Some Fun Summer Reading about Private Investigators...

Who knows? You might be inspired to become a private detective novelist.

Fire up your Kindle and start with, How Do Private Eyes Do That? by Colleen Collins

Then read, How to Write a Dick: A Guide for Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths. by Shaun Kaufman and Colleen Collins, and start writing your own private detective novel.

The authors bill themselves as, "a couple of PIs who also happen to write." Visit them at their blog, Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes. It is full of great information about modern PIs and how they operate. They also provide tips for writers, like The Top 5 Mistakes Writers Make at a Crime Scene.

Professional Lawyers - Amateur Investigators

A lawyer for the International Criminal Court has been detained in Libya after she was found to be carrying suspicious letters for Muammar Gaddafi’s captured son Saif al-Islam, a Libyan lawyer said on Saturday... 

“During a visit (to Saif al-Islam), the lawyer tried to deliver documents to him, letters that represent a danger to the security of Libya,” said Ahmed al-Jehani, the Libyan lawyer in charge of the Saif al-Islam case on behalf of Libya, and who liaises between the government and the Hague-based ICC...

Jehani said the ICC team...had been searched before the meeting.

Without giving details, he said a pen with a camera as well as a watch with a recorder were found during the search. (more)

The Tech Spy Agencies are Buying

Amir Abolfathi, CEO of Sonitus Medical of San Mateo, revealed that the company is developing a tiny, wireless, two-way communications device for "the U.S. intelligence community." Noting that it covertly sits in a person's mouth, he said one of its chief attributes is that "nobody knows you are wearing anything." (more)

Overlooking the PR effect that male mobs molesting women in Tahrir Square has on tourism...

Egyptian state TV stopped airing controversial anti-spying ads Friday night. 

The ads have been widely condemned as being xenophobic and painting all foreigners in the country as spies. 

Many have voiced fears that the ads would negatively affect tourism. (more)

“Ag-gag” Laws and The Jungle

“Ag-gag” laws threaten journalists’ reliance on whistleblowers 

A recent spate of nationwide legislative measures designed to curb undercover recording at farms and other agricultural facilities may potentially restrict reporters’ ability to gather and publish important information about the food industry.

Some of the measures would directly prohibit journalists from photographing or recording farm animals and other items and activities involved in food production in a manner not likely to pass constitutional scrutiny.

Others, however, seek to cut off the dissemination of this information at its source, by criminalizing the actions of whistleblowers. (more)

Dot Connections:
The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by American journalist, socialist, politician, and muckracker Upton Sinclair (1878-1968). The novel was first published in serial form in 1905... It was based on undercover work done in 1904: Sinclair spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards at the behest of the magazine's publishers.

Public pressure led to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which established the Bureau of Chemistry that would become the Food and Drug Administration in 1930.

2006 - The Police RIP / 2012 - Listening to The Police RIP

Police departments across the country have been steadily switching to encrypted radio communications for more than a decade. 

First Portable Police Radio
Thomas Dwyer and Dispatcher Marvin Gray
http://www.pennsville.org

The trend has accelerated recently as cell phone apps like Scanner 911 have made public access to traditional unencrypted police radio communications easier than ever...

No legal right
There is no federal law that requires public access to police radio, and unless a state’s Freedom of Information law builds a strong case for disclosure of all police records, there is little legal action that can be taken. (more) (sing-a-long)

China - Visiting Officials Leave Gadgets Behind & The Car Bugs

Australia - The Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, took extraordinary precautions against Chinese espionage before arriving in Beijing yesterday, revealing the degree of distrust lingering beneath the surface of his goodwill visit...

The Herald has learnt Mr Smith and his entourage left mobile phones and laptops in Hong Kong before proceeding to mainland China, after such devices were reportedly compromised during previous ministerial visits. His staff, including media advisers, were given fresh phones, with different numbers, for the duration. (more)

Spybusters Tip #502 - Act like a smart Defense Minister. Go sterile.
(Engage Murray Associates, the information security analysts, for more tips.) 

In related news...

Click to enlarge.

(more)

Cautionary Tales of Laptops and Thumb Drives

Laptop Cautionary Tale

 UK - The former Director-General of UK's internal security service MI5 has had her laptop stolen at London's Heathrow airport on Tuesday. 

Dame Stella Rimington, who headed the agency from 1992 to 1996, has since then become a well-known spy thriller author. According to the report, he laptop contained research for her next book, but it could have also contained sensitive information such as contact details of her former colleagues.

"Dame Stella seems to have forgotten the tricks of her tradecraft since leaving MI5," commented a source... (more)
 

Tip: Password protect your laptop. Encrypt confidential files. Carry only essential information. Install track and remote erase security software. 

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Memory Stick / Thumb Drive Cautionary Tale

The U.S. and Israel were responsible for creating the Stuxnet computer worm that wreaked havoc with Iranian nuclear facilities... And the first salvos in the massive cyberattack were launched via an unassuming piece of technology: a thumb drive... Thumb drives were “critical” in the initial Stuxnet attacks — which began in 2008 — although unspecified “more sophisticated” means were later used... “It turns out there is always an idiot around who doesn’t think much about the thumb drive in their hand,” one of the program’s architects said. (more)

Tip: You know that thumb drive you "found" in the parking lot? 

Don't plug it in. 

Smash it. 

(distructional video)

Companies Urged to Security Classify their Information

Australia - Private companies must institute a classification system similar to the one used by spies and the military, assigning confidential, secret or top-secret status to information rather than assuming computer networks can be defended from increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks.


The former head of the Defence Signals Directorate's highly secretive Cyber Security Operations Centre, Tim Scully, has called for a reorganisation of cyber security, saying the present approach focuses too much on protecting networks and not the information in them. 

He said the private sector must begin to think like government and create a classification system that reflects the value and sensitivity of the information in its possession.

From there, risk assessments can be performed about how, if at all, the most sensitive information is conveyed across the internet. Under the new national security classification system information is marked protected, confidential, secret or top-secret.

The most sensitive information is then "air-gapped" - or stored on a closed network not accessible via the internet. (more) (see also) (see also)

Russian Wiretaps Double

Russia - Legal wiretaps have almost doubled in Russia over the past five years due to lack of external control over the secret services, according to official and publicly available statistics unearthed by a leading Russian security analyst.

“This is both a political and a bureaucratic story,” said Andrei Soldatov, editor-in-chief of Agentura.ru, an online secret services think-tank. He added that the services often abuse their powers, including for illegal monitoring of political opposition.

The courts issued 466,152 sanctions for telephone wiretaps and inspection of regular and electronic mail in 2011, according to the website of the Judicial Department at the Russian Supreme Court.

The figure stood at 265,937 in 2007, the department said.

Only 3,554 wiretap requests, or under 1 percent of the total, were rejected in 2011, compared to 4,246 in 2007. (more)

More Than A Feeling - Boston Rocked by SpyCam Death

Boston singer Brad Delp installed a hidden camera in his fiancee’s sister’s bedroom – and killed himself nine days after he was caught.

Evidence given in the court case between Boston mainman Tom Scholz and a newspaper revealed how Delp, who committed suicide in 2007, was ashamed and apologetic after his spy device was found.

Events came to light as part of Scholz’s claim that the Boston Herald defamed him by suggesting he was to blame for his bandmate’s death. (more)

One Day - Two Headlines - A Salute to US Spies

"China 'arrests high-level US spy' in Hong Kong" (more)
 

"Retired Russian colonel has been convicted and sentenced on charges of spying for the United States" (more)

"Be Sociable"

Banners signed by a cult-like Mexican drug gang say that cartel members launched firebombing attacks on a PepsiCo. subsidiary because they believe the snack company let law-enforcement agents use its trucks for surveillance. (more)

$71 million divorce - Electronic Bugging Allegations

The extraordinarily bitter break up of Silicon Valley power player Susan Decker, 49, and Michael Dovey, 52, led to the couple hurling allegations of infidelity, drug use and electronic bugging at each other. 

Miss Decker was accused of extramarital affairs, drug use, and bugging the Laguna Beach home to spy on him.  

Mr Dovey's lawyers also issued subpoenas to Yahoo demanding emails and records, and the company's head of corporate security was among witnesses due to give evidence in court over the bugging claims. (more)

Security Quote of the Month

"We're going to double down on secrecy..." 

Tim Cook, Apple, CEO (more)

Meanwhile... 

“Before, criminals used to steal money to become rich, but now they have realized that they can be rich by stealing corporate information.”

These words from a U.S. Treasury Department official send a chilling reminder to industry about the growing threat – and cost – of trade secret misappropriation...
 
Today, trade secret theft costs multinational corporations billions of dollars each year – and no company is immune. Any company with valuable commercial information, processes or intellectual property is at risk; and global companies from all sectors continue to experience significant economic losses not only from trade secret theft, but also from piracy, counterfeit products and corruption. (more)

What's your policy?