FREE LUNCHTIME AUTHOR DEBRIEFING AND BOOK SIGNING -
Thursday, 4 October; 12 noon – 1 pm
In May of 2006, PepsiCo alerted the Coca Cola Company that someone was trying to sell Coke’s secrets. An FBI sting implicated a secretary who has since been sentenced to eight years in federal prison for conspiring to steal trade secrets from the famous beverage maker.
How unusual was this case?
How frequently are businesses under attack?
How can they protect themselves?
Join Steeple Aston, PhD, author of Corporate Spy, as he uncovers the world of the corporate spies: who they are and how they operate. You’ll learn the warning signs and hear about some of the most dramatic cases of industrial espionage in recent years. (more)
International Spy Museum
800 F Street, NW Washington, DC 20004
202.393.7798
Australia - The lawyer husband of slain West Australian Supreme Court registrar Corryn Rayney has become the prime suspect in his estranged wife's murder. Ms. Rayney disappeared after an evening bootscooting dance class on August 7, 2007.Lloyd Rayney, the prominent lawyer, was arrested and charged with installing an illegal phone bugging device on the telephone in the Como house the couple had shared with their two daughters.The dramatic new development came after police returned to search the Rayney home in Monash Street, forcing their way in after Mr. Rayney refused to answer the door. (more)
Thousands of Big Brother viewers pay RealNetworks $40 a season to watch live footage from inside the CBS reality show's spycam-riddled house. (more)
The American economy may be teetering on the brink of a recession, but there's an industry our hedge fund gurus believe has an almost limitless future: the Chinese police state.In a stunning report in the New York Times last week, correspondent Keith Bradsher documented the rise of China's electronic surveillance industry, whose leading companies have incorporated themselves in the United States and obtained the lion's share of their capital from U.S. hedge funds. Though ostensibly private, these companies are a for-profit adjunct of the Chinese government.Li Runsen, technology director of the government's ministry of public security and the top cop policing China's Internet usage against the occasional appearance of a dangerous idea, now also moonlights as a director of China Security and Surveillance Technology, a company soon to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. (more)
Cell phones have become so much a part of our lives that we don't stop to think about the vulnerabilities unique to this technology.
For example, there is the simple act of eavesdropping.How many times have you been the unwitting listener to someone else's phone conversation? It has become a profitable pastime for many.There are two types of eavesdropping — casual and technical. Someone with an interest can, of course, overhear things you say on your cell phone. Never use it in a public place to call your bank, visit with your financial advisor or conduct any personal business. Don't use your cell phone to talk to automated banking or credit card systems where you speak your account numbers or personal identification numbers. New scanners have been developed which search airwaves for decodable cell signals. Think before you speak. (more)
The age-old business of breaking up has taken a decidedly Orwellian turn, with digital evidence like e-mail messages, traces of Web site visits and mobile telephone records now permeating many contentious divorce cases.
Photo - Jolene Barten-Bolender says she discovered a tracking device in a wheel well of the family car.
Spurned lovers steal each other’s BlackBerrys. Suspicious spouses hack into each other’s e-mail accounts. They load surveillance software onto the family PC, sometimes discovering shocking infidelities.
Divorce lawyers routinely set out to find every bit of private data about their clients’ adversaries, often hiring investigators with sophisticated digital forensic tools to snoop into household computers.
“In just about every case now, to some extent, there is some electronic evidence,” said Gaetano Ferro, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, who also runs seminars on gathering electronic evidence. “It has completely changed our field.”
Privacy advocates have grown increasingly worried that digital tools are giving governments and powerful corporations the ability to peek into peoples’ lives as never before. But the real snoops are often much closer to home. (more)
Our gear is eating our privacy!
• Finger-pointing printers
• Cell phone surveillance
• Digital camera (finger) prints
CNBC explains how...
AL - The origin of an FBI investigation of Lawrence County Commission offices, including the seizure of an apparent bugging system, could remain a mystery for months or longer.U.S. Magistrate Judge Harwell G. Davis III placed the search warrant proceeding under seal Tuesday, prohibiting public access to the affidavit, the search warrant and the return of the search warrant. ...FBI agents seized a clock radio purchased from the Alabama Spy Shop from the commission office. Agents seized the following items from Assistant County Administrator Karen Harrison's office: seven video cassettes, a digital display 12-channel receiver, one power supply, audio visual cables, coaxial cables and a receipt and purchase order from Alabama Spy Shop.The bugging system had reportedly been in place since 2004.Cross said he didn't know about the bugging system or why someone would install it. (more)
Chinese and Russian spies are stalking the United States at levels close to those seen during the tense covert espionage duels of the Cold War, the top US intelligence officer warned Tuesday.Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell raised the specter of a new era of clandestine intelligence wars during a House of Representatives hearing on a contentious new law on warrantless wiretapping. (more)
An Ohio man facing a lawsuit from his wife's friend for intercepting her emails using spyware on a household computer filed suit Friday against the spyware maker, arguing the company's ads failed to warn him that using it to monitor his family, including his wife, would violate state and federal laws.
Relying on a federal wiretap law that allows victims of spying to sue for damages, Jeffrey Havlicek argues that Deep Software, the Canadian company that sold him the key logger, should pay him thousands of dollars in damages and pay any claim from the lawsuit filed against him for spying illegally. (more)
In what Singapore's Chief Justice declared was the first time that questions of law have been raised here over the ownership of garbage, the courts allowed an appeal from a group of creditors who had a dump staked out, so as to dig up the dirt on their debtor.Almost daily for six months, a group of private investigators hired by the creditors — various American investment funds — lurked around the common rubbish dump at Orchard Towers.
From a distance, they would watch cleaners deposit bags of trash. And after the cleaner contracted by two companies, Vestwin Trading and Hilltree Enterprise, made his drop-off, the investigators — taking care not to be spotted — moved in to pick up the bag of trash. (more)
Dumpster diving is alive and well. Take precautions. And, yes... the book is real. Buy it here, and find out how dumpster divers are trained!
"If You're Not Spying, You're Not Trying"
by George Solomon, Sports Columnist, The Washington Post
(from an article in which he discusses football spying)
South Africa - Defence Counsel in the Boeremag treason trial on Monday complained bitterly that someone seemed to be listening in on their conversations during private consultations inside the courtroom.One of the defence advocates, Bernard Bantjes, said he had recently found out that private consultations when the court was not sitting were allegedly being recorded, sent to a central computer and then erased once a week.
This was apparently despite recording equipment being switched off when the trial was not in sitting, he said.
Other defence advocates said they had also received complaints before that someone was listening in on their conversations, but chief prosecutor Paul Fick SC said this was the first time he heard of the allegation, and he was equally upset about it. (more)
The NFL is continuing to monitor spying devices after the penalties levied by commissioner Roger Goodell against the New England Patriots.NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Sunday that new memos on both videotaping and electronic surveillance of signals have gone out to all 32 teams reminding them of bans on the various types of surveillance.''It's nothing new,'' Aiello said. ''We just want to remind people how the rules work.'' (more)
Denmark, ranked five places higher than China at six in the world, are understood to be fuming after rumours they were spied on during tactical sessions behind a two-way mirror wall.
It is understood Denmark had taken photos to provide evidence of the spying but had the camera stolen, and it all came to a head after the dramatic finish to the match when a member of the Denmark staff allegedly punched a Chinese counterpart.
New Zealand, who are in the same group, had been informed of spies at training sessions in Auckland before the World Cup and claim since arriving in China they have regularly been spied on at closed sessions. (more)
FREE LUNCHTIME AUTHOR DEBRIEFING AND BOOK SIGNING - Thursday, 4 October; 12 noon – 1 pm
