I travel all over the world for my job, and for my hobbies. Although there are still plenty of places I haven’t been, I’ve visited enough foreign countries that I don’t deny it when someone calls me a world traveler. Over the years, I’ve experienced my fair share of foreign spying. I know what it’s like to be snooped on.
I’m no longer surprised when I suddenly get gobs of spam from a country I’ve visited. My best guess is that someone in the country intercepted my email and recorded my email address. I still get porn spam in Arabic and ads for weight loss products in Mandarin. I’ve had my laptop and USB keys searched at countless borders.
An eye-opening moment: On one trip to an Asia-Pacific country, while I was taking a shower in my hotel room, I saw someone insert a USB key into my unlocked laptop. I yelled and jumped out of the shower, and the intruder ran out of the room, leaving his USB key behind. On it was a remote backdoor Trojan. That someone believed I was significant enough to spy on made me feel pretty important. It also taught me to be much more careful with my laptop.
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