Expert in covert techniques says off-the-shelf plug socket device is unlikely to have been planted by state agencySurveillance experts have described the bugging device that Ecuador says was hidden behind a plug socket in its London embassy as rudimentary and unlikely to have been the work of the British police or security services.
Photographs of the device were
revealed late on Wednesday in Quito by Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, who claimed it had been installed by a Worcester surveillance and security firm,
The Surveillance Group Limited.
The firm's chief executive, Timothy Youngs, said on Thursday that the allegation was "completely untrue".
The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lives and works in a different room in the embassy in Knightsbridge where he has been granted diplomatic asylum.
After analysing the images, one expert in covert techniques who has worked for UK law enforcement agencies told the
Guardian: "We do not do plug sockets, that's old hat. It's the first place people look. The bug is one you can buy off the shelf. If we do something, most likely we would custom build it. My first thought [is] it would not be a state agency."
Comment: Another possibility is that, while the embassy bug could be considered rudimentary, certain intelligence services could have planted the bug there knowing it would be found in order to send a message to Ecuador that they are being watched. They also likely have far more advanced surveillance technology in use not only in the Ecuadorean embassy but for every other countries' embassies.