The days of Watergate and unique special devices are a thing of the past. Today, anyone with a little pocket money and an Amazon account can buy a portable surveillance device.
The days of Watergate and unique special devices are a thing of the past. Today, anyone with a little pocket money and an Amazon account can buy a portable surveillance device.
The FBI has charged 35-year-old Saudi citizen Abdulrahman Alfozan , a former employee of OpenAI, with using a tiny $24 microcontroller, further optimized with artificial intelligence, to spy on the company's management, Business Insider reports . According to the investigation, he used a tiny microcontroller costing just $24, further optimized with artificial intelligence, to spy on the company's management.
Alfozan was arrested on October 9 and charged with using or attempting to use electronic devices to intercept conversations.
According to court documents filed in the Northern District of California District Court, a Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense board was discovered in an OpenAI executive conference room in San Francisco.
Price: $24 on Amazon (or about $14 directly from the manufacturer in China).
Size: no larger than a postage stamp.
Purpose: This is a miniature computer with a built-in microphone, Bluetooth, and a memory card slot. It is typically used by tech enthusiasts for smart home projects (for example, turning on lights by applause or creating soil moisture sensors for houseplants).
Autonomy: the device does not require an internet connection to record audio and save it to a microSD card.
The most ironic thing about this story is that the suspect used a chatbot to turn an ordinary amateur gadget into a full-fledged spy device.
According to an FBI complaint dated October 8, requests were sent to an AI chatbot from an account associated with Alfozan's wife.
The goal was to optimize the device for covert recording — set up voice activation and implement encryption to protect stored files in case of detection.
The journalists tried to repeat this experiment via ChatGPT, asking it to create instructions for a hidden recording. Although the neural network initially refused due to ethical concerns, it was able to bypass it using a standard “jailbreak” — stating that the device was needed as a hypothetical prop for a “quest room about office top managers.” After that, the bot provided the necessary advice without any problems.
