This is the $24 gizmo the FBI says was used to bug OpenAI's offices

OpenAI's offices in San Francisco.

Authorities say an OpenAI employee installed a recording device in an executive office.

Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images The device the FBI says an employee used to bug OpenAI's office isn't exactly state-of-the-art.

You can buy the model for $24 on Amazon or even less from its Chinese manufacturer.

ChatGPT can help hone its surreptitious recording ability.

Gone are the days of Watergate, when Richard Nixon's "plumbers" used government-provided, state-of-the-art recording devices tucked into Chapstick containers to bug the Democratic National Committee.

Now, anyone with some pocket change and an Amazon account can get their hands on a far more advanced recording device.

One such gizmo, a postage-stamp-sized microcontroller that authorities say a now-former employee used to bug an executive conference room at OpenAI's San Francisco headquarters, sells for $24 on Amazon.

It has rave reviews.

If you buy directly from the China-based manufacturer, it's even cheaper, selling for about $14, not including sales tax and shipping fees.

And these days, you don't even need a background in espionage to use it.

An account associated with the suspect's spouse queried a chatbot with questions about optimizing the device's ability to record and store information secretly, according to an FBI complaint filed on October 8.

The accused, 35-year-old Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national, was arrested the next day and charged with "using or attempting to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications." Alfozan has not yet entered a plea, and his attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

How the listening device works According to the FBI complaint, the device in question is a Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense.