Some Courts Raise Bar on Reading Employee Email

via The Wall Street Journal...
US - Companies Face Tougher Tests to Justify Monitoring Workers' Personal Accounts; Rulings Hinge on 'Expectation of Privacy'

Big Brother is watching. That is the message corporations routinely send their employees about using email.

But recent cases have shown that employees sometimes have more privacy rights than they might expect when it comes to the corporate email server. Legal experts say that courts in some instances are showing more consideration for employees who feel their employer has violated their privacy electronically. (more)

Amazing Surveillance Video

Train track inspector almost gets smooshed... twice!

Just when cell phone companies inched past used car dealers in the "who do you trust more" race.

UK - Staff at mobile phone company T-Mobile passed on millions of records from thousands of customers to third party brokers, the firm has confirmed...

Christopher Graham said brokers had sold the data to other phone firms, who then cold-called the customers as their contracts were due to expire. (more)

Suggestion... Find out who keeps the data key at you company. Review the security checks and balances. Let them know you are minding the store.

This just in!
Used car dealers take the lead...

NY - Starting next week, Verizon will double the early-termination fee for smartphones... "David, I read your posts about how the cell carriers are eating up our airtime with those 15-second 'To page this person, press 5' instructions, but I think Verizon has a bigger scam going on: charging for bogus data downloads.

"Virtually every bill I get has a couple of erroneous data charges at $1.99 each—yet we download no data.

"Here's how it works..." (more)

Quote of the Week

"A surprising number of otherwise smart people find themselves remarking on the phone that they hope the line isn't tapped."
~Ann Woolner, Bloomberg News, commenting on federal wiretaps investigating insider trading. (more)

Other great quotes we hear...
"I hope the room isn't bugged."
"I hope you're not recording this."
"I hope there are no hidden cameras here."

Of course, 'hoping don't help'.
You need this.

SpyCam Story #561 - The New Miranda Warning

FL - A woman who is suing her former landlord over allegations he secretly set up a spy camera in her bedroom is asking a judge to add punitive damages to her claim.

Miranda Goldston, 26, filed her lawsuit seeking compensatory damages against Kenneth Ryals, 59, in December 2007, three months after she discovered the spy camera hidden inside a DVD player in her bedroom. (more)

Illegal Wireless Phone Tap Found

Israel - Knesset security officials are concerned over what may be a case of illegal wiretapping of phones of the Ravitz family of Beitar Illit.

It appears the concerns began with “strange noises” heard on the phone by members of the family. A routine inspection into the cause of the noise revealed a wireless eavesdropping device.

According to the Chareidim report, those involved are more than a bit curious as to who is eavesdropping on the phone of Yitzchak Ravitz, who heads Degel HaTorah in the community, or perhaps the eavesdropping is intended to listen in on the conversations of his daughter Rivke, who is Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s bureau chief. She has been an employee of Speaker Rivlin for over a decade. (more) (Update: Rivke is his wife; not his daughter.)

The Eves Drop a Dime

India - Wiretaps, hidden listening devices and binoculars may be the usual paraphernalia to maintain surveillance over Commonwealth Games delegates, participants and spectators. But there may be more. Games authorities have devised a novel method to eavesdrop: Use thousands of eves.

An estimated 5,000 trained private security girls are likely to provide intelligence cover to the 2010 Commonwealth Games, one of the biggest sporting events that India will host after the 1982 Asiad Games...

“They will comprise women from all linguistic backgrounds, and with suave and comely personalities who will be responsible for a dual preemptive and protective role,” said Singh, a former Intelligence Bureau officer who was appointed a security consultant for the 1982 Asiad by Indira Gandhi.

While CCTVs will keep a watch on the movements of people entering stadia, the security girls will play an undercover role to snoop on conversations around them. They have been instructed to pick up interesting nuggets of conversations that will help the authorities nip any mischevious activity in the bud. (more)

Compliance departments on red alert for insider trading

In the wake of the alleged insider-trading ring involving hedge fund manager Galleon Group, compliance departments at asset management firms and broker-dealers are stepping up their vigilance.

As regulators increase their scrutiny of insider trading, firms are actively reviewing their compliance policies, making sure that employees understand them and conducting more audits of their trading patterns to make certain that nothing is potentially amiss...

The main worry at firms is that employees could be sharing information and unwittingly contributing to an insider-trading scheme...

Compliance departments also are making sure employees are careful with how they use other forms of media, such as voice-over-Internet, social-networking websites such as Twitter, and blogs.

“People need to understand that the law is the law, no matter what communication medium they are using,” said Ralph “Chip” MacDonald, a partner at Jones Day. (more)

An unpublicized element of this due diligence are Eavesdropping Detection Audits (TSCM).

Mobile Phone Bug Allows Wiretapping

Fact or Netmyth?
You decide.
Report back.

Summary
Erricson's WAP, Wireless Application Protocol, suffers from a security flaw that allows attackers to listen into other WAP sessions traveling on the cellular carrier wave.

Details
Erricson Mobile Phone allows attackers to wiretap other lines. This attack is limited, since you cannot choose which number to wiretap on, and you cannot talk at the same time that you are wiretapping a line. This vulnerability shows the lack of security of WAP as it is offered in today's cellular networks.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Wiretapping is illegal. The following information is just a proof of concept that shows a potential vulnerability in Erricson's WAP implementation.

How to wiretap from an Erricson Cell Phone:
1) Type 904059
2) Menu
3) Yes
4) 1
5) RCL
6) Yes
7) 8300**
8) Yes
9) 86
(Instead of the ** you can write any number you wish, except for the number 00)

To stop the wiretapping:
1) Type RCL
2) 3
3) Yes
(via)

Our spies report back...
"I am with cellular operator and today I asked my technical staff about this method. They replied
this is very old news, about year 2001. This bug was on very old Ericsson (before Sony Ericsson) phones and modern phones do not respond to this code sequence."
Thank you!

Eat Like a Spy

Next time your mission brings you to The Big Apple (aka New York City), and you need a little comfort food, come in from the cold.

Shake your tail (a quick double-back through Stuyvesant Town should do it) and head to The Village (you can leave this one). Duck into the Northern Spy Food Co.

They know spies need to stay fit. Northern Spy co-owner Chris Ronis calls his seasonal menu, "very homey but not heavy—not the fat-fried explosion that gets all the attention."

Psst... Chris, ixnay onway ethay explosionway alktay. It makes the patrons nervous.

New - GSM Audio Video Bug

from the manufacturer's advertising...
Specifications
• See your monitoring place anywhere, anytime by your mobile phone
• Wire tap your monitoring place by your mobile
• Know the urgent things in first time by your mobile
• Wireless installation, can move freely
• Can control the camera with your mobile to get the monitoring place image by MMS anywhere
• Successfully combine moving detect technology and GSM wireless network transmission technology apply in defense and security area, it break the distance and electrical wire restriction compare with normal defense and security products
• Any changes or dangerous in the monitoring place, camera will notify you by calling, SMS, or MMS
• Can dial the preset emergency number once the sensor active
• With cute appearance, practical functions, and bright design
• Applicable in family, office, factory, store etc place, especially for garage, stock house, and more where fixed lines are hard to reach
• With monitor, can see your home any time, know your child arrive home in first time, and know your office is safe during holiday

Functions:
• Mobile alarm: capture images and send to your mobile phone by MMS
• SMS remote control: control the camera by sending SMS commands
• Real time audio: call the camera and listen in
• Motion detection: detect any motion within the monitoring area and send alarm
• External connection: connect wireless sensors (maximum of 15), such as door magnet, PIR sensor, smoke sensor, gas sensor, and more
• Camera can report alarm from all sensors connected
• Infrared light: built-in IR light enables the camera to capture images in dark environment
• Resolution: 300 pixels CMOS camera
• Watch images directly
(more)

Why do I mention it?
So you will know what you are up against.

Warning: industrial espionage on the rise

Denmark - Companies are being warned by both an industry organisation and the national intelligence agency that industrial spies are ever present.

Jakob Scharf, head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET), recently warned that industrial espionage has been growing steadily in the last number of years and Danish companies are not impervious to it. (more)

UK - Universal Knowledge?

UK - The British government has decided to go ahead with its plans under what it calls the Intercept Modernisation Programme to force every telecommunication company and Internet service provider to keep a record of all of its customers' personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the web sites they have visited, according to the London Telegraph and various other British papers.

The information gathered, the Telegraph says, will be able to be accessed by 653 public bodies, "including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors."

"They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority," the Telegraph says. (more)

Number Six, Number Two & Rover are back

The 1960s sci-fi phenomenon, The Prisoner TV series, is back. AMC and British network ITV re-made the cult show into a six-part mini-series that will begin airing this Sunday.

Patrick McGoohan co-created the original Prisoner series, directed it, and starred in it as well. The show centers on the imprisonment of a resigned British secret agent (McGoohan) in a seemingly serene and beautiful village of unknown location.

The captive agent, renamed Number Six (all prisoners in the village are numbered), is constantly interrogated, manipulated and tormented by sinister figures known only as Number Two.

In addition to being a psychological thriller that was way ahead of its time, The Prisoner demonstrated a number of political metaphors for the corruption of power, struggles for freedom, and the enslavement of the masses by commercial/political interests.

Sir Ian McKellen will take on the role of the evil Number Two and James Caviezel will play persecuted Number Six. It’s rumored that McGoohan (who died January 13, 2009) may have a cameo in the remake as well. (AMC)

Charity President Fired for Bugging

Feed The Children President Larry Jones was fired Friday from the charity he founded 30 years ago. ... He and his wife, Frances, were the main fundraisers, making repeated, often heart-wrenching televised pleas for money to help starving children in Africa and elsewhere.

The firing came after Jones admitted to the charity’s investigator and to police that he authorized the installation of hidden microphones in three executives’ offices last April. "I did nothing wrong there. … I knew what the law was… They used wiretapping as the excuse,” Jones said Friday.

Jones in April had hidden microphones installed in the offices of his daughter, the chief financial officer and the chief operating officer before they returned to their jobs, according to two of his attorneys.

Oklahoma City police became involved Aug. 19 after a private investigator found "remnants of wiretapping devices” in the ceilings of the three offices. The owner of the company that installed the microphones told police his employees never could get a recorder to work.

Jones has been the face of the Oklahoma City-based Christian relief organization. It reports collecting more than $1 billion in donations a year. (more)

PTL deja vu.