Wednesday, December 7, 2022
Canada Awarded RCMP Contract to Firm with Ties to China
The contract has security experts raising concerns about potential Chinese access to RCMP communications and data.
On October 6, 2021, the federal government awarded Sinclair Technologies a contract worth $549,637 for a radio frequency (RF) filtering system. One of the system's purposes is to protect the RCMP's land-based radio communications from eavesdropping...
Conor Healy, a Canadian now based in Washington, said, "the risks include eavesdropping, collection of communications data and jamming or shutting down the radio communications system." more
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
Just Because You are Paranoid... Device Found in CEO's Car
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
- 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
Monday, October 31, 2022
Retail Employee Says Company Installed Illegal Audio-Recording Cameras at Work
One of those states is New York, which has implemented anti-eavesdropping statutes that protect employees' conversations from being recorded while at work.
TikToker Ethan Carlson, who posts under the handle @therealethancarlson, recently uploaded a video about his workplace's audio-enabled cameras, prompting many viewers to urge him to report his employer.
In a now viral clip, Ethan says to the camera, "This is not a f--king drill, my place of work has installed these cameras."
He then points his camera lens and zooms in to show security devices installed up high in his store. more
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
Sensors Tap Into Mobile Vibrations to Eavesdrop Remotely
In the mmSpy demonstration, the researchers simulated people speaking through the earpiece of a smartphone. The brand is irrelevant, Basak said, but the researchers tested their approach on both a Google Pixel 4a and a Samsung Galaxy S20. The phone's earpiece vibrates from the speech, and that vibration permeates across the body of the phone.
"We use the radar to sense this vibration and reconstruct what was said by the person on the other side of the line," Basak said, noting that their approach works even when the audio is completely inaudible to both humans and microphones nearby. more
This paper presents a system mmSpy that shows the feasibility of eavesdropping phone calls remotely. Towards this end, mmSpy performs sensing of earpiece vibrations using an off-the-shelf radar device that operates in the mmWave spectrum (77GHz, and 60GHz). abstract
Saturday, October 15, 2022
SPECIAL EDITION: U.S. Bugging Operation Against Soviets
The document — written in Russian and almost certainly produced by the KGB, unlike the other Polish-language files in the tranche of documents — provides a meticulous pictorial account of the ways in which the U.S. spy services sought to technically surveil the Russians on American soil. The file offers an unprecedented, stunning — if dated — look at these efforts to eavesdrop on Russian government activities within the U.S.
- encased in plaster in an apartment closet;
- behind electrical and television outlets;
- bored into concrete bricks and threaded into window frames;
- inside wooden beams and baseboards;
- stashed within a building’s foundation itself;
- surreptitiously attached to security cameras;
- wired into ceiling panels and walls;
- and secretly implanted into the backseat of cars and in their window panels, instrument panels, and dashboards.
Click to enlarge. |
It's unknown why the Soviets declined to publicize all the bugs they found within their U.S.-based facilities. The Russians ripped them out from their hiding spots, ostensibly preventing them from feeding the U.S. disinformation through the listening devices and trackers they identified.
Click to enlarge. |
Thursday, October 6, 2022
Office Bugging Leak Inquiry—Given 7 Days to Submit Report
Tuesday, August 23, 2022
A Warning Worth Repeating — iPhone's Spying Feature
The Apple iPhone is packed full of secret tools and tricks. But one feature is possibly the sneakiest of them all.
The iPhone's 'Live Listen' feature was originally intended to help people with hearing difficulties better manage conversations in noisy environments.
It lets you listen to a live audio feed through your AirPod earphones using the iPhone's microphone from a distance.
Tuesday, August 16, 2022
Indoor Optical Fiber Eavesdropping Approach and its Avoidance
1994 - 1999
Number made - 323
Thursday, August 11, 2022
Journalist Vitaliy Portnikov Finds a Bed Bug
About this in facebook Deputy Mykola Kniazhitsky said, reports Ukrinform.
“Journalist Vitaliy Portnikov, presenter of a program on Espresso and Radio Liberty, found a listening device at home in Lviv. This is a voice recorder with the ability to record for a long time. The police were called. They were quickly on the spot. do not know who and what purpose this device has installed: our services, foreign or criminals,” said the politician.
Vitaly Portnikov commented on the incident for “Espresso“: “Today, while cleaning the apartment in which I was located at the end of February, when the war started, I found a recording device under the bed. There was an inventory number on the device. I notified the police of my find so they could investigate the incident.”
Vitaliy Portnikov is a well-known Ukrainian journalist, publicist and political commentator. Works with Radio Liberty and Espresso. more
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
Walmart Patents Technology to Eavesdrop on Workers
Wednesday, June 22, 2022
In The Listeners, Brian Hochman Details History of Eavesdropping (Book Review)
America's first wiretapping conviction happened in 1864. A stockbroker named D.C. Williams had been tapping a telegraph line in California to get corporate information, which he used for advantageous stock trades. The law he broke had been passed two years earlier, making California the first state to regulate wiretapping.
The telephone had not been invented yet, and the transcontinental telegraph had only just been completed. The Golden State's legislators were ahead of the game. Ever since then, legislation dealing with electronic surveillance has been playing catch-up—both with the technology and with public sentiment. more
Thursday, June 2, 2022
What Can a Private Investigator do for Your Business?
Corporate espionage is bigger than you may think and if you have a product or industry secret that your competitors would love to get their hands on then hiring a private detective can help. There are many ways your competitors may use to steal your business data, some of which could be installing malware on your company computers or bugging your office or meeting rooms.
A private detective can be hired to search your business for electronic bugs and get rid of them accordingly. If you think this is a work of fiction and it doesn’t happen you would be mistaken. Bugs are placed in businesses and private residents illegally all of the time. more
Researchers Develop Anti-Eavesdropping Algorithm for Smartphone Mics
This algorithm works by using predictive voice technology: that is, it can recognize human speech and instinctively generate audible background noise like muffling or whispers in order to camouflage the user’s words.
The technology works in real-time as the algorithm is able to create the obstruction while a person is speaking to a voice-controlled device or conversing with a friend.
But why create such an algorithm in the first place?
The problem stems from advertiser eavesdropping. While this is an issue that has not been proved or disproved, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that backs it up. more
Thursday, May 26, 2022
‘American Idol’ Winner Accused of Bugging LSU Student’s Dorm
The Associated Press reported that Hardy’s ex-girlfriend and her roommate found the alleged listening device, which looked like a phone charger, in their dorm room on April 6. She reported it to LSUPD the next day, and officers noted in a police affidavit acquired by the AP that they found recordings from a 10-day span in February. more
Sunday, May 15, 2022
Ex-Coca-Cola Chemist Sentenced for Stealing $120 Million Trade Secret
“Stealing technology isn’t just a crime against a company,” Acting Assistant Director Bradley S. Benavides of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division said in a release. “It’s a crime against American workers whose jobs and livelihoods are impacted.” more
Chinese CCTV Cameras on British Streets Contain Hidden Microphones
Things Often Mistaken for Eavesdropping Bugs
Usually the answer is, “I understand why you are asking is this a bug. Some bugs do look similar to this. But, here is what you actually found.”
Real electronic eavesdropping devices are getting smaller. So are lots of other little electronic bits which are part of our everyday lives. Distinguishing between the two can be tricky.
Saturday, May 7, 2022
The Colorful Side of Eavesdropping & Wiretaps
In one regiment, one Russian soldier allegedly said they’ve been pouring sand into the tanks’ fuel systems to clog them up.
“I don't follow stupid orders, I simply refuse,” one fighter can be heard telling a comrade. “The motherf*cker sent me to tanks, motherf*cking piece of shit. I f*cked it up and that's it.”
When the fellow Russian soldier on the other end of the line heard the unit wasn’t punished for the insubordination, he indicated he might repeat the tactic later in his own unit...
Sunday, April 24, 2022
New Algorithm to Shield Conversations from Eavesdropping AI
The thought that our gadgets are spying on us isn't a pleasant one, which is why a group of Columbia University researchers have created what they call "neural voice camouflage."
This technology won't necessarily stop a human listener from understanding someone if they're snooping (you can give recordings a listen and view the source code at the link above). Rather, this is a system designed to stop devices equipped with microphones from transmitting automatically transcribed recordings. It's quiet – just above a whisper – but can generate sound specifically modeled to obscure speech in real time so that conversations can't be transcribed by software and acted upon or the text sent back to some remote server for processing...
According to Vondrick, the algorithm his team developed can stop a
microphone-equipped AI model from interpreting speech 80 percent of the
time, all without having to hear a whole recording, or knowing anything
about the gadget doing the listening. more