R ur kiz speken nkod? Du u fee eel <- awt?

Lingo2word is devoted to demistifying the new Internet shorthand language of Text messages, Chat rooms and Emails.
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• Translate to txtmsg lingo.
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• And a searchable Text Message collection.

Interesting cellular surveillance product...

from the seller's web site...
"RADAR safeguards your child while using cell phones and immediately alerts you if he or she receives unapproved email, text messages or phone calls.

RADAR provides you complete text messages (sent and received from your child's phone) along with corresponding phone numbers and records them on the website where you can review them at home and print reports for authorities.

RADAR is not spyware...
RADAR notifies the user that they are being monitored, making it impossible to track their usage secretly." (more)

So... how soon will this come with company-supplied cell phones, or be made a requirement of parole?

Declare + "A War On..." = Business Opportunity

reprinted from CRYPTO-GRAM by Bruce Schneier
Homeland Security Cost-Benefit Analysis
"In an excellent paper by Ohio State political science professor John Mueller, "The Quixotic Quest for Invulnerability: Assessing the Costs, Benefits, and Probabilities of Protecting the Homeland," there are some common sense premises and policy implications."

The premises:
1. The number of potential terrorist targets is essentially infinite.
2. The probability that any individual target will be attacked is essentially zero.
3. If one potential target happens to enjoy a degree of protection, the agile terrorist usually can readily move on to another one.
4. Most targets are 'vulnerable' in that it is not very difficult to damage them, but invulnerable in that they can be rebuilt in fairly short order and at tolerable expense.
5. It is essentially impossible to make a very wide variety of potential terrorist targets invulnerable except by completely closing them down."

The policy implications:
1. Any protective policy should be compared to a "null case": do nothing, and use the money saved to rebuild and to compensate any victims.
2. Abandon any effort to imagine a terrorist target list.
3. Consider negative effects of protection measures: not only direct cost, but inconvenience, enhancement of fear, negative economic impacts, reduction of liberties.
4. Consider the opportunity costs, the tradeoffs, of protection measures."
Meanwhile... "The nation's terrorist watch list has hit one million names, according to a tally maintained by the American Civil Liberties Union based upon the government's own reported numbers for the size of the list." (more)

Update - The Case of the Blue Mocking Bird

CA - Undersheriff Steve Bolts told County Human Resources officials that he and Sheriff Pat Hedges eavesdropped on former Chief Deputy Gary Hoving because of concerns Hoving was “making fun of” Hedges behind his back and was disloyal, not because of any ongoing criminal investigation.

Eavesdropping is considered illegal except in limited circumstances, such as a police officer conducting an investigation. That’s how Hedges has publicly described what he was doing, saying that he was investigating allegations evidence was mishandled in a narcotics division. The transcripts, however, give a different account. (more)

007's in "License to Bill"

Private contractors account for more than one-quarter of the core workforce at U.S. intelligence agencies, according to newly released government figures that underscore how much of the nation's spying work has been outsourced since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The CIA and other spy agencies employ about 36,000 contractors in espionage-related jobs, in addition to approximately 100,000 full-time government workers, said Ronald Sanders, head of personnel for the U.S. intelligence community...

The total budget for the nation's spy agencies is roughly $43 billion. (more)

But, you can still take notes. Odd logic. Tough law.

PA - Five months ago, Linda Majer-Davis portrayed herself as a crusading public employee to the Bethlehem Area School Board. She told directors she had secretly recorded a department meeting with the superintendent because she was concerned about waste and mismanagement.

On Wednesday, police called her a criminal.

Pennsylvania's wiretap law prohibits recording a meeting or interview without the permission of all parties. The charge, intercept communications, is a third-degree felony. If convicted, Majer-Davis could face one to seven years in prison. (more)

Interesting...
"she used her laptop to record the meeting"
"...Majer-Davis is still employed by the district as a computer technician"
Observation...
People use the electronic surveillance tools they have handy and know best.

Internet Privacy - It's all over but the shouting.

Two security researchers have demonstrated a new technique to stealthily intercept internet traffic on a scale previously presumed to be unavailable to anyone outside of intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency.
The tactic exploits the internet routing protocol BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) to let an attacker surreptitiously monitor unencrypted internet traffic anywhere in the world, and even modify it before it reaches its destination.

"It's a huge issue. It's at least as big an issue as the DNS issue, if not bigger," said Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, noted computer security expert and former member of the L0pht hacking group, who testified to Congress in 1998 that he could bring down the internet in 30 minutes using a similar BGP attack, and disclosed privately to government agents how BGP could also be exploited to eavesdrop. "I went around screaming my head about this about ten or twelve years ago.... We described this to intelligence agencies and to the National Security Council, in detail." (more)
Comeon, Shout, Shout, knock yourself out
Comeon, yell, yell, loud and swell
You gotta Scream, scream, you know what I mean,
Put another dime in the spying machine... (sing-a-long)

...thus, giving the word "secret" a new definition.

UK - RAF top brass have secretly bought two spy-in-the-sky planes to snoop on terrorists worldwide — from three miles up. Security officials said the Twin Star aircraft will be a global asset as they can fly for 18 hours a time.

An RAF source said: “With the right sensor array, they can see if a suspected terrorist is at home, listen in to and record his mobile calls and tell you if his car engine is hot, warm or cold. “They can also help others put a surprise package through his window.” (more)

Steganography for the Masses!

...from their website...
The SpyMessage is easy-to-use, reliable and powerful tool for protecting important information that you don't want others to see.

With SpyMessage you can encrypt and hide your text message into image without any changes in its resolution or size.
• You can view the image with any conventional image viewer program
• Exchange messages without any fear from others spying on you.
• No one can know if your image contain messages or not.
• SpyMessage uses two encryption algorithms to protect your data.
• No un-encrypted temporary files are ever created.
• No password saved within your file
• Set a special Password to retrieve your encrypted data.
Just remember, "there is no free lunch."
You don't know what else this "free" software might do.
Download at your own risk.

One in three Aussies spies on text messages

900,000 Australians have admitted to checking their partner's phones according to new research conducted by Virgin Mobile. The research has revealed that Australia is a nation of paranoid text checkers with over one in three young Australians admitting to checking their partner's text messages, and more than 280,000 having been being involved in a text-checking related break-up.

The research reveals:
• 10% of young Australians have been involved in a breakup as a result of text-checking
• 59% of text checkers check their partner's phone when they shower
• Women (38%) are more likely than men (28%) to check their partner's texts
• 76% of text checkers do so in secret
• 73% of text checkers found out things they later wished they hadn't
• 44% of sneaky text checkers have discovered flirtatious or sexual texts, ranging from harmless flirtation (32%) to full blown sexual texts from someone else (19%)
• The most common places text checkers operate is while their partner is showering (59%), in the same room (41%) or on the toilet (35%)

With the aim of squashing the nation's obsession with text checking, Virgin Mobile introduces a new service for those customers concerned about their partner's snoopy tendencies. Customers can simply text the word 'snoop' to 1978 99 99 to have a text from 'SEXY' sent to their phone. When the text message is opened by a paranoid partner, the message will remind the checker to have trust in their loved one.

Author, relationship expert and text-checking guru, Samantha Brett says that text checking is rampant in relationships across the world... (press release)
...and for the very, very paranoid...
TextSpy (the deleted text message reader)

The seemingly endless case of PI Pellicano seems to be ending... we hope.

CA - A federal prosecutor claimed Tuesday that taped phone calls between Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano and a high-powered lawyer showed they were conducting illegal wiretaps, even though the alleged wiretapped recordings have never been found.

In his closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Saunders played a phone conversation for jurors in which Pellicano told attorney Terry Christensen that all the information he would be gathering would be kept between them. Christensen agreed...

While old-fashioned private eyes pounded the pavement for information, Pellicano "sat in his office and listened to wiretaps," Saunders said. (more)

Art Imitates Strife - Living the Spylife

Spooks: Code 9 a 'Spy Babies' Spin-off for BBC (more) (preview)

Fifty Dead Men Walking - Film about British spy brings controversy to TIFF (more)

Traitor is unusually thoughtful spy thriller (more) (trailer)

Terrence Howard tells the New York Times that a song on his debut album, "Shine Through It," is about the ways in which he stalked his ex-wife immediately following their split. "I wrote that song ("No. 1 Fan") as a stalker," said the actor. (more)

August - Spies Dropping Like Flys - RIP

A Soviet spy codenamed "Zephyr" who worked undercover with his wife in Europe and the United States for more than a quarter of a century has died aged 101, Russia's foreign intelligence agency (SVR) said... The agency issued a glowing tribute to spy Mikhail Mukasei... (more)

Former Israeli spy chief Binyamin Gibli dies... A former Israeli intelligence chief who tried to stop Britain abandoning its military presence on the Suez canal by staging bomb attacks there has died aged 89. (more)

Wolfgang Vogel, East German spy swapper, dies at 82 (more)

Soviet dissident author Alexander Solzhenitsyn dies at 89 - a former prisoner of war caught by the Germans during World War II, then returned home only to face charges of being a spy... (more)

Grayston L. Lynch, a hero of the anti-Castro movement for his leadership in the Bay of Pigs invasion, where fired the first shot of the battle, died at 85... (more)

Television and stage actor Terence Rigby has died at his home aged 71 - featured in shows including Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. (more)

Come gather 'round people, Wherever you roam

Mobile phones, BlackBerrys, emails, social networking... Never before has it been so easy to cheat on a partner.
And admit that the waters, Around you have grown

But has technology made it simply too difficult for philanderers to cover their tracks?
And accept it that soon, You'll be drenched to the bone.

Day-to-day actions, such as taking the bus to work and buying a magazine on the way, used to be ephemeral. But today, every journey, every communication, every penny spent, is logged and stored.
If your time to you, Is worth savin'

As we move through life, we leave millions of specks of electronic evidence. Stored on hard drives and mainframes, this data acts like specks of DNA sprayed across the bedsheet of cyberspace. It's all there waiting to incriminate us.
Then you better start swimmin', Or you'll sink like a stone

As science drags us forward, it's a safe prediction that within the next decade, traditional affairs – the ones with longevity, the ones that take planning, scheming and logistics – will have vanished altogether. (more)
For the times they are a-changin'.

Cooking up Espionage, with Julia Child

Before she mastered the secrets of French cooking, Julia Child was enrolled in the school of espionage.

The famous chef let slip the story of her war-era spying in a 2002 autobiography, but the release of thousands of documents from the U.S. national archives on Thursday confirms her participation in a secret organization formed by President Franklin Roosevelt during the Second World War.

Hidden among the 750,000 classified pages released Thursday is a picture of the vast spy network of military and civilian operatives called the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). (more) (more) (audio) (OSS Society)

Trivia...
She helped develop shark repellent, critical in protecting explosives used to sink German U-boats during World War II. It kept sharks out of the way of the torpedoes. Later, she put people in the way of Tournedos and other epicurean delights.