Doc v. Doc Bugging Ends in House Call to Graybar Motel

India - Spying on his wife landed a qualified doctor husband behind bars on Saturday. 

Dr Gyaneshwar Maini, who owns a private hospital, was arrested for keeping a tab on the locations and conversations of his wife, while installing a high-quality Global Positioning System (GPS) along with a micro-mike packed in a black box in the steering wheel of her sedan car for the past eight months. 

The victim is also a qualified doctor and employed with a leading private hospital in Mohali.  

Police have also decided to take legal action against employees of a private firm, who installed the device in the car of the woman.

The GPS system, along with a mike, was in a black box worth Rs 18,000 ($293.76), which was detected with the help of an expert from a private company, which supplies these gadgets. 

The black box was linked with a 10-digit cell number used by Dr Maini's friend. Police said the installer of the device in the car has identified Dr Maini. In her complaint to the police, the woman suspected that there was some instrument in her car, which was keeping a tab on her movements and conversations, about which her husband would come to know even without her telling him. (more)

Spybusters Tip #948 - Android Device Manager Allows Remote Locate, Signal & Erase Security for Android Devices

Access the settings by opening the Google Settings app from your Android app drawer and tapping the option for Android Device Manager.

From there you can choose whether to enable remote location or wiping. This lets you login to the Android Device Manager website and find your phone on a map, cause your device to ring so you can find it if it’s in your other pants pocket or lost in couch cushions, or perform a factory reset if the phone’s been lost or stolen. (more)

Emergency Wristwatch for Spies... and Maybe Your CEO

Traveling in dangerous places? 
No cell phone service?
You may want one of these...

The Emergency II is equipped with a microtransmitter alternately operating on two separate frequencies over a 24-hour period. It transmits a first digital signal on the 406 MHz frequency intended for satellites and lasting 0.44 seconds every 50 seconds; as well as a second analog signal on the 121.5 MHz homing and rescue frequency, lasting 0.75 seconds every 2.25 seconds.



The development of this dual frequency transmitter specifically designed for the Emergency II was a major technical challenge, essentially due to its dimensions that had to be adapted to the wrist. Conducted in cooperation with an institute specializing in aerospace, defense and industry, it notably involved creating a new circuit exclusively dedicated to this instrument in order to be able to transmit on two frequencies and to do so within an extremely compact volume. 

The result is a record in terms of both miniaturization and guaranteed reliability, which lays down new benchmarks reaching well beyond the sphere of watchmaking. (more)

Price?
About US$18,600.00, if you go for the titanium bracelet instead of a rubber strap.
Hey, how much is your life worth?

Cell Phone Fingerprinting - GPS Tells WHO You Are

Can you be identified only by where you take your phone? Yes, according to a new study, which finds it's not very hard at all.

While most of us are free to go wherever we want, our daily and weekly movement patterns are pretty predictable. We go to work, to school, to church, to our neighborhood gym, grocery store or coffee shop, and we come home -- all quietly tracked by the GPS in our phone.

Click to enlarge.

And with nothing more than this anonymous location data, someone who wanted to badly enough could easily figure out who you are by tracking your smartphone. Patterns of our movements, when traced on a map, create something akin to a fingerprint that is unique to every person.
 
"Four randomly chosen points are enough to uniquely characterize 95% of the users (ε > .95), whereas two randomly chosen points still uniquely characterize more than 50% of the users (ε > .5). This shows that mobility traces are highly unique, and can therefore be re-identified using little outside information."

Those are the findings of a report by researchers from MIT and elsewhere, published this week in the journal Scientific Reports. (more)

Zombie Privacy Bills Struggle to Become Laws

Just two days after new legislative reform on e-mail privacy was re-introduced in Congress, another privacy bill was brought back from years past.

On Thursday, three members of the House (two Republicans and a Democrat) and two bipartisan senators introduced the GPS Act, which would require law enforcement to obtain a probable cause-driven warrant before accessing a suspect’s geolocation information. The bill had originally been introduced nearly two years ago by the same group of legislators. 
  
The new GPS bill as it stands (PDF) contains exceptions for emergencies, including "national security" under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but otherwise requires a warrant for covert government-issued tracking devices. The proposed penalty for violating this new provision could come with fines and/or five years in prison.
(more)

Chinese Launch Espionage Investigation Against Coca-Cola

Chinese authorities have opened an espionage investigation against Coca-Cola Co. for allegedly making illegal maps of restricted areas in China, according to a South China Morning Post report Thursday. 

"What we can say for now is that many subsidiaries of Coca-Cola are involved and this happens in many provinces," the report quoted an unidentified Chinese official as saying, adding that the Ministry of State Security was involved in the probe. 

Among the issues was the use of hand-held GPS devices to collect sensitive geographic information in Yunnan province, the report said. 

It quoted a Coca-Cola statement Wednesday as saying the company was "cooperating fully" with the investigation, and that GPS devices involved used "digital map and customer logistic systems commercially available in China." (more)

How to keep dragons at bay... (click)

Trakdot - Smart Baggage Surveillance

Paranoid about your luggage? 
Did it make the plane? 
Did it make the wrong plane? 
Where is it now? 

In March, you may be able to pinpoint where your luggage is even before the airline!

"Trakdot™ Luggage is constantly monitoring the cellular network to determine it's city location. When you fly, Trakdot™ Luggage knows and goes to sleep. Upon arriving at your destination, Trakdot™ Luggage wakes up and reports it's new location. Depending on your preferences, a text-message or email is sent to you confirming that your luggage has arrived with you." (more)

Are They Tracking You? - Government Cell Phone Surveillance

From an article in "For the Defense" Winter 2012 • Volume XVI, Issue 4, New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, by Bill Elliott, Criminal Defense Investigative Specialist — Contact the author for a pdf copy of the full article.

With the recent ruling in USA v. Jones mandating that law enforcement will now need probable cause and a warrant prior to attaching a GPS (Global Positioning System) tracking device to someone’s vehicle, most people are feeling pretty secure that the government will not be tracking their every movement without good reason and authorization from a judge. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

In fact, this narrow decision by the U.S. Supreme Court (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-1259.pdf) only addressed the issue of physically attaching a GPS tracker to someone’s vehicle and not the more common place practice of tracking someone using their cell phone...

What is a cell phone ‘ping’ and why all the government interest in cell site location data?
 
Simply stated, a cell ping is when a cell tower communicates with a cell phone in its area of coverage to see if there is a need to connect. Cell phones are continuously communicating with cell site towers every couple of seconds saying here I am, are you receiving my signal.
 
This is happening even if no call is being placed at the time. At times a cell phone may be communicating with as many as six cell towers at once as it nears a handoff point. Each cell tower is recording this contact and this information can be utilized to track the location and movements of the cell phone across town or across the country. A cell phone’s location can be identified to within a quarter-mile radius of the cell tower location. The location can be narrowed even further by utilizing information as to which side of the tower the cell phone was on and, using other cell phone towers to triangulate the cell phone’s signal, the actual location can be pinpointed with signal strength meters.

In a nutshell... If you voluntarily carry a GPS receiver with you (a feature of your cell phone), it is not a surveillance enhancement. Thus, it can be used against you.

Put a GPS in a Candy Bar - Sales Skyrocket

The candy company launched the “We Will Find You” campaign in the United Kingdom where GPS tracking devices were placed inside six candy bars.  

Once the winning candy bar wrapper is opened, the tracking device will go off and Nestle officials will be able to find the exact location of the customer.

“This will alert a secret control room who will scramble a crack team of highly trained individuals,” the commercial states. “They will board a helicopter, find the special bar and give the owner 10,000 pounds ($16,145).”

The six tracking devices will be placed in Kit-Kat, Aero and Yorkie bars in the U.K. (more)

What could possibly go wrong? Hummm... The guys in the warehouse borrow the guard's metal detector and scan pallet-loads of product. 

Seriously, if they have their act together, the bars are not going through the usual distribution chain. They are being placed on the shelf at the very last minute and the camera crew is waiting in the stock room. Brilliant promotion, however.

Lo-Jack Your Car, Kids, Pets... Anything!

from the manufacturer... 

"Simply give the PocketFinder GPS tracker to a person or attach it to your pet or vehicle and locate the devices from our website or on your smartphone with our iOS® and Android® apps.

PocketFinder features work even while you’re not thinking about them. Best of all, they’re simple to use! Geo-fence zones, speed limits, alerts, history and power features will maximize how much value you get from using the devices." (more)

Cell Phones - The Remote Track Hack

A GPS weakness could allow hackers to remotely track smartphone users, or even completely take over mobile devices, University of Luxembourg researcher Ralf-Phillip Weinmann reported last night at Black Hat.

Instead of directly using GPS satellites, most mobile devices receive much faster assisted GPS (A-GPS) signals from cellular networks to determine approximate location. However, Weinmann discovered that these A-GPS messages are transmitted over a non-secure internet link, and could be switched for messages from an attacker. Weinmann demonstrated this vulnerability on several Android devices... (more)

See What 6 Months of Your Phone Data Reveals

Green party politician Malte Spitz sued to have German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom hand over six months of his phone data that he then made available to ZEIT ONLINE. We combined this geolocation data with information relating to his life as a politician, such as Twitter feeds, blog entries and websites, all of which is all freely available on the internet.

Click to enlarge.

By pushing the play button, you will set off on a trip through Malte Spitz's life. The speed controller allows you to adjust how fast you travel, the pause button will let you stop at interesting points. In addition, a calendar at the bottom shows when he was in a particular location and can be used to jump to a specific time period. Each column corresponds to one day. (more)

The Incredible Tale of the Spying Broken Heart Surgeon

A Connecticut heart surgeon has been ordered by a civil jury to pay $2 million to his ex-girlfriend after admitting to planting cameras in her home.

"And this year's award goes to..."

Dr. William V. Martinez, a divorced father of nine, admitted to planting surveillance cameras in the home of D'Anna Welsh, a physician's assistant at Hartford Hospital. He also said he planted a tracking device in her car.

The Hartford Courant reported Welsh and Martinez dated from sometime in 2001 to February 2007, when Martinez broke up with Welsh.

Later that year, a plumber discovered "suspicious" equipment embedded in a crawl space beneath the floor of Welsh's home. She first called the police. Then she called Martinez, who admitted to planting the equipment in her home.

"Martinez further admitted to [her] that he had been viewing video of her bedroom and that he had also been eavesdropping from his car via audio devices he installed in her home," says the civil complaint.

At the time Welsh did not press charges. However a year later, Martinez mentioned details of Welsh's life to her that he had no way of knowing about, leading her to believe he was still spying on her, the newspaper said.

Martinez was charged in criminal court with eavesdropping and voyeurism in 2008, and agreed to two years of accelerated rehabilitation.

Welsh, still uneasy, hired a security firm to sweep her home in January 2010, the newspaper said. She filed a civil suit against Martinez in July 2010 after the firm discovered a camera hidden inside her TV. (more)

How Cabbies Cheat the Fare Dispatch System

Australia - A Melbourne taxi driver has exposed a sophisticated scam that some operators are using to override taxi meters and stay at the top of the fare dispatch system. 

The Silver Top driver has told the ABC that some drivers are using remote electronic devices and radio frequency jammers to trick the cab companies into giving them work when they are not in the area.

The equipment is easily purchased at online sites like eBay.

Neil Sach from the Victorian Taxi Association fears hundreds of drivers could be in on the scam. (more with video)


The scam is likely being used by cabbies, truckers, police and others worldwide; wherever GPS tracking is being used. 

Note: eBay has recently policed the sale of these devices on their site, however, they remain available on other sites. 

Or, DIY...

Click to enlarge.

 

Cell Phone Tracking Insight - You're In Sight

This week at the CTIA show in New Orleans, Polaris Wireless unveiled Altus Mobile, an application that lets law-enforcement personnel track suspects via their cellphone numbers or mobile equipment identifier — a 56-bit identification number that is burned into the device and is extremely difficult to modify. The application leverages Polaris’s Wireless Location Signatures platform, which simultaneously can locate all subscriber devices on a wireless network, both in real time and historically.

That means law-enforcement officers will know where a suspect is, where he has been and where he is heading at any given moment, said Mahesh Patel, Polaris’s senior vice president of products and technology.

“Previously, this information was available to them on their desktops through our Altus surveillance solution, but now officers can take this information into the field with them,” Patel said. “Real-time access to this kind of intelligence will be a big plus for tactical operations.” (more)

A Memory Stick that Self-Destructs

Technology has now created the ultimate USB stick - used by the secret service. If you lose it you can track its location and if it falls into the wrong hands you can even remotely scramble its content. (video) (product)

GPS Jammer Crackdown Begins

UK - The illegal use of Global Positioning System (GPS) jammers in the UK has been revealed in a groundbreaking study. 

GPS jammers are believed to be mostly used by people driving vehicles fitted with tracking devices in order to mask their whereabouts. In one location the Sentinel study recorded more than 60 GPS jamming incidents in six months...

In 2009 Newark Airport in the US found some of its GPS based systems were suffering repeated interference. The problem was eventually traced back to a truck driver using a GPS jammer. (more) 

How easy is it to purchase GPS jammers? (jammers)

FutureWatch: Expect the crackdown to expand.

Supreme Court Rules Trackers Require Warrant

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects.

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia said that the government's installation of a GPS device, and its use to monitor the vehicle's movements, constitutes a search, meaning that a warrant is required.

"By attaching the device to the Jeep" that Jones was using, "officers encroached on a protected area," Scalia wrote.

All nine justices agreed that the placement of the GPS on the Jeep violated the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure. (more)

FutureWatch: Civilian use of trackers to be outlawed. Like electronic eavesdropping, what can be done naturally becomes illegal when electronically enhanced.

Security Director Tips: Tell Employees about these Safety Apps

via Techlicious...

If you’re concerned that someone you care about could be in danger, or if you worry about safety yourself, here are a handful of apps that can help... 

bSafe
This free app lets users select personal Guardians, the people who will be notified when help is needed. All users’ guardians are alerted with an emergency SOS message that includes the sender’s location, while a direct call is placed to one specified contact.

StreetSafe
Unlike other safety apps that alert friends or family who may not be able to help in the event of an emergency, this iPhone app features a silent alarm that, when triggered, dispatches emergency help to your exact location. If you are feeling uneasy and want someone to stay on the phone with you until you arrive safely at your destination, you can also activate StreetSafe’s Walk With Me feature, which connects you with a trained Safety Advisor

MyForce
Before using this one you need to complete an online profile that includes your photo and any medical issues you may have. Then when MyForce receives an alert from you, it dispatches the nearest emergency responders and transmits to them your profile information. MyForce also records audio coming from your phone and reports any updates or movement to the authorities.

SecuraFone
This free iPhone and Android app provides free GPS tracking and monitoring that can be helpful when dealing with children, aging parents or employees. Once the app is downloaded to a phone, the SecuraFone account creator can log in to locate any phone registered to the account. (more)

And, of course, one featured here recently, Help!

A Merry Christmas, Valentine - Good Work

UK - A Norfolk animal rights campaigner is taking turkey producer Bernard Matthews to court claiming she was harassed and intimidated by the company.

Wendy Valentine of Hillside Animal Sanctuary, Frettenham, also claims her car was "bugged" by security firm Richmond Day and Wilson Limited (RDW), which was working for the firm.

Bernard Matthews has confirmed its use of RDW but "emphatically denies" Ms Valentine's allegations.

Hillside Animal Sanctuary investigators went undercover at one of Bernard Matthews' turkey farms in 2006 and filmed two poultry workers using a bat to play baseball with the birds. Two people were later prosecuted...The following year, staff were again videoed abusing turkeys at Bernard Matthews, by undercover workers from Hillside.

A spokesperson for Hillside said: "We felt we had no option but to resort to legal proceedings after Hillside's founder, Wendy Valentine, had her car bugged with an electronic tracking device earlier this year." (more)