"There oughta be a law!"

Uganda - The government has been tapping private telephone conversations illegally, the Minister for Security, Mr Amama Mbabazi, admitted before Parliament yesterday.

Mr Mbabazi becomes the first top government official at his level to admit eavesdropping on conversations and other communication of private citizens, though the practice mainly by security agencies, has for long been known to exist.

Mr Mbabazi made the admission as he appeared before Parliament’s Information, and Communication Technology Committee to defend a draft Bill that seeks to legalise tapping private communication. (more)

SpyCam Story #520 - The Commish goes to Court

PA - A former central Pennsylvania officeholder will face trial on charges he secretly videotaped men having sex in his home. Prosecutors say ex-Cumberland County Commissioner Bruce Barclay used hidden cameras to make 176 recordings of 13 different men... Barclay is also charged with unlawfully using a computer and wiretapping. (more) (background)

Here's a plasma TV deal so hot, it's crepitus!

Scotland - Undercover cops smashed a suspected Scots drug gang - after selling the ringleaders bugged plasma screen TVs.

Drug barons were amazed by the amount of information the arresting officers seemed to have. They were then given the shock news that they had been secretly taped for months.

One police source said last night: "We knew everything they were up to. We even know how loud they fart."

The source added: "When the cops came to arrest one of the suspects, he asked them how they knew so much. The cop told them they'd been getting bugged through the telly. The TVs were top-of-the-range stuff but nobody suspected."

The news has spread like wildfire through the areas where the gang operated. (more)

Hey! Mukker! Back to school with you...
Rule #1: Shut ye mooth. Gud technique. Coulda used it for'er. But noooo... ya bragged lika bagpipe.

Nest for Spies Revived

A 125-year-old London hotel, which was used as a temporary base by the British secret service during World War I, has reopened after a £16m revamp. The Royal Horseguards Hotel is connected to Whitehall by underground passages used during the war. Guests will now be offered guided tours of the building to learn about its secret past. Also featured in the 1983 Bond film Octopussy, it now forms part of the Guoman Hotels chain. (more)

Florida - Land of Love - Husband Turns in Wife

FL - A Panama City woman learned that recording phone calls is illegal when her soon to be ex-husband turned her into the Bay County Sheriff’s Office. The couple are going through a divorce and she recorded several of his phone calls without his knowledge in hopes of using them during the proceedings, deputies wrote in an incident report. But when he learned of the recordings he told his lawyer who told him to sign a complaint against his wife. She was arrested and charged with eavesdropping (illegal interception of communications.) (source)

Florida - Land of Love - Wife Turns in Husband

FL - Detectives on Wednesday arrested a 55-year-old Jacksonville Beach man they said hid a camera in a bathroom to record video of a girl while she was naked.

According to police, John Thomas Boyd Jr. put a "nanny cam" in the bathroom of a house to film a nude juvenile. Investigators said more than 60 video clips were found on Boyd's home computer.

Boyd's wife found the video clips and contacted the Jacksonville Beach Police Department. (more)

Bugging & Wiretapping - Arizonia Law

Bugging and Recording Conversations in Arizona: Is it Legal?
Lawyers often receive inquiries about the legalities of recording phone or other conversations in Arizona. In particular, the issue frequently arises in family law cases where child custody is at issue. Related to the recording issue is the “bugging” issue.

There are a number of variables that affect the answer to the central question, whether it is legal to either record or even bug conversations. First, bugging and recording are two different issues under Arizona law, often related, but also potentially very different under the law. Second, the laws regarding bugging and recording vary significantly by jurisdiction so what is legal in one state may be illegal in another. As well, the federal law may vary from state laws.

The following is a very brief analysis of the bugging and recording law in Arizona... (more)

The Core Sweep Offer

A Quarterly Boardroom / Top Executive
Eavesdropping Detection Audit
The basic minimum for corporate security programs.

• Full Inspection - 4 times per year.
• Boardroom, A/V area and three executive offices.
(Additional areas may be added very economically.)
• Free – Wi-Fi Security & Compliance Audit included.
• Bonus – Radio-frequency test covers a much larger area at no extra charge.

"When was the last time we inspected for bugs and wiretaps?"
If you do not remember, it is time to call Murray Associates.
(more)

Wiretap Mafia (with updates)

Colombia domestic spy chief probes alleged illegal wiretapping by 'mafia' within

Colombia's new domestic spy chief said Saturday that he is probing whether agency employees have been eavesdropping on Supreme Court judges, prominent journalists and opposition leaders.

Felipe Munoz, who took over the troubled DAS domestic intelligence agency last month, was reacting to a report by Colombia's leading newsmagazine of widespread interception of phone calls and e-mail by agency officials at least through late last year.

Munoz said he was attempting to establish the existence of a "mafia network that's threatening the security of the state," at a news conference called after the report was published online. (more)

UPDATE: Colombia's General Attorney ordered on Sunday a raid on the Department of Administrative Security (DAS) headquarters in Bogota after the media reported that agency employees have been eavesdropping on Supreme Court judges, prominent journalists and opposition leaders. (more)

UPDATE: Felipe Muñoz, director of Colombia's intelligence service DAS sacked the deputy director of the service's counterintelligence department amid a growing scandal involving illegal wiretaps of judges, opposition politicians and journalists. More people are expected to be fired.

According to the Government, the mafia is behind the widespread illegal use of wiretaps and blames alleged drug lords like 'Don Mario', 'El Cuchillo' and 'El Loco Barrera' of having corrupted the service. (more)

UPDATE: Two more top deputies resigned from Colombia's domestic spy agency on Tuesday as prosecutors investigate allegations of improper eavesdropping on journalists, Supreme Court judges and opposition members... (more) Colombia has had issues in the past with wiretapping. In May 2007, the head of police intelligence and Colombia's police chief were forced to resign after an illegal interception of calls of political figures, government members, and, you guessed it, journalists... (more)

UPDATE: Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe says he was unaware of the telephone bugging activities reportedly practised by the DAS domestic intelligence service... (more)

UPDATE: Uribe fingered as heads roll in wiretap scandal
President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia has been accused of ordering his intelligence agency to engage in illegal wiretapping of opposition politicians, members of the government, judges and journalists in a scandal that has rocked Colombia’s law enforcement apparatus. (more)

UPDATE: President Alvaro Uribe said Thursday that he has ordered a halt to wiretapping by Colombia's domestic intelligence agency as the fallout from an eavesdropping scandal prompted a fourth agency official to resign.

UPDATE: DAS director Felipe Muñoz accepted the resignation of his intelligence director, Muñoz said Thursday. Fernando Tabares if the fourth high official of Colombia's intelligence agency that is forced to leave after the institution was hit by its second wiretap scandal in half a year... The DAS director acknowleged that "there are USB sticks and cd's that have some evidence stored" of the illegal wiretapping of Supreme Court magistrates, media directors and opposition politicans.

UPDATE: Colombia spyservice to be allowed wiretaps again...
Colombia President Álvaro Uribe signed a law that returns the authority to conduct wiretaps to intelligence agency DAS, lawmakers say. The DAS was relieved from that authority ten days ago after news broke the agency was illegally wiretapping political opponents, judges and journalists. (more) (background 2007)

What were they thinking?!?! (Sinophobia)

OK... "copy" "steal" we get the connection. But, geeezzz... an Asian man furtively leaving an office building at night, with a cardboard file box and a stockmarket chart in the background?!?! Nerd dudes, you have just alienated over 13-million American potential customers, and Hewlett Packard won't be pleased either. Duh!

Nobody likes spies, no matter where they come from, but let's keep things in perspective. Want to know what a spy looks like? Click on "What Does A Spy Look Like?".

CFO's Phone Call Tapped & Leaked to Web Sites

Turkey - Though it’s illegal and subject to three years imprisonment, it seems there is no end to the wiretapping records that have been leaked to some Web sites. The wiretapping and its leakage to certain Web sites of a mobile phone conversation between Soner Gedik, (CFO and also) deputy chairman of the Doğan Media Group, and Mehmet Akif Ulusoy, commissioner of the Revenue Administration, constitute a grave example of this crime, daily Milliyet reported yesterday.

The timing of the leak is also very important as it came days after the Finance Ministry issued a 826 million lira levy against the DMG due to alleged tax evasion, one of the largest penalties set against a media institution. (more)

Bug Proof Window Film (Here we go again...)

(from their press release)
The German security and film technology specialist HAVERKAMP gets ready for electronic bugging and eavesdropping as well as attacks involving harmful electromagnetic radiation...

As Ulrich Haverkamp, director of HAVERKAMP, stresses, "We know all too well the risks that are associated with wireless and open forms of communication which government institutions and companies are exposed to every day." It is important to bear something in mind: Almost all electronic devices transmit RF signals, as this is either their quintessential function, e.g. mobile phones or wireless microphones - or as technically unavoidable side effect, e.g. computer monitors or hard drives.

Regardless of whether the message is encrypted or not, a broad ‘open' path is made available, upon which information can easily escape from the building and land in the hands of competitors and eavesdroppers. (more)

Can this possibly work?
Think about it...
Do radio waves only travel through windows?
Does "reduced" signal leakage prevent interception?
What are the attenuation measurements?
Perhaps this would be effective if it were presented as part of a larger architectural shielding effort.

In my opinion, the inventors worked hard and developed a clever and potentially useful product. But, to promote a window film as a simple paste-on eavesdropping solution is neither credible, nor honest. If anything, this is one small part of a holistic solution.

Before you go down this road, call me for a map.

Prior art: see The Emperor's New Shades.

P.S. Yes, I know. The press release photo seems to show a parabolic microphone - an acoustic, not RF, method of eavesdropping. This does not make sense technically vis-à-vis the product, or to portray a viable eavesdropping attack.

...and then they aimed a telephoto lens at the window.

Professor Thomas Little of Boston University would like your house lighting to communicate with your computer, TV, and even the heating thermostat. By piggybacking data communications on to LED lightbulbs, he hopes "smart lighting" will become the next generation of wireless communications technology.

...smart lighting is faster and more secure than current Wi-Fi for some uses. An LED lightbulb also uses less energy than radio frequency technology and its light won't go through walls – helping to eliminate eavesdropping. Existing wiring could carry data to smart lightbulbs, providing easy network access points throughout home or office. (more)

Security Director Alert - Inspect, or be Unemployed

Sensitive corporate data are walking right out the door with disgruntled former employees. More than half of workers who lost or left a job in 2008 said they stole confidential company data... (more) Call us. We can help you.

Microsoft Internal Xbox Financials Leaked

Microsoft is known for keeping its paid subscriber stats for Xbox live close to its vest, so when the company said it had topped the 17 million subscriber mark during back-to-back presentations at CES, it was hard to put a financial value on that.

...based on a leaked Excel spreadsheet detailing Xbox Live’s paid subscriber stats for early 2008, sheds a bit of light on this black box: The report found that 60% of Xbox Live members in the U.S. were paying either an annual, three-month or monthly fee to use the service last February; worldwide subscriptions were slightly lower at 56%. (more) (more)