Kevin's Security Scrapbook - The Fine Print

Kevin's Security Scrapbook is a component of Spybusters, LLC, written and edited by Kevin D. Murray. This blog does not accept any form of advertising, sponsorship, or paid insertions. Mr. Murray writes for his own purposes and may be influenced by his background, occupation and experience. 

The blog contains excerpts from other sources, the original of which is clearly linked by the word (more) at the end of each entry. Personal comments and opinions are usually indicated in red type for clarity.

The owner of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog owners. We will only endorse products or services that we believe, based on our expertise, are worthy of such endorsement, however, this may not be relied upon as paid professional advice. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.

This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.

Business Espionage: The Devine Apple Caper

Former Apple Employee Pleads Guilty to Selling Company Secrets 

Last August a man by the name of Paul Devine, 37 years old, was arrested following an FBI and IRS investigation. Apparently Mr. Devine was taking information on "product forecasts, roadmaps, pricing targets, product specifications, and data obtained from Apple's business partners" and passing it along to Apple's suppliers.

Why would suppliers want this info? Well typically they compete for Apple contracts and this info could give them an edge in the process. It could also afford them an advantage in negotiations on price/etc. once they had won the contract. Additionally, the information could be passed along to rival firms as some suppliers, like China's Foxconn, work with many companies.

The sell-out netted Mr. Devine over $10,000 in cash transferred from banks in the U.S. and overseas. And it cost Apple, by the company's estimates, over $2.4M USD. (more)

 

Imagine what Apple would lose if they didn't have a corporate counterespionage strategy? Got a strategy? Get one here.

India’s government has reiterated to BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion, and other companies providing encryption in their products, that they will have to be open to internal security and intelligence services if they wish to continue operating in the region.

Under this premise, Google and Skype could also be forced to shut down in the country if it cannot provide keys to its services...

To explain the difficulty of allowing a government to access Skype’s communications, one of the worlds leading intelligence organizations, the US National Security Agency, is still offering ‘billions’ for a solution to their eavesdropping needs on the peer-to-peer voice network. (more)

FutureWatch "...corporate parent eBay, having had to write down $1.4bn already following its $2.6bn purchase of Skype back in the bubble-2.0 days of 2005, might see an opportunity here. A billion or two from the NSA for a backdoor into Skype might make the acquisition seem like a sensible idea." (more)

Business Espionage: Ex-NYPD Detective SciSpy?

John Cook, writing for The New York Observer, has a very interesting piece today that alleges John Connolly – a former NYPD detective turned journalist, who has written for Vanity Fair, Gawker, and The Daily Beast – is a paid informant for the Church of Scientology.

The claims come from two previously high ranking members (they both defected) of the church: Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder. Supposedly Connolly has been using his reporter credentials to pump other media members for information on anything they were going to write regarding Scientology. (more)

"No one likes a tattletale, Danny... except of course, me."

"Caddyshack" producer Rusty Lemorande claims an A&E documentary about the making of the movie was a "heartless fiction" that portrayed him as a "drug snitch" against the cast and crew, "a 'spy' on the set who secretly informed on everyone to the person who helped him get the job." Lemorande sued Pangolin Pictures and A&E Television Networks, which broadcast the documentary "Caddyshack: the Inside Story" on its "Biography" channel. Pangolin produced the show. (more)

Earbud SpyCam - For the Proletariat Press in Emerging Democracies?

from the seller's website...

"Nothing like this has ever been offered before!

The smallest earphone camera in the world!

In one of the earphones is a hidden video camera can use to capture and record video. You will fit right into the crowd and no one will have any ides what you are actually doing." (more)

Did You Know Uncle (ant farm) Milton Died

He did die, we're sad, and nature abhors a vacuum... (digital ant farm)

Uncle Milton's (the company) is still alive and well, however... unlike the ants in your old ant farm. 

His new ant farms are now high tech; filled with green gel instead of sand, LED back-lighting, fancy frame, etc. In fact, these ant farms are no longer called farms. Too bucolic. They have been up-scaled. Call them colonies now. Fortunately, the gated community concept survives. But...

Some people worry about leaving ants too close to the microwave, radon in the soil or cosmic rays (from the ants being delivered via air mail). 

One can't be too careful. I saw some Milty Mutants at the Atlanta airport. 

What does this have to do with spying?

Nothing. Just keep your knees loose, your eyes open and take good care of your ants. ~Kevin

Business Espionage: GlobeRanger - Seduced and Mocked

TX - A lawsuit filed in state court Friday reads like a Hollywood script: It includes sex, deception and espionage in an alleged conspiracy to rob a Richardson company of its livelihood.

GlobeRanger Corp. makes radio-frequency tags that help track inventory, a technology often called RFID, short for radio frequency identification. It says it poured millions of dollars and 10 years into an effort to sell its technology to the U.S. Navy.

Then came a woman named Kim Gray, who works for an Alaska-based software company called Naniq Systems LLC. According to GlobeRanger, Gray had an affair with Robert Bacon, the program director for the Navy's RFID efforts. The suit also alleges that Gray was also in a relationship with German company Software AG.

That's the company that, despite not having any experience with RFID in the application GlobeRanger had been developing, swooped in and won a contract with the Navy to do what GlobeRanger had been trying to do for a decade...

The defendants' attitude towards stealing a decade of GlobeRanger's work was not just malicious, it was cavalier: their co-conspirator, on tape, not only admits that they misappropriated the technology, he laughs about it," reads the suit filed in state court in Dallas. (more) (GlobeRanger lawsuit)

GSM Bugs, Prohibited Hi-tech Goods - Cheap

Vietnam - The Dong Kinh Market, the biggest and most bustling market in the border province of Lang Son, is considered the “paradise” of prohibited hi-tech goods, where imitated products are dirt cheap. 

Typical electronics market.

The noteworthy thing in the market is that prohibited goods are displayed openly. The “black technology” products, such as cameras, or key hooks with eavesdropping devices, are available at all electronics kiosks.

GSM bug

Most of these products (GSM bugs) are as small as matchboxes. The products use 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz band of GSM network and they have installed the MiniSIM of mobile phone in order to be used as sound recorders.

In February 2011, according to Buu dien, as the supply is profuse, the devices are selling very cheaply, at 500-650,000 dong ($23.94 - $31.13). The products with more complicated functions which allow to automatically call those, who want to eavesdrop, would be 100,000 dong ($4.79) more expensive.

The currently valid Government’s Decree No. 59 stipulates that all eavesdropping equipments are listed as prohibited goods. However, at Dong Kinh Market and other markets in the border provinces, such as Tan Thanh, Dong Dang in Lang Son province, Coc Leu in Lao Cai, the laws have been “ignored”. In fact, the market management taskforce has turned a blind eye to the products. (more)

• The electronic eavesdropping market is global.

• Laws against illegal eavesdropping devices are not being enforced, globally.

• Electronic eavesdropping is easy and affordable.

Web's Hot New Commodity: Privacy

As the surreptitious tracking of Internet users becomes more aggressive and widespread, tiny start-ups and technology giants alike are pushing a new product: privacy. (more)

NOC, NOC, Who's there? See I a...

Always look for the ring.

The history of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers landing behind bars in foreign countries dates back to 1951, when an undercover agent Hugh Redmond was caught in the Chinese city of Shanghai and charged with espionage.

According to the TIME magazine of October 27, 2003, agent Redmond was posing as an employee of a British import-export company. The CIA spy had to spend 19 years in a Chinese prison before actually dying there. In an article shedding light on the shadowy world of “Non-official Cover” spies or the NOCs, the afore-quoted edition of the TIME magazine had also mentioned another incident where the French agencies had rolled up five CIA officers, including a woman, who had been working under business cover for about five years. This incident had taken place in 1995.

Although the NOCs caught in Paris were simply sent home, a former CIA official familiar with the matter had opined,” The NOCs have no diplomatic status, so they can end up in slammers.”

Research reveals that a “Non-official Cover” is often contrasted with an official cover, where agents assume a position at a seemingly benign department of their government, such as the diplomatic service. Diplomatic service provides the secret service agents with official immunity, thus protecting them from the steep punishments normally meted out to captured spies...

A thorough peek into this subject shows that serving as NOCs, various CIA officers even pose as American businessmen in friendly countries, from Asia to Central America to Western Europe.
 

The revelations about the NOCs (pronounced “knock”) were made public a few years ago by the American media. (more) (more)

Chinese Biz to US Gov... Prove we spy.

Huawei, the Chinese networking giant, has challenged US authorities to investigate claims it has close ties to the People's Liberation Army, after spying fears blocked its takeover of a small firm.

In an extraordinary open letter, Huawei's deputy chairman Ken Hu attacked "falsehoods" and "unfounded" concerns that scuppered the acquisition of 3Leaf, a cloud computing technology firm based in California.
 
"We sincerely hope that the United States government will address this issue by carrying out a formal investigation of any doubts it may have about Huawei in an effort to reach a clear and accurate conclusion," he said. (more)

Activist Group Sues Over Corporate Espionage

Following the recent undercover police scandal in the UK, the world's largest eco-activist group is turning the tables on one of the world's biggest chemical companies.

"And then they dumpster dived me, officer."

Greenpeace has field a lawsuit accusing The Dow Chemical Company of using private investigators to spy on the group, stealing thousands of documents and intercepting phone call details between 1998-2000...

The corporate spying was uncovered in an investigation by a journalist from the magazine Mother Jones, after it was handed documents by a former insider with the private security firm, since dissolved. (more)

When you think of business espionage, think outside the doughnut hole. Here, one business hires another business to do their spying. Nothing unusual so far. All spies try to insulate themselves from the actual act. Fark... The usual victim in the corporate/activists tug-of-war, the corporation, is alleged to be the spy this time. Backfark... The spies get stung by one of their own, via an internal theft of information. 

And you thought you only had to worry about activists. ~Kevin

Trojan Horse Spyware Masquerades as a "News" Item

Is this a blatant commercial for cell phone spyware being pawned off as a 'news' item? You decide. This just in from MSNBC.com...

"If you suspected your spouse, child or employee was up to no good, would you want concrete proof? Would it help if you had access to every phone call, text and e-mail they sent?

If so, a new cell-phone spying application might be right up your alley.

Made by Retina Software and released this week, ePhoneTracker allows users to monitor every move made on a person’s mobile phone, from call info and text messages to websites visited, e-mails sent and received, new contacts added and even the GPS coordinates of the phone’s user. Even deleted e-mails and texts can be retrieved by ePhoneTracker...

The software sells for $49.97. It is available for Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile 6 or Symbian OS 9." (more) 

Hope they give my book equal coverage.

"Oh, yeah. Sesame Street is nifty keen. Wanna go?"

Isis Forensics is preparing to release new mobile phone software which it says will enable children to check that their friends really are who they say they are.

 
Called ChildDefence, it allows youngsters to scan webchats to check the ages of people they’re messaging, putting the process in the hands of the children themselves, rather than their parents.

“Our research shows that children find it very difficult to spot adults posing as children on social networks. This software improves children’s chances of working out that something isn’t right. Using state of the art language analysis software it gives children a powerful tool which can help them work out who they are really talking to online.

It's currently undergoing final testing before being made freely available as iPhone, Google and Nokia phone apps. (more)

Unintended Consequence: Undercover on-line honeypot cops will have to be younger because the predators will be using this app to out them. ~Kevin