Magician Derek DelGaudio does a special type of show, directed by Frank Oz, and commanding a high profile audience. You won’t find his performances on YouTube, though. He has strict policies against any type of recording in the theater.
At a recent performance in New York he was building up to an awesome vanishing effect that would astound everyone watching. But someone in that audience was doing more than just watching, he was trying to steal his secrets.
According to a NY Times Theater report:
Mr. DelGaudio was presenting a monologue about a painful childhood memory, to be capped off with a vanishing effect that left the audience gasping, when a technician in the booth at the back of the 155-seat Daryl Roth Theater in Manhattan looked down at a security monitor and became suspicious about a light pulsing from a smartphone propped up in an audience member’s breast pocket.
At one point, the man in the audience took the phone out of his pocket and held it under his chin, as if pointing it at Mr. DelGaudio.
It could have just been an audience member attempting to sneak a photo of the magician. It turned out to be another magician, mentalist David Meade. Meade was apparently known for his efforts to spy on other magicians. Stealing such intellectual property is a big no-no in the world of magic.
It was the infrared light being used by Meade’s camera that tipped off the technician. An infrared light will be invisible to the naked eye but is very visible to most video cameras. Thus not only was the infrared being used as an invisible light for taking a picture, but it also was the give-away as the security camera watching the audience in the dark theater was able to spot the light clearly, allowing the ushers to be directed to Mr. Meade.
This technique works well to spot infrared camera lights. It is often used in theaters to try to catch those trying to pirate new movies, but the technique is used in eavesdropping countermeasures as well.
Light waves can be manipulated or modulated to transmit audio from one area to another, a method used by spies for many decades. Checking for the possibility of infrared beams is an important part of a security sweep.
Back in the 1980’s infrared began to be used for consumer audio. A popular product called the “marriage saver” would allow the husband or wife to listen to the TV with infrared headphones while their partner slept soundly. The transmitter would sit atop the TV and the headphones would either have a built in infrared receiver or could plug into a separate receiver box. In more recent years, infrared headphones also became popular for listening to in-car DVD players.
More powerful and well developed infrared systems have been used for assistive listening in meeting rooms or auditoriums. Large panels of LED’s would transmit the program audio to audience members anywhere in the room who would have headphones connected to special receiving devices.
A variety of infrared transmitting devices have been and are still used by corporate spies to allow eavesdropping on an area from a remote distance. With the advent of LED lighting, not only invisible infrared light but visible light as well can be digitally manipulated and used for transmission of information.
Part of the countermeasures performed by a TSCM team will include procedures which look for infrared or visual light that may be modulated in this manner.
Infrared microphone systems can also be successfully used for protecting confidential meetings. Traditional wireless mics using radio waves will typically penetrate the walls allowing the signals to be picked up in a wide area outside the room. Wireless microphones using infrared light, though, can insure that the information being presented does not leave the meeting room- as long as there are no windows or openings letting the light escape.
An usher checked David Meade’s phone and did not find any recordings. If he had made recordings, they seemed to have magically vanished from the device. Oh wait, he’s a magician, right?
Within a week of the Meade incident, ever vigilant DelGaudio caught another magician filming his finale. If you want to know how it ends, you will probably need to purchase your own tickets, just don’t bring your camera.
Whether magician Meade was attempting to steal intellectual property from Mr. DelGaudio may be difficult to determine. There is a lesson though, that if you have information you want to keep private, you may need to take extra precautions to protect those secrets.