Home » About Murray Associates » History of Innovations


1978
• Murray Associates was the first TSCM firm with a published Operating Policy, and fixed Fee and Expense Schedule. Before this, practitioners either charged using unpredictable hourly fees, or flat-rates based on how much they thought they could charge. Some still do.
• We were also the first TSCM firm with a polygraph policy, to combat the “plant a bug, grow more work” mentality which was rampant at the time. Upon our discovery of bugging, wiretapping, or other forms of eavesdropping, clients have always had the right to verify our findings.
1980
1987
Miniature television cameras with AM micro-transmitters (900 MHz frequency range) became a major threat. Murray Associates was the first countermeasures firm to purchase a spectrum analyzer (Tektronix 2710) capable of receiving and viewing these TV signals.
1988
1992
1997
1999
New digital telephone systems are vulnerable to digital wiretaps and feature manipulation. Murray Associates develops a FFT technique to help detect these problems. Also in 1999, Spybusters.com the initial Murray Associates website becomes the first Internet site to honor eavesdropping history makers.
2000
2001
Wireless Local Area Networks become popular in many corporations and executive homes. So does inserting rogue wireless nodes into supposedly secure hard-wired systems. The threat… wireless wiretapping. Appropriate detection instrumentation is brought on board.
2002
VoIP telephony becomes the rage, offering more affordable calls. While irresistible to clients, these services were vulnerable to wiretapping, denial of service attacks, and theft of services. Murray Associates was the first in our field to research this communications “advancement,” and provide our clients with a safe migration strategy.
2003
At our clients’ request, Murray Associates established a local presence in the European Union and Oceania/Australasia.
2005
2006
Continuing research into new sensing instrumentation, we invested approximately $40,000.00 in government-level new NLJD instrumentation for our clients. One of the most exciting capabilities of the new equipment is their ability to “hear” video cameras hidden within objects like clocks, radios, furniture, ceilings, etc.
2007
2008
2009
2010
Spyware on “smart” cell phones hit critical mass this year. Clients and website visitors asked for a solution. What began as an executive briefing turned into a book – “Is My Cell Phone Bugged?: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Your Mobile Conversations Private” is released in early 2011.
2010
• Murray Associates staff completed a law enforcement oriented cell phone forensics training course. The instructor was the Chief Detective in charge of the Pennsylvania State Police Digital Forensics Lab at the time.
2011
• “Is My Cell Phone Bugged?: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Your Mobile Conversations Private” was officially released June 1st. It received excellent reviews at amazon.com, and now has its own web site.
• Development of a Closed Country Information Security Protocol for our clients.
2012
2013
Electronic components continue to get smaller and standard non-linear junction detection was not keeping pace. When new technology became available, we were the first to offer its use to the private sector in the U.S.
2014
• This is quickly followed by the SpyWarn™ Anti-Spyware Kit for Smartphones. This security hardware is exclusively available to Murray Associates clients, free of charge.
• Bugging becomes a concern at cryptocurrency offices and data centers. We developed specialized TSCM procedures for our clients.
2015
2016
2019
Our client asked us to manage eight TSCM inspections… all at different locations (some international), same day, same time, and repeated every week for three weeks. Our excellent network of associates handled it flawlessly.
2020
A new technology, Backscatter X-ray, is being deployed by U.S. Customs as a drug and money detection aid. We field tested this instrument to see if we could use it to help our clients. As amazing as the technology is, we found the screen resolution needed improvement for our purposes. We will keep our eye on it.
2021
We added X-ray analysis to our detection capabilities. Suspicious items can be examined at our clients’ locations, or mailed to our office lab.
2022