Spycam Story #641 - The Church Sleepover

TX - Charges have been upgraded against the Haughton man arrested Sunday after law-enforcement officers learned he placed video cameras in a bathroom used by teenage girls over the weekend.

Paul E. Holmes, 55, of the 700 block of Opal Circle in Haughton, has now been charged with 16 counts of video voyeurism and four counts of production of child pornography.

Police learned Sunday that Holmes had positioned video cameras in one the bathrooms of his house that was used by teenage girls during a sleepover as part of a local church youth activity.

When one of the girls was in the bathroom, she noticed a camera, told her parents, who then provided the information to the Haughton Police Department. When questioned by police, Holmes admitted that he owned the video cameras that were placed in the bathroom that the girls were using. (more)

Spycam Story #640 - Epiphany Party at My Place!

Sault Ste. Marie, MI - Investigation Services officers arrested 48 year-old Emmanuel De Melo of 7 Elmwood Avenue on the 24th of January at 11:10 am at the police station and charged him with one count of voyeurism.

It is alleged that between the 1st to the 12th of January 2012, the accused used video cameras to record a number of persons that used his bathroom area while they were at gatherings at his residence.

The victims were unaware that the recordings were occurring. (more)

Quik! Hide the Bloodhound

Switzerland - Lawyers for anti-globalization activists at ATTAC went head-to-head with Nestlé lawyers for a second day in the civil spying trial in Lausanne. Nestlé admits it hired a Securitas agent to spy on activists at ATTAC.

The company says it is a symbol of globalization that is vulnerable to attacks and the victim of an “ideological war.” Nestlé attorneys argue that it was within its rights to know what was happening in activist circles...

Both sides now await a judgment. (more)

Chucky is Back... and He Owns Your Cell Phone!

Minh Uong/The New York Times

Chuck Bokath would be terrifying if he were not such a nice guy. A jovial senior engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute in Atlanta, Mr. Bokath can hack into your cellphone just by dialing the number. He can remotely listen to your calls, read your text messages, snap pictures with your phone’s camera and track your movements around town — not to mention access the password to your online bank account.

And while Mr. Bokath’s job is to expose security flaws in wireless devices, he said it was “trivial” to hack into a cellphone. Indeed, the instructions on how to do it are available online (the link most certainly will not be provided here). “It’s actually quite frightening,” said Mr. Bokath. “Most people have no idea how vulnerable they are when they use their cellphones.” (more)

Kessler Investigates Cell Phone Spy Apps

In a six month investigation of illegal spying Kessler International’s forensic team found that most smartphones can be used for conducting unlawful spying and assisting criminals obtain information to conduct identity theft.

In order to test how dangerous your smartphone has become with a simple installation of readily available software from the Internet, Kessler International’s staff purchased a variety of smart phones and installed a variety of popular cell phone spy apps to discover what dangers the software posed and if traces of the apps could be detected by mobile forensic engineers to reveal their existence.

Kessler’s experts tested the products of the major smartphone spyware software providers on BlackBerry, iPhone and a variety of the Android devices. The team of forensic experts then reverse engineered the installation of the software to see how covert the app would be. In every case Kessler found telltale traces of the spyware in every product tested.

Michael G. Kessler, President & CEO of Kessler International stated, “Despite the best efforts of the developers to make their spyware as furtive as possible, my team determined that in every case not one spy app tested could make itself completely invisible. That gives the victims of spyware an important edge in proving their suspicions that their privacy has been invaded.” (more)

Wiretapping Uncovered In The Mexican Congress

Mexican lawmakers said they would formally complain to the attorney general's office Tuesday after finding hidden microphones believed to have been used to spy on the lower house of Congress.

The listening devices were found "in quite a lot of offices, listening to and checking the activities of lawmakers," said Armando Rios Piter, president of the house's political coordination committee, on Televisa channel.

It was unclear who was responsible but lawmakers would release further information when possible, a statement from the lower chamber said. (more)

Google Oggle is in your Face-book

In a move that could make it harder for its users to remain anonymous, Google said it would start combining nearly all the information it has on its users.

This could mean, for instance, that when users search via Google, the company will use their activities on sister sites like Gmail and YouTube to influence those users' search results. Google has not done that before.

Google's move -- which was disclosed in a privacy policy that will take effect on March 1 -- is a sign of the fierce competition between Google and Facebook over personal data. Facebook has amassed an unprecedented amount of data about the lives of its more than 800 million members -- information that is coveted by advertisers. (more)

Supreme Court Rules Trackers Require Warrant

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects.

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia said that the government's installation of a GPS device, and its use to monitor the vehicle's movements, constitutes a search, meaning that a warrant is required.

"By attaching the device to the Jeep" that Jones was using, "officers encroached on a protected area," Scalia wrote.

All nine justices agreed that the placement of the GPS on the Jeep violated the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure. (more)

FutureWatch: Civilian use of trackers to be outlawed. Like electronic eavesdropping, what can be done naturally becomes illegal when electronically enhanced.

On-line Spies - Affordable, and easy to find.

...documents filed in two civil cases suggests just how simple and affordable online espionage has become. Computer forensic specialists say some hackers-for-hire openly market themselves online. "It's not hard to find hackers," says Mikko Hyppönen of computer-security firm F-Secure Corp.

One such site, hiretohack.net (ignore log-in), advertises online services including being able to "crack" passwords for major email services in less than 48 hours. It says it charges a minimum of $150, depending on the email provider, the password's complexity and the urgency of the job. The site describes itself as a group of technology students based in Europe, U.S. and Asia.

Mischel Kwon, who runs a security-consulting firm and is the former director of the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, a government organization known as US-CERT, says the hacker-for-hire industry is well established. Some are one- or two-person outfits, but there are also larger "organized crime" groups," she said. She and other specialists note that it is also easy to find tools online that assist in hacking into someone's email. (more)

Security Director Alert: Eavesdropping via Video Teleconferencing

Covertly eavesdropping on boardroom chit chat using the teleconferencing system is not new. We've been demonstrating (and correcting) this problem for our clients for years. The vulnerability, however, has finally received some publicity. 

Result: Expect more attempts to access video teleconferencing systems.

Recommendations: Turn off the autoanswer feature on your teleconferencing system. Make sure your system is behind a firewall.

FREE offer: The full Murray Associates Video Teleconferencing Security Checklist is available to corporate security directors (only) at no charge. Contact me here, and get our Off-Site Meeting Checklist, too!.

via The New York Times...

One afternoon this month, a hacker took a tour of a dozen conference rooms around the globe via equipment that most every company has in those rooms; videoconferencing equipment...the hacker was HD Moore, a chief security officer at Rapid7, a Boston based company that looks for security holes in computer systems...Mr. Moore has found it easy to get into several top venture capital and law firms, pharmaceutical and oil companies and courtrooms across the country...

“These are literally some of the world’s most important boardrooms — this is where their most critical meetings take place — and there could be silent attendees in all of them.” 

New systems are outfitted with a feature that automatically accepts inbound calls so users do not have to press an “accept” button every time someone dials into their videoconference. The effect is that anyone can dial in and look around a room, and the only sign of their presence is a tiny light on a console unit, or the silent swing of a video camera. 

Two months ago, Mr. Moore wrote a computer program that scanned the Internet for videoconference systems that were outside the firewall and configured to automatically answer calls. In less than two hours, he had scanned 3 percent of the Internet. 

In that sliver, he discovered 5,000 wide-open conference rooms at law firms, pharmaceutical companies, oil refineries, universities and medical centers. He stumbled into a lawyer-inmate meeting room at a prison, an operating room at a university medical center, and a venture capital pitch meeting where a company’s financials were being projected on a screen. 

Among the vendors that popped up in Mr. Moore’s scan were Polycom, Cisco, LifeSize, Sony and others. Of those, Polycom — which leads the videoconferencing market in units sold — was the only manufacturer that ships its equipment — from its low-end ViewStation models to its high-end HDX products — with the auto-answer feature enabled by default. (more)

More NOTW Phone Hacking News

According to a report Friday in the British newspaper The Telegraph, a News Corp. division in the UK faces an investigation by the FBI into whether the now-defunct Murdoch tabloid News of the World hacked into a phone on U.S. soil. (more)

Personal Security: How To Avoid Being A Victim, Anywhere, Any time.

via Peter Shankman - NYC street kid, with cred. (abridged version) 

• Don’t develop a pattern of behavior.
• Know your surroundings
• DO NOT IGNORE YOUR GUT. If something doesn’t seem right, it probably isn’t.
• Have your keys in your hands
• Wherever you are, have a small powerful flashlight. 
• Instead of yelling “HELP” when something goes wrong, yell “FIRE!”
• Have a buddy system
• Know the people in your neighborhood.
• Don’t look like a Victim. Walk down a street with your head up and looking around.
• Don’t stare (it can be taken as a challenge) but don’t be afraid to look at people.  
• Don’t be clueless 

Read the whole article here. 
Really, read it. Pass it on.

How to Bug a Germ

The world's smallest ear doesn't belong to any animal. Instead, it's a tiny piece of gold suspended in a laser beam. It can hear sounds a million times fainter than any human ear can, making it a powerful acoustic microscope.

The nano-ear is the work of Jochen Friedmann and Andrey Lutich of Munich's Ludwig-Maximilians University. The setup is a progression from the 1986 development of so-called "optical tweezers", which use laser beams to trap microscopic particles inside the most powerful part of the electric field. This effectively suspends the particle so that it no longer moves on its own - the only way it can move if something nearby disturbs it...

FutureWatch: The nano-ear would be hugely useful in bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms, as being able to "hear" the sounds they make could provide vital new data on what distinguishes different strains. (more)

Illegal Eavesdropping Costs NOTW 1 Million...

...and that doesn't include the lawyers fees, and the lost revenue from having to shut down the paper.

UK - Rupert Murdoch's media empire has agreed to pay large payouts to 37 phone-hacking victims, including British actor Jude Law, football player Ashley Cole and former deputy prime minister John Prescott.

The High Court in London heard details of new settlements totaling about $1 million for illegal eavesdropping by Murdoch-owned tabloids on celebrities' phone conversations...

Law said he launched his case to find out the truth about the intrusion into his private life between 2003 and 2006. He said he changed his phones and had his house checked for bugs, but that the information continued to appear in the press. (more)

SpyCam Story #639 - The House Guest

CT - A Manchester man was charged Wednesday with 24 counts of voyeuristic recording of another person. Police said Paul Zajac, 20, of Union Street, was charged after a forensic examination of his computer turned up 24 images of people using a bathroom or changing in a bedroom in a home in South Windsor where he used to live. (more)