William Gibson & Fashion's Industrial Espionage

Q.  You make fashion seem mysterious, even a little ominous.

A. The sinister aspect of it in the book doesn’t derive from people wanting to cloth themselves in garments they feel will make them more desirable or distinguish them socially. Part of it comes from the real, observed, war-like seriousness with which the fashion industry largely proceeds. It’s not a friendly, feminine sort of thing. It’s deadly serious. Billions of dollars ride on it. There’s a great deal of industrial espionage going on. It’s a harsh, harsh business. (more)

WIlliam Gibson being interviewed about his new book Zero History.

X-ray vans that can see through walls-and clothes-hits America's streets.

Nervous yet?

AS&E's vans can be driven past stationary vehicles to scan their contents or parked to see the innards of passing cars and trucks.

Privacy-conscious travelers may cringe to think of the full-body scanners finding their way into dozens of airport checkpoints around the country. Most likely aren't aware that the same technology, capable of seeing through walls and clothes, has also been rolling out on U.S. streets.

American Science & Engineering , a company based in Billerica, Mass., has sold U.S. and foreign government agencies more than 500 backscatter X-ray scanners mounted in vans that can be driven past neighboring vehicles or cargo containers to snoop into their contents...

The Z Backscatter Vans, or ZBVs, as the company calls them, send a narrow stream of X-rays off and through nearby objects and read which ones bounce back. Absorbed rays indicate dense material such as steel. Scattered rays show less-dense objects that can include explosives, drugs or human bodies...

The company, which calls the ZBV its flagship product, sold 89 of the vehicles in the 15 months ending in June at $850,000 apiece... (more)

MI6 Spy uses Son of Sam Defense

Daniel Houghton, an MI6 worker who tried to sell secrets for £2 million, has been given a 12-month jail sentence for his "act of betrayal."

It was the “voices” in his head which made Daniel Houghton do it, according to his legal team.

He offered to hand over sensitive computer files containing information about intelligence collection and MI6 staff lists to agents from the Netherlands, the Old Bailey heard.

The judge said he did not know whether it was true, as Houghton claimed, that he was hearing voices that told him to do it but said he was a "strange young man." (more) (Son of Sam)

Squawk Box Eavesdropping - $500. Fine...

...what a hoot!
NY - A former Smith Barney broker was sentenced to no jail time on Wednesday after he cooperated with federal prosecutors in a probe into an alleged scheme to misuse brokerage-firm "squawk" boxes. (Also called "hoot n holler" and "shout down" boxes, these are always-on intercom systems used at financial trading firms. Sending broadcasts from these devices to unauthorized persons is illegal eavesdropping.)

He now works as a car salesman, was ordered to pay a $500 fine by U.S. District Judge I. Leo Glasser in Brooklyn, but the judge imposed no jail term.

The 48 year old pleaded guilty in 2005 to conspiracy to commit securities fraud. He didn't testify at trial, but provided information that prosecutors said led to the conviction of six people last year, including three former supervisors at defunct day-trading firm A.B. Watley Inc.

Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn had alleged that he placed an open telephone line next to his squawk box for lengthy periods, allowing day traders at A.B. Watley to secretly eavesdrop on block orders by institutional clients. He received cash bribes in return, prosecutors said. (more) (technical details)

Busman's Holiday

(sing-a-long) During the past decade, a New York man stole more than 150 buses from an unsecured Trailway bus depot in Hoboken New Jersey; the doors were open, the key were left in the ignition, and he just drove off the lot, using the coaches for everything from fast-food runs to jaunts to North Carolina; he was finally collared last week after he stole a bus, drove to Manhattan, and took a group of flight attendants to Kennedy Airport.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly wants NYPD to look into lax security at a New Jersey depot from which bus-thief Darius McCollum stole more than a hundred buses. (more)

Attention security vendors who sell password access key pads. Opportunity honking.

iPhone Spy Stick - DIY forensics, or worse?

The headline declares...
Recover DELETED iPhone Text Messages, Map Searches, Hidden Contacts, & More
Quickly and Easily Download Even Deleted Information from an iPhone
The iPhone Spy Data Recovery Stick is the ultimate iPhone recovery tool for anyone who wants to capture deleted information from any iPhone (running iOS to 3.x). The iPhone Spy Data Recovery Stick makes it easy to recover deleted text messages, contacts, call and web history, as well as photos, voice memos and calendar appointments -- giving you a unique look into exactly what the user has been searching for, who they’ve been talking to, and even the types of pictures they’ve taken. With features like saved map search history, web searches, and text messages, the iPhone Data Recovery Stick is the only tool you need to catch a cheating spouse, monitor your kids, iPhone recovery or backup your own iPhone data.

Features:
Get access to deleted information
Download text messages and view calls made
Recover deleted contacts and calendar items
View pictures and other multimedia
Get access to map history to see locations searched on the iPhone’s map with exact GPS coordinates
Get access to notes, voice memos, multimedia files, and dynamic text data
Downloading data is as simple as attaching the iPhone and iPhone Data Recovery Stick to a computer and pressing start
iPhone information is saved on any computer and can be moved to other drives as a regular file
Looks like an ordinary USB flash drive
iPhone recovery Stick allows you to recover data from your iPhone you thought was lost forever

Popular Uses:
Catch a cheating spouse
Monitor your kids iPhone text messaging and Internet use
Check on employees using company issues iPhones
Restore deleted files

Includes:
iPhone Spy Data Recovery Stick
USB cable for iPhone
(more)

Why do I mention it?
So you will know what you are up against.
P.S. It only works on the older versions of the software (for now).

Business Espionage - A Spy Comes Clean

South Africa - A corporate spy (Briel) has admitted in sensational court papers that he illegally tapped telephones at the behest, he says, of Investec bank.

"I always wore my Telkom overalls, as then no one queried what I was doing." ~ Briel

In his affidavit, Briel makes some devastating claims.

Briel worked for Associated Intelligence Networks (AIN) run by Warren Goldblatt, which has since morphed into Specialised Services Group, and says he received his instructions in the Investec case from former Recce Johann Rademeyer.

Briel says "Goldblatt told me that he had a big job to do in Cape Town. He mentioned that it was for Investec, and that there were bad people in their company that they wished to monitor."

He says he posed as a Telkom technician to install phone taps at Investec, as well as at private residences in Hout Bay, and a company premises near the Protea Hotel at the Waterfront.

In court papers, the Chaits say one of the places Briel tapped phones was the offices of their company, Fairweather Trust, which was developing the Victoria Junction Hotel in Cape Town at the time.

"Detailed information regarding the telephone tapping of (our) offices ... have enabled us to physically locate and recover equipment used in the tapping, which in due course will be provided in evidence," the Chaits say in papers.

The Chaits are furious - particularly because their property business was competing with Investec's own property business.

But Investec's Nobrega...described Briel's claim as an "overzealous expansion of the true facts in order to extort a settlement from Investec Bank." (more)

Substitute the word SPY for FRAUD

Special note to corporate security directors: This Certified Fraud Examiners survey is excellent. The findings parallel my internal corporate counterespionage experiences, another form of fraud... with much larger monetary losses. Swap a few words. Expand your thinking. Learn where to look. Become a wiser counsellor for your company.

A fraud spy suspect might not be easy to pick out of a crowd -- or from a rap sheet.

The average fraud spy perpetrator has no prior fraud spy charges or convictions, according to new research by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), the world's largest provider of anti-fraud spy training and education. The offender is commonly between the age of 31-45, and somewhat more likely to be male than female.

More insights gleaned from the study help fill out the profile, however. Behavioral red flags, tenure at an organization, position and educational background are all criteria examined in the ACFE's 2010 Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud & Abuse. The Report is drawn from a survey of Certified Fraud Examiners (CFEs) who investigated fraud cases between January 2008 and December 2009.

Here are some of the key findings
about fraud perpetrators
in the 84-page Report:

High-level perpetrators cause the greatest damage to their organizations. Frauds Spying committed by owners/executives were more than three times as costly as frauds spying committed by managers, and more than nine times as costly as employee frauds spying. Executive-level frauds spying also took much longer to detect.

Fraud offenders Spies were likely to be found in one of six departments. More than 80% of the frauds spying in the study were committed by individuals in accounting, operations, sales, executive/upper management, customer service or purchasing.

More than half of all cases in the study were committed by individuals between the ages of 31 and 45. Generally speaking, median losses tended to rise with the age of the perpetrator.

Most of the fraudsters spies in the study had never been previously charged or convicted for a fraud-related spying-related offense. Only seven percent of the perpetrators had been previously convicted of a fraud spying offense. This finding is consistent with prior ACFE studies.

Fraud perpetrators Spies often display warning signs that they are engaging in illicit activity. The most common behavioral red flags displayed by the perpetrators in our study were living beyond their means (43% of cases) and experiencing financial difficulties (36% of cases). (more)

Security Alert - HP Printer / Scanners

Security Alert: Low (But you should be aware of it.)

Certain models of HP combination printer and scanner devices contain a feature that could allow for corporate espionage, according to researchers at web security firm Zscaler. 

The feature, called WebScan, allows a user to remotely trigger the scanning functionality and retrieve scanned images via a web browser. This capability could allow anyone on the local area network (LAN) to remotely connect to the scanner and retrieve documents that have been left behind on the scanner, Michael Sutton, vice president of security research at Zscaler, told SCMagazineUS.com on Thursday. 

The feature generally is turned on by default and, in many cases, is not password protected.(more)

TSCM Sweep Finds Cop Bugged

IN - Eavesdropping devices have been found in the office of an Indianapolis deputy police chief believed to be under investigation by the FBI.

Members of the department's Criminal Intelligence Unit were asked Thursday night to conduct an electronics sweep of the office of Deputy Chief of Investigations William Benjamin and found a pinhole camera and a listening device inside a desk drawer...

After the bugging devices were found, Chief Paul Ciesielski issued a statement saying he was going to launch an internal investigation."I did not put it there, did not have anyone put it there, nor did the director," the statement read. "I have opened an internal investigation to find out who did." (more)

UPDATE - The bug found in an IMPD leader's office was not used to eavesdrop on him, police said today.

The device did not work, and it had been left by a previous occupant of the office, according to an e-mail from Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Chief Paul Ciesielski...

The listening device was found in Deputy Chief William Benjamin's office during a sweep he requested this week... It was unclear what prompted Benjamin to request the sweep of his third-floor office; he did not return a phone call from The Indianapolis Star on Friday. (more)

Soooo... Who was the previous occupant? Why did they have the room bugged? Will that be investigated? And, why did Benjamin request a bug sweep in the first place?

Spybuster Tip #582 - Keystroke Logger Killer

KeyScrambler Personal is a free plug-in for your Web browser that protects everything you type from keyloggers. It defeats keyloggers by encrypting your keystrokes at the keyboard driver level, deep within the operating system. When the encrypted keystrokes reach your browser, KeyScrambler then decrypts them so you see exactly the keys you've typed. Keyloggers can only record the encrypted keys, which are completely indecipherable. (more)

RIM Shot... and you're next Skype

International Telecommunications Union (ITU) secretary-general Hamadoun Toure said BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) should supply customer data to law enforcement agencies around the world, characterizing the governments’ needs as “genuine” concerns that cannot be ignored.

The ITU is primarily concerned with regulating global radio spectrum usage, supervising telecommunications standards processes, and helping regulate communication satellite orbits and transmission... the agency has no formal regulatory.. however, Toure’s comments certainly reflect the general sentiments of the ITU’s 192 members.

Canada’s RIM has recently faced regulatory issues in a number of countries over encrypted communications handled by its BlackBerry services, with governments like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, India, Indonesia, and Lebanon all insisting that their governments be permitted access to BlackBerry users’ communications. (more)

Tabloid's Royal Eavesdrop Keeps Making News

UK - In November 2005, three senior aides to Britain’s royal family noticed odd things happening on their mobile phones. Messages they had never listened to were somehow appearing in their mailboxes as if heard and saved. Equally peculiar were stories that began appearing about Prince William in one of the country’s biggest tabloids, News of the World.

The stories were banal enough (Prince William pulled a tendon in his knee, one revealed). But the royal aides were puzzled as to how News of the World had gotten the information, which was known among only a small, discreet circle. They began to suspect that someone was eavesdropping on their private conversations. 

Scotland Yard collected evidence in 2006 indicating that hundreds of celebrities, government officials, soccer stars – anyone whose personal secrets could be tabloid fodder – might have had their phone messages hacked by reporters at News of the World. Only now, more than four years later, are most of them beginning to find out. (more)

SpyCam Story #583 - Veal

A hidden-camera video that shows severe confinement and other abuses of calves has caused Bob Barker to ask consumers to stop buying veal and dairy products.

The Emmy Award-winning former host of The Price is Right and a longtime animal advocate, Barker narrated the Mercy for Animals (MFA) video and joins the group in asking Americans nationwide to boycott the products that he says sentence animals to “a life of extreme deprivation and suffering.” (more)

How to Kill Flash Zombies

Flash cookies can be used to track you across the Web without telling you. Advertisers are using it to track your movements across the Web.

Or so claims a lawsuit filed by privacy attorney Joseph Malley, one of three he's filed in the last two months against some of the biggest media heavyweights in the world -- Disney, ABC, NBC, MTV, and a host of others.

All use them employ Web ad companies like Quantcast, Specificmedia, and Clearspring to deliver Flash ads, and all of those ads store Flash cookies on your hard drive.

So what's wrong with that? For one thing, most people aren't aware Flash even stores cookies. These cookie files are ridiculously hard to find and manage: You can't get at them from your browser, and they're buried several layers deep inside your Application Data folder on Windows PCs. They can store up to 100K of data per cookie, or about 25 times what a browser cookie can store. And they can be used to recreate tracking cookies you've deleted.

In other words, if you've told an advertiser you don't want to be followed around the Web by deleting its tracking cookie, that advertiser can use Flash to 'respawn' that deleted cookie without telling you -- and continue to track you in secret. Thus Malley's lawsuits, which accuse all of those companies of breaking federal laws against computer intrusion and surveillance.

That respawning bit is why Flash cookies are also called "zombie" cookies. However, like real zombies, they can be stopped -- and you don't even have to cut off their heads (or use cricket bats and vinyl LPs, like in Shaun of the Dead ). You just need to use Adobe's Flash Player Settings Manager. (more)

Click the Adobe link above and set your preferences on the Global Settings Panel. It is easy to do and very worthwhile.