"You can only give them as much security as they will take," the old saying goes.Most organizations don't take much. "Not our corporate culture." "People would quit." "How do you enforce that!"These excuses are lame.Worse, they are profit suckers.Considering information is the genesis of profits, it is hard to fathom laissez faire attitudes. Employees want to be part of a successful, cool, winning organization. They want their company to be profitable. To them it means job security, better salaries and prestige.
All they need is leadership."Prove it," I hear you say.via The New York Times...Apple is one of the world’s coolest companies. But there is one cool-company trend it has rejected: chatting with the world through blogs and dropping tidbits of information about its inner workings.
Few companies, indeed, are more secretive than Apple, or as punitive to those who dare violate the company’s rules on keeping tight control over information. Employees have been fired for leaking news tidbits to outsiders, and the company has been known to spread disinformation about product plans to its own workers.“They make everyone super, super paranoid about security,” said Mark Hamblin, who worked on the touch-screen technology for the iPhone and left Apple last year. “I have never seen anything else like it at another company.”...Secrecy at Apple is not just the prevailing communications strategy; it is baked into the corporate culture. Employees working on top-secret projects must pass through a maze of security doors, swiping their badges again and again and finally entering a numeric code to reach their offices, according to one former employee who worked in such areas......the culture of secrecy had its origin in the release of the first Macintosh, which competitors like Microsoft and Sony knew about before it was unveiled. (more)There is a lesson here.
On September 25, 1981 Apple stock traded at $1.78; today, $139.86.This doesn't happen by letting someone pick your intellectual pockets.Be proactive. Create a strong information secuity program.
Your employees will love it, and respect you for it.
For once, it seems that someone is actually interested in what Paris Hilton has to say, as the heiress' bodyguards have reportedly found a secret recording device hidden in her hotel room in Dubai.
The U.K. Daily Express reports that Hilton, 28, was less than pleased after the bug was discovered, immediately ordering more security and demanding that hotel staff investigate where the device came from. The incident has not stalled production of the Dubai edition of Hilton's My New BFF reality show.
"We're not sure what the device picked up or whom it was transmitting to. But it did leave Paris very jittery," a source working with Hilton told the Express. "Everyone she has come into contact with during her stay in Dubai has been fantastic and gracious. We've been told there are some quarters where there is anti-American feeling." (more)
While you may not be a Paris Hilton fan, give her credit. She hired competent security who knew how to find bugs. Should you need the same, contact me. ~Kevin
Update...
Paris Hilton has played down media reports that her Dubai hotel room was bugged, saying stories in the British tabloids were "another lie created by the media"... None of Hilton's spokespeople were available to comment on Wednesday morning. (more)
We'll keep you posted.
The electric-utility industry is planning a pilot initiative to see whether Chinese spies have infiltrated computer networks running the power grid, according to people familiar with the effort.
Officials of the North American Electric Reliability Corp., an industry regulatory group, are negotiating with a defense contractor for the job of searching for breaches by cyberspies, according to people familiar with the plans...The Wall Street Journal reported in April that Russian and Chinese spies had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. (more)
About 4,200 people participated in the U.S. National Security Agency-supported challenge... Programmers from China and Russia have dominated an international competition on everything from writing algorithms to designing components... Of 70 finalists, 20 were from China, 10 from Russia and two from the U.S.... Of the total number of contestants, 93% were male, and 84% were aged between 18 and 24. (more)"You too may be a big hero,Once you've learned to count backwards to zero.'In German oder English I know how to count down,Und I'm learning Chinese,' says Wernher von Braun."
Tom Lehrer
1965
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has put his youngest son in charge of the country's spy agency in a move aimed at handing the communist regime over to him, a news report said Wednesday. (more)The Obama administration is planning to eliminate a spy satellite program at the Department of Homeland Security that had produced concerns about domestic spying, officials said. The program would have given state and local law enforcement officials access to high-resolution imagery from spy satellites to aid them in disaster relief efforts, bolster border security and help secure major events like the Super Bowl. (more)The Iranian regime has developed, with the assistance of European telecommunications companies, one of the world's most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online communications on a massive scale. (more)Kuwait's parliament will hold a vote of no-confidence on the interior minister next week after he was quizzed on Tuesday over accusations that include spying on MPs and squandering public funds. (more)Colombia's Prosecutor General's office called Noguera and three other former DAS directors for questioning about their alleged involvement in the wiretapping scandal of the intelligence agency. (more)Canadian police will be given new powers to eavesdrop on Internet-based communications... (more)
If you're planning to apply for a job with the city of Bozeman, Montana, be prepared to hand over much more than your references and résumé. The Rocky Mountain city instructs all job applicants to divulge their usernames and passwords for "any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc."
"Before we offer people employment in a public trust position we have a responsibility to do a thorough background check," Chuck Winn, Bozeman's assistant city manager, told CBSNews.com in an interview on Thursday. "This is just a component of a thorough background check." (more)
FutureWatch...
Yin: Expect this trend to continue and expand.
Yang: Expect to see dual social networking - one for due diligence consumption, and a sub-rosa one, for real.
...unconfirmed, but interesting..."Erricson's WAP, Wireless Application Protocol, suffers from a security flaw that allows attackers to listen into other WAP sessions traveling on the cellular carrier wave... This attack is limited, since you cannot choose which number to wiretap on, and you cannot talk at the same time that you are wiretapping a line. This vulnerability shows the lack of security of WAP as it is offered in today's cellular networks. (more)Blue Blaze Irregulars, check and advise!How to wiretap from an Erricson Cell Phone:1) Type 9040592) Menu3) Yes4) 15) RCL6) Yes7) 8300**8) Yes9) 86(Instead of the ** you can write any number you wish, except for the number 00)To stop the wiretapping:1) Type RCL2) 33) Yes
So, I am updating my address book. Up pops Michael Silva, a very smart independent security consultant in Edmonds, Washington. I verify his web site address. Interesting. It sidetracks me and I begin poking around. I found a gem for you! Security Of Desks and File Cabinets <-- clickThere may be nothing in this brief article you don't already know, but refresh your memory anyway. When it comes to securing information, this topic ranks right up there with shredding and eavesdropping.
Necessity spawns invention...
At the start of my career an executive countered my suggestion that he clear his desk at night. "I have my paperwork in very specific piles. I can't be moving all of them every night."
I invented a desk condom for him. Custom made to fit his desk, it was lightweight ripstop nylon with a drawstring along the edges. Flip it over the desk at night, pull the cord, lock the lock. Simple. Cheap. It worked for him. Kept after-hours snoops away, and kept the cleaners from knocking over his piles of papers. Stored easily, too.
If you get any grief, ask your execs, "Would you leave a stack of twenties on your desk overnight?" ~Kevin
Photo (Click to enlarge.) - My worst case.
"...a trade secret once lost, is, of course, lost forever."
Anacomp, Inc. v. Shell Knob Servs., 93 Civ. 4003 (PKL), 1994 U.S. Dist. Lexis 223 (S.D.N.Y. 1994).
Like eavesdropping and other forms of espionage, properly executed, you'll never know. Only the failed, suspected, obvious and fortuitously uncovered cases surface. And, of those... very few are documented in court records.
We can extrapolate the depth of trade secret espionage from documented court records.
Thanks to R. Mark Halligan, a Partner at Nixon Peabody LLP in Chicago, this is fairly easy to do. He keeps track of trade secret cases at his Web site - tradesecretshomepage.com It is billed as, "The most complete source for trade secret information on the Web!"
On with the show!Let's look at the trade secret cases in Mr. Halligan's vault. (Click here. Stand back.) WOW! Just think... those are the cases which made it to court, and got reported - the tip of an apparently huge knowledge-berg of melting profits.
Computation: Chances look very good someone (or many people) have, are, or will be, picking your corporate pockets, too.
Did you know?: The courts determine the existence of a trade secret based on six factors. One of them is... "What security measures (above and beyond normal security) have been taken to protect the trade secret?"
Solutions:
- Make friends now with Mr. Halligan and myself. Besides due diligence, our services are very cheap insurance.
- Check out The Trade Secret Office. It provides software products that make determination of trade secret status simpler and more concrete. FREE Trade Secret Primer.
- Visit Professor Jon Cavicchi's The Trade Secrets Vault for late breaking news.
Two Dutch men have been arrested after a boy they allegedly mugged spotted them using an application on the Google website... he discovered the incident had been recorded on Google's StreetView application.Under Google's rules, his attackers' faces were blurred, but the men were identified after the company gave investigators the original unobscured picture. Police then identified the men - twin brothers - and made an arrest. (more)"Quick, call Google...
...and Homeland Security, too!"Golf balls are bombarding the Port of Everett and anti-terrorism cameras are being trained on a residential neighborhood to hunt down the source... port officials believe someone on Rucker Hill is whacking golf balls down the hill onto port property, endangering dozens of workers and millions of dollars worth of equipment and cargo... they say pointing video surveillance cameras toward the residential area is an appropriate use of the equipment. The cameras were paid for, along with fencing and other security equipment, with $2.3 million in grants from the Department of Homeland Security... (more)
South Australia's Health Minister John Hill says sensitive files on planning for the new Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) have disappeared.He says the files kept on a USB drive were lost by an employee from SA Health's Major Projects Office this month...The SA Opposition says a review must find out why it took nine days for Government ministers to be told the sensitive material had been lost.Opposition health spokeswoman Vickie Chapman says loss of the files could sabotage the tendering process for the project."The biggest item of infrastructure promised by this Government is now at risk," she said."Now the most serious interpretation of this is that these documents contain material perhaps even the public sector comparative figures that will just give a field day for prospective tenderers." (more)You know you are going to loose your USB drive some day.
Why not encrypt it today?
It's FREE. Click here.
Want an easy OTS solution? Click here.Pick one, or risk being a NIT.
(Negligent Idiot Twit)
Old Lyme, Conn.-based Sennheiser is the latest vendor–and one of the few–to offer a microphone that uses optics rather than electrical signals to capture and transmit sound.
The underlying concept is relatively straightforward. A light source–usually a light-emitting diode (LED)–shines against the diaphragm, and the reflections are picked up by a photodetector that's on the same side of the diaphragm. When the diaphragm moves, so do the reflections, creating changes in light intensity. The photodetector notes these changes, beginning the process of capturing them as sound waves. The light waves travel along a fiber optic cable to a unit that, besides providing power, includes a photodiode that converts the light into electrical signals.
Sennheiser's new mics, along with those from rivals such as Israel-based Optoacoustics, are aimed primarily at specific vertical markets...
...optical mics are a potential fit for high-security environments, such as government and defense contractor offices, where eavesdropping is a concern. That's because the alternative–mics with copper cables–even when they're shielded can double as antennas, radiating whatever content is traversing them.
How far those "broadcasts" travel depends on factors such as whether there are multiple walls in the area to attenuate the signal. But if the copper cables are in, say, an executive conference room that has lots of windows, there's a better chance that the signals can be picked up by someone in the parking lot below.
That scenario is one of the reasons why many government guidelines, such as the National Security Agency's TEMPEST, require fiber for secure applications. Often, the concerns such guidelines address often apply to the general enterprise market, too. (more)
In 1994, while optical microphones were still esoteric spy tools, I created a fiber optic microphone teacup for my clients. (front view) (rear view) (bottom view). Only 323 were made. If you still have yours, hold on to it. It's rare. ~Kevin
A great-grandson of Alexander Graham Bell has been arrested on charges of being an international spy.Walter Kendall Myers, 72, and his wife Gwendolyn, 71, were arrested June 4 in Washington, D.C. after the FBI alleged the pair were spying on the United States for Cuba for three decades.Myers is a former U.S. State Department analyst who had top-secret security clearance, according to The Associated Press. (more) (interesting historical background)
from the website...PrivacyHarbor.com’s private and FREE (Basic Account) email system keeps your messages out of the hands advertisers and others who want to see your email. You don’t want people reading your letters or listening in on your phone calls, so why would it be acceptable for spammers and companies to pry on your emails? The clear answer is, it’s not. Keep every message private, safe and secure with PrivacyHarbor... Private webmail account: More secure than online banking.
They offer a nice FREE package as well as moderately priced accounts. Compare the features of each here. ~Kevin
Few companies, indeed, are more secretive than Apple, or as punitive to those who dare violate the company’s rules on keeping tight control over information. Employees have been fired for leaking news tidbits to outsiders, and the company has been known to spread disinformation about product plans to its own workers.
