Watch Surveillance Video of Alleged Spy’s ‘Dead Drop’ at Hotel
The U.S. arrested a California man accused of spying for China’s security service while working as a tour guide in the San Francisco area.
U.S. agents secretly monitored drop-offs of packages at a hotel in Newark, California, that were traced to Peng, according to the complaint.
China’s Ministry of State Security schemed “to use an American citizen to remove classified security information to the PRC,” U.S. Attorney David Anderson said at a press conference.
Peng’s activities for the company where he worked, U.S. Tour and Travel, “went far beyond innocent sight-seeing,” Anderson said. more
DC - In a previously undisclosed secret mission in 2017, the United States
successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert
sources inside the Russian government... more
Netflix - Though hampered by a few hiccups and low-hanging cliches, Netflix's new
miniseries The Spy is also awesomely anchored by an astounding dramatic
performance by Sacha Baron Cohen. more
FL - The trial of alleged Mar-a-Lago intruder and supposed Chinese “spy”
Yujing Zhang started with a bout of the bizarre that has become typical
of the case, briefly delaying proceedings. more
Switzerland - Russian spies have been operating in Switzerland under assumed
identities, using documents that change their nationalities, a former
KGB agent has told Swiss public television RTS. more
S. Korea - A former prisoner in North Korea has told German media that he used to
spy for the CIA, seeking out nuclear secrets and taking pictures with a
concealed wristwatch camera. more
DC - A former CIA officer who says she spent years under deep cover has
written what appears to be one of the most revealing memoirs ever put to
paper by an American intelligence operative — a book so intriguing that
Apple bought the television rights even before its October publication
date. Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA, by Amaryllis Fox more
DC - Valerie Plame isn’t a spy anymore, but she plays one in her latest
campaign ad, which looks more like the trailer for a movie about Jason
Bourne’s aunt than the start of a congressional run. more
Book Review - Spying: Assessing US Domestic Intelligence Since 9/11by
Darren E. Tromblay.
This book is a welcome addition to the rather small literature on
domestic and homeland intelligence in the United States. It will
interest more than just intelligence specialists, because Tromblay
addresses broader homeland security issues, focusing especially on the
FBI and DHS, and the book would serve as a useful introduction to those
agencies. more
The embattled leader of Hong Kong was caught on a leaked audio recording reportedly saying she would “quit” if she could after causing “unforgivable havoc,” but on Tuesday reiterated that she hasn’t resigned because it would be the easy way out.
In a press conference, Carrie Lam slammed the audio, recorded during a private meeting with a group of businesspeople, saying it was “unacceptable.”
The recording was published Monday by Reuters. In it, she is heard apparently blaming herself for igniting Hong Kong’s political crisis. more
Kevin's Tips for Management
Assume your discussions are being recorded.
Before proceeding, ask if they are recording.
Be professional. If you would not say it in a courtroom, don’t say it.
Red Flag – When an employee tries to recreate a previous conversation with you.
Have an independent sweep team conduct periodic due diligence debugging inspections.
China - Yang Hengjun, a well-known Australian writer and democracy activist
detained by the Chinese authorities in January, has been formally
charged with spying... more
Russia - A Moscow court has ruled to keep an American man and Marine veteran suspected of spying in prison for two more months. The court ruled on Friday to keep Paul Whelan behind bars at least until late October. more
WWW - Freelance site Fiverr offers illegal private spying services... more
Israel shouldn’t let a little spying undo its economic ties with China, ex-chief analyst argues... more
Iran has sentenced a British-Iranian national to 10 years in jail for spying for Israel... more
China’s spies are waging an intensifying espionage offensive against the United States. more
USA - Patrick Byrne resigned suddenly
as CEO of Overstock.com last Thursday, after mounting controversy
surrounding his past romantic relationship with alleged Russian agent Maria Butina.
Butina is now serving an 18 month prison sentence for conspiring to
promote Russian interests through conservative U.S. political groups. more
Australia - Intelligence agencies warn of 'unprecedented scale' of foreign spying within Australia. more
Iran - Environmentalists filming Iran’s endangered cheetahs could be executed for spying. more
India sending spying devices to Pakistan via balloons... more
USA - The spy in your wallet: Credit cards have a privacy problem... In a privacy experiment, we bought one banana with the new Apple Card — and another with the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa from Chase. Here’s who tracked, mined and shared our data. more
The Head of the SAPO* claimed a “device similar to a tapping device has been found”, adding that he did not know whom it belonged to...
Ukrainska Pravda wrote that the “bugs” had been planted on the acquiarium (sic) in Kholodnytsky’s office and reminded of rumors regarding the possible voluntary resignation “due to health reasons”.
Ukrainski Novyny, citing sources in the Prosecutor General’s Office, said that Kholodnytsky may be detained and arrested as the result of “the wiretapping case”.
Reacting to the resignation rumors, the SAPO head encouraged “not to count on it.”more
Extra Credit: Ukraine's Security Service denies allegations of wiretapping presidential candidates. more
Washington, DC - Waves of civil servants, military and law enforcement officers, business people, students, diplomats and tourists saturate the city.
That is the scene on a typical weekday in the world’s most powerful city — whose business revolves around secret meetings, information and documents. Woven into that orderly bedlam are sophisticated networks of foreign nationals whose sole purpose is to steal secrets.
They are spies.
According to the International Spy Museum in D.C., an educational and historical center of U.S. intelligence documentation and artifacts, there are “more than 10,000 spies in Washington.”
While there may be some quibbling about the actual numbers, the FBI agrees with the premise.
“It’s unprecedented — the threat from our foreign adversaries, specifically China on the economic espionage and the espionage front,” said Brian Dugan, Assistant Special Agent in Charge for Counterintelligence with the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
As this unparalleled wave of international espionage, aided by technology, explodes in D.C., the variety of spies has diversified, as well.
“A spy is nondescript. A spy is going to be someone that’s going to be a student in school, a visiting professor, your neighbor. It could be a colleague or someone that shares the soccer field with you,” Dugan said. more
A 10-count indictment unsealed today in the Western District of
Washington State charges Huawei Device Co., Ltd. and Huawei Device Co.
USA with theft of trade secrets conspiracy, attempted theft of trade
secrets, seven counts of wire fraud, and one count of obstruction of
justice.
The indictment, returned by a grand jury on January 16,
details Huawei’s efforts to steal trade secrets from Bellevue,
Washington based T-Mobile USA and then obstruct justice when T-Mobile
threatened to sue Huawei in U.S. District Court in Seattle.
The alleged
conduct described in the indictment occurred from 2012 to 2014, and
includes an internal Huawei announcement that the company was offering
bonuses to employees who succeeded in stealing confidential information
from other companies. more
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called Saturday for an early election after his vice chancellor resigned over a covertly shot video that showed him apparently promising government contracts to a prospective Russian investor.
Two German publications, the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and the weekly Der Spiegel, published extracts Friday of a covert video purportedly showing Strache during an alcohol-fueled evening on the Spanish resort island of Ibiza offering Austrian government contracts to a Russian woman, purportedly the niece of a Russian oligarch and interested in investing large amounts of money in Austria.
In his resignation statement Saturday, Strache apologized but said he was set up in a “political assassination” that illegally used surveillance equipment.more
Colombia’s constitutional court said on Sunday it had been meeting outside its normal offices citing suspicions that the high court is bugged.
In a pair of messages on Twitter, the court also said it would ask the National Police and the Prosecutor General’s Office if their equipment and personnel are used for possible wiretaps...
Several magistrates confirmed to newspaper El Espectador that they believe that also their phone conversations are being intercepted after several personal conversations were leaked...
“We met in Club Nogal because there are no microphones there,” an anonymous magistrate told the television network. more
I wouldn't bet on it, especially now that you told the press where you meet. ~Kevin
China has jokingly suggested that US President Donald Trump should swap
his Apple iPhone for a Chinese model, as it denied a report claiming
Beijing was bugging his private calls. more
The massive trove of Facebook ads House Intelligence Committee Democrats released Tuesday provides a stunning look into the true sophistication of the Russian government’s digital operations during the presidential election.
...a swath of empirical and visual evidence of Russia’s disinformation campaign, in the form of more than 3,000 incredibly specific and inflammatory ads purchased by an Internet troll farm sponsored by the Kremlin.
The ads clearly show how Russia weaponized social media, the senior Democrat on the panel investigating Moscow’s interference in the presidential election said. more
Ghana - Maverick Politician and Member of Parliament for Assin South, Ken Agyapong has said he would have shot to death the Security Coordinator of Metro Mass Transit (MMT) Company if he were to be the Managing Director, Bennet Aboagye...
The Security Coordinator, Fusseini Lawal Laah has confessed to bugging the office of the MMT Boss, Bennet Aboagye by secretly installing a recording device.
“The Security Coordinator had the confidence to go and meet with the National Security Coordinator and other big men and has confessed that he bugged the MD’s office. What is going on in this country, and you entertain such person, that guy has to be arrested. He bugged the office and has transcribed all the recording and he’s moving about with it. The guy, I’m warning him, if this country were to be America, they would have taken care of him easily," Ken Agyapong said. more
The American Phoenix Foundation — a now-defunct conservative activist group known for attempting undercover stings of lawmakers and lobbyists — planted an intern in a Texas state lawmaker’s office during the 2013 legislative session in an effort to expose misdeeds, testimony in federal court revealed Thursday.
Shaughn Adeleye, testifying in Houston in the federal fraud case against former U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman, said in court Thursday that he was planted in the office of state Rep. James White to obtain footage of the Hillister Republican engaged in “fraud and abuse” and also in more mundane activities like cursing or failing to tidy his messy car... more
The spy who blew the whistle on Australia’s bugging of Timor-Leste’s cabinet room during sensitive oil and gas negotiations is still under “effective house arrest” and has been treated disgracefully by Australia in retaliation for his actions, his lawyer says.
The Australian secret intelligence service agent, known only as Witness K, had his passport seized in 2013 as he prepared to give evidence in The Hague on an Australian bugging operation.
In 2004, Witness K was involved in a covert mission to listen in on the Timor-Leste cabinet aimed at giving Australia the upper hand during negotiations to carve up oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea, estimated to be worth about $53bn. more
Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, who was once considered a rising star in the Republican Party, has been under siege since January, when accusations emerged that he threatened to use a nude photo to blackmail his former hairstylist, with whom he was having an extramarital affair.
Greitens had allegedly threatened the woman by saying he would distribute a nude photo he had secretly taken of her if she exposed their relationship.
The accusations stemmed from a covert recording by the woman’s ex-husband published by KMOV in St. Louis, in which the woman is heard describing how Greitens invited her to his home
in 2015 and, with her consent, taped her hands to exercise rings and
blindfolded her. He then allegedly took a photo of her naked. more
"A New Apparatus Capable of Spying on You Has Been Installed Throughout Downtown Seattle. Very Few Citizens Know What It Is, and Officials Don’t Want to Talk About It."
The DHS gave the city a $3.6m grant to build out a mesh wireless network that could be enjoyed by the public and also provide communications services during emergencies -- but it was also specked to do continuous location-based surveillance as well as CCTV surveillance from lightpoles all over the city.
Activists worked with the ACLU to pressure the city to work with police to produce a privacy policy that would explain when this data would be gathered, how long it would be retained, and how it would be used. The devices were switched off while these questions were to be answered.
Five years on, the police and city were unable to articulate an answer to these questions, and so now they're spending $150,000 to tear all the gear (including the mesh networking access points) out, rather than accept any limitations on their use. more
Switzerland has always been a favorite by writers of spy novels as a place where foreign agents from across the world meet and exchange secret information.
But it’s true – and the country is being used more and more by international spies to meet.
It’s a trend the intelligence service wants to stop.
The NZZ newspaper quotes an anonymous source says there’s a rising demand for information and agents are increasingly choosing Switzerland to meet – especially Geneva. The international city makes it easy for people throughout the world meet without attracting attention due to all the international organizations and a low level of street surveillance.
But Swiss authorities are not happy about living up to the stereotype. The intelligence agency says it’s not in the country’s interest to be a place where information damaging to allies could be swapped and they hope friendly countries would also do the same for Switzerland. more
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency used public money to have his office swept for hidden listening devices and bought sophisticated biometric locks for additional security.
The spending items, totaling nearly $9,000, are among a string of increased counter-surveillance precautions taken by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt...
EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox defended the spending. "Administrator Pruitt has received an unprecedented amount of threats against him...
Wilcox said that under the Obama administration, then-EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson also had her office swept for listening devices. more
Conducting Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM) is an integral part of any competent information security program.
It is a common, albeit subtle, business practice in the private sector, and an absolute requirement in governments worldwide.
The cost of a strategic information loss via undiscovered electronic surveillance makes proactive TSCM inspections look like pocket change cheap insurance. However, unlike insurance, TSCM inspections can prevent the loss.
The FBI is reportedly investigating who was behind an “acoustic attack” that inflicted at least two staffers of the U.S. Embassy in Havana with sudden hearing loss. Washington expelled two Cuban diplomats earlier this year in response to the incident, the U.S. State Department said on Wednesday.
The Cuban foreign ministry said it was investigating the allegations.
Citing officials familiar with the investigation, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that embassy staff in Havana began suffering from hearing loss in the fall of 2016. U.S. officials later concluded that a device operating outside the range of audible sound has been installed inside or near diplomatic residences in Havana. more Media speculation as to what and who is rampant.
Some what theories, which the media has missed, include: • An ultrasonic bugging device (an eavesdropping attack). • An ultrasonic room flooding device (an eavesdropping countermeasure).
If either of these were incompetently programmed–thus producing a higher than safe level of audio power output–people would experience hearing loss and other sickness symptoms (headache, nausea, disorientation, etc.).
As to who... A bugging device could be planted by anyone, not just the Cubans. An ultrasonic room flooding device would be placed by whoever has control of the room, in an effort to deter electronic eavesdropping attempts — mixing differing frequencies of ultrasound has a detrimental effect on microphones. This is a rarely used Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM) tactic due to the fine balance between effectiveness and dangerousness. It zaps hearing aids, too. An "acoustic attack" just to cause intentional harm seems unlikely. The results of the investigation should be interesting, if they see the light of day. Ultra-unlikely. ~Kevin
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