Chinese spying on American government computers

The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in June in the most successful cyber attack on the US defence department, say American ­officials.

The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defense secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack.

Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the People’s Liberation Army. (more)

The Germans are also complaining about similar attacks. (more)

Ex-spy says he's new Messiah

Former spy David Shayler is to tour the country to tell people he is the Messiah . . . and spread his message of unconditional love.

The MI5 whistleblower, who claims to be receiving messages from Yeshua — believed to be the Hebrew name for Jesus — is now living in a log cabin in Devon with friends and admits his family are worried about him.

Despite this, Teesside- born Shayler is determined to carry on with his plan.

He said: “I am an incarnate of Jesus. I have not spoken to rabbis or priests about it. I am getting stuff directly from the big man.

“I am not having a breakdown. I have not seen a doctor. I do not need to see one. I am absolutely sane. “I have no doubt in my heart I am the Messiah. (more)

You may remember David from the TV show Spy School on the old TechTV channel. Other David Shayler stories...
Shayler suspects TV repair man of bugging his home
Spies will face mental health check to prevent embarrassing mistakes
Shayler: hero of free speech, or the spy who loved himself?

SpyCam Helps 'Clear the Air', or... Ionic Irony Eyes

A spy camera system concealed in an air purifier automatically records images on a removable memory card upon Video Motion Detection.

No need to hassle with complicated camera and VCR wiring or wireless cameras that transmit your images all over the neighborhood! The new MC/Air Purifier-Camera/DVR (digital video recorder) is completely self contained, totally secure, and easy to use. All functions of the Air Purifier work normally and the hidden B&W low light, high resolution camera is totally invisible. (more)

"Hoist by his own petard"

UK - A father of two who campaigned for increased security on the estate where he lives has been convicted of causing damage in order to further his cause - after being caught on the very CCTV cameras he petitioned for.

Cheeky Liam Jordan had complained to the police and housing association of repeated acts of vandalism at his flat complex in the run down area of Seacroft, Leeds, West Yorks.

He even went as far as organising a neighbourhood watch meeting about the problem, and spoke to the local newspapers about his plight, calling for CCTV to be installed.

And amazingley, it was the very CCTV footage he fought for which caught him smashing a neighbour's window. (more)

"Listen. do-da-do Do you want to know a secret?"

UK - Liverpool's ruling Liberal Democrats have switched crucial meetings away from council-run Millennium House, in Victoria Street, because they fear it is bugged.

Their councillors have moved important gatherings to the town hall, hoping the use of the council chamber will guard against political espionage and eavesdropping during private sessions of the group.

Last night, former Labour leader Frank Prendergast admitted he had been able to pick up a private Lib-Dem meeting – on his hearing aid. (more)

...and not a penny to, "Be sure to wipe and flush."

NY gets $11M to promote seat belt use
New York will receive more than $11 million in federal funding to encourage and enforce seat belt use. ... The DOT granted more than $109 million to 17 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and four territories. (more)

An outrageous waste of money - to promote the obvious to a few idiots. Announced late on a Friday prior to a holiday weekend. Just coincidence?

This Week's Bad Boys of Eavesdropping (government version)

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Gonzales also told Congress there was little dissent within the Bush administration about the legality of a warrantless electronic surveillance program launched by the NSA after the Sept. 11 attacks. But that appeared to be contradicted in testimony by a former deputy attorney general, who said several top Justice officials at one point threatened to resign over a disagreement with the White House. (more)


Former Philippine Air Force Sergeant Vidal Doble
...who admitted to having wiretapped former elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo at the height of the 2004 elections. (more)


Polish Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński
Accused of... "Wiretapping colleagues, using these wiretaps for political goals, in my opinion trying to arrange the detention or arrest of government colleagues - this is not the kind of activity which can be included in the canon of any code of conduct, aside from the gangsters' code," Giertych, leader of the right-wing League of Polish Families (LPR) opposition party, told reporters in Warsaw this week. (more)


Cyprus Competition Commissioner Giorgos Christofides
Police charged him in connection with allegations he was spying on his staff, press reports said yesterday. Since July, Christofides has been caught in the maelstrom’s eye after employees at the Commission for the Protection of Competition complained he used the CCTV system to watch their every move, that he listened in on their phone conversations and even scrutinized their emails. It’s also been alleged that Christofides set up a live web-link from the offices to his laptop so he could keep an eye on his staff while he was out. (more)

Your Employee's Bad Computer Security Habits

- Borrowing Wi-Fi
About one in three corporate employees who work from a laptop sometimes piggyback on a stranger's wi-fi connection they spot with their wireless Internet card, according to InsightExpress' study. While that allows for easy telecommuting without a broadband bill, moving confidential data across an insecure wireless connection can be risky.

- Using USB Drives
Those little USB key chains make for easy file transfers, but when they store sensitive information, they also pose a security risk. Not only are they frequently lost, but they're also built to run certain programs automatically when plugged in. One security researcher, Steve Stasiukonis, planted 20 USB drives in the parking lot of a bank, each with a piece of software that steals passwords and log-ins from employees' computers and sends them to a third party. Fifteen were picked up by employees and plugged in, ferreting off sensitive information and demonstrating the devices' potential for exploitation.

- Forwarding to Third-party Webmail
Services like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail are free, universally accessible and often easier to use than clunky corporate e-mail, tempting workers to forward their work messages to a Webmail account. But when confidential data is copied from your business's e-mail servers and ends up on Google's or Yahoo!'s, it's no longer completely in your control.

- Opening E-mail Attachments
Opening attached files on e-mail from strangers is one risky behavior that seems to have finally become unfashionable. Ninety-three percent of workers now know better than to expose themselves to malware or viruses by opening files from anonymous or unfamiliar messages. But some not so brilliant users actually infect themselves purposefully out of curiosity, says David Perry, director of education at Trend Micro.

- Clicking Hyperlinks in E-mails
Just as employees have started wising up to attachment threats, cyber-criminals have moved on. More common now is malware that installs itself when the user visits a Web page linked in a spam e-mail. Those links can be masked to read as legitimate sites like eBay.com or Amazon.com while sending users somewhere far less desirable.

- Surfing Shady Sites
Allowing employees to visit porn or gambling sites at work is a bad idea for several apparent reasons. But one of the less obvious is the threat of Web-based malware, which often lurks on disreputable sites.

- Not Securing Wireless Devices
As smart phones proliferate, the definition of the word "computer" is blurring at the edges, and so is the security perimeter of a business with wireless employees. Many wireless devices don't come with security software or encryption of data pre-installed. (more)

Colorado Parents Can Now Spy On Teen Drivers

An insurance company is providing parents with another tool to track how their teenagers are driving. American Family Insurance began offering a program to put cameras in cars in August.

...the camera only records 10 seconds before and after an out-of-the-ordinary driving event like a swerve, speeding, not coming to a full stop or a collision.

"Nobody can view the video except for the parents, with a password that's proprietary to them," said Tom Walker, an agent with American Family Insurance. (more)

Do It Yourself Sky Spies - The Draganflyer

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) like the military's MQ-1 Predator and local government's SkySeer are meant to protect us. They cost a lot of money.


The flip side of the coin... Industrial Espionage on the cheap!

UAVs are easy to make. Many hobbyists are already doing so - and showing off their aerial surveillance videos on YouTube! Many of these videos were shot using a Draganflyer - a hobbyist helicopter outfitted with a wireless video camera.

From Draganflyer's advertising... "Whether you need high quality aerial video for a sporting event, advertising, or any other purpose you will get it done efficiently and professionally with the Draganflyer SAVS."

While we don't believe they were thinking about industrial espionage 'other purposes', just imagine one flying over your sensitive production facilities, new construction site, or a personally private area. (more video)

Key Eavesdropping Cracks Car Locks

A group of computer security researchers in Israel and Belgium say they've discovered the electronic equivalent of a Slim Jim -- a way to pop the electronic door locks on most cars without ever touching them.

By listening in on the wireless “conversation” between a car and its key, the researchers found they could crack the code that keeps the communication secret. Then they were able to emulate the electronic key and trick the car into unlocking itself.

The research paper, called “How to Steal Cars, (PDF)” was presented at the Crypto 2007 conference at the University of California, Santa Barbara, last week. (more)

Electronic Surveillance - "There’s money to be made..."

...And so a new industry was born, known in the trade as ‘Intelligence Support Systems’, complete with its own annual conference. If you’re in Dubai next February, drop by. Since there’s money to be made, panels cover such areas as ‘Electronic Surveillance Cost Recovery Solutions’ and – for the benefit of those who prefer to carry out the intercepts in-house before passing the data on ready-analysed to the relevant government agencies – the key topic of ‘how to transform packet intercept into intelligence’ (more)

Eavesdropping on VoIP Calls—Part 2

In Part 1 of this opus, I (hopefully) painted a scary picture of how easy it is to eavesdrop on VoIP traffic. So what can you to protect your own VoIP traffic? Let's take a look at some of your options.

-- Use Skype
Skype is famous for its excellent call quality and reliability. Its call security is pretty good, and is used on all Skype services—VoIP calls, text chat, and video and file transfers. Skype uses a digital certificate authority and signed certificates, peer authentication, and strong encryption.

-- ZRTP encrypts all VoIP
PGP is the most widely used e-mail encryption software. It now exists in two main forms: a commercial implementation maintained by the PGP Corp., and the free software version, GNU Privacy Guard (GPG). (more)

Goodby, Talking Clock

It's the end of time, at least as far as AT&T is concerned. The brief note in customers' bills hardly does justice to the momentousness of the decision. "Service withdrawal," it blandly declares. "Effective September 2007, Time of Day information service will be discontinued."

In the 1930s, an Atlanta company called Audichron devised a system for the time to be provided automatically. Audichron leased its technology to phone companies nationwide, often with sponsorship from local businesses.

Time ladies -- and a few gentlemen -- came and went over the years. Then, in the 1950s, a woman named Mary Moore emerged as the nation's leading time-teller. Her reading of hours, minutes and seconds was delivered in a distinctive if somewhat prissy tone. Moore's odd pronunciation of the numbers 5 ("fiyev") and 9 ("niyun") influenced a generation of operators, much as flying ace Chuck Yeager's West Virginia drawl is said to have been adopted by innumerable airline pilots.

By far the most prominent time lady was Jane Barbe, who succeeded Moore at Audichron in the 1960s. A former big band singer, Barbe (pronounced "Barbie") went on to become the voice of recorded telephone messages in the 1970s and '80s in the United States and elsewhere.

Joanne Daniels started recording the time and other messages for Weatherchron about 25 years ago, and ultimately became the voice Californians hear when they call the service. “I was told at one time that my voice would last until well into the 21st century,” the 65-year-old said. “Now it looks like I’m about to be laid to rest.” (more)

Poland's Eavesdropping Scandal Shuts Down Parliament

The testimony by Poland's Former Minister of Interior about Polish Government use of special services organizations to spy on political opponents has stopped proceedings of the Polish Parliament. And the stoppage may end up being long term. Parliamentary Speaker Ludwig Dorn said if the opposition continues to demand breaks the current session could "go on for months".

Yesterday, during the reading of the secret testimony of Former Minister of Interior Janusz Kaczmarek, Former Minister of Education Roman Giertych exploded when he learned that conversations between him and Former Deputy Prime Minister Andrzej Lepper were recorded and transcripts of their conversations given to Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Making accusations of a "Polish Watergate", Giertych demanded a delay in Parliamentary proceedings until next Tuesday.

The delay stops all work of the Parliament. (more)