Randy Tanning Salon Spycam'er Nailed

WI - A man was arrested here Wednesday, May 23, after police discovered he had used a “spy camera” to view clients undressing in a tanning salon.

Randy J. Schamberger, 42, was being held in the Barron County Jail on a misdemeanor charge and a felony charge, according to a press release.

Police know of eight victims caught on camera at Sunshine Fitness and Tanning Salon in Cumberland. There could be more victims, as Schamberger admitted to viewing and deleting up to 70 other files, police said.

On April 5, a client noticed what she thought was a USB phone charger plugged into one of the wall outlets in the tanning room. When she looked closely, she realized it was actually a covert digital video camera with a memory card inside.

She turned it over to police, who found 67 video files showing numerous persons undressing and in stages of full or partial nudity inside the tanning room.

Police discovered Schamberger had used his wife’s customer key fob to gain access to the room. He admitted to buying the spy camera from Amazon in October. more
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Darwin Award to Another Spycam'er Who Shot Himself

MA - A Taunton man faces allegations that he placed a small recording device in a preschool bathroom with the intent of filming the women who worked there.

Darin McNeil, 48, was arrested at the Learning Experience on Main Street on May 18 by Foxborough Police and charged with possession of a device for wiretapping, attempting to conduct secret sexual surveillance, and unlawful wiretapping...

Police responded to a report of a shiny object found in a hat placed on a shelf across from a toilet in a staff bathroom at the preschool around midday on May 18. Once officers were given the item, it was determined that it was an audio and video recorder with a small USB connection that is designed to look like a pen, according to a police report.

Video from the pen allegedly showed a worker at the Learning Experience in the bathroom and a man placing the device where it was found. The man was identified as McNeil, who was an electrician doing some work at the daycare. more

Security Installer Turned Spycam'er... again

LA - Police are looking for Jules Chauvin, the owner of Telecom Security Solutions in West Monroe.

Chauvin allegedly installed cameras in the victim's business in West Monroe.

According to police, a victim contacted them on May 7th saying she was being watched without her consent by the man who installed her security system. Police say the victim fears that Chauvin may be watching other people as well.

Police ask that anyone who feels that they may be a victim of video voyeurism to contact the police department. more

This isn't the first time a security installer got caught installing spycams...

• https://spybusters.blogspot.com/2016/09/surveillance-camera-installer-scopes-it.html
• https://spybusters.blogspot.com/2018/01/white-marsh-mall-spycam-man-suspect.html
  

Spycam Detection Training Tip: Be Aware of Holes in Odd Places

Click to enlarge.

This case, which happened last night, is a good example of this detection tip paying off...

MA - A custodian at Northampton High School is facing charges after police say he "modified" a girls' bathroom at the school, creating holes in the ceiling so he could take pictures of students.

Michael Kremensky, 22, of Florence, is facing four charges of photographing an unsuspecting nude person, said Police Chief Jody Kasper, in a statement.

Police were called to the school Thursday for a report of suspicious activity involving holes in the ceiling of a girls' bathroom on the first floor.

No other bathrooms or rooms were affected, Kasper said. The activity was "localized to the one bathroom," she said. more
Learn more about spycam detection.

Spycam Found in Mall Family Restroom

MD - Authorities say a man set up a spy camera that recorded both children and adults in the family restroom of a Baltimore-area mall.



The Baltimore Sun reports a patron at White Marsh Mall found the camera Dec. 23, and the incident was made public Thursday, when Baltimore County police released footage of the suspect. The camera was found at a restroom located near the food court. more

Like most spycamers, this guy gets our Darwin Award... for taking a video of himself while installing the camera. 

Do you offer restrooms to employees, visitors and the public. A spycam incident will put you at risk of being sued. Proactive due diligence is your best defense. Click here for the complete solution.

Workplace Spycam Man Pleads Guilty

PA - A Douglass man faces court supervision after he admitted to invading the privacy of a female co-worker by planting a camera under her desk and recording her at their Montgomery Township workplace.

Anthony Joseph DePaul, 35, of the 100 block of Chalet Road, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to four years’ probation after he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of invasion of privacy in connection with the incidents...

Lens on a typical key-fob spy camera.

“The device was attached to the bottom of her desk with Velcro and was pointed in the direction of her chair,” Montgomery Township Police Officer James T. Matlack alleged in the criminal complaint...

The device, which was provided to police, was small with a lens at one end, court documents indicate...several employees stated they had observed DePaul near the desk of the female victim in the weeks leading up to the discovery of the camera...

When detectives interviewed DePaul about the matter he admitted to placing the camera under the woman’s desk four to five times and to recording the victim as she sat at her desk, according to the criminal complaint. more

IT Spy Guy Hacks Computer Cameras

MI - A Charlevoix County man from the United Kingdom is in jail and facing more than 40 charges for disturbing, computer-related crimes.

Police say Wayne Tambling got access to several victims’ computers and photographed them naked using the computer’s camera, without them knowing.

“They just noticed some strange things, some coincidences that led them to believe that someone might be spying on them,” Trooper Jeff Mercer, said.

State police say three victims came forward with that eerie feeling...

Tambling works in IT at Wojan Window and Door, the company says they are fully cooperating with police. more

Video Voyeurism: Carnival Cruise's Botched Investigation

A Florida family was shocked to discover a camera hidden among wires in their Carnival Cruise Line cabin. 

Click to enlarge.

The Pensacola couple, along with their 10-year-old son, found the device while searching undusted areas of the room after the father suffered an allergy attack during the second night of their journey from Mobile, Al., to Mexico, the Miami New Times reported.

According to the father, who was not identified by name, the camera was placed behind a TV in their room. The lens was sticking out a bit, pointing directly at the bed.

The man claimed the device was "warm to the touch" and appeared to have an antenna, which leads him to believe it may have been transmitting information to a third party. more

The couple reported the presence of the camera and transmitter in their cabin to the cruise ship’s security department. One of Carnival’s security personnel arrived in their cabin. He disconnected and removed the camera and transmitter with no gloves on and did not attempt to secure the room. In the video below, you can hear the passenger asking the officer why he was not wearing gloves.


The passenger thereafter communicated with the security staff to obtain an update. According to the passengers, the Carnival security personnel confirmed that the camera and transmitter: (1) were operational; (2) were typically the type of devices used on video drones: and (3) the transmitter was a long range device. To the passenger's knowledge, Carnival did not promptly report the incident to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). more

This is a cautionary tale. Video voyeurism can happen to any business which offers hospitality, restrooms, changing rooms, shower areas, etc., to customers, visitors or employees. 

Handling the situation properly when it arises is important, and easy to do. Visit spycamdetection.training to learn how. Mishandling an incident, or sweeping it under the rug, will likely result in expensive litigation. Litigation you will likely lose.

Guests Keep Finding Spycams in their Airbnb Bedrooms

An Airbnb guest discovered a hidden camera inside his rental property in another disturbing example of the service's users being spied upon.

Jason Scott, an internet activist from the US, tweeted pictures of what he claims was a spy camera hidden in a burglar alarm motion sensor. Scott says he was sent the images by a concerned friend who found the item during a recent stay in an Airbnb property.

According to Scott, the device was an IP camera that was likely connected to the internet and used for surveillance

He wrote: "In "oh, that's a thing now" news, a colleague of mine thought it odd that there was a single "motion detector" in his AirBNB in the bedroom and voila, it's an IP camera connected to the web. (He left at 3am, reported, host is suspended, colleague got refund.)" more

Extra Credit Reading:

• Police hunt man 'who hid spy camera in Starbucks toilet and recorded customers'
• Man jailed for 20 months for secretly filming more than 200 people in public toilets
• Brit teacher arrested in Spain 'took secret sexual pictures of his students and shared them online'

 Education is the best prevention against becoming a victim of spy cameras.

Netflix Documentary - The Motel Owner Who Spied on Guests

 But first... A bit of history.

A pair of filmmakers thought they’d be capturing celebrated writer Gay Talese taking a literary victory lap in their new documentary. Instead, they got something more like a journalistic car crash.

In the intriguing and thoughtful “Voyeur,” Myles Kane and Josh Koury explore the 30-year relationship between Gerald Foos, a former Colorado motel owner who spied on his guests, and Talese, known for his novelistic profiles and bespoke suits.

The Netflix film, which debuts Friday, follows Talese as he reports and writes about his creepy friend for the 2016 book, “The Voyeur’s Motel,” only to see the story fall apart after publication when Foos’ account unravels...

Talese and Foos first connected in 1980 when the motel owner sent the journalist a letter hoping he would share his story of secretly watching guests for years through ceiling vents — in the interest of science, of course. more

Voyeur Hides Spycam in Starbucks Toilet

A hidden camera recorded customers using the toilet in a branch of Starbucks for up to a month. 

The small device was found in the ceiling of the coffee shop close to the headquarters of MI6 in south London.

Police believe the camera was planted by a voyeur who apparently captured himself on film in the process.

It had recorded several video files of members of the public using the only customer toilet at the store in Vauxhall, detectives revealed.

They believe the camera had been installed for a maximum of four weeks "for the purpose of voyeurism".
 It was seized by police after a member of the public discovered it in a ceiling grate. more

It is surprising how many spycam'ers are caught because they captured themselves during the installation. This guy gets our Darwin Award. 

Spybusters Tip #361: Do-it-yourself Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM) for spy cameras by "members of the public" can be very effective. One just needs to know where to look, and what to look for. Learning the wheres and whats is easy. Check here for more information.

Video voyeurism is a foreseeable issue. Any business offering customers, visitors, and employees access to expectation of privacy areas (restrooms, changing areas, showers, etc.) has a duty of care to protect them against spycams.

Spybuster Tip #362: Management, train your security and facilities personnel how to conduct and document due diligence video voyeurism inspections to detect spycams on a regular basis. Just think of the legal fees, and PR damage this will save you.

Takeaway: Don't Spy on Your Girlfriend's Affair

MI - A 43-year-old man was shot Friday while spying on a woman as she had an affair on Detroit's west side, police said. The man was spying on the 28-year-old woman around 2:20 a.m. in the 12000 block of Winthrop Street when she got caught having an affair, according to officials.

Police said when the man tapped on the window, the woman opened the window and fired shots. The man was shot in the arm, police said. He drove himself about two miles to the 8500 block of Lauder Street, where he called police. more

Video Voyeur Drones Grab Headlines – Business Espionage Drones Don't

A growing number of women in Port Lincoln, South Australia, have reported being woken at night by a drone spying on them in their homes.

One woman was sleeping alone on her remote hobby farm when she was woken up by an object banging into her window, only to realize it was a drone with a camera attached.

Another woman told the ABC of the anxiety and panic she now experiences at night due to a similar encounter, saying, “You’ll hear a noise and even if it’s not a drone you just get paranoid…

Two of the victims no longer shower at night for fear of the drone capturing them while naked.

In May this year, a Sydney woman reported having been spied on by a drone while she was getting out of the shower.

These disturbing instances reflect the growing problem of the law being ill-equipped to deal with fast-developing technology, such as drones and revenge porn — with women constituting the largest proportion of victims to cyber-crimes. more

Spybusters Tip #519 - Video voyeur drones are headline grabbers. Business espionage drones go unnoticed. 

If your office has a window, you have an information security vulnerability. One quick high resolution drone camera flyby and visible paperwork and whiteboard information is theirs. 

Close curtains, or angle blinds downward when you leave. No curtains? Develop the "clear desk" habit. Then, contact us to make sure the place isn't bugged.  ~Kevin

Prolific Spy Camera Man Posts Videos Gets Caught

WI - A 28-year-old man is charged with surreptitiously filming women in various states of undress in three locations, including a Target changing room at the Fox River Mall.

Andrew R. Persen of Appleton was charged Monday with 10 counts of capturing an intimate representation without consent, five counts of invading privacy with a surveillance device and a single charge of posting a sexually explicit image without consent...

Besides Target, locations included his own bathroom and the bathroom and bedroom at a female friend's house, according to the criminal complaint...

According to the criminal complaint:
The friend told police on Oct. 11 that her friend had found a nude video of her on a pornography website and she believed Persen had posted it without her consent. The video was posted around June of this year and the website indicated it had hundreds of public views.

She said the username the video was posted under was one that Persen commonly used on social media...

Typical Bathroom Spycam Enclosures — Look for the pinhole.

Police searched Persen's house on Oct. 20 and found "numerous" electronic storage devices.

He said that he had put hidden cameras in his friend's bedroom and bathroom in the spring and also in a Target dressing room. He also said he put a camera in his own shower to capture another woman.

Police found videos of the friend filmed at her home. Two detailed in the complaint clearly show him installing the cameras.

One video showed a woman using his shower.

Investigators also found 66 video files that appeared to show the inside of a changing room at Target. If the date and time display is correct, it appears the videos were recorded between 3:20 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. on April 6.

One video appears to show him setting up the camera in the changing room at 3:18 p.m. with his face clearly visible. more

Unfortunately, this type of story appears in the news several times per week. And... these are the failures; this is the tip of all video voyeur activity.

You should really learn how to detect spycams, and then teach your family and friends how to do it as well. It's really simple, once you know how.

Spike in Spy Camera Sales Online Causes Concern

Over a period of time, a sales engineer in Singapore amassed 280 obscene films, many of which depicted women in various stages of undress in public bathrooms and changing rooms.

The unsuspecting women, including schoolgirls, were filmed with secret cameras, and Joel Chew Weichen, 27, had collected the films for distribution.  

Based on checks by The Straits Times, a worrying trend has emerged - the sale of such cameras is on the rise.

On online shopping platform Lazada, which has more than 600,000 hidden camera products available, sales of such cameras have grown 1.5 times this year compared with last year. The cameras come disguised as clocks, pens and even smoke detectors.

A spokesman said spy pens, which can cost about $12, are the most popular. Spectacles with built-in cameras may cost about $85...

Chew, who was sentenced to six months in jail this month, was the first of five individuals to plead guilty to having the obscene films for distribution.

He was also part of groups that share and download such videos.

The victims were secretly filmed while in bathrooms in cafes, schools, offices, changing rooms of popular fashion outlets, and bathroom showers in private homes. more

Note: An on-line spycam detection training course is available to organizations and individuals.

Electronic Surveillance: Trust Your Instincts - Don't Wait 10 Years

A Craig, Iowa man will spend up to ten years behind bars for spying on a family in their home over the course of a decade. A judge sentenced 67-year-old James Grasz on five charges including sexual exploitation of a minor, and invasion of privacy.

Prosecutors say Grasz videotaped adults, and juveniles, in various states of nudity, without their consent, for ten years, or more. Authorities started investigating, last March, after a woman complained that she felt like she was being spied on.  more

Optical Spying Through Office Windows

With talented hackers able to break into just about any device that's connected to the internet, from a computer to a car, the best way to keep sensitive data safe is to cut the cord completely.

Keeping an "air gap" between a hard drive and other devices forces any would-be thief to physically go to the machine ... or so you might think. Cyber security researchers have shown that hackers could hijack the innocent flashing LED on the outside of a computer, and use it to beam a steady stream of data to a waiting drone.

...digital criminals can be extremely crafty, using acoustic signals to jump the air gap between devices from a distance or untangling typed text by listening via Skype to the clickety-clack of a keyboard.

Now, a team at the Ben-Gurion University Cyber Security Research Center has demonstrated a new way that creative crooks could crack that isolated data. A piece of malware infecting an air-gapped computer could harness the hard drive's LED, making it flash in a very controlled and very fast manner. Flickering thousands of times a second, the virus could blink out a binary code of the desired data, at a rate that a human sitting at that computer wouldn't even notice. Special cameras or light sensors – say from a drone hovering at the window, with a line of sight to the LED – could then receive and record that information. more

Spybusters Tip #792: External visual surveillance through windows is easy using high-powered optics, or even cameras on drones. Keep computer screens, and their blinky lights, away from external line-of-sight. 

Spybusters Tip #793: Enforce a "Clear Desk Policy" when sensitive information is not actively being used. ~Kevin

Flying Tom's Last Peep

UAE - A 28-year-old man died after falling from a high rise building in Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, 
while spying on ladies living in the opposite building. The witness told police that the deceased fell due to imbalance while standing and looking into the rooms of the ladies.

Sharjah Police said that they received a call about the incident at the operation room and soon arrived at the site. The man was found dead in a pool of blood. He was rushed to Al Kuwaiti Hospital and then to forensic laboratory. more

Beans from Boston Accused of Spying

CT - A borough couple is suing their neighbors in federal court, alleging they have used the windows and porches of their newly enlarged home to “launch a full scale threatening attack” on their neighbors by continuously spying on them.

Dave and Reba Williams also allege that their Water Street neighbors, Randall and Elizabeth Bean and their two adult sons, Christopher and Matthew, may also be disseminating their recordings and photographs electronically and in other ways.

They allege the two Bean sons have undertaken the surveillance in an “deliberate, calculated effort to harass them.''...

The Williamses, who are in their 80s and residents of Greenwich, have a summer home at 24 Water St. that is appraised by the town at $1.7 million. They bought the home in 2007.

The Beans, who live in Boston, have a summer home at 28 Water St. that they bought in 2014 and is appraised by the town at $1.4 million. Both homes are on Stonington Harbor. more

Spycam News: Video Voyeur Builds Spy Camera into Toy Jukeboxes—Gives them to Kids

FL - Deputies with the Lake County Sheriff's Office seized various equipment after Robert Anthony O'Hare's arrest last year. Through the seizure, they learned O'Hare had placed hidden cameras in two miniature jukeboxes that were later delivered to children.

"They didn't go through the post office, it looks as they he hand-delivered them," said John Herrell, with the Lake County Sheriff's Office.

The hidden cameras were used to film the children unbeknownst to them, according to deputies.

"As long as they (the jukeboxes) were plugged into the wall, those cameras were activated," Herrell said. "He could use a remote control and remotely control what the camera was viewing."

O'Hare is accused of producing hundreds of videos using a telescopic lens and camera found in his closet during a search of his home in October 2015, deputies said.

Hundreds of downloaded pornographic videos involving adults were also found on his devices, according to authorities. O’Hare is also accused of downloading child porn at a coffee shop. more