Editing Espionage Gear (section)

=== Sidebar: Bugs and Surveillance ===
Though surveillance technologies are pervasive and easy to come by in Eclipse Phase, secretly obtaining information on someone who wants to retain privacy can be quite difficult. Microbugs, smart dust, and similar recording devices that are all but invisible may be exceptionally easy to put into place, but once they begin actively transmitting, they are easy to to detect. An eavesdropper may attempt to stealth the signal (see Stealthed Signals), but this is not guaranteed to work. Once a signal is detected, locating the broadcasting device is usually just a matter of time (see Tracking).
Some recording devices attempt to avoid this problem by using miniature quantum farcasters, but those are far larger and more difficult to hide. Often the most effective way to acquire discrete information is to plant a surveillance device, set to record but not transmit, and then retrieve it later. While doing this is often difficult and risky, the recording device never reveals its presence by broadcasting and so is more difficult to detect.