UK - Britain is in danger of becoming a "surveillance state" as authorities including councils launch bugging operations against 1,000 people a day. ...
The report, by Sir Paul Kennedy, the Interception of Communications Commissioner, has fueled fears that Britain is becoming a state where private communications are routinely monitored.
It also found that more than 1,000 of the bugging operations were flawed. In some cases, the phones of innocent people were tapped simply because of administrative errors. (more) (+1-407-345-8010)
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Choo Shoe Gumshoe Tapper Story
UK - A private detective who helped to spy on the Jimmy Choo shoe boss Tamara Mellon was jailed for 21 months today.
David Carroll, 60, from Highgate, north London, played a leading role in a City-based agency operation, Active Investigation Services (AIS), which specialised in computer hacking and telephone tapping. ...
Engineers later found that hundreds of made-to-order tapping kits had been installed across the country by a former engineer on the AIS payroll.
The court heard that Carroll's tenure at AIS saw him involved in efforts to spy on a waste management company's critics, tap the phones of a client's wife suspected of having an affair, and target Mrs Mellon.
The company charged £3,000 for phone tapping, itemised line billing was priced at £750 a month, while personal banking information could be bought for £2,000 and confidential medical records for £500. Hacking into a computer was available for £5,000. (more)
David Carroll, 60, from Highgate, north London, played a leading role in a City-based agency operation, Active Investigation Services (AIS), which specialised in computer hacking and telephone tapping. ...
Engineers later found that hundreds of made-to-order tapping kits had been installed across the country by a former engineer on the AIS payroll.
The court heard that Carroll's tenure at AIS saw him involved in efforts to spy on a waste management company's critics, tap the phones of a client's wife suspected of having an affair, and target Mrs Mellon.
The company charged £3,000 for phone tapping, itemised line billing was priced at £750 a month, while personal banking information could be bought for £2,000 and confidential medical records for £500. Hacking into a computer was available for £5,000. (more)
Diana thought al-Fayed was bugging yacht
Princess Diana thought luxury store owner Mohamed al-Fayed was spying on her during her last voyage on his yacht before she died in a Paris car crash, her sister told the inquest into Diana's death on Monday. ...When asked by lawyer Ian Burnett if Diana had talked about being bugged, Sarah McCorquodale (Diana's sister) said, "She thought the boat was being bugged by Mr al-Fayed Senior." (more)
Spy vs Spy - The DC Tunnel
March 5, 2001 - Russia's Foreign Ministry has demanded details of a secret tunnel allegedly built underneath the Soviet Embassy in Washington for eavesdropping. Present and former U.S. officials told CNN the tunnel -- under what is now the Russian Embassy -- was built by American intelligence services and packed with millions of dollars worth of sophisticated equipment. (more)
Monday, January 28, 2008
Spy vs. Spy - The East Berlin Tunnel
On a rainy day 52 years ago, the cover was blown on one of the biggest espionage plots of the Cold War. Soviet and East German forces announced that they had found a quarter-mile-long tunnel that the CIA had burrowed into East Berlin as part of a massive wiretapping operation.Though the audacious project had come to a crashing end, news of the discovery generated unrestrained glee across the Atlantic at CIA headquarters. America's spymasters were thrilled by the world's response: admiration for the CIA's daring and technical prowess, and a general assumption that the agency had roundly snookered the Soviets.
The truth was much more complicated. Unbeknownst to the CIA, the Soviets had known about the tunnel all along. (more)
Book: Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War
The Ultimate Wiretap
The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret Seth Shulman closely examines the race to build the first telephone and uncovers potential bombshells with The Telephone Gambit. Although Alexander Graham Bell is widely accepted as the father of the telephone (despite the fact that rival inventor Elisha Gray submitted a similar claim the same day Bell filed his patent), Schulman provides intriguing evidence questioning if the scales were deliberately tipped in Alexander's favor. Was the venerable inventor party to theft from Gray's own research?
While researching Alexander Graham Bell at MIT's Dibner Institute, Seth Shulman scrutinized Bell's journals and within them he found the smoking gun, a hint of deeply buried historical intrigue. Delving further, Shulman unearthed the surprising story behind the invention of the telephone: a tale of romance, corruption, and unchecked ambition.
Bell furtively—and illegally—copied part of Elisha Gray's invention in the race to secure what would become the most valuable U.S. patent ever issued. book
...just in time to see the other one.
India successfully launched an Israeli spy satellite into orbit on Monday January 21, 2008. The launch of the TECSAR satellite by an Indian-made rocket was carried out in clear weather at 9:15 am local time (0345 GMT) from the Sriharikota space station in southern India. (more) (the other one)
DUCK!
A disabled American spy satellite is rapidly descending and is likely to plunge to Earth by late February or early March, posing a potential danger from its debris, officials said Saturday. Officials said that they had no control over the nonfunctioning satellite and that it was unknown where the debris might land. (more)
Quote of the Day
"We're long past alligator clips on copper wires." - Roger Pilon, writing in The Wall Street Journal about a bipartisan surveillance authorization measure that's already passed the Intelligence Committee. (more)
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Senior Russian spy's secrets revealed in new book
"Comrade J.: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America after the End of the Cold War"Once a senior KGB officer who says he was driven by patriotism, Sergei Tretyakov says he defected in 2000 because he lost faith in post-Soviet Russia and he's now ready to tell his story for the first time.
As deputy head of intelligence at Russia's U.N. mission from 1995 to 2000, Tretyakov directed spy operations in New York and at the United Nations. He says his agents included a former Soviet bloc ambassador and a senior Russian official in the Iraqi oil-for-food program.
Tretyakov's defection with his wife and daughter in 2000 caused only a minor flurry and was shrouded in secrecy.
A new book by former Washington Post journalist Pete Earley reveals he was among the most senior Russian agents to defect to the United States, and that he was a double-agent passing secrets to Washington for up to three years before 2000. (more)
China's Secret Police Target Britain's Sailors in Spying Row
"You don't need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
Britain's Olympic sailing team have been targeted by the Chinese secret police for conducting "illegal meteorological surveys" at the 2008 Games' venue, Qingdao. The Royal Yachting Association, whose teams have been more successful than any other sports at the past two Olympics, set up a weather station in Qingdao to analyze the conditions that will influence August's races. But towards the end of 2006 the weather station, which cost £8,000, was confiscated by the Chinese authorities and has not been returned.
"With the approaching of the Beijing Olympics, foreign illegal meteorological surveys have emerged in several Olympic cities," said the official portal, China.org.cn. "Three cases involving the US, the UK and Australia have been reported since last year. Foreign violators installed illegal monitoring equipments (sic) under the auspices of pre-match preparation. (more)
Britain's Olympic sailing team have been targeted by the Chinese secret police for conducting "illegal meteorological surveys" at the 2008 Games' venue, Qingdao. The Royal Yachting Association, whose teams have been more successful than any other sports at the past two Olympics, set up a weather station in Qingdao to analyze the conditions that will influence August's races. But towards the end of 2006 the weather station, which cost £8,000, was confiscated by the Chinese authorities and has not been returned.
"With the approaching of the Beijing Olympics, foreign illegal meteorological surveys have emerged in several Olympic cities," said the official portal, China.org.cn. "Three cases involving the US, the UK and Australia have been reported since last year. Foreign violators installed illegal monitoring equipments (sic) under the auspices of pre-match preparation. (more)
How secure are your text messages?
"For most people, the answer is ...don't worry."
(That, according to Time Magazine, who didn't see this.)
"In the mayor's case (see last story), the reason his messages have been exposed is because of the specialized service the city has contracted with to handle wireless communications between city officials. Although the scandal is already being dubbed BlackBerrygate by wags, the gizmo the mayor and Beatty used to communicate wasn't a BlackBerry at all.
It was a SkyWriter, and although it looks a lot like a BlackBerry, it's a dedicated messaging device provided to the city by SkyTel, a Mississippi-based wireless company that specializes in providing paging and messaging services to large corporations and governmental bodies through its own wireless network and devices.
"Every message sent over the SkyTel network ... is recorded, including: Date and time the message was sent... 'From' address... 'To' address... Length of the message..Entire message content up to 2,000 characters ," notes the company on its Web site in an article about the "benefits of message archiving."
For major corporations and governments, the automatic archiving of such messages is important, where legal requirements mandate the storage of all business- or government-related communications. But tell the mayor that's a benefit today." (more)
(That, according to Time Magazine, who didn't see this.)
"In the mayor's case (see last story), the reason his messages have been exposed is because of the specialized service the city has contracted with to handle wireless communications between city officials. Although the scandal is already being dubbed BlackBerrygate by wags, the gizmo the mayor and Beatty used to communicate wasn't a BlackBerry at all.
It was a SkyWriter, and although it looks a lot like a BlackBerry, it's a dedicated messaging device provided to the city by SkyTel, a Mississippi-based wireless company that specializes in providing paging and messaging services to large corporations and governmental bodies through its own wireless network and devices.
"Every message sent over the SkyTel network ... is recorded, including: Date and time the message was sent... 'From' address... 'To' address... Length of the message..Entire message content up to 2,000 characters ," notes the company on its Web site in an article about the "benefits of message archiving."
For major corporations and governments, the automatic archiving of such messages is important, where legal requirements mandate the storage of all business- or government-related communications. But tell the mayor that's a benefit today." (more)
'Sex, Lies and Texting’
A scandal envelops the mayor of Motown...
MI - It's bone-chillingly cold in Detroit, and the big auto show is going on, but all anyone can talk about is the scandal consuming Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick--the one a local TV station calls "Sex, Lies and Texting."
Once known as America's first hip-hop mayor, Kilpatrick, 37, had notably toned down his living-large lifestyle in his second term as the mayor of Motown. But this week, his partying past caught up with him.
The Detroit Free Press published text messages between Kilpatrick (who is married with children) and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty (divorced with children), that seem to confirm what both have denied under oath: that they had an illicit affair. (more)
MI - It's bone-chillingly cold in Detroit, and the big auto show is going on, but all anyone can talk about is the scandal consuming Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick--the one a local TV station calls "Sex, Lies and Texting."
Once known as America's first hip-hop mayor, Kilpatrick, 37, had notably toned down his living-large lifestyle in his second term as the mayor of Motown. But this week, his partying past caught up with him.
The Detroit Free Press published text messages between Kilpatrick (who is married with children) and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty (divorced with children), that seem to confirm what both have denied under oath: that they had an illicit affair. (more)
SpyCam Story #428 - Counterspy High
MA - Students (Jason Kuo and Nathan Yeo) writing for Newton South High School's newspaper (Denebola) discovered that secret cameras were installed in their school.
"Two cameras are located near the locker rooms and are enclosed in black translucent domes. Three others are in halls around the school and are disguised as smoke detectors. They have clear views of bathrooms that school administrators believe are at most risk of vandalism." (more)
"It's just really concerning that the general public just wasn't made aware of the fact that they installed these cameras," said Jason Kuo, a managing editor who worked on the story.
School Principal Brian Salzer wrote an internal e-mail, "They were installed without permission from anyone. I didn't know they were up! The students broke the story to (Superintendent) Jeff Young, School Committee and me." ...Salzer, who wouldn't speak on camera, admitted he later learned who installed the cameras but refused to reveal names. He also indicated in his e-mail that he believed the cameras would be removed soon. (more)
"Two cameras are located near the locker rooms and are enclosed in black translucent domes. Three others are in halls around the school and are disguised as smoke detectors. They have clear views of bathrooms that school administrators believe are at most risk of vandalism." (more)
"It's just really concerning that the general public just wasn't made aware of the fact that they installed these cameras," said Jason Kuo, a managing editor who worked on the story.
School Principal Brian Salzer wrote an internal e-mail, "They were installed without permission from anyone. I didn't know they were up! The students broke the story to (Superintendent) Jeff Young, School Committee and me." ...Salzer, who wouldn't speak on camera, admitted he later learned who installed the cameras but refused to reveal names. He also indicated in his e-mail that he believed the cameras would be removed soon. (more)
Friday, January 25, 2008
Researchers Develop 100% Accurate Electronic Face Recognition
Researchers claim they have perfected a system that uses computers to accurately identify images of people's faces, which could aid in the apprehension of criminals in public places such as airports that use surveillance cameras. (more)
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