"Can cell and satellite phones really be intercepted and decrypted?"

I often get this question. The quick answer is, yes. But it is hard to fathom without seeing some proof.
 

There are dozens of companies selling equipment to do this. Their customers are mainly governments. The products are pricy. ABILITY is one supplier...

"ABILITY was founded in 1993 by a team of experts in military intelligence and communications who were joined by specialists in electronics and mathematics. Their goal was simple but extraordinarily complex – to devise state of the art interception and decryption solutions that would serve the needs and ever-increasing challenges of security and intelligence agencies, military forces, police and homeland security services around the world.

The ability to deliver both interception and decryption. 

Our uniqueness is in our complete capabilities in both interception of communications as well as their clear decryption. ABILITY has nearly two decades of proven ability in the service of leading security agencies, law enforcement and armed forces around the globe!

We specialize in off-air interception of cellular and satellite communication networks and deciphering solutions for cellular and satellite communications." 

FutureWatch

Price drop. "Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum, in Germany, think they have managed to crack two popular encryption protocols, known as A5-GMR-1 and A5-GMR-2. These are commonly used in the Thuraya satellite phones used across swathes of Africa, the Middle East and North Asia. (Thuraya has yet to respond to the revelations.) The researchers hope that their paper, published on their website, will help interested parties fix the flaw. More importantly, perhaps, it might prompt phone-makers to act. "We can assume that this has probably been known about since the beginning of this century," says Benedikt Driessen, one of the authors of the new paper. He and his colleagues say that it takes about $2,000 worth of gear and half an hour to decipher a satellite phone call." (more)

14 Counterespionage Tips for Your Next China Trip

via The New York Times...

When Kenneth G. Lieberthal, a China expert at the Brookings Institution, travels to that country, he follows a routine that seems straight from a spy film.

He leaves his cellphone(1) and laptop(2) at home and instead brings “loaner” devices(3), which he erases(4) before he leaves the United States and wipes clean the minute he returns(5). In China, he disables Bluetooth(6) and Wi-Fi(7), never lets his phone out of his sight(8) and, in meetings, not only turns off his phone(9) but also removes the battery(10), for fear his microphone could be turned on remotely. 

He connects to the Internet only through an encrypted(11), password-protected(12) channel, and copies and pastes his password from a USB thumb drive(13). He never types in a password directly(14), because, he said, “the Chinese are very good at installing key-logging software on your laptop.” 

What might have once sounded like the behavior of a paranoid is now standard operating procedure for officials at American government agencies, research groups and companies that do business in China and Russia... (more)

Draw Cubby and Become a Police Sketch Artist... for FREE

"Cubby" is the guy who just mugged you.

Now, you can draw him for the police!

SketchFace, created by Ali Daneshmandi, is an incredible free web application for creating a photo-realistic facial composite pictures. 

Be warned. You will probably blow the rest of your weekend playing with this. ~Kevin

Ali's amazing story...

Cubby

I started to learn using computer when I was 18 by learning Photoshop! Yes, I didn’t know how to use computers but I’d wanted to learn Photoshop :D . There was no one around me to help me on that. So I started by myself by trial and error besides reading Photoshop Help. This made me a self learner later on... I am a continue learner who is always anxious to create great and cool user experiences.

$250 million “Bluetooth Jacking” Scam Ring Busted

The video above is a scam known as the “Bluetooth Jacking” scam, where the criminal takes your cellphone’s ID via a bluetooth device, and they force your phone to call a high premium phone line where you get charged by the minute. The criminal may get away with $20 – $50 before you realize what happened.

The crime is not just for low level criminals, an even more sophisticated type of scam actually clones your entire phone and allows the criminals to make calls to International numbers and could possibly take your identity. The Secret Service just busted a ring of people pulling off this kind of crime.

On February 1, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced charges against 12 defendants for participating in a $250 million cell phone cloning scheme. (more)

Spybusters Tip #416: Keep your Bluetooth turned off when you are not using it.

SpyCam Story #648 - SpyCam Stops Animal Cruelty

Australia - A Sydney abattoir has stopped slaughtering and faces closure and prosecution after hidden-camera footage of chilling animal cruelty emerged.

The NSW Food Authority ordered the immediate halt yesterday to slaughter at the Hawkesbury Valley Meat Processors at Wilberforce, in Sydney's west, after seeing undercover footage apparently taken by a worker at the abattoir. (more - with disturbing video)

Weekend Movie Tip - Safe House

Supposedly Matt Weston is a spy for the CIA, stationed in South Africa. But in reality, he’s little more than a glorified housekeeper.

His job is to oversee a “safe house,” a secure, off-the-grid installation where other agents — the real agents — can hide a friend or brutally interrogate an enemy. Every day, Matt turns the key, turns on the lights and waits for the doorbell to ring.

Then one day it does, and all hell breaks loose. (more)

Today in Spy History - 50 Years Ago - Francis Gary Powers

On a bridge outside Berlin one gloomy morning 50 years ago Friday stood Francis Gary Powers, the pilot of a CIA spy plane that was shot down over the Russian Ural mountains. He had waited 21 months for this moment. He had survived a plane crash, weeks of harsh interrogation and the brutal conditions of a Soviet prison. He was on the threshold of freedom, and his heart was thumping heavily.

On the opposite end of the steel-trussed Glienecke Bridge was Col. Rudolph Abel, the highest-ranking Russian intelligence officer to be caught spying in the United States.

At 8:52 a.m., the two men began walking forward. They passed each other and made eye contact. Neither said a word.

It was a dramatic — and surprisingly peaceful — end to a political crisis at a time of extreme tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. (more)

Government Security Conference and Expo - April 2-4

GovSec returns to Washington, DC for its 11th year with a Conference and a free* admission Expo!

This year the Government Security Conference and Expo, is joining forces with the Contingency Planning & Management, Network-Centric Security, and U.S. Law Enforcement Conferences. By combining these events attendees can make integrated buying decisions at one event.

Topics include:
*Critical Infrastructure Protection
*Counter Terrorism: Domestic & International
*Cyber Terrorism and Cybercrime
*Contingency Planning & Management
*Network-Centric Security

Expo includes:
*Agency Briefings
*Mobile Apps Experience
*Keynote Presentations
*Security Clearance Mini Workshop
*CISSP Exam Prep Clinic
*Force & Firearms Championship
*K-9 Explosive Detection Team Demo
*Bomb Squad Response and Robots Demo
*2011 Espionage Debrief
....and much more!

Opening Keynotes
Ralph S. Boelter, Assistant Director, FBI Counterterrorism Division
Gordon M. Snow, Assistant Director, FBI Cyber Division.

Wednesday Keynote
Senator George J. Mitchell, Former U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace.
 
*$50 fee for non-government attendees registering after February 27.

Wiretapping, Murder and a $30 Million Lottery Jackpot = A Shakespearean Tragedy

FL - A judge this morning rescheduled the trial for Dorice Donegan "Dee Dee" Moore, who is charged in the death of lottery winner Abraham Shakespeare.

Moore is charged with first-degree murder and illegal wiretapping in the slaying of Shakespeare, a Lakeland man who won a $30 million lottery jackpot in November 2006. (more)

Baltasar the Judge... Hear Here

Spain's Supreme Court has found the country's best-known judge, Baltasar Garzon, guilty of authorising illegal recordings of lawyers' conversations.

He has been banned from the legal profession for 11 years. The court said he could not appeal aginst the ruling. (more)

SpyCam Story #648 - Today in Video Voyeurism

Russia - A 71-year-old Moscow man has been charged with two felony counts of video voyeurism stemming from a police investigation that determined he allegedly secretly videotaped sexual encounters with a former girlfriend and then left graphic print-out images from those videos in her current boyfriend's vehicle. (more)

DC - In the last decade of the 1800s, a new word appeared in the lexicon: voyeurism. It was first used to describe a service offered at certain Paris brothels equipped with a peephole cut in a bedroom wall, but it might just as easily been invented to described the awesome new power of the first portable Kodak cameras that appeared on the market at the same time. Sepia-toned images from those early Instamatics are part of a fascinating new exhibition at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., titled "Snapshots: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard." Some of the most famous Post-Impressionists painters were also Kodak fans, and pointed the lens at the same subjects that fill their paintings—their wives, mistresses, and female models. "Snapshots: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard" is on view at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., until May 6. (more)

UK - A man has appeared before Carlisle magistrates to face two charges of voyeurism by recording “a private act” and two counts of sexual assault. (more)

FL - A Marion County Sheriff's Office corrections officer placed on unpaid leave after being arrested on charges of video voyeurism and unlawful use of a computer has resigned. (more)

AZ - Owen Dix pled guilty Feb. 6 to one count of photographing someone without their consent and one count of videotaping someone without their consent. He will be sentenced on March 12, 2012. Owen Dix, 35, took pictures of a child inside the boy's bathroom at Banks Elementary School on Dec. 12, 2011. (more)

Business Espionage: DuPont & Dow & Motorola v. China

US authorities Wednesday unveiled charges against five people and five companies in an espionage scheme aimed at stealing trade secrets for Chinese-controlled firms from US chemical giant DuPont. 

A grand jury indictment unsealed in San Francisco contains charges in a "long-running effort to obtain US trade secrets for the benefit of companies controlled by the government of the People's Republic of China," the Justice Department said...

In a separate industrial espionage case, a Chinese scientist was sentenced in December to more than seven years in prison for stealing secrets on organic insecticides from Dow AgroSciences, where he worked from 2003-2008. (more)

Separately, a former engineer for Motorola Inc was found guilty on Wednesday of stealing trade secrets from the company but cleared of economic espionage for China. (more)

P.D. Drone Home

FutureWatch

Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s … a drone, and it’s watching you. That’s what privacy advocates fear from a bill Congress passed this week to make it easier for the government to fly unmanned spy planes in U.S. airspace. 

The FAA Reauthorization Act, which President Obama is expected to sign, also orders the Federal Aviation Administration to develop regulations for the testing and licensing of commercial drones by 2015.

Privacy advocates say the measure will lead to widespread use of drones for electronic surveillance by police agencies across the country and eventually by private companies as well. (more)

Today in Eavesdropping News

PA - Three members of one family have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the concealing of a digital recorder inside the home of another relative because they did not believe his alibi for the night a Buffalo Township woman was murdered.

Douglas Edward Louk, 43, and his wife, Kristen Louk, 29, both of 1149 Robinson Highway, Robinson Township, and Loretta Holland, 45, and Robert E. Boyd, 39, both of 2995 Taft St., North Franklin Township, were charged by state police with wiretapping and criminal conspiracy. (more)

Philippines - Controversial Personality’s problems never end. After a series of unfortunate events, CP is in trouble again. According to online buzz, bosses are investigating employees’ complaints against CP. Coworkers suspect CP of bugging their cell phones using a certain computer software. Should Former Lover change phones and passwords now? CP, who’s been rebuffed by the public for such shenanigans, just never learns. (more)

SpyCam Story #648 - Today in Video Voyeurism

MA - A 24-year-old Somerville man has been indicted on charges alleging that he took video of women inside a YMCA locker room without their knowledge, according to Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone. (more)

WA - King County prosecutors charged a 48-year-old Renton man Feb. 2 with voyeurism after he allegedly took photographs inside of the women's locker room at the Tukwila LA Fitness, 350 Baker Blvd. (more)

UK - At Carlisle Crown Court, Gary Flanagan, 26, admitted a single allegation of voyeurism – by using his mobile phone to take an indecent photograph in a toilet and 23 child pornography offences. (more)