Reno 911: Mayor Finds GPS Tracker on Her Car – Sues PI

Reno mayor Hillary Schieve is suing a private investigator and his company after finding a device attached to her vehicle that was capable of tracking its real-time location.

The lawsuit alleges that the investigator trespassed onto her property to install the device without her consent. It says Schieve was unaware until a mechanic noticed it while working on her vehicle.

The complaint says, further, that the investigator was working on behalf of an “unidentified third party” whose identity she has not been able to ascertain...

There was no immediate response to a request for comment emailed Friday by The Associated Press to David McNeely, the investigator alleged to have placed the tracking device, and 5 Alpha Industries, the company... She brought it to police in neighboring Sparks, and they were able to determine that it had been purchased by McNeely. more

Do-it-Yourself Vehicle GPS Tracker Detection

PI Surveillance of Hand Injury Plaintiff Becomes 30.1 Billion Lawsuit

Cheap surveillance devices get expensive...

$11M settlement sparks $13.1B suit against American Family Insurance
A new lawsuit seeking billions of dollars in punitive damages claims AmFam and other parties illegally surveilled the plaintiff and her family...

It said that the lawyers hired the PI firm, at AmFam’s behest, to install surveillance devices around Mezqutal’s property and on family vehicles throughout the month of October 2019, or thereabouts.

“The AmFam defendants’ directions to the Martinelli Investigations Defendants included the mandate to have the investigators do whatever they needed to do to get surveillance of the plaintiff,” it said. “This direction was passed on to the Martinelli Investigations defendants by the Baker Donelson defendants.”

The PI defendants “unlawfully entered” Mezquitals’ property and “placed various electronic devices” on her property and two vehicles “to unlawfully record the activities of Plaintiff and her minor children. The electronic devices included at least one hidden video camera and multiple GPS tracking devices.”

The complaint said the PI team strapped a Spypoint Link-Dark “trail cam” digital camera, which is to a tree positioned to “capture plaintiff’s house, vehicles, and a portion of Plaintiff’s driveway. “The view provided by the Spypoint Link-Dark camera is not possible to obtain from a public road or from any other public property, it said. The “unlawful recordings were made without the consent of all persons observed and included photographs, videos, and electronic recordings of the activities of plaintiff and her minor children in a private place that was out of public view.”

The complaint includes claims for invasion of privacy, trespass to realty, trespass to personality, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and punitive damages and seeks joint and several liability for all the defendants. more  (Spypoint camera sales video)

Just Because You are Paranoid... Device Found in CEO's Car

Eskom CEO, André de Ruyter, has doubled down on the claim that he stumbled upon a highly sophisticated tracking device under the driver’s seat of his Volvo...

This comes after details were provided to press in October about a circuit board, described as an “NSA-level device”, that De Ruyter found while cleaning his car.

Articles cited a preliminary report prepared by former police commissioner George Fivaz who claimed the device isn’t commercially available, and is typically used by law enforcement and intelligence agencies...

Journalists were provided photos of the circuit board, which they duly published....

Security researcher Daniel Cuthbert was willing to comment on the record.

He explained that, based on the evidence, the device was likely nothing more than a remote of some kind.

Such a remote button could be a gate or garage opener, a panic button, or a way to arm and disarm a home alarm.

MyBroadband’s in-house researcher and electronic engineer Wikus Steyn agreed.

“There is no GPS chip or antenna, so no tracking that way. I see no mic onboard, although there is what seems to be a 2-pin input at the top, but that is most likely for a push button,” Steyn stated. He also said the quality of soldering suggests cheap mass production. more

Our take... I agree with Dan and Wikus. (but be sure to read the last paragraph) If the TI IC info in the photo is correct TI lists the chip's applications as:

1.2 Applications

• Low-Power, High-Performance, Wireless Systems With Data Rate Up to 1250 kbps
• ISM/SRD Bands: 169, 433, 868, 915, and 920 MHz
• Possible Support for Additional Frequency Bands: 137 to 158.3 MHz, 205 to 237.5 MHz, and 274 to 316.6 MHz
• Smart Metering (AMR/AMI)
• Home and Building Automation
• Wireless Alarm and Security Systems
• Industrial Monitoring and Control
• Wireless Healthcare Applications
• Wireless Sensor Networks and Active RFID
• IEEE 802.15.4g Applications
• Wireless M-Bus, All Modes

Eskom CEO, André de Ruyter, may have misidentified this item, but it definitely doesn't mean he is not being surveilled. Thoughts of tracking and bugging are not normal. Something has made him suspicious. Trust your instincts, André. Get some professional TSCM help, and don't make it a public issue.

Five Individuals Charged - Spying on U.S. Residents on Behalf of the PRC Secret Police

 ...As part of their efforts, the defendants electronically spied on the pro-democracy activists.  For example, posing as an art dealer interested in purchasing the artwork of the dissident artist, Ziburis secretly installed surveillance cameras and GPS devices at the dissident’s workplace and in his car.  While in the PRC, Sun watched the live video feed and location data from these devices.  The defendants made similar plans to install surveillance equipment at the residences and on the vehicles of two other dissidents.  Liu and Ziburis planned to gain access to one such residence by posing as a member of an international sports committee... more 

If you think you might be a target of any spy operation contact a professional Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM) security consultant for assistance.

Weird GPS Tracking Story: Shark Seems to Leave Sea for a Road Trip

Australia - A bull shark under surveillance left scientists scratching their heads after it seemed to begin traveling down a major roadway in New South Wales.

Marine biologists noticed the predator – or at least its tag – was moving along the Princes Highway between Shellharbour and Wollongong, having apparently quit the sea at Shell Cove on Wednesday morning. more 

I recall a somewhat similar incident involving a bear here in New Jersey... sing-a-long Enjoy the weekend!

Cars Know Your Location. A Spy Firm Wants to Sell It to the Military

• 15 billion car locations.
• Nearly any country on Earth.
‘The Ulysses Group’ is pitching a powerful surveillance technology to the U.S. government.

A surveillance contractor that has previously sold services to the U.S. military is advertising a product that it says can locate the real-time locations of specific cars in nearly any country on Earth. It says it does this by using data collected and sent by the cars and their components themselves, according to a document obtained by Motherboard.

"Ulysses can provide our clients with the ability to remotely geolocate vehicles in nearly every country except for North Korea and Cuba on a near real time basis," the document, written by contractor The Ulysses Group, reads. "Currently, we can access over 15 billion vehicle locations around the world every month," the document adds. more

Placed in my Grain of Salt file until I can verify.

GPS Trackers, Hidden Cameras on the Rise During Pandemic

Domestic violence offenders are increasingly using GPS trackers and surveillance cameras to monitor their victims, with support workers saying technology-based abuse has escalated during the pandemic... 

The report, co-authored by researchers from WESNET, Curtin University and the University of New England, surveyed 442 support workers from around the country who specialise in helping victims of family and sexual violence...

In 2020, nearly one in three frontline workers said they saw victims tracked with GPS apps or devices "all the time". Five years ago, only 8 per cent of workers saw that type of abuse that often.

Surveillance camera misuse was seen "all the time" or "often" by 42 per cent of support workers in 2020, up from 16 per cent in 2015. more

Learn how to detect covert cameras.

How to Detect Malicious USB Cables

A malicious cable is any cable (electrical or optical) which performs an unexpected, and unwanted function. The most common malicious capabilities are found in USB cables. Data exfiltration, GPS tracking, and audio eavesdropping are the primary malicious functions...

The worst malicious cables take control of a user’s cell phone, laptop, or desktop...

We purchased and tested several malicious USB cables. From what was learned during these tests our technical staff developed several new inspection protocols.

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Can’t identify the bugged cable?
No worries. You can’t tell just by looking, even we can’t.
That’s why we put a small black mark on it.
It is Cable 3.