The Spin on the BlackBerry News

via FastCompany...
BlackBerry smartphones have been under fire around the world from terrorism-fearing governments. Now RIM's revealed how it'll let the Indian government spy on users, so the service can stay running. It's not too bad...

...RIM has consented to the governments wishes. It will allow access to BlackBerry Messenger communications inside India on a "case by case" basis, where "lawful" access requests are made. This means the government will have to follow due legal process to spy on BlackBerry users, on an individual basis, and with the consent of the courts. (more)

Expect more consenting as other governments squeeze BlackBerry with offers they can't refuse... "Say yes, or you're out of business."

A similar story, Anatomy of a Wiretap, in The Hindu newspaper has had the link to this graphic pulled. ("The article you are looking for is no longer available in this website.")

Odyssey of an Eavesdropper - now an e-book

Originally released as a hard cover book in 2006, Odyssey of an Eavesdropper: My Life in Electronic Countermeasures and My Battle Against the FBI by Martin Kaiser III with Robert S. Stokes is now available in an e-book version.

From Publishers Weekly 
Modesty aside," says electronic surveillance expert Kaiser, "I was to the FBI, and the CIA, and the rest of the intel community, what 'Q'—the British Secret Service technical genius—was to James Bond." And Kaiser, who consulted on the 1998 film Enemy of the State, which he says is loosely based on his story, first made his name in the late 1950s and early '60s, when he helped develop a missile-directing system. Eventually he began making "bugs" for the FBI and CIA as well as private companies. But after his 1975 testimony before the House of Representatives about his work in government intelligence, the FBI, he says, came after him. He was indicted for illegal wiretapping and other crimes, and while he was acquitted on all charges, his business was ruined and he suffered an emotional breakdown that he attributes, in part, to childhood abuse. Kaiser ends the book with a chapter about the lack of privacy in America today—and while some of his warnings seem alarmist, his background will make readers of this compelling and sympathetic book (written with journalist and novelist Stokes) think twice.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Spy Holiday Gifts & and a Free offer from me!

This year, I'm giving lock picks.
What's your cool spy gift going to be?

My friends at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC have a few suggestions. My personal favorite is the Spy Gnome. Put him anywhere and your statement is made... "You don't know-m me!"

Here are some more of their suggestions...

Kryptos Replica
Stealth Secret Amplifier

Watch Phone
Mission Video Watch

Spy Video Trakr (free gift with purchase)

Of course, they have hundreds of other cool spy gifts to choose from. Hey, you're in the security business. What are you going to give? Socks?!?! Heck, no. You have a reputation to uphold.

Yes, they sell lock picks. But they are not half as cool as mine. :)

Hey, if your business card says "Security Director" or similar on it, and you want one of our complimentary stainless steel lock pick cards, just sign in here and let me know before December 24th.

P.S. - The International Spy Museum offers Free shipping on orders over $25. Use secret coupon code "fs25" at checkout.

SpyCam Story #589 - Chicken Soup?!?!

CA - Donald Lee Bedford said he hid a small video camera in his girlfriend’s daughter’s bedroom because he was concerned about her financial welfare and wanted to listen in on her conversations about it. What he wound up recording, though, is 46 minutes of footage of the victim and her boyfriend talking and watching TV in their underwear... his victim discovered the camera — cut into the spine of a Chicken Soup for the Soul book — and turned it over to authorities.

The 55-year-old Carpinteria resident is now facing a felony charge of eavesdropping, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in jail, and a misdemeanor charge of unlawful electronic peeping.

...Bedford filmed himself setting up the camera and later admitted to his girlfriend a version of what he had done. (more)

Doh! Another spycam'er shoots himself.

Business Espionage - Snooping interne

France - After months of squabbling, walkouts and fears of a feud in the upper echelons, France 24's boardroom drama has taken a turn for the worse after police were called in to investigate accusations of spying and computer-hacking in the organisation. Journalists at the channel were stupefied this week to discover that police are looking into charges of a massive spying operation at the top. (more)

Merry Christmas, kid.

"Mommy has a new toy she would like you to play with."

 "Find out who's telling the truth—and who's not—by giving your suspect a lie detector test! Attach the sensor to your suspect's finger. Ask tough questions to really make 'em squirm! The indicator lights light up when your suspect isn't telling the truth. Busted!"

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
He's making a list
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice
Santa Claus is coming to town... (sing-a-long)

Need to track a package?

Check this out...

 from the seller's website...

The United States Postal Service (USPS) processes and delivers more than 212 billion pieces of mail per year to Americans. The U.S. Postal Service continually aims to increase its quality of service, to reduce delivery times, to pinpoint logistical inefficiencies, to save costs and to eliminate waste.

To support this challenging task, the USPS commissioned TrackingTheWorld Inc., a leading global positioning technology firm, to develop a letter-tracking GPS device that would meet the agency’s precise needs.

These needs include reporting the positioning of letter mail from anywhere on the planet at customizable time intervals, interfacing with Google Earth, and recording down time, all fitted in a device conveniently and completely unnoticed within a standard size envelope. (more)

Can you zoom in on that license plate?

The recent video enhancement post sparked additional interest in the subject. Upon doing some more research, it became clear that enhancing is only part of the picture. (Geez, I am starting to sound like Mr. Peabody.) 

Even more important is investing in technology which works in the first place. For example, the video surveillance system required in a small store is not what works best for surveying a parking lot.

The following explanation at Jim Hoerricks' blog is really insightful and educational...

Can you zoom in on that license plate? Can you zoom in on his face? Why can't you make this image clearer. These are questions that many forensic video analysts deal with on a daily basis. To illustrate the answer to these questions, let's consider this image:

This Monitoring image comes from an Avigilon system's 16 megapixel camera.

With the above image in mind, let's consider the outstanding advice from the UK's Home Office Scientific Development Branch:

To judge the quality of images that will be necessary, you will need to take into account the purpose for which CCTV is used and the level of quality that will be necessary to achieve the purpose. The Home Office Scientific Development Branch (HOSDB) recommends identifying the needs of a CCTV system by using four categories:

1. Monitoring: to watch the flow of traffic or the movement of people where you do not need to pick out individual figures.
2. Detecting: to detect the presence of a person in the image, without needing to see their face.
3. Recognising: to recognise somebody you know, or determine that somebody is not known to you.
4. Identifying: to record high quality facial images which can be used in court to prove someone’s identity beyond reasonable doubt.

Take a look at the picture above. Can you make out faces or license plates? No. So, if your purpose is to identify these items, that picture view just won't do. 

With Photoshop, we can zoom in. Let's see what happens.

This Detecting view comes from zooming in a 16 megapixel image.

We can now see the people and vehicles more clearly. We can gain a general awareness of types of vehicles. We are closer to identifying them, but we don't have anything yet that will help us to prove identity beyond a reasonable doubt. We can zoom in further to see if we can Recognise anyone.

This Recognising view comes from zooming in a 16 megapixel image.

 At this level of magnification, someone who knows this person or car should be able to say, "that's him" or "that's not the man/car you are looking for." At this point, we can begin to accurately describe the individual in the scene. Let's zoom in some more to see if we can positively identify this man and the car.

This Identifying view comes from zooming in a 16 megapixel image.

With a 16 megapixel image, we can even zoom in closer than this image. But notice what's happened along the way. We've sacrificed field of view for detail. No longer are we looking at the whole parking lot (monitoring). We can't see the other people who are walking around (detecting). In order to identify this individual, we've had to zoom in so far that we've excluded much of this scene from our view. A CCTV Installer might position a camera/lens combination at a choke point specifically to get facial recognition whilst installing other cameras around the area to monitor and detect movement of unauthorised persons.

But what about real life. The good folks at Avigilon have a small piece of a very large market. What if that same monitoring image was only 4CIF or 2CIF. Could we still zoom in and identify the individuals in the scene? You be the judge.

The image from Avigilon contains 15,824,256 pixels and can come in a lossless RAW format.

This image contains only 426,400 pixels and is compressed. 

With an almost 97% reduction in the amount of available pixels and the additional compression, the results speak for themselves.

The result of zooming in on a low pixel count image.

So, the answer to "can you zoom in on that license plate" is ... it depends on the quality of the image and the number of available pixels. ~Jim Hoerricks - author of Forensic Photoshop, a comprehensive imaging workflow for forensic professionals

And you thought a 'Methane Monster From the Planet Argone' was just sci-fi.

I know this is not spy or security related, but it is just plain too cool to ignore! ~Kevin 

via The Wall Street Journal... 
Researchers on Thursday said they had created microbes that "very likely" use arsenic in their DNA in place of phosphorus, in what may be the first exception to the formula long thought to govern the basic chemistry of life.

Force-grown in the lab, the bacteria use the notorious poison to replace molecules of the element phosphorus in critical parts of their working biology, including in the spiral backbone of DNA, which is a crucial component for all known life, the researchers said. By depending on an element so toxic to normal life, the microbes are a living demonstration of the exotic substances that alien biochemistry might, in theory at least, use on other worlds.

"It is building itself out of arsenic," said geo-microbiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon at NASA's Astrobiology Institute and the U.S. Geological Survey, who led researchers from eight federal and university laboratories conducting the experiment. "All life we know is the same biochemically, and this is a little different. It is suggesting there is another way to be alive."
(more) (another methane monster) (sing-a-long)

Anybody got a match?

China's Culture of Secrecy Brands Research as Spying

via The Wall Street Journal...

China - As a "scout" for IHS Inc., a U.S. petroleum industry research firm, geologist Xue Feng won plaudits from his managers for obtaining a trove of rare data on 30,000 Chinese oil wells.

China's oil industry was undergoing a tumultuous period as Xue Feng, a Shaanxi province-born, naturalized American geologist, began his career as a "scout" for Colorado-based IHS Inc., and ultimately was convicted in Beijing for stealing Chinese national secrets.

IHS databases are populated with such information about every country in the world. The data help oil companies decide where to explore and give traders a sense of energy price trends. Among subscribers to the IHS databases are Chinese oil companies that drill in Africa and buy natural gas from Australia.

But more than two years after Mr. Xue's scoop in 2005, China declared the data on its fields state secrets. Now, the 45-year-old U.S. citizen is in a Beijing jail serving an eight-year sentence following a conviction this summer for spying. U.S. President Barack Obama and Washington's Ambassador to Beijing, Jon Huntsman, have called on China to release him. (more)

Goldman Computer Code Trade Secrets Trial Begins

The criminal case of the alleged Goldman spy is off and running, and it’s shaping up to be a good one. The case seems likely to open a window into the mysterious world of high-frequency trading and to shed some light inside Wall Street’s most notorious powerhouse, Goldman Sachs. But the lawsuit might do something else, too: It could test legal limits related to trade secrets — and cause angst far from the trading world.

The man of the hour is the defendant, Sergey Aleynikov. Aleynikov was a programmer in Goldman’s high-frequency trading group and is accused of taking code in order to help a new employer compete with Goldman. He disputes this and has said he intended to take some code, but not anything secret – just open-source code. The open-source part of that is crucial. (more)

Stayed tuned.

via wsj.com...

David Norris wants to collect the digital equivalent of fingerprints from every computer, cellphone and TV set-top box in the world.

He's off to a good start. So far, Mr. Norris's start-up company, BlueCava Inc., has identified 200 million devices. By the end of next year, BlueCava says it expects to have cataloged one billion of the world's estimated 10 billion devices.

Advertisers no longer want to just buy ads. They want to buy access to specific people. So, Mr. Norris is building a "credit bureau for devices" in which every computer or cellphone will have a "reputation" based on its user's online behavior, shopping habits and demographics. He plans to sell this information to advertisers willing to pay top dollar for granular data about people's interests and activities.

Device fingerprinting is a powerful emerging tool in this trade. It's "the next generation of online advertising," Mr. Norris says. (more)

What the report doesn't highlight are the fraud-fighting capabilities of a technology like this, not to mention government and law enforcement interests.

Advances in Video Enhancement

There is nothing worse* than having to watch a crummy video recording, especially if you are sitting in a jury box.

Too dark, too light, out of focus, unstable are some of the many complaints that pop up whenever the important footage is brought forth as evidence. 

Fortunately, the situation is getting better. High definition cameras and better recording compression schemes are helping, but when it comes to pulling a rabbit out of the junk video hat, it's video processing to the rescue.

Take a look at this...

This is an example of enhancing clarity. Examples of focus, stability and darkness can be seen afterward, or here.

It is even possible to enhance and construct a composite photograph from several frames of video...

While most of this magic is used in legal proceedings and investigations, think of what it could do for your precious home movies!

Special thanks to Doug Carner, CPP/CHS-III of Forensic Protection, Van Nuys, CA for the loan of his video enhancements. Got a problem video? Give Doug a call. Evaluations are FREE.

* except being dragged to another Harry Potter flick. 

Why Your Business Needs a Counterespionage Strategy

If it can happen to a government, it can happen to you.

Murray Associates can help. (more)

Fiber Optics Easier to "Wiretap" than Wire

Optical fibre is a lot easier to tap than most people imagine. There is no need to break or splice the fibre now -- a relatively shallow bend can be enough.

The technique works because the light in the cable propagates by bouncing off the insides of the fibre. Unsheath the cable, and a detector can pick up the tiny amount of light that escapes through the fibre's coating, explained Thomas Meier, the CEO of Swiss company Infoguard.

He demonstrated the technique on a fibre carrying a VOIP phone call over Gigabit Ethernet...

He added that the risk is not imaginary or theoretical -- optical taps have been found on police networks in the Netherlands and Germany, and the FBI investigated one discovered on Verizon's network in the U.S. Networks used by U.K. and French pharmaceutical companies have also been attacked, probably for industrial espionage, he said. (more) (more)