Lisa Cohen, 28, garnered media attention when she released tapes in March of her former fiance, Lee County Sheriff's Cpl. Michael DeTar, using a Taser on party guests.
Cohen pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor charges lessened from two felony charges against DeTar — eavesdropping and disrupting computer services for an authorized user. She pleaded guilty to stalking, making a false report and criminal mischief above $200.
Today...
...the Cape Coral woman who allegedly brought a gun into the Lee County Justice Center in March, pleaded no contest today to a misdemeanor charge of possession of a firearm in a restricted area. (more)
Extra Credit...
Tired of Tupperware?
Taser Parties - A Shocking Success (more)
Alex Rodriguez's wife wants to know if he hired private detectives or had wiretaps installed to spy on her. Cynthia Rodriguez's lawyers demanded any surveillance information as part of a records request in the Miami divorce case.The document asks for any tape recordings, photographs, reports from investigators or results from possible wiretaps. (more)
According to British tabloid The Daily Star, an unidentified man has come forward claiming that he secretly filmed Yankee star Alex Rodriguez and Madonna having sex, by use of a hidden camera installed in one of Madonna’s Kabbalah practicing friends’ home, who is also friends with him. (more)
from Wikileaks...
"In a dramatic turn of events, it has been revealed that a wiretap was issued on several protesters of the Mohawk tribe in Canada who were protesting poverty. The news story was leaked yesterday on Wikileaks in part because of a media ban on the subject.According to the discussion page prosecutors were trying to ban the entire story from the media, but ultimately failed to do so...In short, the law enforcement in charge of keeping the situation calm ordered a wiretap on the protesters without a court order. It's unlikely that the public will treat this aspect lightly because it puts into serious question just how far law enforcement is willing to go. In a country where privacy is of greater concern then in other countries, one might expect some form of outrage at some point in the near future." (more)
Wikileaks.org and "malignant activism" (Security Scrapbook, 2/17/03) are old alert topics for my security director clients. Today's leak is a good example of these warnings. Organizational attacks like these can be mitigated if an information security program - which includes counterespionage elements - is in place. ~ Kevin
"Did anybody else notice the strong anti-wiretapping note that Morgan Freeman’s character hits in Dark Knight?" (more)
"Normally, I’m not prone to political analysis of blockbuster movies, but “The Dark Knight” seems to beg for it with its consistent references to current events, most spectacularly in the wiretapping sequence." (more)
"Like Bush, Batman has his own warantless wiretapping program, but Nolan is kind enough to assure us that, once his goal is accomplished, the superhero will blow it up. Is he suggesting that we can count on the Dark President to do the same?" (more)
"Batman is truly trying to do the right thing for the citizens of Gotham even if he steps into gray (or black) areas. Did the wiretapping save dozens of lives? Yes. Did he use it for any other purpose? No. Was it destroyed after it was used to capture the most dangerous criminal in Gotham? Yes." (more)
...and from The New York Times...
Lucius Fox — Batman’s aide de camp and weapon-supplier — makes a brief civil liberties speech, and says he will only go along with the spying project once. ... Societies get the heroes they deserve. Seven years after Sept. 11, the United States is caught up in a misbegotten war in Iraq, is granting immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the Bush administration illegally spy on the public, and is unwilling to unequivocally renounce torture as a tactic. (more)
UK - Concerns have been raised about the security of British secrets after a top political aide lost his BlackBerry device to a suspected Chinese spy, sources say.The Sunday Times newspaper says one of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's most senior aides was the victim of a "honeytrap" scheme in which the man was lured to a hotel room by a woman he met in a disco in Shanghai, China, only to find the next morning that his BlackBerry device had been stolen. (more)
Malta - Although the new telephone and Internet eavesdropping system commissioned by the Malta Communications Authority on behalf of the Malta Security Service began operating in October 2006, it has been up and running in the absence of a set of technical obligations that undertakings related to the system need to adhere to.
The lack of technical obligations, a situation that had persisted for at least close to a year and a half, leaves a concerning void in the regulation and operation of the State’s practice of tapping the Maltese public’s phone calls and monitoring their Internet communications. (more)
A UK crime survey shows credit and debit card fraud has reached a record high of £535 million...new trend was the use of bugging devices which are fitted near shop tills to record the information stored on the magnetic microchip. (more)
WA - A group of 75-kids, from kindergarten to fifth grade...learned how to become a detective. They built a spy kit, including a homemade listening device."It was pretty fun. We made spy ears, pens. We made everything a detective has and stuff," said Brian McMurray, camper. (more)
Note to Washington State University - Tri-Cities teachers... (oopsie) It is illegal for private detectives, teachers and students to possess electronic eavesdropping devices. Besides, this is not what most detectives do, and parents may should object on moral grounds. The rest of the curriculum looks very worthwhile, however. No wonder all the classes are sold out!
Brazil - Police have arrested a suspect in the heist of two Pablo Picasso prints from a museum in Sao Paulo and recovered one of the works, police and a museum official said Saturday.Inspector Cesar Carlos Dias said information obtained through wiretaps of gang members involved in unrelated robberies led police to Ueslei Barros, the suspect in the July robbery. (more)
Want your own Picasso?
Make it yourself.
Click here.
My ex is a Private Investigator, and I believe he is bugging my phone–and possibly my PC. What can I do to stop this and/or prosecute? I have Vonage and my phone goes through a cable connection, as does my pc.
Thank you,
Patricia
(answers)
"No matter which side of the wiretapping issue you stand on it is clear that the only way to conquer terrorism is to address the hopelessness and hatred at the root of it."
From a statement is issued by Remo, Inc.,
Remo D. Belli, CEO and Founder (more)
UK - More than 100 USB memory sticks, some containing secret information, have been lost or stolen from the Ministry of Defence since 2004, it has emerged.
The department also admitted that more than 650 laptops had been stolen over the past four years - nearly double the figure previously claimed.
The Mod said it has no idea on when, where and how the memory sticks were lost.
The official total is now 658 laptops stolen, with another 89 lost. Just 32 have been recovered. (more)
Solution 1
Solution 2
Any smart phone - including Blackberry, Windows Mobile, iPhone and Symbian phones - can be hacked by a nerd with a little bit of code and some cunning.
And they don't stop at data and identity theft alone. Nor are they content with unleashing viruses on the operating system of your mobile. (Even Bluetooth makes your phone a potential target here.)
New Age mischief makers have learnt how to bug your phone and remote-control it. They can steal your bank information, send out a mischievous SMS to your girlfriend (who might just dump you!), copy your top-secret files or simply spy on every call/SMS you make from your phone. In fact, they can even 'modify' your SMSes before these are sent out to your contacts - and you wouldn't even know it.
That's not all. Hackers can also use your phone to spy on you by switching it on. They can activate the camera and eavesdrop on your discussions during a business meeting, or while you are secretly negotiating a lucrative job offer with a rival company. What's more, they can even do an audio/video recording by sending an SMS command...
So what should a user do? A few simple steps could go a long way. Adopt a multi-layered security approach. Protect mobile devices with antivirus, firewall, anti-SMS spam, and data encryption technologies and install regular security updates to protect phones from viruses and other malware. And yes, don't click blindly on any SMS, for someone may just be spying on you on the sly. (more)
Nearly three-quarters of U.K. businesses have banned the use of instant messaging (IM) citing security concerns, reports IM supplier ProcessOne.The research noted that 88% of IT directors were concerned about the security risks created by employees using Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and other IM services, with 56% citing the loss of sensitive business information as a primary concern. (more)
This ban - also being seen in US companies - is easy to enforce on corporate-owned networks. But, what about IM via personal cellular and laptop devices? Enforcement may seem impossible if the employee can snag a WiFi signal from a nearby coffee shop, hotel or unsecured appearance point.
If controlling unauthorized employee communications is an issue you are trying to solve, call me for the solution.
...for FREE!
A security friend at [a very large] Corporation contacted me this week about laptop losses. His company experienced "a dramatic increase in the past year" - primarily when employees traveled on business.
He was studying the problem. Was this just street crime, or was his company being targeted for industrial espionage reasons?
I pointed him to pertinent Security Scrapbook articles. The trend is clear, but what about a simple solution?
Here it is (assuming you have already done encryption and employee awareness training)...
Researchers at the University of Washington and the University of California, San Diego, have launched a new laptop tracking service, called Adeona that is free and private.
Here's how it works: A user downloads the free client software onto a laptop. That software then starts anonymously sending encrypted notes about the computer's whereabouts to servers on the Internet. If the laptop ever goes missing, the user downloads another program, enters a username and password, and then picks up this information from the servers, specifically a free storage service that has been around for several years, called OpenDHT.
The Mac version of Adeona even uses a freeware program called isightcapture to take a snapshot of whomever is using the computer. (more)
Extra Credit...
