The wife of the new head of Britain's spy agency has posted pictures of her husband, family and friends on Internet networking site Facebook, details which could compromise security, a newspaper said on Sunday.
Sir John Sawers is due to take over as head of the Secret Intelligence Service in November. The SIS, popularly known as MI6, is Britain's global intelligence-gathering organisation.In what the Mail on Sunday called an "extraordinary lapse", the new spy chief's wife, Lady Shelley Sawers, posted family pictures and exposed details of where the couple live and take their holidays and who their friends and relatives are. (more) (sing-along)
Tong Jian S11
China’s first "self-designed" hybrid sports car...Part Prius
Part Audi R8
Part Ferrari F430via China Car Times...The S11 was first unveiled at the Shanghai Auto show earlier this year to an impressed crowd. The car was designed by Shanghai based TJ Innova, the S11 looks fantastic, with Audi and Ferrari design tones slipped into its sleak body, under the platform there is an AWD drivechain pushing power to each corner of the car. (more)
Just coincidence?
You decide.
For more than 200 years, buried deep within Thomas Jefferson's correspondence and papers, there lay a mysterious cipher -- a coded message that appears to have remained unsolved. Until now.
The cryptic message was sent to President Jefferson in December 1801 by his friend and frequent correspondent, Robert Patterson, a mathematics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. President Jefferson and Mr. Patterson were both officials at the American Philosophical Society -- a group that promoted scholarly research in the sciences and humanities -- and were enthusiasts of ciphers and other codes, regularly exchanging letters about them. (more)
The latest revelation in the curious case of accused Cuban spies: They kept a copy of The Spy's Bedside Book
in their apartment.A peek inside the apartment of husband-and-wife spy suspects reveals a shortwave radio, a sailing guide to Cuban waters -- and now a copy of The Spy's Bedside Book, according to new court documents in the case. (more)
MA - A blind teenager was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Friday for hacking into the Verizon telephone network and using fake 911 calls to harass an investigator who was building a case against him...
Matthew Weigman, 19, from Revere, Mass., was part of a group of sophisticated and notorious telephone hackers who engaged in “swatting” calls. (Calls prompting police SWAT team dispatch.)
Swatters use spoofing technology to mask their real location when placing fake 911 calls. This makes it seem as though the call is legitimate, and coming from a potential victim’s home. Police are sometimes dispatched to the homes of these “victims,” allowing swatters to effectively harass their targets from a distance.
Weigman, known as “Little Hacker,” has been involved in telephone hacking since the age of 14. (more)
During Sweden’s EU Presidency (started July 1), Swedish government authorities and the defense forces will use Sectra’s Tiger XS personal voice encryptor for eavesdrop-secure communications. Sweden is the fifth country in Europe to use Tiger XS to protect telephone conversations from eavesdropping during its EU Presidency. (more)
from the web site...
One encryption device for all
Tiger XS is a personal encryptor that protects mobile and fixed communications. Use one encryption device to secure your voice, data, fax and SMS communications. Tiger XS is connected to your mobile phone via Bluetooth®. This enables a high level of security on communications networks such as GSM, PSTN, ISDN, IP networks as well as satellite systems. With Tiger XS you are safe to exchange classified information over GSM networks or ordinary telephone lines – from your office desk, at home or on the road. (more)
According to a July 2 broadcast on National Public Radio, the famed Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC is likely to face foreclosure because the owners have defaulted on a $69.9 million loan on the property.
Watergate is well-known to many Americans because of the events of June, 17, 1972, when DC police arrested five men trying to break in and wiretap the offices of the Democratic Party located in the building. Along with two others, they were tried and convicted in January 1973.
All seven were connected with President Richard M. Nixon's reelection committee, suggesting that what appeared to be a simple burglary/wiretap might involve high-level government officials. (more)
FutureWatch - Watergate is purchased (bailed out) by the National Park Service. Tours daily. Most popular stop... The Frank Wills Memorial Door, with tape over the lock.
If you own an iPhone, security researcher Charlie Miller can take control of it, and short of turning off the device, it appears there isn't much you can do to stop him. Not until Apple fixes the flaw, anyway.Exploiting a bug in the way iPhones parse SMS messages, the principal analyst at Independent Security Evaluators has demonstrated how to send malicious commands to monitor the phone's location, turn on its microphone, or cause it to join a DDoS, or distributed denial of service attack, according to this report from IDG News.The vulnerability is significant because there are few measures iPhone users can take to prevent an attack... (more)
CA - Police have arrested a man who allegedly admitted to stealing the identities of more than 500 people by going through the trash of local banks and businesses.
The criminal complaint filed against 30-year-old suspect Jonah Nelson claims that he made more than 1,000 fake ID cards that he used to rip off people, stores and banks. Nelson also allegedly admitted to stealing the identities of more than 500 people all across Northern California, ranging from the Bay Area to the Central Valley.
Federal agents say Nelson said it was easy to find new victims: All he needed to do was visit a local bank and search their dumpsters. (more)My amazing bank shredder story...
I received a package cushioned with strips of shredded paper filler...
made from bank records!
Names, addresses, deposit amounts, account numbers, phone numbers, Social Security numbers. It was all there. Easily reconstructed.
This was worth looking into.
My secretary wrote to the company who sent us the box...
“Your packing material was most interesting (the recycled paper). Is there a company that supplies it? Is there a charge for it? If you have a company name I would appreciate your sharing it with me. Thanks!”
Their reply...“Check with any local bank - they shred 6-10 bags per week - you can get it for free for the asking!”
Fortunately, this was an honest person. They could just as easily have been and investigator or spy... and, the bank could have been any business or government agency.
Were their hearts in the right place for recycling?
Probably.
Is this a good practice.
No.
Buy and use a good crosscut shredder. ~Kevin 
Hey gang, it's almost Independence Day here in America. Yup, July 4th is just around the corner.
Fireworks are in America's bloodstream... but, did you know your on-line curiosity could get you in trouble with the terrorist chasers? Your fireworks search engine enquires might start popping red flags...
"Ludlow Kissel and the Dago Bomb That Struck Back"
"What is a Dago Bomb?"
"How can I build a Dago Bomb?"
"Dago Bomb ingredients"
"What was blown up by the Dago Bomb?"
(Knock, Knock)
"We're from Homeland Security..."
"
Excelsior, you fathead!" Next time, don't use a search engine that captures your IP address. Search privately. Go to https://www.ixquick.com
ixquick is the only search engine which gives you anonymity.
Oh, and Ludlow... he had his 15 minutes of fame... about 2:17 into this Great American Fourth of July video. ~Kevin
UPDATE - NEW URL. Startpage.com
Twitter users have caused an uproar by impersonating celebrities on the popular micro-blogging service. Businesses, too, are targets of fake Twitter profiles -- sometimes from competitors.Exxon Mobil Corp. has found at least two unauthorized Twitter accounts under variations of its name. Twitter -- a networking service where users create profiles and send out short messages, or "tweets" to their followers -- terminated one of the profiles last summer. An Exxon spokesman says the oil company is considering what to do about the second profile, which it discovered several weeks ago.In a defensive move, AMR Corp.'s American Airlines in April "registered every possible Twitter name that could be associated with us," a spokesman says. The move came after airline employees last summer found a rogue profile in the name AmericanAir, which was shut down four weeks later.At Elevation Burger, a seven-outlet chain owned by Elevation Franchise Ventures LLC, a vendor in March found an unauthorized Twitter profile with tweets promoting rival Z Burger. Hans Hess, Elevation's founder and chief executive, complained to Z Burger and Twitter, which later suspended the profile after a letter from Mr. Hess's lawyer.Amusement-park operator Cedar Fair LP, of Sandusky, Ohio, received an email from a marketing consultant who had created a Twitter profile in the name of its Cedar Point amusement park. The consultant, David Goebel, president of Goebel Group Inc., offered to relinquish control of the account in exchange for season passes to the Cedar Fair park and suggested that the company hire his firm to oversee its Twitter account. (more)Recommendation: Get to know Twitter. Monitor it for malicious content about your company, the same way you monitor the Web and chat groups.
You do monitor, don't you?Ok, I'll give you this tip for free... Plug yourself into Addictomatic.com. It's free too.
In the office of Georgian opposition party “Way of Georgia” eavesdropping bugs were discovered to have been installed in the office’s electrical sockets.The leader of the party, ex-minister of foreign affairs Salome Zurabishvili, said that the devices were found where meetings take place among leaders of the party, which is demanding the resignation of current Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.“They were found by employees of the party in the electrical sockets of the room,” said Zurabishvili, who showed the devices to journalists. (more)
CA- Police in Newbury Park say they've found evidence that a man arrested for allegedly spying on his female neighbors with a hidden camera may have taped other people as well.
Police say Michael Farge, 38, recorded the daily activities of his neighbors, including them changing, for more than two years.
Residents of the community of condos near Wheelwright Lane told KTLA that Farge was good friends with the women he is accused of watching, a woman and her 19-year-old daughter.They said Farge had a key to the victims' house and watched their house and pets when they were out of town. (more) (video)
A federal grand jury indicted former Arlington Heights resident David Yen Lee on charges he stole trade secrets to divulge to a competitor.The indictment, which U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald announced Friday, charges Lee with five counts of economic espionage.According to the indictment, the 52-year-old Lee worked as technical director of new product development for the Wheeling branch of Valspar Corp., a Minneapolis-based paint company, from 2006 to March 2009.According to the indictment, Lee downloaded documents and data from Valspar and its China subsidiary, Huarun Ltd., to an external thumb drive... (more)
Researchers are studying creatures that fly through the night in hopes of making tiny flying spies.(right) AeroVironment's DARPA-funded prototype drone made a successful test flight, lifting itself and its energy source.The most popular of these drones are called Ravens, built by the Monrovia, Calif., company AeroVironment. They are about 4.5 feet across, weigh six pounds and can stay aloft for about an hour and a half. (More, with two cool clips of a bat flying in slow motion.)
The wife of the new head of Britain's spy agency has posted pictures of her husband, family and friends on Internet networking site Facebook, details which could compromise security, a newspaper said on Sunday. 
