Eavesdropping on The Auditors

IA - Four employees and the owner of a failed farm implement dealership have pleaded guilty in connection with a financial scheme.

Authorities allege Walterman Implement in Dike scammed lenders through a double financing scheme, which created both real and fake loans on single pieces of farm equipment.

Leon Walterman was the former owner. The 60-year-old pleaded guilty on Thursday to mail fraud, money laundering and illegal wiretapping. (more)

Court records allege auditors' phone lines were tapped during the investigation. (more)

Eyes in the Sky: Eisenhower, the CIA, and Cold War Aerial Espionage

FREE LUNCHTIME AUTHOR DEBRIEFING AND BOOK SIGNING  

Dino Brugioni, retired senior analyst with the CIA and one of the world’s premier experts on aerial reconnaissance, reveals details of the previously untold story of President Eisenhower’s secret Cold War program to develop cutting-edge spy planes and satellites to gather intelligence. Told from his insider perspective, Brugioni sheds new light on this breakthrough program and one president’s efforts toward building an effective and technologically advanced intelligence capability.

He briefed presidents from Eisenhower through Ford. As a founder of the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center, during the Cuban Missile Crisis he was a key member of the team that provided President Kennedy the evidence that the Soviets were installing missiles in Cuba.

Eyes in the Sky: Eisenhower, the CIA, and Cold War Aerial Espionage

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Join the author for an informal chat and book signing.

International Spy Museum, 800 F Street, NW Washington, DC 20004 (more)

Is it possible that these spies were thwarted at least in part by their reliance on out-dated steganography programs?

Steganography is becoming the tool of choice for a whole cadre of criminals a lot more daunting than these putative Borises and Natashas. It’s been used to exfiltrate sensitive data in corporate espionage, state sponsored espionage, and oddly enough--by gangs. 

What’s odd here is that the SVR went with such an old-school steganography method, one that leaves traceable evidence. Because there’s a lot better stuff out there....

Instead of leaving behind an artifact of your wrong-doing for the Justice Department to download, new stego programs use ephemeral channels that disappear when the communication has been completed. It’s called network steganography. You can do it in real time, you can transmit huge amounts of data, and you can do it without leaving behind any artifacts to implicate you.

If the Russian spies had known about these new protocols, they might not have gotten caught so handily. You can bet that the non-Russian spies in the United States (insert your own xenophobia here) are using more sophisticated methods to phone home. (more)

Password Tip from Russian Spy

The FBI's case against an alleged deep cover Russian spy ring relies heavily on surveillance of their use of ad hoc Wi-Fi networks, bespoke software, encryption and the web...

The Illegals were given a steganography program by the SVR's Moscow Centre, it says. The software is not commercially available, and investigators discovered the alleged spies held copies of it by clandestine searches of their properties...

A New Jersey search uncovered a network of websites, from which the alleged spies had downloaded images.

Similarly, a search in Boston led to websites carrying steganographic messages. The texts had also been encrypted, and both the Boston and New Jersey hard drives required a 27-character password. (more)

P.S. One of the most glaring errors made by one of the spy defendants was leaving an imposing 27-character password written on a piece of paper that law enforcement officers found while searching a suspect's home. They used the password to crack open a treasure trove of more than 100 text files containing covert messages used to further the investigation. (more)

FBI arrest 10 alleged Russian spies in biggest espionage swoop since Cold War

THE FBI arrested 10 people for allegedly serving for years as secret agents of Russia's intelligence service, the SVR, with the goal of penetrating US government policymaking circles...

 

Intercepted messages showed they were asked to learn about a broad sweep of topics including nuclear weapons, US arms control positions, Iran, White House rumours, CIA leadership turnover, the last presidential election, the Congress and political parties.

The court papers made public on Monday (PDF and PDF) include details of 21st century spycraft more high-tech than anything Jason Bourne knew about... used private Wi-Fi networks, flash memory sticks, and text messages concealed in graphical images to exchange information... (more)

After a secret multi-year investigation, the Justice Department announced the arrests in a blockbuster spy case that could rival the capture of Soviet Colonel Rudolf Abel in 1957 in New York. (more)

Colonel Abel, who hide his microfilm inside a hollowed out nickel, inspired one of our client gifts... The Official Espionage Spybuster Spy Coin! Our coin holds a microSD chip and contains the official FBI story about Abel's nickel. 
(click photos to enlarge)

Russia Denounces Arrests over Alleged Espionage

Russia angrily denounced the U.S. arrest of 10 alleged Russian spies as an unjustified throwback to the Cold War, and senior lawmakers said some in the U.S. government may be trying to undercut President Barack Obama's warming relations with Moscow. (more)

Germans Concerned About Industrial Espionage

Companies failing to protect themselves from external attack risk losing their competitive edge. In the information age, the threat of industrial espionage is all too real, with thousands of jobs at stake in Germany.

Some might describe the Cold War era as the good old age of espionage. Everything was clear cut: it was West versus East, capitalism versus communism... the fine art of spying is not dead...

And when it comes to economic espionage – something that is common in this day and age – the methods are generally a touch more subtle, and the prying eyes may be more familiar than you'd think. (more)

Russians Deny Industrial Espionage in Germany

The Russian government rejected Monday claims made by Berlin that its intelligence services were actively involved in industrial espionage in Germany.

The accusations, made in the annual security report published by the Berlin Interior Ministry on June 21, were "from the Cold War era," Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said according to the Interfax news agency. (more)

Meanwhile, in the Ivory Towers...

The Netherlands' three Universities of Technology have no plans to take extra steps to prevent spying by foreign delegations, the Nederlands Dagblad reports on Tuesday.

The paper say in April the security service AIVD warned that foreign secret services are sending students to Dutch universities to gather information. In one case, half a delegation was made up of security officials, the AIVD said. 

Delft, Twente and Eindhoven Universities of Technology are most vulnerable to spying because of their focus on nuclear science, biotechnology and nano technology, the paper said.

University officials told the paper combating spying is not a task for academics. (more)

Corporate Espionage... There's an app for that.

A new report from SMobile Systems who specializes in security issues on mobile phones and in the wireless infrastructure, 20% of the available applications on Android Market allow third parties access to personal information of users.

The report says that 20% of Android applications enable third parties to access private or sensitive information that could be used by crooks for malicious purposes including identity theft, mobile banking fraud and corporate espionage. (more)

The SpyCam & Computer Tapping Neighbor

NY - A North Syracuse man was indicted today on charges he spied on one neighbor and illegally used the computer access of another neighbor.

Jesse Reed, 29, of 115 Crystal Drive, was indicted on a felony charge of second-degree unlawful surveillance and a misdemeanor count of unauthorized use of a computer.

Assistant District Attorney Geoffrey Ciereck said the investigation began with Syracuse police looking into the downloading of child pornography. The person initially under scrutiny turned out to have been the victim of someone using his computer access to obtain the pornography, the prosecutor said.

That led authorities to Reed, Ciereck said. While police were investigating the child pornography matter, they also discovered equipment had been set up in Reed’s home to spy into the bedroom window of a female neighbor, the prosecutor said. (more)

Proof DIY TSCM Doesn't Work

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was charged Wednesday with fraud and tax crimes as the government accused him of enriching himself and others by milking $640,000 from the Civic Fund, a tax-exempt charity that he created as a good-works effort to enhance Detroit and improve the city's image.

Kilpatrick instead used it to pay for yoga, golf, camp for his kids, travel, a video about his family's history, cars, polling, college tuition for relatives and much more, including "counter-surveillance and anti-bugging equipment," according to the indictment. (more)

SpyCam Story #580 - The Cardial Infarction

NY - A North Hills cardiologist has been convicted of illegally installing a hidden camera in the office bathroom of his Manhasset practice to secretly spy on patients and employees, Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice announced on Monday.

Vincent Pacienza, 54, was found guilty of unlawful surveillance in the second degree, a felony. He will face up to four years in prison in his July 30 sentencing...

...Pacienza told his female employees that he would be installing an air purifier in the office restroom shared by employees and patients. However, the air purifier, which faced the toilet, contained a hidden wireless camera with a direct video feed to a monitor under Pacienza’s desk.

He was caught later that same month when an employee opening the office mail discovered a receipt for the camera and purifier from a website specializing in surveillance equipment... (more)

Dammit Jan...

Transsexual who waged five-year spying campaign on neighbors faces jail...

UK - Jan Krause, 44, videotaped the family and posted the recordings on YouTube, crashed into their cars and erected a roof-mounted device which emitted a high-pitched whine in their direction. One Christmas morning, nurse Carol Story opened the curtains to find Krause sitting outside dressed all in black and wearing a balaclava while taking notes. 

The campaign left 53-year-old Miss Story, a mother of three, upset and angry and she even put the family home on the market.

But she hopes her ordeal is over after Krause, a transsexual, was convicted of harassment at Chester Magistrates' Court. She was remanded on bail for sentence and banned from keeping cameras or recording equipment. (more) (cap)

How To Make a Cell Phone a Spy Phone For Free

In the early days of cell phones simply turning off the ringer and activating an auto-answer feature turned mobile phones into a spyphones.  
Times changed. Manufacturers adjusted the software to counter criticism. Now, as a publicity stunt to sell Internet speedup software, a Scottish firm created this work-around...
1st: You will need the 'Spy' ringtone: Click on the type of ringtone you want and then upload the ringtone to your phone just as normal.

1. Download the Spy.mp3 Ringtone

2. Download the Spy.wav Ringtone

3. Download the Spy.rtx Ringtone

2nd: On your phone select the Spy ringtone, turn off call alert lights (if you can), turn off vibration alert and set your phone to auto-answer; (note - some phones are set up in such a way that you must attach the 'handsfree' wire to allow auto-answer to work.)

That's it! You're done! You now have a top quality, undetectable, spy bugging / listening device that equals the quality of the best and most secret on the market. (more) 

Why mention it?

So you will know what you're up against.

The old auto-answer spyphone trick is back!