Steven Soderbergh's movie, The Informant!, opened in movie theaters today. By all reviews, it is a winner. It is based on a true corporate intrigue story.
If it were fiction it would be a corporate espionage thriller. Because it is a true story, it is a comedy, a farce, a fiasco. Such is real life drama. (I know. I was there.)
Soderbergh has an excellent reputation for portraying realistic organizational espionage, intrigue and electronic surveillance. Remember his Valerie Plame affair series "K Street," on HBO?If you liked "Barbarians at the Gate" (I was there, too). You'll love "The Informant!"
...one review...
A mid-level executive at a corporation called ADM, Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) works to ensure the continued good sales of the company's popular food additives, but when a mishap in the lab begins to cost the company significant amounts of money and threatens Whitacre's job, the mustachioed quasi-Everyman simply invents, out of thin air, a Japanese corporate blackmailer to whom he assigns the blame.
Enter the FBI, who might easily have caught on to Whitacre's deception had he not, in turn, spun yet another series of lies which propelled him into being the government's key witness and undercover informant in a massive corporate conspiracy case. And like all good con-jobs, Whitacre built his lies upon half-truths.
There was, indeed, a price-fixing scheme in place, but the laughable audacity with which Whitacre lead investigators through the ranks, deflecting attention from his own involvement – and subsequent embezzlement – is worthy of a standing ovation. The Informant is a one-man show, carried completely by the strength of Damon's tremendously effective performance.
Whitacre, for all intents and purposes, should be a hugely unlikeable guy, but Damon lends the character a sense of kamikaze bravado and wide-eyed whimsy that makes it impossible not to feel at least slightly sympathetic toward him. From the paunchy mid-section to the ridiculous hairpiece, Whitacre seems like the kind of guy trying desperately to move up and be taken seriously in the corporate world. (more) (the original story, summarized) (wikipedia) (The Informant - book) ('This American Life' audio version)
Although it may not be clear in the movie, or the book, the only person who identified Whitacre as unstable early on, reported it to management (was ignored), discovered Whitacre's 9 million plus dollar theft from ADM, and recovered the money, was ADM's corporate security director, Mark J. Cheviron. He is the true unsung hero of this story and one of the few top ADM executives to emerge untarnished. The old top management is gone today. Mr. Cheviron remains.
~Kevin (you can have the isle seat)
via boing boing...
Canada is apparently a hive of foreign spies and Ottawa is "crawling with them," according to an Ottawa Citizen article about a new book, titled Nest of Spies: The Startling Truth About Foreign Agents at Work Within Canada's Borders
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The book was written by an investigative journalist and a former intelligence officer with the RCMP Security Service and Canadian Security Intelligence Service. If the article is any indication, this book is just laden with intrigue and scandal. For example, it claims that 1970s/1980s Russian hockey star Vladislav Tretiak was also a spy "talent scout," recruiting new secret agents for the Soviet Union.
From the Ottawa Citizen:Led by the Chinese but including intelligence officers from at least 20 nations including allies, the book says, the infiltrators are stealing an estimated $20 billion to $30 billion annually worth of cutting-edge research in products and technologies, other scientific, business and military know-how and political secrets. (more)
US Government recommends weighing laptop before and after each visit. Senior executives in US IT companies have been advised by the US Government to follow extremely strict policies for visits to China which extend far beyond standard software protection. The policies encourage them to leave their standard IT equipment at home and to buy separate gear only for use in China. (more)
NY - It's the society scandal of the year. Two power blondes, each accused of harassing the other, in a jealous catfight turned dangerous. Now, as one is charged with a felony and faces up to four years in jail, could this be the end of both their glittering careers?In January 2008, interior decorator Nina Freudenberger's phone started ringing off the hook.Freudenberger, a Kirsten Dunst–lookalike with porcelain skin and long blonde hair, was used to being in high demand. Working with the famed architectural firm Costas Kondylis and Partners, she counted A-list designer Zac Posen as a friend and supporter of her work. At the time, she was even plotting to open her own Manhattan furniture boutique.But the sudden barrage of calls that winter wasn't from friends or interested clients. Six or seven times a day, Freudenberger's phone would ring, and no one would be on the other end. Later, her voicemails would mysteriously disappear.What's more, Freudenberger's billing statement showed that the anonymous caller was dialing from her own phone number. Confused and scared, she reported the prank calls to the police, who discovered an unlikely stalker: power publicist and social fixture Ali Wise.Between January 2, 2008, and March 15, 2008, Wise allegedly used a device known as a SpoofCard about 54 times to hack into Freudenberger's voicemail, according to a complaint filed with the Manhattan district attorney's office.
On July 8, 2009, Wise, the head of entertainment PR at Dolce & Gabbana since 2005, was arrested and charged with computer trespass and eavesdropping. (more)
FL - It's been a short campaign, but one full of negative attack ads on the airwaves. Now, with just days to go in the race to replace the late Jim King in the Florida Senate, one candidate's family is accusing another campaign of videotaping the family house. Dan Quiggle and John Thrasher are two of the Republicans are on the ballot in the race for Florida Senate District 8... (more)
TX - The former general manager for the Bexar Metropolitan Water District pleaded guilty Friday to two counts of wiretapping — admissions that could send him to prison for up to 20 years and force him to testify against the utility's previous public relations consultant.As a condition of the plea agreements, prosecutors aren't challenging Gil Olivares' request for probation. (more)
UK - A primary school computer consultant who set up a camera in the girls' toilets has been jailed for five years. Timothy Walters was found to have more than 26,000 indecent images of children stored on his computer, Leeds Crown Court heard. The alarm was raised when two pupils at St Peter's School, Birstall, alerted the caretaker that they had seen something flash from the ceiling of the toilets at 12.20pm on March 4 this year. An investigation uncovered a video camera concealed behind a ceiling tile in the toilets, which was connected to a wireless router. There was also a laptop and a hard disk drive. (more)
Communications Surveillance: Privacy and Security at Risk
AS THE SOPHISTICATION OF WIRETAPPING TECHNOLOGY GROWS, SO TOO DO THE RISKS IT POSES TO OUR PRIVACY AND SECURITY.
We all know the scene: It is the basement of an apartment building and the lights are dim. The man is wearing a trench coat and a fedora pulled down low to hide his face. Between the hat and the coat we see headphones, and he appears to be listening intently to the output of a set of alligator clips attached to a phone line. He is a detective eavesdropping on a suspect's phone calls. This is wiretapping—as it was in the film noir era of 1930s Hollywood. It doesn't have much to do with modern electronic eavesdropping, which is about bits, packets, switches, and routers.
We start with an overview of the convoluted history of wiretapping, focusing on the United States, and then turn to issues of privacy and security. (more)
SecurStar GmbH of Germany has added PhoneCrypt encryption for the iPhone to their line of voice security products. (more)
The News...
Police arrested a man they say caused a disturbance at a Honda dealership and who, it was later discovered, had been recording the exchange with a voice recorder in his pocket. Chi Quang Truong, 46, of 63 Flanders Road, Westborough, was arrested at 2:05 p.m. Friday at Bernardi Honda on Worcester Street... Truong has been charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, trespassing, unlawful wiretapping and possessing a device for wiretapping. (more)The Views (#1)...
Silliest 'wiretapping' charges ever recorded
In my view it's the federal law and 38 "one-party consent" states that have this one called correctly, and the 12 others that have some explaining to do. The justification for criminalizing self-authorized self-recording has never been made clear to me; best I get from friends and colleagues is that being recorded without one's knowledge "is creepy." Yes it is, or at least in can be in some cases. But so is charging a guy with "wiretapping" just because he tossed a nutty at a car dealership. (more)
The Views (#2)...
Don't you need a wire to get charged with wiretapping?
I thought so too, and the theory here is that since Truong didn't have explicit permission to record the conversation (memories of Linda Tripp), he was slapped with the additional charges. In 12 states (California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington) you're required to get the permission of all parties on the line before making any kind of recording. In the rest of the country, any single member that's part of the conversation can legally record it without consent from the other parties. And as Network World notes, wiretapping laws largely extend to in-person communications now, so no wire is required. Still, does the punishment really fit the crime? Wiretapping is a class D felony, and that can mean (based on my admittedly limited understanding of criminal statutes) up to 12 years in prison. (more)
What's your view?Take our new poll (top right side)
The ratio of discovered spycam'ers to undiscovered is...
Nobody really knows. However, given the number of spycams we see being sold vs. the court cases being reported, your feel for it was...1:5 -- 15%1:10 -- 10%1:100 -- 25%1:500 -- 10%1:1000 -- 45%!
With Dave D’Auria, Acquisition Committee chairman of the National Cryptologic Museum Foundation; retired executive at the National Security Agency.
“Solving the German Enigma: The Allied Code-Breaking That Helped Shorten and Win World War II.” (series information)
5:30 p.m. – Doors open, providing attendees a chance to examine the Enigma machine
7 p.m. – Lecture and Q&A
Thursday, Sept. 17, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Museum of Nature & Science, 3535 Grand Avenue, Dallas, TX
Admission: $7 - $10 Age limit: 18+
via The Wall Street Journal...
Bacteria are the oldest living things on earth, and researchers have long felt that they must lead dull, unfussy lives. New discoveries are starting to show just how wrong that notion is. For a simple, single-cell creature, a bacterium is surprisingly social.
It can communicate in two languages. It can tell self from nonself, friend from foe. It thrives in the company of others. It spies on neighbors, spreads misinformation and even commits fratricide.
"Really, they're just stripped-down versions of us," says Bonnie Bassler, microbial geneticist at Princeton University, who has spent two decades peeking at the inner lives of bacteria. Dr. Bassler and other scientists are using this information to devise new ways to fight infections and reduce antibiotic resistance. (more) (video)
via The Guardian (UK)...Main Points• A toxic culture of suspicion is souring our children's lives.• Adults will find it hard to interact with young people if hysterical paranoia means they are all viewed as potential abusers.(more)via Atlantic Free Press...Main Points• New surveillance technologies increasingly threaten Americans’ civil liberties yet the public seems not to mind the ominous signs of an emerging police state, a law school professor warns.• “If we acquiesce in technology’s wonders being utilized to track our every movement, every action, every purchase, every message — because there is benefit to us, as there is, in each of these — who is to blame when the state goes knocking on the neighbor’s door?” asks Larry Starkey, an adjunct professor at the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover. “Who is to blame when the state comes knocking on our own doors?” (more)via The Telegraph (UK)...Main Points• Britain has become a ‘Big Brother’ surveillance society with “CCTV on every corner”• Organisations have been accused of misusing the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, originally intended to tackle terrorism and organised crime, by applying the legislation to trivial matters such as littering and dog fouling."Teach your children well" ~Crosby Stills Nash Young
"...don't be surprised if this thing triggers a whole social wave of spy-filming.
It's totally easy to conceal... * Voice recorder. More spy fun. Each recorded audio chunk can be two hours long, although the iPod automatically begins a new chunk if your session rolls on longer."David Pogue - The New York Times - Personal Tech Guru (more) (iPod nano)
...one review... 
