Friday, October 2, 2009

*CONTEST* (CLOSED) Help me track down an international spy.

Help me track down an international spy.
I have been chasing this person for over 20 years now.
Over this time, my spy has been seen in these cities, in this order;
but for no longer than a month at a time...

Seoul, South Korea
Barcelona, Spain
Atlanta, Georgia (USA)
Sydney, Australia
Beijing, China
Based on this, what city should I plan on traveling to for my next chance to see this spy again?

First correct answer via e-mail wins a nice prize. ~Kevin

We have a winner!
HZC from Texas, who says... "You should look for him in London, England. And Perhaps if you cant find it there afterwards at Rio de Jainero, Brazil"
Why? Because our spy follows the Olympics!

He will be receiving the really cool "Book of Secrets" Check the "Look inside" at amazon.com to see what it is all about. ~Kevin

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Security Colleague Question #523 - Fireproof Bag

Hi Kevin,
Are you aware of any type of document bag that is fire proof?

Try one of these...
It withstands nearly 2000 degrees of fiery heat for up to 15 minutes! They come in two sizes, lots of colors and with locks...
Locking Bag - Fire-Resist Briefcase
~ Kevin

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Peru’s Fujimori Pleads Guilty to Wiretaps

Peru - Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori pleaded guilty yesterday to charges of wiretapping opponents and paying bribes to lawmakers and publishers during his rule from 1990 to 2000.

Fujimori, 71, will be sentenced to up to eight years in prison tomorrow. (more)

Upon reading our Fujimori post...

Taiwan - President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has ordered national security agencies to conduct a thorough investigation into allegations that wiretapping by intelligence agencies had become rampant since he took office and demanded severe punishment for officials who disobeyed his campaign promise to ban the practice... (more)

SpyCam Story #558 - Missed Fujimori Post

Philippines - The Valenzuela city government will implement two ordinances next month that would regulate liquor businesses and requiring all establishments to install spy cameras within their premises. (more)
FutureWatch...
The beginning of a trend?
Liquor stores... cigarette sellers... gun shops... magazine stands... movie theaters...

SpyCam Story #557 - Saw a Fujimori Once

KY - A former Heartland teacher accused of videotaping underneath cheerleaders' skirts enters a guilty plea. Steve McCuiston, 51, of Murray entered the plea Monday on charges of eavesdropping and evidence tampering... McCuiston formerly taught seventh and eighth grade at Livingston Middle School. He resigned after his arrest. (more)

A Fujimori Kind of Dude

WI - A state appeals court has upheld a Plover man's 25-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting his ex-girlfriend at gunpoint, burglarizing her home and wiretapping her telephone. The man awaits a separate trial on a murder charge involving the woman's suspected lover. (more)

New Contest to be Posted 10/2 @ 12:01 PM EST

Our last contest was such a success we are doing another one.
Be here, Friday, October 2, 2009 at 12:01 PM EST.


"Why the specifics?"

Some of our Security Scrapbook family receive the Scrapbook in digest form via e-mail. To give them a fair shot at "first correct answer received wins," they need some advance notice. ~Kevin

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Spybusters Tip # 385 - FREE Encrypted Memory Sticks. Roll Your Own!

Step 1 - Go to your junk drawer. Grab one of your regular old USB memory sticks.

Step 2 - Go to
TrueCrypt.org.
Grab their FREE encryption software.


Step 3 - Read the Beginner's Tutorial. Load & Lock.


Ta-daaaa!
Instant FREE encrypted memory stick!!!

(clap, clap, clap)

Thank you.

Kevin
P.S. You can also roll Free Mac/Windows XP/Vista/2000/Linus sticks the same way.
Additional Spybusters Tips.

What's Your Counterespionage Strategy?

via Forbes.com...
The biggest security breaches in corporations these days are employees who have been laid off or who are about to get laid off.

When employees leave an organization on their own terms, particularly in good times, many companies scramble to figure out what they had access to and what the value of that information would be to a competitor. There is a large body of case law in the technology industry involving theft of trade secrets, and globalization has added a new twist because laws in some countries are either unenforceable or nonexistent. But in a downturn where millions of workers are being cut, the scale of th
e problem grows by several orders of magnitude. (more)

Chances are, you don't have a counterespionage strategy...
but, can have one at no extra cost!


Face it, an effective counterespionage strategy is not optional.
You need one.

• Executives of publicly held companies have a fiduciary responsibility to protect intellectual property for stockholders.
• Many businesses must demonstrate compliance with privacy and information security laws. (Fines are costly.)
• Keeping your business information private is profitable.

Bonus... It may not cost you a penny!
If your security budget looks like the one below, you are over-protecting the wrong things. Move some coins from left to right, where they will do more good.

For the cost of your least effective security guard, you could have a basic quarterly counterespionage program. No brainer, right? Call me today. I'll set it all up. ~Kevin

(click to enlarge)
Intangible loss has greater $€£¥ impact than physical property loss.
(FULL PRESS RELEASE VERSION)

Monday, September 28, 2009

Tapping into the Treasury...

Intelligence activities across the U.S. government and military cost a total of $75 billion a year, the nation's top intelligence official said on Tuesday, disclosing an overall number long shrouded in secrecy.

Dennis Blair, the U.S. director of national intelligence, cited the figure as part of a four-year strategic blueprint for the sprawling, 200,000-person intelligence community. (more)

"So, uh for $75 Billion every year we must know everything, right Pop?"

Spying on BlackBerry Users for Fun

The 7th annual instalment of the Hack in The Box Security Conference in Malaysia (HITBSecConf) has secured some of the most exciting mainstream and underground ICT security experts who will present on a range of highly relevant hardware and software security topics, on the 7th and 8th of October 2009....

Sheran Gunasekera, Head of Research & Development at ZenConsult will present Spying on BlackBerry Users for Fun - a talk which will demonstrate that BlackBerry handhelds can be compromised to sniff user’s email (and optionally instant messages, web browsing traffic, and SMS messages). The presentation will also see the release of the “Bugs & Kisses” toolkit. Bugs, the interceptor can be deployed on BlackBerry handhelds to sniff emails, while Kisses the detector can be used on the device to detect the presence of Bugs or other ‘Bugs-like’ applications. (more)

Vigil Attorney has California Officials Quaking

CA - A South Bay lawyer wasn't acting as a Peeping Tom or a member of the paparazzi when he hired an investigator to stake out a Morgan Hill official in an unsuccessful search for evidence of a suspected romantic affair, a state appeals court says.

Instead, attorney Bruce Tichinin was exercising a citizen's right to look into possible government wrongdoing, and can sue the city of Morgan Hill for allegedly retaliating against him by denouncing his actions, the appellate panel in San Jose said Monday.

Tichinin's lawyer said the ruling by the Sixth District Court of Appeal should be good news for anyone, including the media, who is trying to find out what public officials are up to. (more)

Leda, the Swann, and the IT Guy

CA - An eastern Ontario union executive has launched a lawsuit against the Canadian Union of Public Employees, accusing a colleague of violating her privacy by reading her emails.

Katherine Thompson, of South Lancaster, Ont., who is currently president for the Air Canada component of CUPE, is seeking $250,000 in damages through a civil suit launched against CUPE, national president Paul Moist and Lesley Swann, former president of CUPE's Air Canada component.

Thompson alleges that in the fall of 2007, when she was secretary-treasurer and Swann was the component president, Swann blackmailed an IT consultant into providing access to Thompson's emails, and then went through the correspondence to spy on her.

CUPE's Air Canada component represents 6,700 flight attendants at Air Canada. (more)

Eavesdropping - A Bad Rap?

Rap artist and producer Dr. Dre may be making an appearance in Detroit soon, but it could be in a courtroom rather than for a concert following a court of appeals ruling.

A ruling last week revives a 2002 case against the artist -- whose real name is Andre Young -- that accuses him of violating state eavesdropping laws by improperly videotaping a backstage conversation by city employees at a concert in July 2000. The original suit sought $3 billion. (more)

SIng-a-long
Listen listen listen.. (listen) whoahh (listen)

Listen listen listen.. (better listen) whoahh-oahhh-oahhh
Listen listen listen.. [harmonizing]
Listen.. mmm-mmm-mmm (more)