The country is up in arms...

...and this sounded like a good idea? 

Egypt - Mubarak yesterday installed Omar Suleiman, his longtime intelligence chief, as vice president; and former air force commander Ahmed Shafik as prime minister. But the move has won him little popular support...about 25 demonstrators who surrounded a tank outside the Egyptian museum and chanted slogans about the Egyptian intelligence chief. “Suleiman, Suleiman, get on a plane tonight,” was one refrain. (more)

Business Espionage - Rival Tire Company Accused of Spying

PA - The tire salesman in Cleona, Lebanon County, felt a bit uneasy.

He'd been given lists — of consignments, of wholesale tire prices, of customers. Problem was, none of the information had anything to do with the Cleona business, Henise Tire. Instead, it appeared to come from a rival — K&W Tire, based in Lancaster.

The salesman called the police. And earlier this month, three former K&W employees were charged with third-degree felonies after police said they obtained the information illegally, by logging into an e-mail account assigned to a current K&W employee.

The men — Robert E. Biggs, of Lancaster, Jeffrey G. Shultz, of Strasburg, and Edward Roeder, of Bethlehem — were charged Jan. 4 by Lancaster Detective Lt. Clark Bearinger with "unlawful use of computer and other computer crimes." In addition, Biggs was charged with computer theft because the information he obtained via the e-mail account "can be used to deprive KW of sales throughout their area and therefore cost them business and money." (more)

Spy Chasing Jobs Attract Whack Jobs

New Zealand's spy agency failed to follow basic procedures when it gave top secret security clearance to a scientist who turned out to live in a fantasy world, Prime Minister John Key said Friday.

Stephen Wilce resigned as head of New Zealand's defence science agency in September after it was revealed he had made a series of false claims about his past, including serving as a helicopter pilot with Prince Andrew... 

Wilce served as chief of the Defence Technology Agency for five years, heading 80 staff and enjoying access to highly classified intelligence as he advised the military on science and technology issues. 

"...and stay off the Internet!"

The British-born scientist quit after a television programme revealed he falsely claimed to be an ex-Marine combat veteran and an Olympic bobsledder who raced against the Jamaican team depicted in the 1993 film "Cool Runnings".

Further inquiries by military investigators found he had told colleagues he was once a helicopter pilot who served with Prince Andrew, a spy with British intelligence and a special forces soldier who was on an IRA death list.

Among numerous other fabrications, he also said he designed the guidance system for the Polaris missile system, was a member of the Welsh rugby union team and once had a career as a guitarist on the British folk music circuit. (more)

Next on The Daily Show... The Funniest Man in Moscow

(...Just, because. So laugh.)

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who famously launched his career as a spy, used an old secret service joke to demonstrate the levels of bureaucracy plaguing his country.

The joke in which none of the officials want to assume responsibility for arresting a US agent, came days after a bomb blast killed 35 people in a Moscow airport that critics blamed on lapses in security and bureaucratic corruption

"So an American spy comes to Lubyanka," Putin told a government meeting in remarks broadcast on Russian television late Thursday, referring to the headquarters of the Soviet-era KGB.

"I am a spy and I want to turn myself in," Putin continued with a small smirk on his face.

"Are you armed?" the US spy is asked, to which he responds yes.

"Then you have to go to room number seven," a Russian official tells him, according to Putin.

There the US spy is asked if he is carrying communication equipment -- another affirmative answer sends the US agent to yet another official's office.

In the end, the exasperated spy is asked by yet another official if he has an actual assignment to work on.

"Yes," says the spy.

"Then go carry it out and stop bothering people at work," he is told. (more)

Spying Kickboxing Instructor Kicked Out (and similar)

 WA - A 24-year-old martial arts instructor has been arrested after he was caught spying on one of his female students.

According to Bellingham Police, a 26-year-old woman told the owner of Shayne Simpson's Pacific Northwest Karate Center that she found a video cell phone in her dressing room. The instructor was fired after it was found that the cell phone was placed in position to capture video of the student undressing.

According to Simpson, the instructor asked the student to weigh herself in a private room prior to a kickboxing competition. (more)

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NC - A man used his cell phone to take pictures of women trying on clothes at a Goodwill store on South Boulevard, police said. The 29-year-old victim told police the suspect placed his cell phone under the dressing room door to take the pictures. (more)

 Police are looking for a camera-wielding peeping Tom near Duluth.

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MN - A female resident of the Breckinridge Station community told police a voyeur has been spying in her windows and popping flash photographs since October. She told police she received a call Saturday afternoon and was asked: “What do you propose we do with the 40-plus pictures I have of you?” (more)

...like, "Why does your kid fart so much?"

WI - Investigators believe a woman bugged a child's car seat to keep tabs on her ex-boyfriend.

Jamie Mesang is accused of duct taping a digital recorder underneath a car seat that belongs to her ex. Police say he became suspicious when Mesang started texting him about things she shouldn't have known about.

Eventually, he took apart his son's car seat and found the recorder. She's been charged with a felony and will be in court in March. (more)

More UK Wiretaps and Voicemail Hacks

UK - Nick Brown, the former chief whip and key political ally of former prime minister Gordon Brown, became the latest public figure yesterday to say that he believes his private calls and messages were eavesdropped.

The Newcastle MP revealed that he believes his landline was the subject of an "amateurish" bugging operation around the time his homosexuality was made public in 1998.

Five years later, he was also approached by police investigating voicemail hacking claims and warned that his mobile phone may have been illegally accessed. The former Cabinet minister is the latest senior Labour figure to come forward with claims that his phone calls and messages were hacked. Tessa Jowell, the former culture secretary, revealed that her phone may have been accessed as recently as this week and she has hired lawyers to discover who hacked into her messages on 29 separate occasions in 2006. (more)

The Don of Wiretaps... Mr. Austin "I had the powers."

Barbados - The man who knows more about police and other wiretapping of phones, emails and text messages at Cable & Wireless Caribbean has been gently sacked with a large severance and a “consulting” contract designed to keep him loyal and silent.

Donald Austin, Executive Vice President for Legal and Regulatory Matters, and a C&W employee for over two decades, probably knows more about the interception of private communications in Barbados than any other person.

Barbados Police can legally wiretap without a court order or supervision.

Barbados has no laws governing wiretapping by the police. Our Barbados police can legally wiretap your phone or look at your email and internet data for just about any reason they choose – without a warrant, without any judicial oversight and without ever informing you that they have listened to or read everything.

When our police needed technical assistance from Cable & Wireless / LIME, Mr. Austin was the go-to-guy with the authority to dedicate C&W resources to the police. (more)

Toy Fair Spy Ware

via pocket-lint.com...

With a new age group demographic comes the opportunity to “gadget up” and with that Playmobil has launched a wireless digital video camera and remote control car to appeal to the masses keen on their tech.

The idea is that using the camera to give you a point of view from within the car, with the signal from the video automatically relayed back to a display you’ve bolted on to the remote control and Pocket-lint were at the Toy Fair to have a go. (more)

via toyxplosion.com...

 Here’s a fun, new and exciting toy to tell you about from Playmobil. It’s the Playmobil Spying Camera Set. According to the PlaymobilUSA website, the camera will be launched in the US in August. Or, you can pay a heftier amount to purchase it now on Amazon.

The Spy Camera Set includes a camera with USB port and a color monitor. The images shot from the camera are displayed on the monitor via wireless transmission.

News of The World Phone Hacking Case Re-Opened

UK - Scotland Yard said Wednesday it has reopened its investigation into illegal phone-hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s News of The World.

The Metropolitan Police said it had received “significant new information” from executives on the paper relating to events going back more than five years. The news comes as News International said it had fired the newspaper’s assistant news editor Ian Edmondson, after spending days trawling through his notebooks and emails in an attempt to establish the extent of phone hacking on the paper. (more)

PA - The former Pennsylvania state constable awaiting trial for allegedly threatening the lives of two law enforcement officers is now facing felony wiretapping and weapons charges.

An arrest warrant was issued Monday for William David Denny, 31, the elected Republican constable for Chester’s 11th Ward. Denny remains a constable, although he has not been working as such since criminal charges were lodged against him last year...

Denny went so far as to record himself filing the citizen’s complaint with the police chief’s office, investigators allege.

Denny secretly also recorded a May 28, 2008, meeting in Seaton’s district court office. The meeting between Seaton and Denny was allegedly videotaped with audio in violation of state law. In an interview with investigators, Seaton said he was unaware the recording was being made. He recalled the meeting as having been a “closed-door” meeting and gave no one permission for it to be recorded, the affidavit states. (more)

Why Corporate Counsel Should Lose Sleep Over the Federal Wiretap Act

The following is an excerpt from a long article which addresses several Federal Wiretap Act land mines in the corporate environment. 

One vulnerability, not fully explored, is the potential for employee lawsuits based on electronic eavesdropping (authorized or not) which the company failed to protect the employee against.

While not every employee can reasonably be expected to be a target of electronic surveillance, top executives and persons handling unusually valuable information could very well expect their employer to take reasonable security measures to protect them from being victimized.

One wiretap, undiscovered for just a day, could bring a judgment of $10,000.00, not to mention damages and attorneys' fees.

There are many other financial reasons quarterly Eavesdropping Detection Audits (TSCM) make good sense. The Federal Wiretap Act is just one of the reasons people don't think about very often.

via Philip Gordon, Corporate Counsel,

Once seen only in the shadows of the war against organized crime, the Federal Wiretap Act should now be moving steadily and rapidly toward the top of the corporate compliance checklist. Robust civil remedies, recent court decisions and technological developments have transformed the act's risk profile from a nonevent to a statute worthy of significant attention.

Although principally a criminal statute, the Federal Wiretap Act is unique among privacy laws in that it provides for substantial monetary damages without proof of actual harm.

Under the act, an aggrieved party can recover a minimum award of $10,000 or $100 per day of violation — whichever is greater, or, actual damages, plus punitive damages, attorneys' fees and costs. Comparing recent class action litigation involving security breaches with potential class actions involving the Federal Wiretap Act demonstrates the significantly pro-plaintiff aspect of this remedial scheme.

To date, the vast majority of security breach class actions have been dismissed, or resolved in the defendant's favor on summary judgment, because the plaintiff failed to plead or prove that the security breach at issue proximately caused any cognizable damage to class members.

By contrast, under the Federal Wiretap Act, proof that the violation proximately caused cognizable harm is unnecessary, and each individual plaintiff can recover a minimum of $10,000 even in the absence of actual damages. (more)

Philip L. Gordon is a shareholder in Littler Mendelson's Denver office, where he is the Chair of Littler's Privacy and Data Protection Practice Group.

Channel 5 Reports on New Phone Spyware

AL - This software has definitely spurred some debate between parents and their children. Parents love to know they can keep track of their son or daughter. Most teenagers are not too excited about it.

"It gives you as a parent the ability to protect your child, to walk beside them," explained Chase Chandler, the creator of this program. "Not that you're trying to maliciously spy in on your kids, because none of us as parents want to do that."

The program is called Big Daddy Spy, and it was released just a little over a month ago. Creator Chase Chandler admitted it was basically wiretapping, because it allows parents to "tap" into their children's phones without their knowledge. (more) 


No mention of the debate between spouses and other jealous consenting adults.

FX's hilarious animated spy satire, "Archer," is consistently wrong on multiple levels, which accounts for much of the reason it's consistently hilarious.

Equally important, though, "Archer" doesn't regard racist, sexist, ageist and just plain impolite jokes as an end in themselves.

The tasteless humor instead just flows naturally from the dysfunctional bunch of neurotics and misfits who populate the erratic spy agency ISIS.

Amid a blizzard of appalling dialogue, the viewer becomes genuinely interested in many of the characters. That's not to be confused with liking them, but even though they look and speak like toons, they come across as rather human. Except they're funnier than most humans, because they take full advantage of the fact that toons can say things humans cannot. (more)

Security Director Alert - Yet Another Printer Security Issue

Add one more device to the list of things you need to protect from hackers: The humble printer.

In two separate presentations scheduled for the Shmoocon hacking conference in Washington, D.C., next week, researchers will show how hackers can use printers to compromise a company's computer network. One presentation will reveal how poorly secured printers can even be grouped together to act as online storage for cybercriminals. (more)