Learn to be a Private Eye

People frequently ask me, "I am really interested in investigations, how can I get into the field?"

It is not an easy answer. There are many faucets to the field of investigations. One universal prerequisite is inquisitiveness. After that, it is simply training.

The folks over at PInow.com have just made my life easier by publishing The Top Private Investigation Training Programs across the US. This article focuses on private programs (as opposed to universities) and features classroom programs as well as online training options.

Want to learn? This is the first place to go.

Career Tip - Become a Business Espionage Security Specialist

Leading cyber experts warned of a shortage of talented computer security experts in the United States, making it difficult to protect corporate and government networks at a time when attacks are on the rise.

Symantec Corp Chief Executive Enrique Salem told the Reuters Media and Technology Summit in New York that his company was working with the U.S. military, other government agencies and universities to help develop new programs to train security professionals.

"We don't have enough security professionals and that's a big issue. What I would tell you is it's going to be a bigger issue from a national security perspective than people realize," he said on Tuesday.

Jeff Moss, a prominent hacking expert who sits on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council, said that it was difficult to persuade talented people with technical skills to enter the field because it can be a thankless task. (more)

...and this is at the end of the info-train. 
Before information ever enters a computer cattle car, it is vulnerable to theft in many other forms and places. This aspect of business espionage security is handled by analysts who concurrently conduct audits to detect electronic surveillance devices. There is a shortage of talented professionals in this field as well. ~Kevin

The Aerial Cameras Are Coming

Google and Apple are racing to produce aerial maps so detailed they can show up objects just four inches wide.


Hyper-real: 3D mapping services used by C3 Technologies (as purchased by Apple) will form the main part of the software giant's new mapping service

Google admits it has already sent planes over cities while Apple has acquired a firm using spy-in-the-sky technology that has been tested on at least 20 locations, including London.


All powerful: Apple's newly-acquired technology uses military-grade camera equipment to produce realistic 3D maps of big cities and residential streets

Google will use its spy planes to help create 3D maps with much more detail than its satellite-derived Google Earth images.

Great Surveillance Camera Clips Go Commercial

Surveillance cameras have migrated their way from security tools to movie plots (Sliver, Look and Surveillance to name a few), and now... commercials! Grab some American champagne and enjoy. ~Kevin

Surveillance Camera Disobedience

I only hope there is a happy face drawn on it.

William Lamson - NYC Artist

More Surveillance Camera Fun

Justice at Last for Hero Spy Pilot, Francis Gary Powers

More than 50 years after his U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union, iconic Cold War pilot Francis Gary Powers is to be posthumously awarded the Silver Star.

The medal, the third highest honour the U.S. military can bestow, was presented by Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz to Powers' grandson and granddaughter at a Pentagon ceremony on Friday.

Mr Powers' award is for exhibiting 'exceptional loyalty' during the long and intense interrogation that he endured while being held captive by the KGB and the Soviet Union for nearly two years... Powers was later killed while flying a KNBC helicopter in Van Nuys, California (more)

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)