Eavesdropping Arrest - Spouse v. Spouse

NY - State Police in Watertown arrested Sean M. Walsh, 41 years of age, Fort Drum, NY 13602 (not a soldier) Town of Leray on 1 count of Eavesdropping, a Class E Felony.

Mr. Walsh engaged in 'mechanical' overhearing of privileged conversations between his wife, her family members, and friends while at their residence on Fort Drum during the time period of August/September 2010. (more)

Make Big Bucks at Home... Spying!

A controversial new website (interneteyes.co.uk) allowing citizen spies to plug into the nation's CCTV cameras and snoop from home was launched today. A £1,000 reward will be on offer each month for the video vigilantes who spot the most crimes. But civil liberties campaigners say the scheme is "distasteful" and encourages people to spy on each other. (more)

"Tony! Missile at six o'clock!"

Raytheon engineers show Iron Man suit - The new robotic suit enables the wearer easily to lift 200lb several hundred times without tiring and repeatedly punch through three inches of wood; yet, the suit, which was developed for the U.S. Army, is also agile and graceful enough to let its wearer kick a football, punch a speed bag, or climb stairs and ramps with ease. 

They unveiled the second-generation exoskeleton called XOS 2 at the company’s research facility in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The new robotic suit is lighter, faster, and stronger than its predecessor, yet it uses 50 percent less power. Its enhanced design also means that it is more resistant to the environment. (more)

National Security Aims Risk Shooting Foot

Paul Mah has something important for the FBI, all lawmakers and the rest of us to ponder. 

 "...the implementation of (encryption) backdoors is not a technically feasible idea. ...the presence of backdoors being built into existing software will prove to be completely irresistible to cybercriminals. And we're not even talking about foreign states yet, one of which is suspected to have created the extremely advanced Stuxnet worm. So yes, these backdoors will be cracked eventually, resulting in devastating consequences to U.S. businesses and interests." (more)

FutureWatch Prediction - Not all encryption will have a back door. 

Personal communications like phone calls and e-mail, yes. Government communications, no. A diplomatic pouch, even an electronic one, will remain a diplomatic pouch. Encryption in support of critical system infrastructures (like financial) will be licensed, with the proviso that the government can have the key under due process of law. 

Some things will never change. Governments will still crack. Criminals will still hack. Terrorists will won't care - they still have codes, cyphers and stenography. Businesses which take their counterespionage strategies seriously will fare better than those who do not.

Top Cop Attorney Fired for E-Mail Spying

The Ohio Department of Public Safety's former top attorney has been fired for snooping on emails to his agency from the state inspector general's office and an Ohio newspaper. Joshua Engel, who has been at the center of several high-profile investigations pitting his department against Inspector General Tom Charles in the past year, had intercepted emails since last October, said Public Safety director Tom Stickrath. (more)

SpyCam Story #584 - Intra-Family Abuse

KS - A Saline County man has been arrested after authorities say he videotaped his family without their knowledge. The man has been arrested on two counts of felony sexual exploitation of child and nine counts of eavesdropping.

By Thursday afternoon, sheriff's office personnel had reviewed hours of VHS tape that they had seized from the suspects home in Bridgeport. This all comes after his own step-daughter found a hidden camera in the bathroom and notified officials. (more)

SpyCam Story #583 - Pushed to Suicide

NJ - Rutgers University students wore black on Friday to remember a classmate who committed suicide as a lawmaker proposed stiffer penalties for invasion of privacy - the charge levied against the roommate accused of secretly streaming online video of the victim having sex with a man. (more)

When SpyCam Story #1 was published laws against video voyeurism didn't exist. Although many states now have laws, more has to done. I hate posting tawdry SpyCam stories, but do so to raise awareness. The victims deserve the support.

BlackBerry Responds to Government Monitoring

RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie has no objections if companies that make use of its secure BlackBerry smartphones want to hand over their encryption keys to government officials. However, RIM itself has no way of providing the unencrypted content of the emails that passes through its network operating center (NOC), since it doesn't have the keys in the first place.

This was the most direct answer to date given by RIM in response to government sanctioned wiretapping, a topic that was brought to the front even as countries such as the United Arab Emirates and India have threatened to ban the BlackBerry service unless RIM accede to their demands to a backdoor into its encryption system. Other countries such as Lebanon, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia were reportedly considering similar steps. (more)

Are governments going to accept this explanation, or say with finger poking their lips, "You will change your NOC, Mr. Berry. Un-zip it." 
Stayed tuned.

FutureWatch - The Privacy Party is Over

Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is “going dark” as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.

Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages. 

The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit to lawmakers next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally. (more)

It will.

Corporate Espionage in India

India - Corporate espionage is on the rise in the country, with the digital medium offering an extremely fertile ground for its perpetuation.
An increasing number of companies are also hiring private detectives to keep tabs on both their employees and business partners. Detective agencies says they are flooded with strange requests from companies to plant spies in rival firms, to fish for confidential data, engineering designs, software codes or to manipulate rate contracts to favour their clients.

"An entire gamut of corporate espionage is happening around us and it is a huge industry by itself," says cyber law expert and supreme court advocate Pavan Duggal. On an average, detective agencies get 5 to 10 requests a day for such services. The fee could range from Rs 30,000 to a few lakh of rupees, depending on the complexity of the job.

"Such things are rampant and we get a lot of requests, though we do not entertain it as a matter of policy," says Ravi Kapoor, chairman of ACE Detectives. He says that usually a person is hired for the job who has access to passwords and other information. It could be a data entry operator, security personnel or even a driver.

"Hiring spies is prevalent in IT firms, especially where big tenders are underway ," confirms Manpreet Sidhu, head of Top Secret Detective Agency. (more)

Eavesdropping Suit Settled During Secret Phone Call

CA - After meeting in closed session by teleconference with attorney Susan Trager, Bighorn-Desert View Water Agency directors announced Tuesday night that litigation had been settled in an unlawful eavesdropping case brought by former director Maryan Barkley. The amount of the settlement was not made public. (more) 

What most people settle for... video.

"Ruff, ruff, I'm going to get tutored!"

VA - "The Danville Area Humane Society will have more options for spying and neutering dogs and cats belonging to residents of Danville and Pittsylvania County during the week of Oct. 11-15." (more)

Laser Eavesdropping - 50 year old technology...

...still amazing the newbies.
"Here’s a surprisly (sic) simple way to build yourself a laser-based listening device. It consists of two modules, a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter is a set of lasers, one is visible red for aiming, and the other is infrared for measuring the vibration of a surface. Point the transmitter at the window of the room you want to listen in on and the laser can be reflected back to the receiver. The receiver module has a phototransistor to pick up the infrared laser light, and an LM386 audio amplifier to generate the audio signal sent to a pair of headphone. The need to be well-aligned which is easy enough using a pair of tripods. Check out the demo." (more) (more)

Spy Story #771 - Famous Last Words

"Let's go with the low bid on this sweep thing." 

(Corporate takeover victim. Not a member of the Murray Associates client family.)

OSS Memorabilia - Warning & Request

If you have been saving OSS memorabilia and would like to see it properly preserved, or you have inherited OSS items and don't know what to do with them, please consider the following message from The OSS Society in Washington, DC.

"OSS Artifacts — It has come to our attention that private collectors of OSS artifacts may have been identifying themselves as 'official' historians. The OSS Society does not have an official historian. If anyone identifies themselves as such to you or has done so previously, please contact us immediately.

The same collectors may be inducing OSS veterans and others to part with their OSS memorabilia by promising not to sell items donated to them or promising to return them and not doing so. It is also our understanding that collectors have not been properly documenting these gifts. Without such documentation, anyone to whom you donate OSS items is free to do with them as they choose, including selling them.

If you have OSS artifacts in your possession, The OSS Society would be honored to receive them. We respectfully ask that you consider donating them to The OSS Society and not to private collectors so that your donations can be properly documented and preserved. You can also rest assured that your donated items will never be sold or donated to a third party by The OSS Society."

If you have items that you wish to donate, please contact:

The OSS Society, Inc.

6723 Whittier Ave. 200

McLean, VA 22101
703-356-6667

oss ( at ) osssociety.org