Emergency Phone - 15 Year Standby Battery Life

The $70 SpareOne emergency phone from Xpal Power, which uses a standard AA lithium battery, claims a standby time of up to 15 years. (10 hours talk time.)

Click to enlarge.

The phone has only the barest of features. No text, no Web, just phone calls and a dedicated 911 button. Indicators, like if you have a network connection, are provided by blinking colored lights. It saves a lot of power, but you’ll have to memorize what the color combinations mean.

The phone doesn’t even come with a SIM card, which you will need before you can use it, although you can make a 911 call using the emergency button even without the SIM card.

The phone is built for a GSM network, which means that in the United States it will work with T-Mobile, AT&T or companies that resell those networks. (more)

Bonus: It can not be infected with spyware. Too dumb. ~Kevin

Skipping the PI, they DIY spy!

The spy shop has become a new tool in the arsenal for feuding couples calling it quits in America. From phone tracking and GPS, to hidden cameras and microphones, America’s divorce lawyers have seen technology play a prominent role in their cases.

More than 80 percent of the nation’s top divorce attorneys say they’ve seen an increase in the role electronic data and social networking sites play in divorces, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

One of the primary reasons is that do-it-yourself snooping has become relatively cheap and easy. Surveillance equipment can cost less than $300. It is simple to mount a microphone in a child’s blue jeans, as one Texas mother did, or hide a camera in a child’s favorite doll. (more)

Your Cell Can Tell Burglars When You Are Away... and More

Cellular networks leak the locations of cell phone users, allowing a third party to easily track the location of the cell phone user without the user's knowledge, according to new research by computer scientists in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering.

University of Minnesota computer science Ph.D. student Denis Foo Kune, working with associate professors Nick Hopper and Yongdae Kim, and undergraduate student John Koelndorfer, described their work in a recently released paper "Location Leaks on the GSM Air Interface" which was presented at the 19th Annual Network & Distributed System Security Symposium in San Diego, California...

"It has a low entry barrier," Foo Kune said. "Being attainable through open source projects running on commodity software."

Using an inexpensive phone and open source software, the researchers were able to track the location of cell phone users without their knowledge on the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network, the predominant worldwide network. (more)

"Can cell and satellite phones really be intercepted and decrypted?"

I often get this question. The quick answer is, yes. But it is hard to fathom without seeing some proof.
 

There are dozens of companies selling equipment to do this. Their customers are mainly governments. The products are pricy. ABILITY is one supplier...

"ABILITY was founded in 1993 by a team of experts in military intelligence and communications who were joined by specialists in electronics and mathematics. Their goal was simple but extraordinarily complex – to devise state of the art interception and decryption solutions that would serve the needs and ever-increasing challenges of security and intelligence agencies, military forces, police and homeland security services around the world.

The ability to deliver both interception and decryption. 

Our uniqueness is in our complete capabilities in both interception of communications as well as their clear decryption. ABILITY has nearly two decades of proven ability in the service of leading security agencies, law enforcement and armed forces around the globe!

We specialize in off-air interception of cellular and satellite communication networks and deciphering solutions for cellular and satellite communications." 

FutureWatch

Price drop. "Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum, in Germany, think they have managed to crack two popular encryption protocols, known as A5-GMR-1 and A5-GMR-2. These are commonly used in the Thuraya satellite phones used across swathes of Africa, the Middle East and North Asia. (Thuraya has yet to respond to the revelations.) The researchers hope that their paper, published on their website, will help interested parties fix the flaw. More importantly, perhaps, it might prompt phone-makers to act. "We can assume that this has probably been known about since the beginning of this century," says Benedikt Driessen, one of the authors of the new paper. He and his colleagues say that it takes about $2,000 worth of gear and half an hour to decipher a satellite phone call." (more)

Pocket 3G Spy Car (Yes, it rhymes with noodle.)

This just in...

Click to enlarge.

 from the seller... "See live video on your Mobile phone from anywhere in the world. No time limit no distance limit No internet or IP address needed. Just simply call your 3G camera and see live video of your home, office, car, or even your Nanny." (more)

Why do I mention it?

So you will know what you're up against.

Scared of SCADA? You will be now...

In news that will probably leave you tutting and muttering “I knew this would happen,” two hackers have found a way to unlock cars that use remote control and telemetry systems like BMW Assist, GM OnStar, Ford Sync, and Hyundai Blue Link. These systems communicate with the automaker’s remote servers via standard standard mobile networks like GSM and CDMA — and with a clever bit of reverse engineering, the hackers were able to pose as these servers and communicate directly with a car’s on-board computer via “war texting” — a riff on “war driving,” the act of finding open wireless networks. (more)

The real scary part...

It’s not just cars that use telephony as a control network: there are 3G security cameras, traffic control systems, home automation systems, and — most worryingly — SCADA systems. SCADA is an acronym that covers almost any industrial control system, from manufacturing to power generation, to water treatment and the management of oil and gas pipelines. To quote Don Bailey, one of the hackers: “What I got in two hours with the car alarm is pretty horrifying when you consider other devices like this, such as SCADA systems and traffic-control cameras. How quick and easy it is to re-engineer them is pretty scary.”

Having Trouble Keeping Track of the Phone Hacking Scandal?

The Telegraph key pounds it out.

Click to enlarge.

Below is a list of the alleged victims of phone hacking. This includes public figures, celebrities and others who have accused News International newspapers of hacking, those who are currently bringing legal action and those who brought successful cases in the courts.

Alleged victims
Milly Dowler
Parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman
Families of servicemen and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan
Relatives of victims and victims of 7/7 bombings
Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for Madeleine McCann’s family
Colin Stagg, accused of Rachel Nickell murder
Elle Macpherson, model
Wayne Rooney, footballer
Hugh Grant, actor
Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall
Simon Hughes, Liberal Democrat deputy leader
Helen Asprey, former royal aide
Michael Mansfield, barrister who represented Mohamed Al Fayed at the Princess Diana inquest
Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, private secretary to Princes William and Harry
Peter Mandelson, former Labour minister
David Davis, former shadow Home Secretary
Andrew Neil, BBC presenter
Boris Johnson, London Mayor
Sir Ian Blair, former Metropolitan Police commissioner
Paddy Harverson, Prince of Wales’ communication secretary
Vanessa Feltz, presenter
Lembit Opik, former Liberal Democrat MP
Cousin of Jean Charles de Menezes, Brazilian man shot dead by police
Paul O'Grady, presenter and comedian
John Yates, former Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner
David Cook, former Metropolitan Police detective chief superintendent

Seeking legal action
Steve Coogan, actor and comedian
Sky Andrew, former Olympian
Nicola Phillips, assistant to Max Clifford
Andy Gray, broadcaster
Paul Gascoigne, footballer
Sienna Miller, actress
John Prescott, former Labour Deputy Prime Minister
Brian Paddick, former Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner
Brendan Montague, freelance journalist
Chris Bryant, Labour MP
Jude Law, actor
Ryan Giggs, footballer
Chris Tarrant, presenter
Leslie Ash and Lee Chapman, actress and former footballer
Kelly Hoppen, stepmother of Sienna Miller
Kieren Fallon, jockey
George Galloway, former MP

Successful cases
Max Clifford, publicist
Gordon Taylor, chief executive of Professional Footballers’ Association
Jo Armstrong, legal advisor to Gordon Taylor
Tessa Jowell, former culture secretary (offered settlement)
David Mills, lawyer and ex-husband of Tessa Jowell (offered settlement)
Joan Hammell, former aide to John Prescott (offered settlement)

(more)

The Number 1 Spybusters Tip that would have saved most of these people from being hacked...

Make sure your voice mail and cell phone both have decent secret passwords. 

Don't want to see your name on a list like this someday? 

Read more tips from IMCPB)

Smartphone Hacking Becomes News of the World

It's never this obvious.

The “phone hacking” scandal unfolding in the UK has demonstrated how trivial it is to gain unauthorized access to voicemail and other information stored on smartphones. Ignoring basic security steps only makes it easier.

With the help of Kevin Mitnick, CNET reporter Elinor Mills demonstrated just how easy it can be to hack into someone’s voicemail. This was done in the wake of the “phone hacking” scandal that has erupted in the UK in which employees for News of the World hacked into a murdered girl’s phone and materially interfered with the then ongoing police investigation. It’s now grown much larger even than that one terrible incident, and this is, of course, an extreme example of the harm that can be done to people with unsecured mobile phones. (more)

If you own a smartphone you are a viable target,
and you really need to ask yourself, 
"Is my cell phone bugged."

Why Businesses Conduct Checks for Bugging Devices - Reason #43

Reason #43 - Anyone can build or buy a bug with the help of the Internet.

Here are a few examples...

--- Free advice ---

Record Telephone Conversations By Building This "Bugging" Equipment - by Swagatam

 "The circuit of a simple FM transmitter described in the article, when integrated with a telephone line, very interestingly starts transmitting all the conversations made over it. Moreover it doesn’t require any external power for the purpose.

Introduction
At times many of you must have felt the need of spying on somebody’s conversation over the telephone and wondered how to bug a telephone.

Morally it won’t be correct to eavesdrop on an individual’s personal discussion, but through electronics you can always and every time find a way of fulfilling your wishes no matter whether the act is ethical or not.

Though I won’t recommend using the present circuit for listening to somebody’s private talks, it can rather be used as a fun gadget for broadcasting a telephone conversation over the FM radio." (more)

--- Books ---
Now Hear This - The bible of bugging schematics.

--- Low cost devices for sale ---

eBay

--- Antidote --- 

Business Counterespionage Strategy.

World's Smallest GSM Cell Phone Eavesdropping Bug

from, Is My Cell Phone Bugged?

A cousin to the ZombiePhone is the GSM micro-bug. These are miniaturized cell phones made specifically for covert eavesdropping! Like ZombiePhone bugs but without normal cell phone features, these are tiny, creepy, robotic, cell phone bugs often hidden in such everyday objects as power strips and lighting fixtures.
 

Their tiny size is possible because they do not have keypads, ringers, displays, or smart-phone features. When called from any other phone, they become eavesdropping bugs automatically.
 

Shown with wall charger and USB cable.

Groupe Spécial Mobile (GSM) is the name of the world’s most popular cellular telephone standard. GSM micro-bugs work on this standard, which means they can work in almost anywhere on Earth where there is cellular telephone service. Like normal cell phones whose features are set to Auto-Answer and No Ring, GSM bugs are equally hard to detect because they sleep most of the time. The thing that awakens them is the call from the eavesdropper. 

Some models also awaken when they hear sound being made near them. Some awaken when they sense vibration or light. Should you awaken one, it will silently call the eavesdropper.

If you feel you are being eavesdropped on and you are sure your cell phone is free of spyware, a GSM bug may be the culprit.
 

Bug microphones are much more sensitive than most people realize. The microphones in GSM micro-bugs are very sensitive and can capture sound from large areas like bedrooms, offices, and vehicles. Ideally, bugs are placed as close to the sound source as possible, but the rule of thumb when searching is: If your ear can hear it, so can the bug.

Ever wonder where all these bugs come from? This link is the first step to solving the mystery.

AusCERT 2011 Conference — Smartphones: the perfect bugging device

Security experts at the AusCERT 2011 Conference in Queensland this week warned that serious attacks on mobile phones are expected before the end of this year, and that those attacks will involve tracking users, not just stealing their money.

On Wednesday, Amil Klein, CTO at Trusteer, explained how mobile malware has evolved to a stage where it can now bypass most banking security.

Graham Ingram, the general manager of AusCERT, backs this up.

"The genie is out of the bottle. The hardware is there, the software is there, the capability is there ... these guys will turn it around quickly, now. They know what to do, as soon as the reward is there — and it is clearly there — they will move rapidly into it, and I think that is going to shock a few people because we will wake up one morning and it will all be happening."

But it's not just users' bank accounts that are at stake; modern smartphones make the perfect bugging device.

The implications of being able to turn on a remote device that has the capacity to look at emails, geo-locate users, look at SMSes, listen to phone calls, record meetings and even turn on a camera are stunning. Intelligence agencies with these capabilities with a remote "on" button would be ecstatic. (more)

Brain Sucking Cell Phone Spider

The "Universal Forensic Extraction Device" sounds like the perfect cell phone snooping gadget.

Its maker, Israel-based Cellebrite, says it can copy all the content in a cell phone -- including contacts, text messages, call history, and pictures -- within a few minutes. Even deleted texts and other data can be restored by UFED 2.0, the latest version of the product, it says.

And it really is a universal tool. The firm says UFED works with 3,000 cell phone models, representing 95 percent of the handset market. Coming soon, the firm says on its website: "Additional major breakthroughs, including comprehensive iPhone physical solution; Android physical support – allowing bypassing of user lock code, (Windows Phone) support, and much more." For good measure, UFEC can extract information from GPS units in most cars.

The gadget isn't a stalker's dream; it's an evidence-gathering tool for law enforcement. Cellebrite claims it’s already in use in 60 countries. (more)

It’s Tracking Your Every Move

As a German Green party politician, Malte Spitz, recently learned, we are already continually being tracked whether we volunteer to be or not. Cellphone companies do not typically divulge how much information they collect, so Mr. Spitz went to court to find out exactly what his cellphone company, Deutsche Telekom, knew about his whereabouts.

The results were astounding. In a six-month period — from Aug 31, 2009, to Feb. 28, 2010, Deutsche Telekom had recorded and saved his longitude and latitude coordinates more than 35,000 times. It traced him from a train on the way to Erlangen at the start through to that last night, when he was home in Berlin.

Mr. Spitz has provided a rare glimpse — an unprecedented one, privacy experts say — of what is being collected as we walk around with our phones. Unlike many online services and Web sites that must send “cookies” to a user’s computer to try to link its traffic to a specific person, cellphone companies simply have to sit back and hit “record.” (more)

GSM Bugs, Prohibited Hi-tech Goods - Cheap

Vietnam - The Dong Kinh Market, the biggest and most bustling market in the border province of Lang Son, is considered the “paradise” of prohibited hi-tech goods, where imitated products are dirt cheap. 

Typical electronics market.

The noteworthy thing in the market is that prohibited goods are displayed openly. The “black technology” products, such as cameras, or key hooks with eavesdropping devices, are available at all electronics kiosks.

GSM bug

Most of these products (GSM bugs) are as small as matchboxes. The products use 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz band of GSM network and they have installed the MiniSIM of mobile phone in order to be used as sound recorders.

In February 2011, according to Buu dien, as the supply is profuse, the devices are selling very cheaply, at 500-650,000 dong ($23.94 - $31.13). The products with more complicated functions which allow to automatically call those, who want to eavesdrop, would be 100,000 dong ($4.79) more expensive.

The currently valid Government’s Decree No. 59 stipulates that all eavesdropping equipments are listed as prohibited goods. However, at Dong Kinh Market and other markets in the border provinces, such as Tan Thanh, Dong Dang in Lang Son province, Coc Leu in Lao Cai, the laws have been “ignored”. In fact, the market management taskforce has turned a blind eye to the products. (more)

• The electronic eavesdropping market is global.

• Laws against illegal eavesdropping devices are not being enforced, globally.

• Electronic eavesdropping is easy and affordable.

Cell Phone Bugging Hack

Black Hat, Washington, DC - A European researcher today showed how bugs he has discovered in the baseband chipset firmware of iPhone and Android smartphones could be exploited to ultimately take control of these devices.

Ralf-Philipp Weinmann, a researcher at the University of Luxembourg, was poised here to demonstrate an exploit he created that turns on the auto-answer feature on the affected smartphones and then uses them as remote listening devices. But he was unable to get his demo to run live successfully, in part due to poor cellular reception in the hotel where the conference was held.

Despite the demo glitch, security experts say the research marks a new generation of smartphone hacking. (more)

New Smart Phone Eavesdrop Attack Coming

More than three years after the iPhone was first hacked, computer security experts think they've found a whole new way to break into mobile phones -- one that could become a big headache for Apple, or for smartphone makers using Google's Android software.

In a presentation set for next week's Black Hat conference in Washington D.C., University of Luxembourg research associate Ralf-Philipp Weinmann says he plans to demonstrate his new technique on an iPhone and an Android device, showing how they could be converted into clandestine spying systems. "I will demo how to use the auto-answer feature present in most phones to turn the telephone into a remote listening device," he said in an e-mail interview.

Weinmann says he can do this by breaking the phone's "baseband" processor, used to send and receive radio signals as the device communicates on its cellular network. He has found bugs in the way the firmware used in chips sold by Qualcomm and Infineon Technologies processes radio signals on the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks used by the majority of the world's wireless carriers. (more)

Wall Thermostat GSM Cellular Bugging Device

The seller says...

"This revolutionary surveillance product has a wireless (gsm bug) audio monitoring device hidden inside a Thermostat. The central feature of this GSM--based solution is that it's a sophisticated, totally concealed bugging device.

Now Includes Sound or Voice-Activation!

When used in the spy mode, the Thermostat is called (from anywhere) and will answer immediately without any ringing so it will not alert anyone. The caller can then hear all conversations around the Thermostat and on ending the call, the Thermostat resumes standby. Just plug and play. This model is conveniently portable." (more)

Why do I mention it?

So you will know what you're up against.

Pssst... Talk to the Chaos Computer Club

Botswana - The spying GSM equipment that was purchased by the government is lying idle since the government could not use it on private conversations by members of the public because cellular phone providers have upgraded their systems.

This was revealed at the Lobatse High Court before Chief Justice Maruping Dibotelo after the company that had supplied the equipment, Dukef Holdings, took the Botswana Police Service to court over the failure to pay US$1,529,000 for breach of contract. (more)

Cell Phone Eavesdropping on the Cheap

Speaking at the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) Congress in Berlin on Tuesday, a pair of researchers demonstrated a start-to-finish means of eavesdropping on encrypted GSM cellphone calls and text messages, using only four sub-$15 telephones as network “sniffers,” a laptop computer, and a variety of open source software.

While such capabilities have long been available to law enforcement with the resources to buy a powerful network-sniffing device for more than $50,000 (remember The Wire?), the pieced-together hack takes advantage of security flaws and shortcuts in the GSM network operators’ technology and operations to put the power within the reach of almost any motivated tech-savvy programmer. (more)

Do You Know How to Protect Your Cell Phone Calls?

via SC Magazine and Cellcrypt

...So, the problem of cell phone interception is real, growing and unlikely to be eliminated in the foreseeable future.

For an organization, knowing that phone calls have been intercepted at all is difficult. There is rarely a test that can be done, other than looking at the consequences of a lost deal or secret information in the public domain. In fact, in 2010, the Ponemon Institute found that 80 percent of CIOs admitted they would not find out directly if they had been intercepted.

The problem shows a wide geographical variation, both in the number of instances and in the public perception of risk. 

In the United States and mainland Europe, the perception of risk is relatively low. However, travel to Latin America or some parts of Asia, and the perception of an issue has reached the consumer with advertisements on mainstream television for protection equipment. 

Yet few executives traveling around the world have taken special measures to secure their cell phone conversations.

Research from ABI shows that 79 percent of companies' cell phones were routinely used to discuss information that, if intercepted, would lead to material loss to the business. Yet less than one in five had in place adequate measures to address this risk. (more)

New book coming soon...  

Is My Cell Phone Bugged? 

Stay tuned for details.