Spy fantasists can now buy their very own James Bond car, complete with hood-mounted machine gun cannons and rocket launchers secreted by the front grille, for just $125,900 U.S. -- and it's even street legal. (WOW!)The ultimate spy car edition includes: Front grill rockets, machine gun cannons, revolving license plate and other must have accessories. (YES!)"The weaponry is fake, of course, (ah, man!) so it doesn't work but it looks realistic," says Cloverdale businessman Mark Stuzka, who has teamed with Exclusive Motor Cars to produce the Ultimate Spy Car."Neither can it be operated when the ignition is switched on, as the last thing we want is people ahead being frightened to death at the sight of a cannon in their rear-view mirror." (sez-who?!?)The revolving license plate also won't flip while driving, so don't think you can beat that speeding ticket by displaying a phony number! (PHOoowwwzzz...) (more)
Yes.
Germany - The head of Germany’s state owned rail operator resigned today following a series of scandals over the company’s attempts to spy on its staff...Describing himself as a “tough man,” he told a press conference in Berlin: “The prejudgement, suspicion and speculation have reached dimensions that are no longer bearable even for me.“This is not about a data protection scandal but rather a campaign to change the firm’s direction,” he added, stressing that investigators have found no evidence of illegal activity by DB’s management. He denied any wrongdoing. “My conscience is clear,” he said. (more) (background)
from the seller's website...
People have a sixth sense for knowing when someone's taking their photo. Especially so when you've got an SLR and a big lens pointed right at 'em.
Our Super-Secret Spy Lens is the answer.It's the ultimate accessory for kids, the photo-shy, street photography or any time you want natural, unposed shots." (more)
IL - A former Valspar Corp. employee was accused by U.S. prosecutors of stealing trade secrets from the paint maker, then packing his belongings for a one-way trip to China, where a new job in the same business awaited him.David Yen Lee, 52, appeared Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sidney Schenkier in Chicago, one day after FBI agents said they arrested him in possession of a pocket-sized computer "thumb drive" containing Valspar data. (more)Can't say we haven't been warning you...Warning 1Warning 2Warning 3Warning 4Warning 5Warning 6
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CT - Why are video surveillance cameras not equipped with microphones? How was Governor Spitzer caught? Do you unknowingly have a personal radio frequency ID? If so, who can read it? These and other questions are answered in a talk by Christopher Calabrese, Esq., Program Counsel of ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Program, in the first of a series of television programs presented by the newly formed Fairfield County Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut.The series of programs will be aired on Cablevision’s channel 77 on Monday evenings at 11 P.M. starting April 6, 2009, and continuing through June 29. Programs in the series will tackle the Patriot Act, surveillance and privacy, the relation between government and religion, and other topics, dealt with from multiple progressive points of view. (more)To learn more about the Fairfield County program, call (203)588-0161 or email richard.duffee@gmail.com.
MA - Police in Holbrook are investigating charges against three minors who allegedly created a video of two of them having sexual intercourse while the third recorded it, then distributed the video to junior high students..."The video depicts two minors engaging in sexual intercourse," Holbrook police officer Keysha Mitchell said. She said the person recording the scene was also a minor.The video was then distributed among students at Holbrook Junior-Senior High School, police said, and the charges that may be leveled against the teens are serious as the forwarding of such a video, also known as "sexting," is a felony offense...... and if there's any audio discovered on the video there's also the possible charge of wiretapping," Mitchell said. (more)
via PCWorld...We scoured the Internet to come up with 101 innovative, entirely free downloads and services. Here's the whole collection.
Turkey - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Show TV on Thursday night. During this conversation, when Erdoğan was asked about the increasing incidence of wiretapping in Turkey, he said that although there were laws to prevent it, wiretapping could not be prevented because it was technically possible for GSM operators to wiretap the phone conversations of their customers. "I pay attention to what I say when I talk on the phone. I am also not very comfortable on the phone," Erdoğan admitted. (more)
Lebanon - As-Safir (newspaper) - Headline: The government legitimizes open wiretapping … until the elections! (more)
Australia - The Chinese-Australian woman at the centre of a top-level espionage inquiry has met both Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and former PM John Howard, it has been revealed.
Mr Rudd is believed to have attended a private dinner in Brisbane in 2004, where he met and talked at length in Mandarin with Helen Liu.
Ms Liu is at the centre of allegations that the nation's top spy organisation, the highly-secretive Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), tapped into the laptop of Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, without his knowledge.
The DSD allegedly discovered Ms Liu's bank account details in Mr Fitzgibbon's computer.
The Minister, who denies any wrongdoing, rents a Canberra flat from Ms Liu, a family friend for more than 16 years. (more)
China - ...has denied involvement in the electronic spy network which researchers say infiltrated computers in government offices around the world. The spokesman of the Chinese embassy in London said that there was no evidence to show Beijing was involved. He suggested the findings were part of a "propaganda campaign" by the Tibetan government in exile. The research was commissioned by the Dalai Lama's office alarmed by possible breaches of security. (more)
Poland - ...one of the country's most unusual hotels.Blow Up Hall 50 50, a luxury hotel themed around electronic art, has opened in the city of Poznan, not far from Poland's border with Germany...Various visual and musical installations are located throughout the hotel's communal spaces and 22 bedrooms, including Lozano-Hemmer's Blow-up, an interactive display that separates one surveillance camera view into 2,400 virtual cameras. (actually, one camera viewed on 2,400 screens in various ways)In another innovation, guests at the hotel are given an iPhone instead of a key, which shows them to their room with a beam of light and opens their door using recognition technology. (more)
The lack of news this past week was due to local government-blocked access to Blogger.com while on assignment overseas. A good reminder of the value of free speech. ~ Kevin
An electronic spy network that has infiltrated the computers of government offices, NGOs and activist groups in more than 100 countries has been surreptitiously stealing documents and eavesdropping on electronic correspondence, say a group of researchers at the University of Toronto.More than 1,200 computers at embassies, foreign ministries, news media outlets and non-governmental organizations based primarily in South and Southeast Asia have been infiltrated by the network since at least the spring of 2007, according to the researchers' detailed 53-page report, as have computers in the offices of the Dalai Lama, the Asian Development Bank and the Associated Press in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong...
The computers were infected either after workers clicked on an e-mail attachment containing malware or clicked on a URL that took them to a rogue web site where the malware downloaded to their computer. The malware includes a feature for turning on the web camera and microphone on a computer in order to secretly record conversations and activity in a room. (more)
The Information Warfare Monitor, a Canadian cyber-espionage watchdog, goes to pains not to point the finger of blame at the Chinese government for a massive China-based cyberspy ring it has uncovered. "While our analysis reveals that numerous politically sensitive and high-value computer systems were compromised in ways that circumstantially point to China as the culprit," it writes in a report issued March 29, "we do not know the exact motivation or the identity of the attacker(s), or how to accurately characterize this network of infections as a whole."
Beijing has always officially denied undertaking such electronic espionage. But given that the IWM has identified at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries, mostly in the foreign ministries or embassies of various Asian governments; that its investigation was triggered by a request from Beijing's adversary, exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, who was concerned the computers of his network had been hacked; and past accusations that Beijing has engaged in cyberspying, including against the U.S., the old suspicions will not only be reawakened but intensified. (more) (Doh!)
The recession came to South Park this week. The show's metaphor for our real-world mortgage crisis was a "Margaritaville" machine, an over-priced, pointless gadget that makes the green-colored alcoholic beverages. Stan's dad Randy owned one, Stan tried to sell it so the newly-poor family would have more to eat than "sliced hot dogs and tomato slices," but no store or bank would take the gizmo in exchange for actual money.
"Defaulting on your Margaritaville," was one weasel-businessman's phrase. (more with video) Meanwhile, Spybusters' own research has turned up a hugh price reduction on Margaritaville machines. Hold on to your frozen assets!
NY - A reputed Colombo crime family member has been sentenced to 18 months in prison in a shakedown case that the FBI made in part by bugging a Long Island high school baseball field.
Another figure convicted in the case, Frank Leto, apparently discussed illicit business on the Glen Cove High School ballfield to avoid investigators. But according to trial testimony, FBI agents bugged it and recorded hours of conversation. (more) (trailer)
from the seller's web site...The PLM-JNGSMTX08, a true technological jewel, is the smallest GSM transmitter implemented to date. The technology of listening to the most advanced GSM concentrated in an incredibly small size of only 43 x 34 x 17mm. Simply insert the SIM and call the number to listen to what happens in your absence.Thanks to its reduced dimensions, the PLM-JNGSMTX08 can be hidden for almost everything in the home, office and car and is even small enough to be hidden in a purse or a briefcase.The PLM-JNGSMTX08 offers the best quality audio possible thanks to a new circuit for filtering and a new Digital Sound Processor.A charging of internal battery operation makes the PLM-JNGSMTX08 for up to 6 days standby or 6 to 8 hours of asocoto high-quality audio. For long-term operations, the device can be connected to 220V power or a 12V car power supply via (optional).Code: PLM-JNGSMTX08 Price: € 1299.00 (VAT included) (more with video)GSM bugs are one of the newest and fastest-growing class of eavesdropping devices. Basically, they are tiny cell phones, without a keypad or fancy options. All an eavesdropper has to do is plug in a SIM card, hide the GSM bug, and call the phone number whenever they want to listen-in.
This type of device has been very difficult to discover, until now. Murray Associates has a proprietary detection protocol aimed specifically at detecting GSM bugs. Concerned businesses and government agencies are invited to call us for further details.
LA - The trial date has finally arrived in a suit filed in January, 2007, by Tarlton Pauley Morton against Peter Morton, her former husband. He is the Hard Rock Cafe co-founder who once counted the likes of Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise and Barry Diller among his investors — and who fed the rest of the town at his Morton’s restaurant.
Ms. Morton’s suit, which has been working its way through Los Angeles Superior Court’s Department 34, charges that Mr. Morton defrauded her of more than $10 million......Ms. Morton charged that Mr. Morton had hired private investigators to “engage in a massive course and practice of reprehensible invasions” of her privacy.
In her detailed complaint, Ms. Morton said she believed Mr. Morton and/or his agents trespassed in her home and hotel rooms, burglarized a personal assistant’s hospital room, cracked a safe, ordered a stalker to aim a recording device at her and her lawyer in a coffee shop and absconded with her pain medication... (more)
Spy fantasists can now buy their very own James Bond car, complete with hood-mounted machine gun cannons and rocket launchers secreted by the front grille, for just $125,900 U.S. -- and it's even street legal. (WOW!)
