Mystery 1
Could world-changing series of events in the last century have been influenced by an American president's mistress?
That's one question posed in Cleveland attorney and writer Jim Robenalt's book "The Harding Affair: Love and Espionage during the Great War
." The book deals with (Warren G.) Harding's 15-year affair with Carrie Phillips, the wife of a prominent Marion businessman, and suggests that Phillips may have become a German spy.
The author also questions whether Phillips convinced Harding not to run for the presidency in 1916, which could have affected the United States' involvement in World War I as well as events that later influenced Nazi leader Adolph Hitler's rise to power. (more)Mystery 2 
Was this beekeeper a spy for Stalin?
Dorothy Constance Galton, a university secretary and bee keeper, was investigated by security services who believed she was acting as a go-between for Stalin, secret files disclose.
Galton also came to the attention of the notorious double agent Kim Philby at MI6 who wanted to know what Security Service knew about her.
Her file shows she visited Leningrad on the SS Sibier in August 1934, and by January 1935 was working at London University and had been elected as a delegate from the Association of Women Clerks and Secretaries. (more)
Life is strange. Take a moment to listen to a Roy Rodgers / Rolling Stones mash-up “Hey! You! Get off of my cow!” The artist is Buck Howdy, a singing cowboy, specializing in kid-friendly tunes. He’s also a genuine, tractor-driving, turkey farmer.Ok, now that you have stopped laughing...Buck Howdy: “I inherited my geek DNA from my dad [Jim Vaus Jr.]. As a kid my dad helped me build a ham radio and then I got my broadcast license WN2FEZ was my call sign.He was a HUGE geek - he invented wiretapping and tracing phone calls - and then employed his skills at the same time for the L.A. Syndicate (mob), the police and Hollywood movie stars all at the same time!He also invented the machine that they patterned the big sting in the movie “The Sting” after - where they were supposedly intercepting horse race results on the wire service - and then delaying those results just long enough to place bets on the horses.”(Jim Vaus cleaned up his act, by the way. You can find out more in his book, “Why I Quit Syndicated Crime
,” the basis of the 1955 movie Wiretapper.) (more)I know a few folks from the Vaus clan.
They are really wonderful people. ~Kevin
This is the scariest thing I saw during our bug sweeps this past week. It was sitting on top of a corporate president's desk.Anyone can have custom printing put on USB sticks. (Not knowing if the printing on this one was legitimate or fake, I blurred the top two lines.) They can also load the stick with a megaton blast of spyware, destructive malware or a fast spreading virus that hits your corporate nervous system like Tourette's Syndrome.
Put the trick-stick into a pretty package. Mass mail it to company employees. Good chance one of them will open their Pandora's Box.My new corporate client was not completely naive. They had a USB lock-out policy in place. The USB ports were turned off on all employee computers... except top executives, who were exempt from the policy. Worried about your USB ports?Good, here is a plan...• Try USB lock-out software. You can get a Free 30-day trial from Lumension.• Identify employees who have a real need to have their ports unlocked.• Give them a clear education about the USB vulnerability.• Let them know they will be responsible for their security lapses.• Ask them if they are really sure they want their ports left open.~Kevin
If your gadget can connect to the Internet, it can probably call you when it is lost or stolen...A while back, I discussed a FREE way to get you laptop back using a combination of Adeona and isightcapture. If you are willing to spend a few bucks, and also need to protect: Mac or PC laptops, BlackBerrys, Smart mobile phones, cameras, GPS devices, external hard drives and even USB thumb drives, GadgetTrak can help.
Not electronic? No problem.
GadgetTrak also offers "Trak Tags" so honest people have a way of returning lost, non-electronic items.
Companies even put GadgetTrak technology into their own products. (see FLIR ThermaTrak™) Smart!
Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa announced Saturday he is seeking to definitively shut down a private television station that he accused of "espionage" on his office.The station Teleamazonas, a private broadcaster that has been critical of Correa and his government, has already been fined multiple times for breaking broadcasting law, notably for reporting opposition charges of voter fraud during April's general elections.This week the station broadcast a secretly recorded conversation between Correa and a Quito lawmaker..."They have spied on a meeting in the office of the president -- that's an attack on national security.... We will not accept these things," said Correa. (more)Update: (computer translation) The Policy Coordinating Minister Ricardo Patino and Legal Secretary of the Presidency, Alexis Mera, presented today at the Attorney General, two complaints against Fernando Balda, Patriotic Society member. Patino said the allegations against Balda are for having disseminated a clandestine recording of a meeting in the Presidency and unjustifiable introduction at police and insulting the President. The secretary of the Prosecutor indicated that he immediately informed the minister will Fiscal Washington heaviness, to arrange for further investigation on this case.
via examiner.comJulia McWilliams’ post was with the Office of Strategic Services, or the OSS, which was the predecessor to the CIA. She held several positions, and at one point she and co-workers solved a unique problem for the U.S. Navy: Sharks bumping into underwater explosives were setting them off and warning the German U-boats they were intended to sink. According to Linda McCarthy, curator of the Clandestine Women: The Untold Stories of Women in Espionage exhibit at the National Women's History Museum, “Julia Child and a few of her male compatriots got together and literally cooked up a shark repellent," to coat the explosives. (more)
Now, it is just blatant.via netprofitbuzz.com
Fight back.
MI - The former technology manager for Citizens Gas Fuel Co. is facing criminal charges for allegedly spying on women inside bathrooms at the company office at 127 N. Main St.Richard Neal Gramling Jr., 54, was arraigned Wednesday in Lenawee County District Court on seven felony counts involving a hidden camera offense and use of a computer to commit a crime. He remains free on personal recognizance pending a Sept. 3 preliminary examination...“Detroit Edison has done a complete sweep of the building and is confident there are no recording devices left,” said Detective Greg Lanford of the Adrian Police Department. (more)Recommendation: Add bathroom inspections to your pro-active sweep schedule. If you don't have a pro-active sweep schedule (you should) stop by and see us. We will help you reduce the chances of embarrassing incidents and employer negligence lawsuits.
The son of a disgraced CIA agent convicted of funneling classified information to the Russians has pleaded guilty to charges of helping his imprisoned father collect overdue bills for his dad’s nefarious activities.
The 25-year-old son, Nathaniel James Nicholson of Eugene, Oregon, traveled throughout the world using coded e-mail messages to plot meeting locations with the Russians, and received tens of thousands of dollars on behalf of his convicted spy father, Harold James Nicholson, according to a January indictment. (.pdf)
The father, nicknamed “Batman,” is already serving 23 years... FBI affidavit (.pdf). (more)
The Swiss creator of a Skype Trojan that can intercept calls made using the VoIP program has released the Trojan's source code online in an attempt to allow for its widespread detection.In a translated interview with gulli.com, Ruben Unteregger says that with the Trojan's publication, "it will get analysed... signature patterns will be created by antivirus companies, the malware will be detected, blocked and deleted, if it tries to infect a system."Previous reports from the IDG News Service tied the in-development Skype Trojan to the Swiss Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications, which reportedly hired Unteregger's company to create the digital wiretap. (more)
Many years ago, I did some work for an odd company in New Mexico; they specialized in building secret enclosures for the government.
Whatever you could dream up they could make. A desk with a hollow leg for an embassy in Romania - no problem. A toothbrush transmitter for a secret agent - no problem. Need a place to hide some microfilm in a nail file - no problem.
An item like a car could be decked out with 100+ secret compartments for bugs, smuggled manuscripts or a handler's stash of baksheesh.
It was a cool place run by brilliantly deceptive minds. Not open to the public.You probably don't need that level of deception, but you may need...
A place to: stash some cash, cool your jewels or just hide a spare key.
Visit The International Spy Museum Store.
Here, you can obtain...• Arizona Iced Tea Diversion Safe
• Peanut Butter Safe
• Dr. Pepper Can Safe
• Suave Can Safe• Book Safe
...and more secret safes made from everyday items.
Ever since taking a part-time job manning surveillance equipment for the Dennisport, MA, police department, Kevin D. Murray has been a spy buster. Businesses and governments hire him to suss out hidden bugs and such, which he does using everything from sensitive thermal-imaging equipment (which picks up the heat given off by any hidden sensors bugs) to just lots of plain old looking around. Murray Associates now handles about 125 cases per year. He claims to have protected "more than $100 trillion worth of information*" in the last three decades. (more)
* Just a rough guess, of course. We used this figure in conjunction with our recent give-a-way of 100 Trillion dollar bills from Zimbabwe.
If you are a Security Director, CEO, President, Chairman, Chief Legal Counsel, HR director, etc. from a Forbes 1000 company, and would like one of these very rare bank notes (the largest denomination ever printed), just look over our Web site, put us in your Rolodex and let me know. I will make it happen. ~Kevin
Computer scientists in Japan say they've developed a way to break the WPA encryption system used in wireless routers in about one minute.
The attack gives hackers a way to read encrypted traffic sent between computers and certain types of routers that use the WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) encryption system. The attack was developed by Toshihiro Ohigashi of Hiroshima University and Masakatu Morii of Kobe University, who plan to discuss further details at a technical conference set for Sept. 25 in Hiroshima. (more)
"Is nothing sacred?"
When it comes to security, "Nope nothing."
NV - You might have noticed an unuusal sight if you passed by the Reno-Stead Airport recently. The giant white sphere has generated quite a few calls to our newsroom.
So what is it ? It turns out its a prototype airship being developed by a private company called Sierra Nevada Corporation. Jim McGinley at SNC says the round airship could be used to monitor crowds or border crossings.
McGinley says the airship could be valuable to anyone who desires a persistent surveillance presence in a remote location.
Answer: Rover c.1967
(At least when it comes to surveillance balloons.)
Security researcher Karsten Nohl has issued a hacking challenge that could expose T-Mobile and AT&T cell phone users -- including Gphone and iPhone patrons -- to eavesdropping hacks within six months.Nohl, a computer science Ph.D/ candidate from the University of Virginia, is calling for the global community of hackers to crack the encryption used on GSM phones. He plans to compile this work into a code book that can be used to decipher encrypted conversations and data that gets transmitted to and from GSM phones.Nohl’s motive: he wants to compel the telecoms to address a security weakness that has been known for years. (more)
