"Here's you hat. What's your worry?"

Clothes Hook SpyCam 

and Recorder 

with Motion Detection!

from the creepy minds at Brando.com

for only $36.00

Why do I mention it?

So you will know what you're up against.

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aka Mr. Paul Poltergeist

UK - Authorities allege a Midland parolee hid a baby monitor under a dresser in his neighbor’s bedroom in order to spy on the couple.

Paul A. Rivard is charged with second-degree home invasion, larceny in a building, eavesdropping and aggravated stalking, according to reports.

Investigators also allege Rivard, 36, burned and buried clothing belonging to the neighbors, broke furniture and re-arranged items inside the house, according to reports. (more)

Pssst... Talk to the Chaos Computer Club

Botswana - The spying GSM equipment that was purchased by the government is lying idle since the government could not use it on private conversations by members of the public because cellular phone providers have upgraded their systems.

This was revealed at the Lobatse High Court before Chief Justice Maruping Dibotelo after the company that had supplied the equipment, Dukef Holdings, took the Botswana Police Service to court over the failure to pay US$1,529,000 for breach of contract. (more)

Cell Phone Eavesdropping on the Cheap

Speaking at the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) Congress in Berlin on Tuesday, a pair of researchers demonstrated a start-to-finish means of eavesdropping on encrypted GSM cellphone calls and text messages, using only four sub-$15 telephones as network “sniffers,” a laptop computer, and a variety of open source software.

While such capabilities have long been available to law enforcement with the resources to buy a powerful network-sniffing device for more than $50,000 (remember The Wire?), the pieced-together hack takes advantage of security flaws and shortcuts in the GSM network operators’ technology and operations to put the power within the reach of almost any motivated tech-savvy programmer. (more)

According to Crispin Sturrock, there are yet no statistics available about the scale of corporate espionage in the UK, the recent studies in the US and other countries indicate that it may range to ’billions and billions of dollars’. “We have seen a dramatic increase from countries such as China and Russia, a high volume of new techniques come from these countries into our market, and we get a lot of reports and statistics saying that there are attacks coming from this direction,” Mr Sturrock explains.

He also indicates that while the sectors struggling with industrial espionage are traditionally high-tech start-ups, banks and pharmaceuticals, there is a massive increase of such cases in the legal sector. “It is about protecting the conversations between clients and their lawyers, which may have a great deal of value for the third party, and we are seeing an immense growth in this sector”, says Mr Sturrock.

Daily Business states that although corporate espionage has become increasingly common, companies tend to forget that simple old-fashioned eavesdropping and bugging are still the most popular ways to gather confidential information. Mr Sturrock explains that spying equipment has become much cheaper, more accessible and easier to deploy. “In the UK, a small GSM bug can cost only GBP150 and it works incredibly well. Most companies spend a lot of money on IT systems and firewalls to protect themselves against corporate espionage, where as they spend very little money protecting their key conversations,” says the founder of a company that counters unauthorized surveillance, information leaks and other forms of commercial espionage. 

BBC World Service interviewed Crispin Sturrock, the Founder and CEO of WhiteRock, for the Daily Business program. (audio interview available until 1/1/11)

Business Espionage: Insiders Sell Out

CA - A key cooperator aiding a major federal investigation into insider trading admitted this month to obtaining and selling confidential information about Marvell Technology Group Ltd. and other companies, according to documents unsealed in federal court.

The documents unsealed Thursday relate to Karl Motey, a California-based investment consultant, and they provide insight into how he was ensnared in the investigation and within months began to help authorities in their probe into the activities of analysts, hedge funds, mutual funds and investment bankers, among others. The extent of Mr. Motey's activity suggests that the insider-trading probe could expand in coming months. More arrests are expected next year. (more)

Voicemail Hacking Pays $3,270.00 Per Week?!?!

Actress Sienna Miller is seeking damages from the U.K.’s News of the World newspaper for hacking the voice mail on three of her phones to get personal information, according to court documents.

Miller claims the newspaper, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., paid private investigator Glenn Mulcaire 2,500 pounds ($3,270) a week to eavesdrop on personal messages between her, her friends and business associates. The actress, who also works as a model and fashion designer, claims news editor Ian Edmondson approved the work contract. (more)

Business Espionage: Hhonors

Hilton Worldwide Inc. will be banned for two years from creating a luxury "lifestyle" hotel chain under an agreement to settle a corporate-espionage lawsuit.

The settlement stems from a suit filed last year by rival Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, which accused Hilton officials of stealing confidential Starwood documents to develop a new boutique-style chain that would appeal to modern tastes...

The lawsuit alleged that Ross Klein and Amar Lalvani, two former Starwood executives who had joined Hilton, took more than 100,000 documents to recreate the success of Starwood's W Hotel. Neither man could be reached for comment; both left Hilton after the suit was filed. Starwood said it discovered Hilton had the documents only after Hilton returned them. Hilton officials have said they returned the documents out of "an abundance of caution." (more) 

Don't count on your competitor to "do the right thing." 

Develop a counterespionage strategy. 

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Santa Claus Is Tapping Your Phone

Sung to the tune of... 
"Santa Claus is Coming to Town"

You better watch out,
You better not cry,
You better not pout,
I'm telling you why,
Santa Claus is tapping
Your phone.

He's bugging your room,
And reading your mail,
He's keeping a file
And running a tail
Santa Claus is tapping
Your phone.

He hears you in the bedroom
Surveills you out of doors
And if that doesn't get the goods
Then he'll use provocateurs.

So you mustn't assume
That you are secure
On Christmas Eve
He'll kick in your door
Santa Claus is tapping
Your phone.

Business Espionage: If you're not a client, you will remain bugged.

UK - From the top of the Gherkin building in London, Crispin Sturrock points out an anonymous-looking office block in the swirling snow below. “There’s a device in there,” says the chief executive of WhiteRock Defence Systems, an information security consultancy that helps companies protect themselves against spies. “They’re not clients of ours, but whenever we scan for transmissions in nearby buildings, we pick it up. It’s been there for ages, just streaming information out.” The building in question is bugged with an electronic device transmitting information about one of its tenants. In the era of WikiLeaks, it is tempting to view all leaks as news headlines. But in general, corporate leaks tend to be of interest only to a very small group of people – an organisation’s competitors or potential buyer. “The reasons people engage in competitive information gathering are usually financial gain and leverage,” says Mr Sturrock. (more) (free business espionage newsletter)

Workplace Bugging - If it works, don't call it primitive.

Officials in the Vermont town of Charlotte say they found listening devices in the Town Hall that would have allowed someone to eavesdrop on both public and private town business sessions.

Town Planner and Selectboard assistant Dean Bloch says the bugs were discovered in October during a retrofit of a dropped ceiling.

A small dynamic speaker, which may also be used as a microphone.

Shelburne Police, who serve Charlotte, say the devices weren't working and they could have been up to 10 years old.

Officer Chris Morrell tells the Burlington Free Press the spying device were "primitive." He says the two microphones were connected to battery-powered, wireless transmitters that might have carried a signal into the parking lot. (more) (more)

Security Directors: FREE Security White Paper - "Surreptitious Workplace Recording ...and what you can do about it."   

"Now do you believe in Santa Claus?"

Nine months after declaring the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program illegal, a federal judge ordered the government on Tuesday to pay for wiretapping an Islamic charity without a warrant.

Issuing his final ruling in the lawsuit of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker said the government should pay $2.5 million in attorneys fees and more than $20,000 for each of the two officials of the charity who were wiretapped. (more)

Workplace Bugging - The Amorous Rhinelander

WI - A Rhinelander man accused of stalking a former co-worker is scheduled to go on trial March 14.

According to online court records, Stanley F. Pecor, 57, will be tried on 69 felony counts including stalking, intercepting wire communications, misappropriation of personal identification information and bail jumping...

Pecor is accused of closely monitoring the activities of a former co-worker, bugging her office, recording some of her phone calls and gathering personal information about her.

Police searched Pecor’s residence and found, among other things, several minute-by-minute logs of the alleged victim’s activities, phone-tapping and voice-altering equipment, the alleged victim’s personal financial records and audio recordings of her at work.

Pecor remains in the Oneida County jail on $200,000 cash bail. If convicted of all charges, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. (more)

Security Directors: FREE Security White Paper - "Surreptitious Workplace Recording ...and what you can do about it."   

Business Espionage: "at Apple you can get fired for saying K48."

In their most significant move yet in a sweeping insider-trading investigation, federal prosecutors charged four corporate managers with peddling financial details about prominent technology companies and with leaking secrets about popular consumer products such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone in exchange for cash. (more)

...according to a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday, a Flextronics director named Walter Shimoon had a telephone conversation with an an unnamed "cooperating witness" (CW-2) employed by a hedge fund. During this conversation, secretly taped...he dropped his two bombshells:

..."coming out next year" with a new iPhone that's "gonna have two cameras"...

..."they [Apple] have a code name for something new ... It's ... It's totally ... It's a new category altogether... It doesn't have a camera, what I figured out. So I speculated that it's probably a reader. ... Something like that. Um, let me tell you, it's a very secretive program ... It's called K, K48. That's the internal name. So, you can get, at Apple you can get fired for saying K48." 

The iPad -- code named K48 -- was unveiled four months later. (more)

If the company with one of the best counterespionage strategies around has these problems, imagine what is happening at your company. Kick off 2011 with a counterespionage strategy. Call us.

SpyCam Story #595 - Brazos Taping

TX - A former manager of the Brazos Valley Bombers is behind bars, accused of secretly video taping several of his female employees while they were changing.


Kfir Jackson, 32, was arrested Friday. He is charged with five counts of improper photography or visual recording.

According to Bryan police, Jackson asked several female employees to change into some uniforms he was considering them wearing for their job. The victims became suspicious they were being videotaped and called police 

Bryan police say on Wednesday, the Criminal Investigation Division executed a search warrant at 405 Mitchell St. in Bryan. That's listed as the Brazos Valley Bombers' office. Several electronic items including computers were seized. These items were forensically analyzed at the Bryan Police Department. Images found on the hard drive of one of Jackson's computers were consistent with the victims account. (more)