Hey, paranoid dudes and Philip K Dick! They really ARE looking at you through the TV set!

Start honing up your Jame Bond post-kill one-liners now

Photo © 2025 Alistair Dabbs

The name’s McLeod. Alessandro McLeod. I am a spy for the secret services.

Nuts, I wasn’t supposed to say that last bit. Unlike the rebooted Harry Palmer, it turns out I am not “good at this sort of thing”. The secret agent thing, that is. I am about as secret as the secret nuclear bunker at Kelvedon Hatch in Essex, whose precise whereabouts (e.g. Kelvedon Hatch in Essex) can be determined only if you know how to decipher the cleverly disguised directions subtly inserted into the text on signposts along the A128.

No super-magnetic watches for me. No exploding shoes. And definitely no pocket jet plane emerging from a horse’s arse. No, my key credential as a top agent is ownership of this official Kelvedon Hatch ‘Secret’ Nuclear Bunker mug. Its whereabouts are unknown; definitely not next to my keyboard as I type this.

Photo © 2025 Alistair Dabbs

Not to worry, I’m not spying for the British Secret Services anyway, or the French. I’m doing it for China.

It turns out that it’s really easy to do. As I understand it, all you need to get into the spying game on behalf of everyone’s favourite inscrutable superpower is to own an internet-connected device with a camera built into it. That’s according to security researchers at Bitsight, as reported in The Register earlier this week.

Apparently tens of thousands of webcams installed at datacentres, hospitals, factories, hotels, gyms, construction sites, shops and residential areas can be viewed by any online naughty person with determination. And it’s thought that spooks from China might be the naughtiest. And determinedest.