Until now, there were few ways to stop shoulder surfers from reading your computer screen: place a polarizing screen over your computer screen (not very practical for laptops), or mount a mirror on the side of your screen so you could see someone sneaking a peek from behind.This way sends peepers to the eye doctor...Oculis Labs has a product called PrivateEye, a simple, low-cost (from $19.95), easy-to-deploy software application for enterprise and consumer use. It requires no special hardware, just a standard embedded webcam. PrivateEye significantly improves on older technologies such as 3M privacy filters, and screen savers by performing active user-centric protection of all content displayed on the screen.PrivateEye uses a webcam sensor to continuously assess the user’s area of interest, and uses this information to control what is displayed. In the simplest mode, when PrivateEye determines that the user is looking at the display, the contents are presented normally. When the user looks away, the display is quickly blurred to protect the contents and when the user looks back, display is instantly cleared again. The effect is that contents are displayed only as needed by the authorized user. This feature alone significantly reduces the opportunities for eavesdroppers.In addition to protecting the display when the user is not attending to it, the system will reduce susceptibility to eavesdropping when the user is actively reading the screen. PrivateEye can identify when unauthorized viewers are looking at the display, and take action to reduce potential eavesdropping. (Video demonstration)Oculis Labs also sells a higher-priced version, Chameleon, which lets the user see clearly, and scrambles the view for others... all at the same time. Cool, eh?
Where Intelligence Goes to Work
Intelligence. It's the ability to think abstractly. Challenge the unknown. Solve the impossible. And at NSA, it's about protecting the Nation.
A career at NSA offers the opportunity to work with the best, shape the course of the world, and secure your own future. Isn't it time to put your intelligence to work? (more)
US - The government has agreed to pay $3 million to a former agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration who sued CIA officers for illegal eavesdropping.
The proposed settlement followed a ruling by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in July that CIA officials committed fraud to protect a former covert agent against the eavesdropping allegations.
The lawsuit was brought by former DEA agent Richard Horn, who says his home in Rangoon, Burma, was illegally wiretapped by the CIA in 1993. He says Arthur Brown, the former CIA station chief in Burma, and Franklin Huddle Jr., the chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Burma, were trying to get him transferred because they disagreed with his work with Burmese officials on the country's drug trade.
Horn sued Brown and Huddle in 1994, seeking monetary damages for violating his civil rights. The CIA itself was a defendant in the lawsuit until early this year. (more)
UK - Councils have been criticised for using surveillance powers designed to combat serious crime and protect national security to spy on the public for minor crimes such as littering or unlawfully selling pot plants.They were also found to be using them to investigate parents accused of lying about where they live to get their children in to better schools. But Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, will today announce plans to change the law to ensure authorities only use the intrusive techniques, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa), for serious offences. (more)
CA - Scott Gerber, the communications director for Attorney General Jerry Brown who admitted recording phone conversations with reporters without their permission --- including Chronicle senior political writer Carla Marinucci -- resigned Monday. (more)
People are often ashamed, scared or afraid of being called paranoid when they suspect eavesdropping or wiretapping. In most cases, something is wrong. The information leaks and subsequent feedback may not always be caused by a bug or wiretap, but something is wrong.
Take the case of Courtney Love...Courtney Love's Paranoid Sounding Claims Backed Up By Other Sources...the New York Daily News quotes not only Love, but also a few corroborating sources who back up her story...investigator hired by Love not only co-signs her story, but states that there's proof! From the News: Adam DelMonte and Michael Kenworthy of AC Digital Services...say they recorded the "blitz" on security cameras they installed in Love's house. "These impostors then flipped the situation on Mrs. Cobain and tried to strong-arm her and scare her into feeling she needed to hire them for protection," DelMonte and Kenworthy assert in a letter. "Fortunately, we were able...to get them out of her life." They go on to say that Love's former staffers installed "numerous types of spyware on her computers and her phone. Both her camera and microphone on her cell phone were bugged at one point."...she says she's called law enforcement to look into her case, she's gotten no response. She chalks the disinterest in her claims, rightfully, to a less-than-stellar reputation, saying, "My biggest problem is that I'm Courtney Love."That doesn't mean, however, that she has a lesser right to privacy than anyone else.You can begin to solve your own spying problems without: buying spy detection gadgets, hiring a private investigator or sweep team, or even admitting your suspicions to anyone. Read Quit Bugging Me.
The US-CERT has issued a warning about a new, free BlackBerry application that transforms the phone into a bugging device.PhoneSnoop, which runs on the victim's phone, lets an attacker stealthily call the targeted BlackBerry, answer the call, turn on the speakerphone, and let the attacker listen in on the victim. The app has to be configured to recognize the attacker's phone number, and it automatically and quickly answers it to evade detection.
Sheran Gunasekera, the developer of PhoneSnoop, says he was surprised US-CERT identified his app in an advisory. "I am happy that they did, though, because it's one step further in getting the word out," says Gunasekera, who is director of IT security at Hermis Consulting in Jakarta, Indonesia.
"I think the reason my app was flagged was because it's free and more easily accessible" than more expensive commercial spy tools. (more) (video)
Side note: The attacker either needs to have physical access to your Blackberry to load the spyware program, or in some way, trick you into doing it.
MN - The police chief of Gaylord is now charged with two gross misdemeanors in an alleged "bugging" scheme.Police Chief Dale Lee Roiger is accused of having one of his officers secretly plant a digital recorder to see if City Council members were meeting illegally at the Chamber of Commerce office. (more)
Oddly, the article mentions a digital recorder, which stores the recording in a solid-state memory, yet shows a photo of analog cassette tapes.
Example photo of a digital recorder...
This one is high quality, voice activated and stores up to 300 hours of conversation; about $375. on ebay. Lower fidelity digital recorders are also being sold in the $10.-$40. price range. Be careful what you say, and have your office swept periodically.
UK - An article this week at The Register states that between November 2008 and September 2009, there were 356 self-reported data losses this year by UK companies and government departments. In the same time frame a year before, there were 190 such incidents reported.The information was compiled by Software AG, which used a Freedom of Information Act request to get the data from the UK Information Commissioner's Office. (more)
WI - An Appleton man charged with installing spyware on his ex-wife's computer was fined after he entered into a plea agreement on a lesser charge.Brent J. Walbrun, 47, W3291 Hartland Court, originally was charged with interception of an electronic communication under the state's electronic eavesdropping law for installing the spyware on the computer.In October, Walbrun's ex-wife discovered the spyware program when she realized Walbrun was intercepting her e-mails. Walbrun entered a no-contest plea Oct. 19 to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct and was fined $476. (more)
Australia - Distributors for new software that allows parents to spy on their children's text messages say they are still hopeful, as they try to get approval for their product.The software, which allows parents to see every text message their child sends and receives, was due to be on sale in August, but the earliest it will now be available is early next year.Civil libertarians and technology experts have deep concerns about the privacy implications of the product. (more)
(Reports coming in from GA, MA, and IL)
...The unknown sharp object penetrates the door metal, hits the lock mechanism and disengages it. The burglar or burglars slip inside the vehicle without having to break a window or otherwise heavily damage the car, which would call attention to themselves.Because the damage is minor, the owners may not realize they are victims until they notice items missing from the car or items that were moved. The puncture hole that the intruders leave under the lock, usually on the driver's-side door, is only up to about a half-inch in diameter.The thieves prefer to hit General Motors cars, Golike said."Most were GM vehicles," he said. "Many of the GM cars have a lock mechanism that somebody's familiar with."He said some of the cars were Dodges.The thieves target just about anything of value, including cash, wallets, purses and guns left in the cars.The first such "punch" car burglary reported in the greater Alton area happened to a vehicle owned by Telegraph Photo Editor John Badman. That burglary happened Sept. 23 while his Chevrolet Impala was parked in the parking lot of Fast Eddie's Bon-Air tavern along East Broadway. The tavern is at 1530 E. Broadway.Once inside the car, the burglar popped the lid of the trunk, making off with $14,000 in camera equipment - after first relocking the car door. (more) (more) (more)
An American whose secret recordings have placed him at the center of a $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador is a convicted drug trafficker, records show, throwing another complication into a case already tainted by accusations of bribery and espionage.
The lawsuit pits Ecuadorean peasants against Chevron over oil pollution in the Amazon and has been a major headache for the company for nearly a decade, producing a saga that underscores many of the hazards and ethical challenges of oil companies working in the developing world.
The company appeared to gain the upper hand in August when it revealed video recordings — captured on watches and pens implanted with bugging devices — that suggested a bribery scheme involving Ecuadorean officials, and possibly even the judge hearing the case.
But the company was put on the defensive again on Thursday, after lawyers for the peasants revealed that one of two men who made the tapes was a convicted felon. Court and other records provided by the plaintiffs show that Wayne Hansen, the American who helped make the recordings, was convicted of conspiring to traffic 275,000 pounds of marijuana from Colombia to the United States in 1986. He also was sued successfully in 2005 by a woman who accused him of unleashing his two pit bulls to attack her and her dog...
“It’s another blockbuster development in a case that never runs short of them,” said Ralph G. Steinhardt, a professor at George Washington University Law School...
Chevron has said it had no involvement in the videotaping, and company spokesmen have said Mr. Hansen was never their point of contact. “We’ve had no association with this guy,” said Donald Campbell, a Chevron spokesman. (more) (the videos)
As cell phones become more like pocket computers, many people are calling for closer scrutiny of their security... "The phone is a very stripped-down environment," says Benjamin Jun, vice president of technology at Cryptography Research, a security research company based in San Francisco, CA. "Which means that someone who's trying to attack the device generally has an easier time, because it's not as complicated as a desktop system."Jun believes attacks on mobile devices are particularly serious because these devices are being used to access high-value corporate data. (more)
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), says it has had its most intense period of operational activity since 2005. ASIO's annual report says in the last financial year it detected and responded to a new alleged terrorist cell...It also picked up internet espionage as a rapidly growing threat to Government and business information. (more)
Until now, there were few ways to stop shoulder surfers from reading your computer screen: place a polarizing screen over your computer screen (not very practical for laptops), or mount a mirror on the side of your screen so you could see someone sneaking a peek from behind.
