In the 1950s there was the ‘cold war’. Russia and America, building up nuclear arms, spying, dastardly deeds, McCarthy witch-hunts and the yanks lived in mortal fear of ‘reds under the bed’. A metaphor for either Americans who were really communists, or ‘they hear what we say!’ Nothing to do with Arsenal fans. But this was the 50s and 60s. If you wanted to ‘spy’ remotely on someone you had to put a microphone in the room. A big, furry one like the BBC use in outside broadcasts. And it needed wire. So you needed a transmitter to be plugged in, maybe behind the tv and a receiver, quite nearby, probably in a van outside the door, a black one with “QUIET PLEASE; SURVEILLANCE IN PROGRESS” written on the side. Because solid state electronics didn’t really start minifying things until the 60s and 70s. So if you needed electrical equipment, it was gonna be big.

The tech revolution has found one of its many welcome homes in the espionage and criminal world. Spy shit is so small you can track 17 people with one (seemingly) human hair and monitor everything they do, say or think on your phone. And although Russia is still a kind of political no-go land (whereas for tourism its wonderful), the new enemy in the Even Colder War, is China. Different reds. Smaller ones. You can get more under the bed. They’re so small they can get stuck in your teeth. If that ever happened with the KGB then it was much more than a mere dental problem.

And if you extrapolate the whole espionage and spying thing to its logical evolutionary current status, adding in all the wows and amaaaazings that nano-technology can provide, you end up with a Huawei phone or computer that simply allows direct access to President Xi. Or you use Alexa which is the same thing. The bitch! Just a modern Mata Hari. Listening in to me and Mel talking about Lila and using it to influence the global power struggle!!

The actually found a ‘window’ in all Huawei computers that allows remote access. Its buried, its disguised but its there. Damned Yanks found it. And this’ll surprise you: Huawei deny any knowledge of it and have no idea how it got there. Bloody gremlins.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx