HONG KONG -- Now that financial crime thriller “Overheard” has become the top Chinese-language film in China so far this summer, writer-director Alan Mak and Felix Chong are planning a follow-up that revolves around eavesdropping...“It wouldn’t be a prequel that involves the same characters, as their lives before what happened in ‘Overheard’ wouldn’t be dramatic enough for a story,” Mak told the Hollywood Reporter. “But we think there’s a lot to be explored about bugging and eavesdropping, and are developing a script around this theme.” (more)Synopsis for "Overheard"
A major stock exchange in the world, Hong Kong attracts not only money but anyone who tries to manipulate the market. At the Hong Kong Police Force Commercial Crime Bureau, an operation is underway to infiltrate a trading company where a man nicknamed Boss is the chief suspect. The team, led by Inspector Leung (Lau Ching Wan) together with Yeung (Louis Koo) and Lam (Daniel Wu) installs bugs to monitor the communications. When crucial information on a surging share is intercepted, a moment of greed now puts them in a crossfire between the Bureau and the boss.
True security innovations don't show up every day. Locks are still locks. Alarms are still alarms. Models, designs and features change, but functions remain the same. You get the idea.Here is truly innovative and useful idea... a system that can quickly account for employees during emergency situations (an OSHA requirement).The system - 911HEADCOUNT - is a clever combination of technologies. The brains behind 911Headcount is Bo Mitchell, the Former Police Commissioner of Wilton, CT and a respected consultant in the private security industry.from their Web site..."911 Headcount is the first and only automatic two-way, triple redundancy Mass Emergency Notification System that you can launch and manipulate on the run to account for employees, visitors and contractors in any emergency."• Background.• How it works.
Coming this Fall (in Japan)...The Un-Welcome Mator, as we call it around here, Kevin's Home Alone Safety Zone Burglar Atone and Drop Zone Rat Mat. It is a giant sticky mat! Strategically place them at your portals when you leave. Stuck like a bug in a rug, your burglar will be playing Ultimate Twister instead of carting off your goodies. Just don't forget it's there when you come home. Look for it to be sold here.
Video about video being hacked, hijacked and insert-attacked...• A security assessment of an IP Video Camera; think Ocean’s Eleven.Man-in-the-middle attacks tamper with video surveillance feeds, eavesdrop on IP video phone conversationsIn one attack, researchers from Viper Lab showed how a criminal could tamper with an IP video surveillance system to cover up a crime by replacing the video with another benign clip. In another demo, they eavesdropped on a private IP video call. (more)
Hey, how's your disaster recovery plan looking?
Dusty?
Faded?
Incomplete?
Incompetent?
MIA?
Just missing?
Don't have one yet?
I see a lot of raised hands.
Every business, large and small, needs a "what if... what do we do?" plan.
Creating one need not be hard, nor expensive.
There is a lot of expert help out there.
• How to Create a Disaster Recovery Plan. (free basic outline)
• Disaster Recovery Journal (free magazine)
• D-I-Y Template ($)
A smarter way is to enlist the aid of a professional consultant.
• International Association of Professional Security Consultants
• BAM - "BAM has a crackerjack team of ex-military strategists, FBI trainers, intelligence and security professionals, mathematicians, and 3D creative agents who use the latest technology, including mobile devices and social media networks, to arm their clients with the most appropriate tools for dealing with disaster, as it happens." Kevin Burton is their CEO.
or, you could use the Dilbert Disaster Recovery Plan.
TX - Surveillance video at a Dallas-area store caught the theft of several dozen plants, flowers and small statues on tape. But the culprit turned out to be a very unusual thief, a monkey with serious sticky fingers. (video) (sing-a-long)
via The Wall Street Journal...A Goldman Sachs Group Inc. computer programmer who quit last month was arrested and charged with stealing codes related to a high-speed trading program that he helped develop.The programmer, Sergey Aleynikov, 39 years old, was arrested Friday by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents as he got off a plane at Newark Liberty International Airport. According to a complaint filed Saturday, Mr. Aleynikov downloaded 32 megabytes of data from Goldman's computer system with "the intent to convert that trade secret to the economic benefit of someone other than the owner."...According to the FBI, Mr. Aleynikov got a job offer earlier this year at an unnamed Chicago firm that planned to triple the $400,000-a-year salary he was paid at Goldman. The unnamed company is "new" and "intended to engage in high-volume automated trading," the FBI said in the court filing. (more)
Apple says it has had enough of giving people replacement iPhones and iPods when, in their view, it is the consumer who has abused the gadget and rendered it inoperable.So today the firm has filed a patent on a kind of spy system that sits inside gadgets to record "consumer abuse events" and reveal them to Apple staff when you ask for a replacement."Often, particularly at a point of sale, personnel receiving the returned device may be unqualified or untrained to determine whether or not a device has failed due to manufacturing defects or due to consumer abuse," the company explains in US patent application 20090195394. (more)
OR - Last year the woman told police told police she thought her landlord was spying on her through a hidden camera in the shower.
The woman lived in an upstairs apartment inside the home the landlord shared with a second renter. That landlord - former Kalama City Council member Paul Stickel - has been charged with voyeurism, but he claims he did no such thing.
Police searched Stickel's home last Spring and confiscated videotapes, televisions and cable. They also found a hole in the wall in the woman's bathroom.
In a March 2008 affidavit, police said videotape taken from Stickel's home "shows Stickel simulating taking a shower" to test the camera-equipped shower stall. Detectives also cited a "secret viewing area" - a covered peephole - that looks out through a mirror on the woman's medicine cabinet.Stickel claims the investigators are bluffing. (more) (video)
from the seller's Web site...
Xtern-Cam® is a rugged outdoor standalone surveillance camera with inbuilt GPRS modem
(receive the photos on your cell), digital image recording function, integrated night vision and inbuilt Solar Panel to give extraordinary long battery life.The camera captures high-resolution black & white images when motion is detected and emails a selection of these to a monitoring station or mobile phone as well as storing all the high resolution images to a removable memory card for easy viewing later, on a computer or PDA. The camera can also be powered by an external 12VDC power source and can be externally triggered from a gate or door opening.Outdoors in time lapse mode using its inbuilt Solar panel to recharge the battery during the day, Xtern-Cam® can capture and transmit wirelessly, one image every 5 minutes at night time without ever requiring the battery to be re-charged. Similarly, if Motion activated, it can capture and transmit up to 150 images every night without ever having to charge the battery.In busy environments where the Camera may capture and transmit up to 330 images per night, the battery would still last around one month! The camera can store up to 65,000 VGA images and will optionally overwrite the oldest images when the memory card is full to enable ‘set and forget’ operation.Xtern-Cam® is also available with a colour camera for daytime operation with optional 16mm or 8mm telephoto lenses. (more)
Wharton School professor Andrea Matwyshyn has attended Defcon for the past five years. This year, her radar is pointing to corporate disclosure of computer security threats.Most consumers, she says, find out about them primarily through news reports and after-the-fact data breach notifications. Big business, Matwyshyn says, needs to do a much better job of keeping customers abreast of how they're dealing with big security threats. "Companies need to be aware that their customers are going to start asking questions about their security and what they're doing," she told Forbes. (more)Having quarterly TSCM inspection logs in your files can help stave off stockholder lawsuits. ~Kevin
IL - A Clinton police officer accused of viewing pornography on his squad car computer is asking that evidence collected from the computer be barred from an upcoming disciplinary hearing because police officials are guilty of eavesdropping.
Patrolman Billy Hurst, 40, of Clinton will face the Clinton Police and Fire Commission on Aug. 13 on charges that he acted improperly by spending more than 23 hours watching pornography during working hours from Nov. 13, 2008, to Jan. 24...
Hurst's attorney, Shane Voyles, with the Policemen's Benevolent labor committee, filed a civil complaint in May in DeWitt County court accusing Reidy of eavesdropping by monitoring Hurst's computer activities. Hurst did not consent to the city's installation of software put in place after viruses were detected on city computers, said Voyles. (more)
WATERGATE I
The chief of Hungary’s secret services – the National Security Office (NBH) – quit last Monday, saying his position had become untenable due to the way other authorities handled a scandal over a private security firm allegedly used to spy on politicians.
In his resignation letter, Sándor Laborc spoke of “anomalies” in the way the public prosecution service and the NBH handled the UD Affair...
The UD scandal, over which Laborc would eventually resign, began last September when the head of the small conservative opposition party, the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) received an audio recording of one of UD’s owners talking to the owner and CEO of OTP Bank, Sándor Csányi, about a commission to collect data on her.
Ibolya Dávid claimed that someone was trying to discredit her in the run up to the MDF’s party leadership election... Dávid last Tuesday said during a television interview that the UD affair had turned into a Hungarian "Watergate." (more)WATERGATE II
via Gizmodo.com...
Instead of creating the usual steel turnstile, the Watergate's designers used the primordial liquid as a psychological barrier.
Their logic: People won't like to get their clothes wet...
It's a good idea, because most people will actually respect it. Another good thing: If something happens, people can run to the exit without having to go through gates: Water is only a psychological barrier.
Fleeing, panicking persons can escape through the gate without being hindered by any rigid media. Clever.
An added advantage is that people in wheelchairs or carrying luggage can easily pass through them. Very clever. (more) (video)
USB cable UHF transmitter.
When plugged to a USB port the cable works as usual and the transmitter inside the cable transmits conversations or any sound to a distant receiver.
No batteries needed. The transmitter works as long as it remains plugged to a USB port. Automatic Gain Control lets it pick up a whisper up to 40 feet away – as clearly as loud speech near it. (more)
Pretty much impossible to discover yourself just by looking. But, hey... that's why you keep our information handy. ~Kevin
Fibre-optic cable networks are not as secure as believed - with new technology making it easy for hackers to steal data from them, according to an IDC report.IDC research analyst Romain Fouchereau said that the reputation of a fibre-optic cable network as more secure than copper cables wasn’t justified, and that new and inexpensive technologies have now made data theft easily possible for hackers without detection.Organisations that carry sensitive information across fibre-optic cables are potentially vulnerable from criminal threats, as much of the cabling is easily accessible and not well protected. Fouchereau said that hacks on optical networks could be achieved simply by extracting light from ultra-thin fibres. (more)Once a successful tap has been achieved, software that records, monitors and analyses the data (called packet sniffers), can capture the data...“Hence, capturing or eavesdropping on this data serves not only military purposes. Industrial espionage in these sectors is worth billions of dollars.” (more)
HONG KONG -- Now that financial crime thriller “Overheard” has become the top Chinese-language film in China so far this summer, writer-director Alan Mak and Felix Chong are planning a follow-up that revolves around eavesdropping...
