Spy News of the Week

NZ - A soldier based in New Zealand has been charged with spying, the NZ Defense Force confirmed in a statement Wednesday. Why it matters: The soldier allegedly has ties to far-right extremist groups, per multiple local media reports. They're the first person to face espionage charges in New Zealand. more

Iran released a British-Australian scholar, Kylie Moore-Gilbert, detained since 2018 on charges of spying for Israel, in a prisoner swap conducted Wednesday for three Iranian men described by Iran’s official media as businessmen who had been held abroad. more

TX - A Texas A&M employee claims in a federal lawsuit against the university that her former boss secretly recorded her and dozens of other women using the bathroom... The camera was located underneath a counter in the women’s bathroom, facing toward the toilet. more

Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde formally urged Iran to cancel an execution for an Iranian-Swedish professor charged with spying for Israel. more 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised Jonathan Pollard, an American who spent 30 years in U.S. prison for spying for Israel, a warm welcome and a comfortable life in Israel now that parole restrictions have ended. more

Hackers have the ability to use Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology to enable vacuum cleaners to eavesdrop private conversations in houses. A LiDAR sensor is designed to scan the surroundings by utilising laser-based ranging techniques to create a distance map. In robotic vaccum cleaners, these sensors act as navigators and provide mapping services to clean houses. more

MA - Betty Cavacco is calling for a special town counsel to investigate alleged email spying by Town Manager Melissa Arrighi, but no one else on the Select Board is supporting that proposal. Following a lengthy executive session that delayed the start of Tuesday’s meeting, board member Cavacco read a statement urging the appointment of an investigator to review this matter, calling the allegations of spying on emails “a disturbing and scary affront to the foundations of the government of this town.” more

Swiss public television, SRF, has found a second company besides Crypto AG was involved in manufacturing manipulated devices allegedly used for spying by foreign intelligence... Of concern are the OC-500 series devices. Devices were sold to several Swiss federal agencies. However, Swiss authorities only noticed the devices weren't secure in the mid-2000s. more