The Time Has Come for a Transition

The Jetsons predicted that we'd have flying cars by at least 2062, and Back to the Future promised them to us by 2015. It turns out that reality may, for once, outpace fiction.

A small, privately held company called Terrafugia has recently gained FAA approval for its roadable aircraft (i.e., flying car), and new improvements to the vehicle's design bring it only about a year away from being available to customers, according to MSNBC. 

A company called Terrafugia is expected to start selling ''The Transition'' late next year. Price: $194,000. (more)

iStole iPhone iTracked iCaught iDumb

CA - In perhaps what was one of the unluckiest moves of his career as a petty thief, Horatio Toure stole an iPhone on Monday afternoon. The irony? The iPhone Toure stole was being used to demonstrate a program that tracks GPS location in real-time--it took the police all of ten minutes to pin down his exact location and arrest him. (more)

Is your Blackberry a National Security Threat?

Perhaps, if you live in these countries...

According to the BBC, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has described RIM’s device as a threat posing “serious social, judicial and national security repercussions” due to the country’s inability to successfully eavesdrop on users, and the fact that transmitted data is stored offshore.

The same concerns have also been expressed by India, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, with market analysts contributing the timing of these comments to yesterday’s decline in RIMM shares...

When discussing UAE’s obsession with RIM’s device, it’s worth emphasizing on the fact that the country unsuccessfully attempted to install spyware application on the devices of Etisalat users in 2009, pitching it as a “performance-enhancement patch”. Instead, the SS8 Interceptor drained the batteries of the users who installed to the point where they became suspicious about its true nature...

The bottom line - are BlackBerries a threat to the national security of any country? They are, but only to the country that’s attempting to decrypt the data itself, instead of targeting the weakest link - in this case the user who now more than ever has to be aware that he’s become the primary target, not the encryption protocol itself. (more) 

"The bottom line" is worth noting. The more you protect one info-conduit, the more your adversary will be forced into attacking your lesser protected conduits. Hence, businesses need a counterespionage consultant on-board who has a holistic view of the espionage possibilities. The days of "they swept, they left" TSCM teams are long gone. 

If you have read this far, you the foresight to see why this story is a valuable cautionary tale. Good consultants are only as far away as the websites which bring you Kevin's Security Scrapbook.

GSM Cell Phone Eavesdropping Alert

US - A security expert said he has devised a simple and relatively inexpensive way to snoop on cellphone conversations, claiming that most wireless networks are incapable of guaranteeing calls won't be intercepted.

Law enforcement has long had access to expensive cell-phone tapping equipment known as IMSI catchers that each cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But Chris Paget, who does technology security consulting work, says he has figured out how to build an IMSI catcher using a US$1,500 piece of hardware and free, open-source software. 'It's really not hard to build these things,' he said.

Paget will teach other hackers how to make their own IMSI catchers on Saturday during in a presentation at the annual Defcon security conference in Las Vegas. (more)

Got a stick? You can spy!

According to Mugil all you need is a USB stick and a FREE program called “USBThief_Modified_by_NEO”. 

USB Thief is a simple program which makes your standard USB stick into a spying USB stick, if you plug it into someone’s PC, it will extract all the passwords from it.

This improved version also steals ALL of the following:
• Visited Links List
• Internet Explorer Cache List
• Internet Explorer Passwords List
• Instant Messengers Accounts List
• Installed Windows Updates List
• Mozilla Cache List
• Cookies List
• Mozilla History List
• Instant Messengers Accounts List
• Search Queries List
• Adapters Report
• Network Passwords List
• TCP/UDP Ports List
• Product Key List
• Protected Storage Passwords List
• PST Passwords List
• Startup Programs List
• Video Cache List

The question is, "Do you trust him?"

Feeling lucky?

His program is here.

As always... 

Why do I mention it?

So you will know what you are up against.

• Never let someone else stick you with their stick.

• Never stick yourself with a dirty stick.

Satellite Spy Photos Reveal History

“Spying on the Past: Declassified Satellite Images and Archaeology,’’ runs at Harvard’s Peabody Museum through Jan. 2.

Using declassified U.S. government spy satellite and aerial images, Harvard student archaeologists explore sites in Northern Mesopotamia and South America. These images are both visually arresting and potent archaeological tools. Four case studies in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Peru reveal complex early cities, extensive trackways, intricate irrigation canals and even traces of nomadic journeys. (more)

History's Spy Mysteries - The Profumo Keeler Affair

The KGB planted bugs to eavesdrop on John Profumo’s pillow talk with Christine Keeler, according to newly released top-secret files.

The topless showgirl and model’s KGB lover also persuaded her to question Profumo, Britain’s Minister of War, about Britain’s nuclear arsenal, the files reveal.

The reports claim that the Russians obtained ‘a lot of information’ which threatened to undermine Western security, contradicting the long-term view that the affair did not damage UK security and that no secrets were leaked to Russia. ... The papers also reveal how Hollywood star Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (a former US Naval Intelligence officer) knew many of those involved and gave regular reports to Washington about the scandal.

The affair’s exposure in 1963 led to Profumo’s resignation and rocked Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s Government. (more)

Ireland - Louis Walsh has had his phone hacked by an employee of his service provider.

The X Factor judge was shocked to discover that much of his personal information had been accessed and speaking to The Irish Star newspaper he confirmed that gardai have been informed.

“I knew nothing about it at all until the boss of the company contacted me.” Walsh said. 

Revealing that Irish TV presenter and model Glenda Gilson had also been the victim of the same person Louis added: “It just makes me wonder how much of this is going on all the time.” 

“I don’t know how much personal information he managed to gather or how long it was going on. It makes me wary of exchanging confidential information by phone and yet its hard to avoid given the nature of this business.” (more)

NSA Insights

Thursday, 5 August; 12 noon – 1 pm

The International Spy Museum

Washington, DC

Book signing! 

In The Secret Sentry, Matthew M. Aid traces the growth of the National Security Agency from 1945 through critical moments in its history, including the Cold War and its ongoing involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Aid, a visiting fellow at the National Security Archives, explores the agency’s connection to the intelligence failure that occurred when evidence that NSA officials called “ambiguous” was used as proof of Iraqi WMD capability. He also details the intense debate within the NSA over its growing role under the Bush administration to spy on U.S. citizens. Don’t miss this overview of the dramatic evolution of this far-reaching spy agency.

Free! No registration required!
Join the author for an informal chat and book signing.
Can't make it? Buy the book here!

CIA applicant's arrest tops wave of China spy cases

A young Michigan man was quietly arrested last month and charged with lying on a CIA job application about his connection with Chinese intelligence, a case that drew virtually no attention outside his home state.

Glenn Duffie Shriver, 28, of Georgetown Township, Mich., tried to conceal $70,000 in payments from the Beijing government and denied his “numerous” meetings with Chinese intelligence officials, according to the government’s indictment.

Shriver’s arrest on June 22 is just the latest in a virtual tsunami of prosecutions against suspected Chinese agents in the past two years. Many cases are hidden and ongoing... more than 40 Chinese and American citizens have been quietly prosecuted -- most of them successfully -- on espionage-related charges in just a little over two years... a compendium of successful federal prosecutions involving espionage and espionage-related charges against Chinese agents... The list revealed that the Justice Department had convicted 44 individuals in 26 cases since March 2008, almost all of whom are now serving time in federal prisons. (more) (music to applaud by)

Bail for Bug Killer Spy?

MA - A federal judge in Worcester is pondering whether to grant bail to a 45-year-old Westborough man who, in a highly unusual case, is accused of economic espionage for allegedly sending trade secrets about insecticides to China.

Kexue Huang faces a dozen counts of economic espionage to benefit a foreign government or instrumentality, as well as five counts of interstate or foreign transport of stolen property.

Assistant US Attorney Scott Garland said only six or seven people had ever been charged with the crime. He said the value of the information that Huang allegedly passed on exceeded $100 million. (more)

Sounds outrageous, but in fairness, bail is only meant to assure the accused shows up for trial. In the article his lawyer mentions, "...his client had a wife and two children in Marlborough and they would all be willing to give up their passports as well as use the $275,000 to $300,000 equity in their home to secure his bail. "It's hard to picture the whole family moving without passports to Canada or any other foreign country," he said. "It's unlikely they would be on the lam for more than 10 minutes. ... This is a responsible person, a well-educated person [with] a good job, assets."

Really? Accused spies have a habit of evaporating recently. (more)

Your Very Own "Ex" Files

What do you do when your 'ex' pops up in your Web browser like a nightmare jack-in-the-box?

Create an "Ex" file!

Ah, privacy and sanity restored.

Stalkers are disposed, one "Ex" at a time.

Reduced chance of post-break-up remorse.

It's easy. It's free. It's a no-brainer that zaps your old no-brainers to the bit bin of your Internet world window.

(blockyourex.com)

When correctly viewed, Everything is lewd. (I could tell you things about Peter Pan, And the Wizard of Oz, there's a dirty old man!)

CA - An Orange County man is expected to enter pleas in federal court to charges he hacked into hundreds of computers to extort sexually explicit videos from women and teenage girls. 

Prosecutors say 31-year-old Luis Mijangos of Santa Ana is due in a Los Angeles courtroom today. A 16-count indictment charges him with conspiracy, mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, extortion, wiretapping and other charges.

Mijangos allegedly tricked about 230 people into downloading a virus that allowed him to take over their personal computers.

Prosecutors say Mijangos looked into computers for sexually explicit pictures, then threatened to e-mail the files to victims' mailing lists to coerce them into sending him videos of them engaged in sex acts. (more) (Smut)

Spies Escaping (shocking)

A Lebanese man suspected of spying for Israel successfully escaped from Lebanon to Israel on Friday by crossing the border near Bint Jbeil, the Lebanese newspaper A-Nahar reported on Sunday. (more)

The alleged paymaster of a Russian spy ring in the United States spoke no more than necessary. He stayed in modest hotels and dressed for the Mediterranean heat: shorts and untucked shirts. He wore spectacles and a clipped mustache. Just another foreign tourist on a budget, it seemed, in a waterfront city in Cyprus where foreign tourists on budgets are a summertime fixture.

To American officials, the man identified as Christopher Robert Metsos is the spy who got away, a footloose operative who funneled money to U.S.-based accomplices, 10 of whom are in custody. Metsos, the FBI says, was a key player in an underworld of coded instructions, false identities, buried banknotes and surreptitious bag swaps.

“If you saw him on the road, you would say, ‘Good morning’ and you would keep walking,” said Michael Papathanasiou, a lawyer who represented Metsos until he jumped bail in Larnaca last week. “There was really nothing strange about him. He was a very normal, usual guy.” (more)

CALEA VoIP Taps In

The FCC has been moving to treat broadband Internet the same as phone services and with those moves, the FBI's wiretapping authority might be becoming more nebulous.

The agency is lobbying the communications commission to make sure its changes in regulation do not hinder the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act which demands that telecom companies allow law enforcement to use wiretaps on phone lines and VoIP calls.

VoIP wiretapping has been challenged in court a few times unsuccessfully, but changes in regulations could hinder wiretap efforts. It seems like at this moment, however, the FCC has no plans to interfere with the wiretapping rules. (more)