(from gizmodo.com)When the AVL-900 is properly installed in a car, it contains enough gadgetry to successfully ruin every high-school student's Friday night.Not only does it send out the GPS coordinates of the car's current location or alert the owner/parent the second their car has been moved, but it can spy on the driver as well. That's right, with a simple text message you can instantly gain access to all of the conversations going on inside the car. So even though little Jimmy said on the phone that he was going to the library, once dialed in you can hear all about how he and his friends are on their way to the deadly drug party with all the strippers and illegal activities.Luckily for the young'uns they still have some time, since there's no word yet on where to pick up one of these snitches. But if the moms I knew growing up are any indication, they will find it—and they will use it.– Ben Longo (original)
The 'young'uns' lucky few minutes are over... (more) ...not to mention the spouse'uns.
OH - A 24-year-old man says he installed a smoke detector with hidden cameras in his home to deter his wife from having an affair.But Steven Dittmer used the wireless camera last November to spy on a teenage female relative and her girlfriend in his shower, Lorain County prosecutors say.A grand jury indicted Dittmer last week on 11 charges, including illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material and contributing to the delinquency of a minor for supplying beer to one of the girls in 2005 and 2006, court records said.
A Canadian man charged with sexual assault is now facing child pornography charges after a search of his home turned up a teddy bear outfitted with a remote-controlled video camera, police said on Thursday.Police in Durham Region, east of Toronto, said the teddy bear had been fitted with the camera in its eyes and could be operated from some distance away. It was discovered this week inside a 24-year-old man's home during an investigation into the sexual assault of two girls under 12.Police said they also discovered a watch-like wristband device capable of recording images, as well as tapes showing sexual assaults on young victims.Computer equipment was also seized from the home of the man who was said to be active with the Salvation Army Church in Bowmanville, about 70 km (44 miles) from Toronto. (more)
IL - A McLean County jury convicted a Bloomington man of one count of criminal sexual assault and acquitted him of three other counts in the case involving an incident at his home in 2004.Jeff Young, 44, of Gerard Drive also was convicted of eavesdropping for videotaping the sexual activity.The video was found during a police search of Young’s home in 2005 in connection with a similar case involving a different woman. The charges in this case were filed after police found the video and showed it to the woman. ...
Young faces up to 21 years in prison when he is sentenced July 20. (more)
NC - A U.S. Air Force reservist was ordered to spend 90 days in prison Thursday after he was convicted of spying on his adopted daughter with a Web cam and downloading child pornographic videos.Thomas Edward Anderson, 41, of 501 Goldleaf Drive, was charged with 10 counts each of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of secret peeping. On Thursday, a jury of six women and six men found him guilty on all counts. ...
The case which led to a joint investigation by the Wayne County Sheriff's Office and the SBI began in April 2005 when Clara Anderson discovered a Web cam in her bedroom, hidden in a heating and air conditioning vent and connected to a computer.
Sheriff's detectives were called to investigate and the computer was seized. (more)
The Department of Homeland Security is breaking privacy laws by failing to tell the public all the ways it uses personal information to target passengers boarding flights entering or leaving the U.S., according to a draft report the Government Accountability Office plans to release tomorrow. (more)
Sing-a-long while you read.
Columbia - An illegal police wiretapping operation against journalists, opposition figures and government members included the man President Alvaro Uribe defeated in the last election, his defense minister acknowledged Tuesday.Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos insisted that the Uribe administration was unaware of the police spying operation. "We don't know who ordered these interceptions and the government has never learned what they contain," he said.Santos refused to reveal all the known victims of the wiretapping...
Political opponents and investigative journalists have complained for years of being harassed and wiretapped by Colombia's security forces, who have received U.S. eavesdropping equipment and training for criminal investigations against drug traffickers and leftist rebels. (more)
"Anything you use on a daily basis that requires research, they're trying to steal," said Ray Morrow, special agent in charge of the FBI's Pittsburgh division...America has no friends when it comes to the research that gives its companies, universities and government a competitive edge. Countries all over the world _ including friends and allies _ would like to have that research, and they would love to get it for free. ... While private companies have long been aware of economic espionage, it's largely new territory for universities. (more)
"I know there is technology with which you can eavesdrop and hear a cockroach fart. But from what I saw our agents had watched too many American movies." ~Adam Lusekelo, Daily News columnist in Dar es Salaam humorously describing the Tanzanian Secret Service. (more)
Adam, our agents look the pretty much the same. (more)
Philippines - A well-placed officer of the Philippine National Police (PNP) warned yesterday that advanced wiretapping capabilities might have already slipped out of the control of law enforcers and into the hands of people tapping the phone lines of politicians running in the midterm elections. The source said people who seek to acquire the know-how and capability for wiretapping outside of police functions can offer their services for large fees to politicians who want valuable information about their opponents or enemies.
The PNP insider claimed to have training with systems to bug both landline and mobile phones, as well as calls from foreign countries to both types of telephones.
He cited the alleged bugging of the Aquino residence as a warning that indicates the "spilling out" of wiretapping capabilities outside the sphere of police investigative work.
"Wiretapping could even be used to blackmail individuals," the source said. (more)
PA - A man admitted secretly recording three teenage girls in his shower and bathroom with a miniature camera mounted in an electrical socket.
Thomas C. Hull, who pleaded guilty Tuesday, "was having a lot of marital problems and psychological strife," said his defense attorney, Robert Davis Gleason. "He should have gone and sought counseling."The girls were friends of a relative and were recorded by Hull in April 2006, authorities said. His estranged wife found the images when she went to get some belongings and then reported them to police, investigators said. (more)
CA - James Earl Edmiston, the man who fooled judges and attorneys alike when he fraudulently passed himself off as a computer forensics expert, pleaded guilty Friday to federal perjury charges. (more)
NH - A 48-year-old Chestnut Street man was arrested early this morning for wiretapping for allegedly recording police while they were investigating him for driving while intoxicated.Police say they were patrolling the downtown area at 2:54 a.m. when they discovered Christopher A. Power of 52 Chestnut St. sitting in the driver's seat of a vehicle with its motor running at the Rochester Common. After speaking with Power, police began investigating him for driving while intoxicated and arrested him. During the arrest an audio recording device was discovered."During a search after the arrest an audio recorder was discovered on the driver's seat cushion," Capt. Paul Callaghan said. "The officer noticed that the recorder was recording."Power was charged with driving while intoxicated and wiretapping, which is a Class B felony. (more)
Defense #1: How does a voice recorder constitute a wiretap?
Defense #2: "Iwasss jus sittin' here praktesing my kerreeeokee-ookeeeydoookeeeyy?" (hiccup)
An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind a U.S. Defense Department false espionage warning earlier this year about mysterious coin-like objects with radio frequency transmitters, The Associated Press has learned.
The harmless "poppy coin" was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors traveling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP.
The silver-colored 25-cent piece features the red image of a poppy — Canada's flower of remembrance — inlaid over a maple leaf. The unorthodox quarter is identical to the coins pictured and described as suspicious in the contractors' accounts. (more)
To commemorate the 80th anniversary of the first television, the Cook Islands issued a 39mm copper-nickel 1 Dollar coin in 2006. Pictured on the coin is a black and white picture of John L. Baird, the first successful inventor of electronic television, and a moving recreation of his first broadcast; a hand moving in front of a puppet. The obverse pictures Queen Elizabeth... (more)
Mongolia - Legal enforcement agencies have been accused of listening in on telephone conversations, a totally unacceptable encroachment on the privacy of individuals guaranteed by Mongolian laws and democratic norms. The Niigmiin Toli (“Social Mirror”) published on Monday a list of around 300 mobile telephone subscribers, including individuals and organizations, whose lines are regularly tapped. These included at least two diplomatic missions, two international aid organizations, business companies, some of them foreign-invested, mining companies, and banks. This was followed by a list of 200 names on Tuesday, and again 300 on Wednesday. The lists now have become a virtual Who’s Who in Mongolian politics and business, as well as diplomacy and foreign aid.
The newspaper also claims that certain numbers in the name of the President of Mongolia, N. Enkhbayar, as also of the Prime Minister, M. Enkhbold, are under such surveillance. (more)
(from gizmodo.com)
