the event a guest discovers a hidden camera and sues, his/her lawyer can argue “the fact that you regularly conducted these sweeps shows you knew of a problem and failed to adequately protect my client.”
I stay in a lot of hotels and most of my hotel stays are single-night stays. I have neither the time nor the interest to do sweeps of the room for hidden monitoring devices when all I am doing in the room is using it as a place to sleep and use the bathroom and not even touching on sensitive communications or work product. But I live a pretty boring life in hotel rooms — which is not something I can say for some loud hotel room neighbors at times — and I can only pity the sad creatures who may get their jollies checking me out for all the wrong reasons.
If a peeping tom gets their jollies from seeing Pucci Galore in a hotel room and realizing it’s a man named Peter or Paul but it’s definitely not Mary on the top or bottom, not much any of us can do about that even when we find out about it except to pass the message along that something was amiss.
There are numerous detectors on Amazon in the $20-$30 range that work well enough for most cases. They aren’t going to protect you from the KGB, but it may protect you against the amateur voyeur
@Gary Leff — What does ‘adverise’ mean in Japan? I presume you meant ‘advertise’ (and it was a typo), and were not intentionally making a Japanese joke. But if you were mocking their pronunciation of Engrish words, that’s fine, too. You do you, bruther.