The world's smallest working fuel cell has been created by US chemical engineers, at just 3 millimetres across. Future versions of the tiny hydrogen-fuelled power pack could replace batteries in portable gadgets.While batteries are used to do that today, fuel cells are able to store more energy in the same space. Even the most advanced batteries have an energy density an order of magnitude smaller than that of a hydrogen fuel tank.Yet batteries are much easier to make at the small scale than the pumps and control electronics of a fuel cell. And small pumps can use more energy than they generate. (more)
A Connecticut man was arrested Sunday accused of videotaping guests at a Cape Cod resort.Alan Gillette, 50, of Winsted, Conn., was also in possession of a stun gun, pepper spray and drugs when he was arrested...Gillette was seen at the Cape Codder Resort and Spa videotaping guests at the pool and in the sauna... Witnesses said the man had a camera hidden under a towel. The hotel has a policy banning video cameras in the pool area.Police were able to hear conversations taking place in the pool and sauna area on the video... There was also footage from inside the men's locker room and audio recording of muffled conversations while the showers were running, police said.Gillette pleaded not guilty... to charges of possession of chemical mace without an FID card, selling or possessing an electric stun gun and unlawful wiretapping. He was ordered to stay away from the Cape Codder. (more)
Obama’s spy-proof BlackBerry still a security risk, claims Microsoft..."You would be sending your data outside the country," Fox News quoted Randy Siegel, a Microsoft enterprise mobile strategist... He stressed that even if RIM routed information through a U.S. data center, the devices aren't built to NSA's security specs. (more)
A New Zealand man has found confidential US military files on an MP3 player he bought in an Oklahoma thrift shop.Chris Ogle, 29, paid $15 for the player and when he plugged it into his computer he found 60 pages of military data. The files contained the names and personal details of US soldiers, including some who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as information about equipment deployed to bases and a mission briefing. (more)
Lebanon - Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat accused Minister of Telecommunications Jebran Bassil of illegally allowing bugging of communications. Jumblat, in an article published by the PSP's weekly al-Anbaa on Tuesday, said Bassil is hosting a colonel from the General Security Directorate at the ministry where he runs a network of employees "specialized in bugging calls." (more)
Need password privacy when using un-secure computers?
Afraid your significant other placed a keystroke logger?
Want to keep your net surfing URLs private?
While no solution provides 100% security, but bypassing the traditional keyboard will help...
My-T-Soft Virtual Onscreen KeyboardsI-Tech Virtual Laser Keyboard (bluetooth)Click-N-Type Virtual KeyboardMountFocus Virtual KeyboardFREE Virtual Keyboard by MiloSoft
For the more technically advanced... 
Virtual Keyboard Interface - Adds a virtual keyboard to text fields, password fields and text areas allowing keyboard-less input of text and special characters. Install the script and double-click on one of the form element types above to display the keyboard. This is a Greasemonkey script and will work wherever Greasemonkey works. (download page)
Airport Security offers a satirical critique of airport security practices circa early fall 2006, when security agencies in the US and abroad changed their policies to prohibit common items like toothpaste and hair gel.
Do knee-jerk reactions that limit our freedom of expression and travel make us safer? In Airport Security you inspect each passenger and his luggage and remove the forbidden items before allowing the passenger to go through -- but the list of forbidden items changes on a moment-to-moment basis. Prohibited items may include pants, mouthwash, and hummus. (more) (play it now)
Airport Insecurity - a game about inconvenience and the trade-offs between security and rights in American airports. While the government wants you to believe that increased protection and reduced rights are necessary to protect you from terrorism, the effectiveness of airport security practices is uncertain.
Airport Insecurity allows you to explore these issues in context: the game's rules are based on government reports about airport security practices since 2002. To consider the game's implications fully, players are encouraged to play the game while waiting in line at airport security. (more)
If so, how did they do it?
(click to enlarge)
WA - Everett lawmaker, Mike Sells, has filed a bill in the state legislature to make it illegal to videotape teachers without their knowledge. The bill is in response to the Everett School District's use of hidden cameras when it was investigating a teacher in 2007...
The bill currently in the state legislature would require that all staff must be notified in writing in advance before video surveillance is used. Schools would also be required to post written notices outside any rooms that may have hidden cameras. Current law allows for hidden cameras as long as no audio is recorded. (more)
A cautionary tale...
Whether he's known as a boardroom brawler or maybe the savior of SemGroup LP, John Catsimatidis doesn't mind his reputation as a man of his convictions or contradictions...His takeover of United Refining paid back creditors 100 cents on the dollar, but hit a judicial bump when the company's security apparatus admitted to illegally wiretapping some staffers at the Warren headquarters. Catsimatidis was never accused of any personal wrongdoing in the wiretapping case. He said that the surveillance began before he owned the company and before it was actually illegal under Pennsylvania law. "The law changed in 1986, but they kept doing it," he recalled. "I didn't know about it until afterwards." The security firm kept up the wiretaps after Catsimatidis took control of United Refining, according to reports. He replied that it was stopped and the offending employee was fired once he discovered the practice. (more)Due Diligence...CEOs... Quarterly inspections to discover electronic eavesdropping can uncover rogue Security operations like this one. We can help. Please call us.
Canada - There is an extremely fine line between what might be considered voyeurism and employee surveillance as Cornerstone Properties learned. It also learned that a high price can be exacted if an employer installs a secret camera to monitor its employees. Colleen Colwell, commercial manager, had been working for the company for more than seven years, when she learned a secret camera had been installed in the ceiling of her office almost a year earlier by her boss, Trent Krauel, Cornerstone's vice-president in finance. Colwell resigned and sued both Cornerstone and Krauel for constructive dismissal. Justice David Little found for Colwell. (more)
Germany's national rail company, Deutsche Bahn, may have spent years spying on its employees according to a report published by a leading newsmagazine. More than 1,000 workers, many of them in management, might have been victims of the clandestine surveillance. (more)
Eavesdropping.
Wiretapping.
Data theft.
Sure, the lost information is very valuable, but the collateral damage can be the real killer.
Investigation costs.
Stockholder suits.
Attorney's fees.
Evaporated customer "good will."
Lost competitive standing.
Public embarrassment.
...and even this unexpected PR cost...
Discounter TJX Cos. today is holding its long-anticipated "Customer Appreciation" sale, related to the massive consumer data breach that compromised as many as 100 million accounts.
The one-day promotion, advertised yesterday for the first time, gives customers 15 percent off purchases, excluding gift cards and layaways. The sale is being held at more than 2,100 TJ Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, and A.J. Wright stores nationwide.
The customer appreciation sale was initially negotiated as part of a court settlement connected to the breach, which was first disclosed by TJX in January 2007. Ultimately, the sale was not included in the court agreement, but TJX - which rarely holds storewide sales - said it decided to hold the promotion anyway. (more)
Moral: Proactive security is cheaper, much much cheaper. Call us.
...they think like this!Kevin,
I trust all is well with you.
This was sent to me by one of my kids.
SoundBulb - lighting and wireless speakers
My thought was gee….could it not be converted into a microphone?
Pat Murphy,
President
LPT Security Consulting
www.lptoday.com713.899.2402Houston, TexasThank you, Pat!
(Although this bulb is not available yet,
the SpyCam light bulb is here.)
Canada - First, they disconnect the phone lines. Then they lock the doors. And nobody gets out for 27 hours.Ottawa goes to extreme lengths to shield the printing of the federal budget from prying eyes – a process that begins again this weekend in preparation for the huge stimulus package the Harper government will unveil on Tuesday.“It's like Fort Knox,” one former Finance Department official said of the secrecy and security deployed to ensure that nothing like the 1989 leak of a budget pamphlet to Global TV reporter Doug Small ever happens again.Twenty years after the embarrassing incident, the department refuses to discuss any aspect of printing the budget. (more)
The world's smallest working fuel cell has been created by US chemical engineers, at just 3 millimetres across. Future versions of the tiny hydrogen-fuelled power pack could replace batteries in portable gadgets.
