security things

From personal safety to protecting your belongings to identity theft, it's important to be security conscious today. It seems that almost every night I see stories of break-ins, burglaries and other attacks on the evening news. A lot of the time I find myself thinking that the victims might have protected themselves, their loved ones, their homes or their property with one of our simple little Things.

Our Wall Clock With Hidden Safe looks like a regular wall clock at first glance. But it's actually a battery operated wall safe that cleverly hangs in plain view. There are three shelves inside for valuables such as cash, jewelry and other precious items. When I got this Spare Key Hider for my aunt, who constantly locks herself out of her car, it didn't occur to me that it would contribute to her personal safety. Now instead of having to wait outside the safety of her car for the auto club (or me), she has a spare right under her license plate. Within a minute or so, she's back in her car and out of harm's way.

We've all heard the horror stories about household helpers who mistreat the children or steal or commit other crimes against the family. This Color 5.8 GHz Wireless Camera transmits signals on the newer 5.8 GHz frequency band, which makes it much less likely that neighboring electronics (like cordless phones, microwave ovens, and wireless LANs) will interfere with the signal. The color CMOS camera has 12 infrared LEDs for "night vision" surveillance and the receiver connects to a computer monitor or TV for viewing and/or recording.

With the Audio Jammer you can keep your private conversations private. It emits an unfilterable white noise that varies in frequency and amplitude to desensitize any bugs in the room. As long as your conversation is lower than the volume of the jamming noise, it masks human voices. Bugging devices can't separate the white noise from your voices--all the listener hears is a loud hissing noise.

Identity theft is one of the biggest topics on television, Internet newsgroups and office water coolers these days. Since I'm trying my best to go “paperless” both at work and at home, I burn a lot of backup CDs to store data I don't want to print. But my shredder won't shred a CD when I don't need it anymore. So this CD Destroyer is perfect. A rotating head with three steel points deeply scratches the surface of the disc. In just a few seconds, the disc is completely unreadable and you can throw it away with confidence.

My dad has this Driveway Patrol. At first I thought it was kind of silly that he had to know every time a car pulled into his driveway. But it detects more than expected visitors—it also detects people walking up to the door and the kids across the street who sometimes use his driveway as part of their skate park. And this Alarm Security Bar does the same thing for your doors. You just put the yoke against the doorknob and if anyone touches it, the alarm sounds. Or you can set it to play a recording of a barking dog to scare away intruders.

It's a shame, but the world we live in today requires us to be vigilant and security-minded at all times, so I'm sure glad these Things exist.