Critics put pressure on Wal-Mart over eavesdropping

Two of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s most vocal critics — the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which backs WakeUpWalmart.com, and Wal-Mart Watch — are putting pressure on the world’s largest retailer to disclose if it has monitored its workers’ communications.

The moves come amid a federal investigation after Wal-Mart said a systems technician monitored text messages and phone calls of other employees and nonemployees, including a New York Times reporter. (more)

'Big brother' surveillance makes waves in Sweden

Sweden - A far-reaching wiretapping programme proposed by Sweden's government to defend against foreign threats, including monitoring emails and telephone calls, has stirred up a fiery debate in the past few weeks, with critics decrying the creation of a "big brother" state.

The new legislation, to be presented to parliament on Thursday, would enable the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) to tap all Internet and telephone communication in and out of Sweden.

Under current law, FRA, which cracked Nazi codes during World War II and was Sweden's ear on the Soviet Union during the Cold War, is only allowed to monitor military radio communications. (more)

"OK, show of hands, who wasn't tapped?"

Judge Limits Defendants In Civil Wiretapping Suits
Ruling Breaks Logjam In Case Against Private Eye Who Spied On Stars

LOS ANGELES - A judge has moved to break a legal logjam in the Hollywood wiretapping case by ruling that no new defendants can be added to the 13 civil lawsuits already filed against private eye Anthony Pellicano and others. ...

Prosecutors contend in a 111-count criminal indictment that Pellicano illegally wiretapped the phones of Hollywood stars such as Sylvester Stallone and bribed police officers to run the names of more than 60 people, including comedians Garry Shandling and Kevin Nealon, through government databases. (more)

Sam's other Club... eavesdropping

Federal investigators are looking into the actions of a computer systems technician at Wal-Mart Stores who, over a period of several months, intercepted pager and text messages and also secretly taped telephone conversations between Wal-Mart employees and a reporter for The New York Times, the company said yesterday. ...

Wal-Mart said the technician was not authorized to monitor and tape the conversations between members of its media relations staff and Michael Barbaro, a retail reporter for The Times. ...

The focus of any criminal investigation might be on the text messages and the pages transmitted near company headquarters by people who were not Wal-Mart employees; the technician made those interceptions using his own personal radio-frequency equipment.

“He captured all of the text messages that were within a range of his equipment,” Ms. Williams (a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart) said. “Some of those messages had key words in them that he was watching for. Those were captured and put into a separate file or bucket from the others.” She declined to provide details of the messages or motives for those actions by the technician. (more)

What do you think would have possessed an employee to do this extra work?
Do you check for unauthorized eavesdropping at your workplace?

SpyCam'er goes free with summons?!?!

FL - No additional charges will be filed against a Merritt Island man charged with video voyeurism after his arrest Thursday at a Melbourne clothing store. Police said the man carried a digital video camera into a dressing room at a Beall's Outlet and had images of a woman trying on clothes.

Teddy W. Underwood, 31, is charged with video voyeurism, a misdemeanor, police spokeswoman Jill Frederiksen said.

If police technicians had discovered the woman was audiotaped as well, Frederiksen said, then Underwood could have been charged with a felony count of illegally taping a person without their permission. No audiotape was discovered. ...

Store clerks called police, who arrived while Underwood was still in the dressing room. They questioned him and found the camera. He claimed he found it and was going to turn it in, Frederiksen said.

An officer looked at the video, saw the images of the woman changing and arrested Underwood, she said. (more)

Lip Reading (updated)

Our clients (especially the ones in big cities) have been warned about being eavesdropped on by people who can lip read. Unlikely, but possible. We handled only one case involving lip reading in over 30 years.

This may change...

Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UK) are about to embark on an innovative new project to develop computer lip-reading systems that could be used for fighting crime.

The three-year project, which starts next month, will collect data for lip-reading and use it to create machines that automatically convert videos of lip-motions into text. It builds on work already carried out at UEA to develop state-of-the-art speech reading systems. (more)

SpyCam'er Back in Court

MI - The child pornography and eavesdropping case against former Egelston Township Treasurer Brian Lee Hill is back on the local court schedule.

Hill is set for a pretrial conference 9 a.m. March 8 before 14th Circuit Judge Timothy G. Hicks on five counts of making or producing child sexually abusive material and five counts of using a computer to commit a crime, plus three counts of eavesdropping by installing a video device.

The eavesdropping charges, a two-year felony, are for allegedly snooping with a hidden camera on male teenage exchange students using the shower in his home at 1265 Drent. (more)

When Spies Go Bad

Estonia - Commander of Estonian Defense Forces, General-Major Ants Laaneots relieved on Tuesday the head of the military intelligence branch from his duties following allegations of spying on government officials.

The General Staff of the Defense Forces said Monday that Major Riho Uhtegi has been transferred to cadre reserve "due to service demands," but experts believe his dismissal is directly related to recent reports in the media that the Estonian military intelligence had been involved in "illegal activities."

Estonian newspaper Eesti Ekspress reported last week that military intelligence officers have been spying on defense ministry's staff and made attempts to recruit informers among officers, politicians and journalists. (more)

"Like this cat was watchin' me, man."

Acoustic Kitty was a CIA project launched in the 1960s attempting to use cats in spy missions. A battery and a microphone were implanted into a cat and an antenna into its tail. Due to problems with distraction, the cat's sense of hunger had to be removed in another operation. Surgical and training expenses are thought to have amounted to over 10 million British pounds.

The first cat mission was eavesdropping on two men in a park outside the Soviet compound on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C.. The cat was released nearby, but was hit and killed by a taxi almost immediately. Shortly thereafter the project was considered a failure and decided to be a total loss. (more)

Trojan Horse Trick #742

Security, spy gear disguised as ordinary household items...

Many of his cameras are disguised as ordinary household items - smoke detectors, clock radios and VCRs. They use secure digital video cards, similar to camera memory sticks, that plug into computers and make it easy to find the moment of truth.

And espionage has never been so affordable: Prices on digital video recorders have gone down in the last five years from $1,200 to $499.

So we thought we'd take a look at some of the most covert devices on the market, straight from Q Branch. After all, you only live twice. (more)

Trojan Horse Trick #741

"What a beautiful gift. Thank you!"

BIG mistake. One lamp is equipped with a microphone, attached to an always-on GSM cell phone, which is powered-up as soon as you plug your lamp into a wall outlet.

Doesn't matter where you put them - bedroom or office - the person now eavesdropping on you is just a phone call away ...anywhere in the world!

When was the last time you had your lamps checked? How about all those other items which surround you?

Beware of Geeks bearing gifts. (more)

Govt defends ‘spying’ amidst outrage

Kenya - Politicians and church leaders have expressed outrage over reports that the Government was spying on politicians to gauge their individual strengths on an election year. ...

But two Cabinet ministers Mr Amos Kimunya (Finance) and Mr Njeru Ndwiga (Co-operatives) defended Internal Security Minister Mr John Michuki, whose docket includes the Provincial Administration over the move, saying there was nothing about it that was unbecoming. (more)

Masons hit by bugging

Ireland - Police have launched an investigation into suspicions that meetings at one of Northern Ireland's largest Masonic Halls was bugged, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal today.

It is understood that the PSNI launched the probe after recordings were received in the post by Masonic officials at the headquarters of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Antrim at Rosemary Street in Belfast.

Police are investigating if the recordings are of secret rituals held in the building which is the main meeting place of freemasons in Co Antrim, one of the largest lodges in Ireland. (more)

Who watches you at work?

New Zealand - You might think that you're entitled to a certain amount of privacy at work, but this isn't always the case. Some employers have gone as far as putting secret cameras in employee changing areas and gotten away with it. Katrine Evans, assistant privacy commissioner, says privacy is governed by several principles and no methods of surveillance is completely banned. (more)

You're just 60 seconds away from being spied on!

SnoopStick is a USB flash drive type device that allows you to monitor what your kids, employees, or anyone [including Y-O-U] using your computer is doing while on the Internet. And, you can monitor them live, in real time, from anywhere in the world.

Simply plug the SnoopStick into the computer you want to monitor. Then run the setup program to install the SnoopStick monitoring components on the computer. The whole process takes less than 60 seconds.

The SnoopStick monitoring components are completely hidden, and there are no telltale signs that the computer is being monitored.

You can then unplug the SnoopStick and take it with you anywhere you go. No bigger than your thumb and less than 1/4" thick, you can carry it in your pocket, purse, or on your keychain.

Any time you want to see what web sites your kids or employees [or Y-O-U] are visiting, who they [or Y-O-U] are chatting with, and what they [or Y-O-U] are chatting about, [they or Y-O-U] simply plug in your SnoopStick to any Windows based computer with an Internet connection and a USB port. SnoopStick will automatically connect to the target computer.

...snoopstick it to them with some of these features...
- Send the user a pop up message alert. A good way to tell them they're busted!
- Turn off/on Internet access with the SnoopStick locally or remotely.
- Set allowable times for Internet access.
- Prevent users from using certain types of Internet programs.
- Block access to specified ports.
- Block access to web sites.
(more)