Hidden cameras are getting harder to spot: old, hefty spy gadgets you had to hide under a thick coat have been replaced tiny devices in the tips of pens that live stream HD video. Soon, thanks to new tech, spycams could even be entirely invisible.
But let’s go back in time a little bit, to the era where spy gadgets were synonymous with Bond and U.N.C.L.E. Early hidden cameras were one of the coolest, and most ingenious, in their own right. The Stasi briefcase camera, used in the 1970s, boasted infrared film and a flash undetectable to the human eye, but it was so big you had to lug it around in – you guessed it – a briefcase. If anyone looked inside, you were busted.
