Increasing Government Surveillance Powers Meets Backlash

Australia - Any proposal by the government to increase its own power should be treated with scepticism.

Double that scepticism when the government is vague about why it needs that extra power. Double again when those powers are in the area of law and order. And double again every time the words "national security" are used.

So scepticism - aggressive, hostile scepticism, bordering on kneejerk reaction - should be our default position when evaluating the long list of new security powers the Federal Government would like to deal with "emerging and evolving threats".

The Attorney-General's Department released a discussion paper last week detailing security reform it wants Parliament to consider. (more)

Another SpyCam'er Shoots Himself - Darwin Award

The Wallingford Police Department released a photograph of the person who they said they would like to speak with after a camera was discovered inside a Walmart dressing room in early June. 

Click to enlarge.

Police said the camera was set up inside the dressing room and was only recording for a short period of time before it was discovered by an employee.

Police said there was no indication that anyone was actually filmed while undressing.

He is described as a man in his early 20s and was wearing a light green-striped shirt and a Hartford Whalers tan colored hat.
 (more)

Own Your Own Spy Plane Drone - Costs Less Than an iPad

Remote control helicopters were a fad not too long ago, but who needs that when you can fly a remote control plane, which also acts as spy vehicle collecting video (and audio) as you fly. 

Red5 has just introduced its Spy Hawk plane, which comes with a 5 megapixel camera attached to the nose. The aircraft beams the video back to your 3.5-inch screen which is embedded in the controller. The plane can be controlled within a 600 feet radius and comes with 4GB of SD card storage.


The Spy Hawk also features a stabilization system which makes it much easier to fly as well as an autopilot switch which will keep the plane at the correct altitude. The aircraft can stay in the air for about 30 minutes thanks to its 7.4v lithium-ion polymer. (more)

14 incredibly creepy surveillance technologies that Big Brother will be using to spy on you

"14 incredibly creepy surveillance technologies that Big Brother will be using to spy on you"

Q. How could you pass up a headline like that?

A. You can't.

(more)

My favorite...

Hijacking Your Mind

The U.S. military literally wants to be able to hijack your mind. The theory is that this would enable U.S. forces to non-violently convince terrorists not to be terrorists anymore. But obviously the potential for abuse with this kind of technology is extraordinary. The following is from a recent article by Dick Pelletier…

The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants to understand the science behind what makes people violent, and then find ways to hijack their minds by implanting false, but believable stories in their brains, with hopes of evoking peaceful thoughts: We're friends, not enemies. Critics say this raises ethical issues such as those addressed in the 1971 sci-fi movie, A Clockwork Orange, which attempted to change people's minds so that they didn't want to kill anymore. Advocates, however, believe that placing new plausible narratives directly into the minds of radicals, insurgents, and terrorists, could transform enemies into kinder, gentler citizens, craving friendship. Scientists have known for some time that narratives; an account of a sequence of events that are usually in chronological order; hold powerful sway over the human mind, shaping a person's notion of groups and identities; even inspiring them to commit violence.

Mobile Phones and Privacy

Mobile phones are a rich source of personal information about individuals. Both private and public sector actors seek to collect this information. 

Facebook, among other companies, recently ignited a controversy by collecting contact lists from users’ mobile phones via its mobile app. A recent Congressional investigation found that law enforcement agencies sought access to wireless phone records over one million times in 2011. As these developments receive greater attention in the media, a public policy debate has started concerning the collection and use of information by private and public actors.

To inform this debate and to better understand Americans’ attitudes towards privacy in data generated by or stored on mobile phones, we commissioned a nationwide, telephonic (both wireline and wireless) survey of 1,200 households focusing upon mobile privacy issues. (more) (download Mobile Phones and Privacy)

Silent Circle is Coming - Guess who won't be pleased.

Silent Phone, Silent Text, Silent Mail, and Silent Eyes - are all neck deep in final tweaks and we have to say, they are even better than we expected! We plan to go live September 17, 2012. 

Click to enlarge.

Each Silent Circle subscriber will receive a personal phone number and of course all calls within the Circle are 100% free worldwide. 

We've even added on a Secure Calling Plan option to allow Silent Circle subscribers to communicate with people outside the Circle. Get them in the Circle and you'll be secure end to end. (more)

Who is the mastermind behind this audacious foray into total privacy? Who is the stick-in-the-eye of eavesdropping and wiretapping? 

Click to enlarge.

None other than our hero... Phil Zimmerman!
 
"Phil is the creator of PGP, the most widely used email encryption software in the world, and the Zfone/ZRTP secure VoIP standard. PC World named him one of the Top 50 Tech Visionaries of the last 50 years. He has received Privacy International's Louis Brandeis Award, CPSR's Norbert Weiner Award, the EFF Pioneer Award, the Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design, and inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame."

This will be big. ~Kevin

Australia - Spies Seek More Data

Australia's intelligence community is proposing the biggest shake-up in more than a decade. 

On the wish list is a plan to force telecommunications providers operating in Australia to retain users' phone and internet data for up to two years.

Other plans include allowing security agencies to get more access to social media sites like Facebook, and expanding powers for ASIO agents.

The ideas are in a discussion paper written by the Attorney-General's Department for a parliamentary joint committee looking at reforms to national security legislation. (more) (discussion paper)

Security Alert for Yahoo Voice users.

Hackers posted what appear to be login credentials for more than 453,000 user accounts that they said they retrieved in plaintext from an unidentified service on Yahoo. 

To support their claim, the hackers posted what they said were the plaintext credentials for 453,492 Yahoo accounts, more than 2,700 database table or column names, and 298 MySQL variables, all of which they claim to have obtained in the exploit. "We hope that the parties responsible for managing the security of this subdomain will take this as a wake-up call, and not as a threat," a brief note at the end of the dump stated. (more)

Check here to see if you are on the list. Use your browser's search tool. If so, it's time to change your password... at every place you use it. ~ Kevin

Security Alert for Cisco TelePresence users.

If you rely on Cisco TelePresence products for sensive business communications, you might want to stop what you are doing and pay attention to a new warning that hackers can exploit security flaws to execute arbitrary code, cause a denial-of-service condition, or inject malicious commands.

Cisco released four separate security advisories today to warn of the risks and urge TelePresence users to deploy patches, especially in sensitive business environments. (more)

Advisory 1

Advisory 2

Advisory 3
Advisory 4

Of course...

• Don't set up any teleconferencing system outside of your firewall.

• Don't turn the auto-answer feature on.

• Don't forget to set "mute mic" as a default.

In fact, just shut the whole thing off until you need it.

Post #4000 - Slam Dunked Spycamer Mom Faces Slammer

A sneaky Texas mom, who tried to dig up dirt on her daughters’ high school basketball coach, came away with nothing, but now faces 20 years in prison for wiretapping. 

Prosecutors said Wendee Long, 46, a middle-school principal in Fort Worth, had one of her daughters plant a cellphone camera in a girl's locker room during halftime of a game on February 7, the Star-Telegram reported.

Long's two daughters played for Argyle High School, and they had complained that the coach, Skip Townsend, screamed at the players too much, investigators said. (more) (more)

Are the Androids Spying on You?

Are some mobile ads on Android devices acting as spies? According to one mobile security firm, the answer is yes. 

San Francisco-based Lookout Mobile Security, in a posting Monday on its corporate blog, said that "select ad providers" in free mobile applications are accessing personal information without the user's notification or consent, through the use of "adware." The personal information includes e-mail, phone numbers, and names...

Tip: Lookout Mobile Security is offering a free Ad Network Detector via Google Play. The Detector scans an Android phone and displays the kinds of ads, the ad networks, and the type of information that is being collected, so that a user can decide if a given ad-containing app should remain on the phone. (more)

News of the World - Mr. Big gets tapped.

Britain's Supreme Court took a step toward exposing the names at the heart of Britain's phone hacking scandal Wednesday, ruling that a private investigator convicted of eavesdropping for a Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid must reveal who ordered him to do it. 

Meanwhile, a police investigation into press wrongdoing triggered by the hacking revelations expanded beyond Murdoch's media empire with the arrest of a former reporter from the rival Mirror group.

Private eye Glenn Mulcaire was jailed briefly in 2007 for hacking the voicemail messages of royal aides on behalf of the now-defunct News of the World. (more)

Historical Earthquake Map - Interesting & Sobering

Guess what can trigger your business continuity plan faster than a spy stealing your trade secrets?

Phil's blog has a link to an enlarged version.

That's right. Mother Nature!

My friend and colleague, Phil Rothstein, Rothstein Associates, Inc., is an expert on keeping businesses running. Today, he posted some astounding historical maps on earthquakes and tornadoes. Have a look.

What!?!? You don't have a business continuity plan! Talk to Phil. Now.

Not All USB Spy Sticks Are Found This Easily

An attempt to infiltrate the corporate systems of Dutch chemical giant DSM by leaving malware-riddled USB sticks in the corporation's car park has failed.

Instead of plugging the discarded drives into a workstation, which would have infected the machine, the worker who first found one of the devices handed it in to DSM's IT department.

Sysadmins subsequently found an unspecified password-stealing keylogger, according to local reports by Elsevier.nl (Google translation here).

The spyware was designed to upload stolen usernames and passwords to a server under the control of hackers. This site was blocked by DSM's sysadmins, effectively thwarting the password-snatching object of the attack, so the company would be protected even should any other workers find and use the infected USB sticks on corporate laptops. It's unclear who was behind the plan, but regular cybercriminals or industrial spies are two strong possibilities. (more)

Data Diarrhea - Cell Tower Dumps

If you secretly suspected that nifty mobile device in your pocket was spying on you, your paranoia has just been richly rewarded.

As the New York Times reports, a Congressional inquiry into cell phone surveillance reveals that U.S. law enforcement agencies requested data from wireless carriers more than 1.3 million times last year -- or nearly 500 times the number of wiretaps approved over the same period.

That number is way larger than anyone expected. But the actual number of people spied on might be even higher, says the Times:

"Because of incomplete record-keeping, the total number of law enforcement requests last year was almost certainly much higher than the 1.3 million the carriers reported to [Senator] Markey. Also, the total number of people whose customer information was turned over could be several times higher than the number of requests because a single request often involves multiple callers. For instance, when a police agency asks for a cell tower "dump" for data on subscribers who were near a tower during a certain period of time, it may get back hundreds or even thousands of names." (more)