Is Your Cell Phone Protected by the 4th Amendment?

Judges and lawmakers across the country are wrangling over whether and when law enforcement authorities can peer into suspects’ cellphones, and the cornucopia of evidence they provide.

A Rhode Island judge threw out cellphone evidence that led to a man being charged with the murder of a 6-year-old boy, saying the police needed a search warrant. A court in Washington compared text messages to voice mail messages that can be overheard by anyone in a room and are therefore not protected by state privacy laws.

In Louisiana, a federal appeals court is weighing whether location records stored in smartphones deserve privacy protection, or whether they are “business records” that belong to the phone companies.

“The courts are all over the place,” said Hanni Fakhoury, a criminal lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group. “They can’t even agree if there’s a reasonable expectation of privacy in text messages that would trigger Fourth Amendment protection.”

The issue will attract attention on Thursday when a Senate committee considers limited changes to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, a 1986 law that regulates how the government can monitor digital communications. Courts have used it to permit warrantless surveillance of certain kinds of cellphone data. (more)

Mannequin Spies - Will Dummy Shoppers Revolt?

An Italian firm selling mannequins that secretly monitor the age, race and gender of customers using facial recognition software has come under fire from privacy groups. The information logged by the dummies is then used to implement more effective marketing strategies by stores in the US and Europe.

And the manufacturer now plans to add audio recording to the dummies' capabilities, listening in on customers' discussions about their clients' products.

Click to enlarge

The mannequins, known as "EyeSee" are manufactured by Italian company Almax and retail for £3,200 each.

Privacy campaigners agree, describing the technology as "creepy" and "totally disproportionate."

Emma Carr, deputy director of campaign group Big Brother Watch, told the Daily Mail newspaper: "The use of covert surveillance technology by shops, in order to provide a personalised service, seems totally disproportionate.

"The fact that the cameras are hidden suggests that shops are fully aware that many customers would object to this kind of monitoring. 

"Keeping cameras hidden in a mannequin is nothing short of creepy." (more)

As Seen on Predicted on TV in 1960!

(YouTube)

 

Patent Wars - VoIP Wiretaps

After Microsoft acquired Skype, we looked at a Microsoft patent called "Legal Intercept" meant for monitoring and recording VoIP communications. At that time, there were questions about if Microsoft would ruin Skype by making a backdoor for easy spy and pry government and law enforcement access. But a California-based company called VoIP-Pal already had such a surveillance patent that is meant to "allow government agencies to 'silently record' VoIP communications."

The Microsoft patent was filed in December 2009, but a company called Digifonica (International) Limited had filed a similar wiretapping VoIP patent in 2007. Then, in May 2012, VoIP-Pal attained five VoIP patents from the acquisition of Digifonica Gibraltar. One of the five patents is called "Lawful Intercept" and is meant for "intercepting VoIP and other data communications." (more)

Spy College... for your 21st Century careers

At the University of Tulsa school, students learn to write computer viruses, hack digital networks and mine data from broken cellphones. Many graduates head to the CIA or NSA.

Stalking is part of the curriculum in the Cyber Corps, an unusual two-year program at the University of Tulsa that teaches students how to spy in cyberspace, the latest frontier in espionage.

Students learn not only how to rifle through trash, sneak a tracking device on cars and plant false information on Facebook. They also are taught to write computer viruses, hack digital networks, crack passwords, plant listening devices and mine data from broken cellphones and flash drives.

It may sound like a Jason Bourne movie, but the little-known program has funneled most of its graduates to the CIA and the Pentagon's National Security Agency, which conducts America's digital spying. Other graduates have taken positions with the FBI, NASA and the Department of Homeland Security. (more)

From our "Persistence is Futile" file...

Top code-breakers at one of Britain's intelligence agencies, the GCHQ, say they have failed to decipher a message found attached to the leg of a dead Second World War pigeon. (more)

Can YOU crack the code?
RE HHAT VM RIYNZ LXJT MJRBTXAN
Give up? Crack it here. Your code number is 1943.

Student Balks at Stalk (Psst. Just make the tags more stylish.)

A court challenge has delayed plans to expel a Texan student for refusing to wear a radio tag that tracked her movements.

Style is everything in high school.*

Religious reasons led Andrea Hernandez to stop wearing the tag that revealed where she was on her school campus.

The tags were introduced to track students and help tighten control of school funding.

A Texan court has granted a restraining order filed by a civil rights group pending a hearing on use of the tags.

ID badges containing radio tags started to be introduced at the start of the 2012 school year to schools run by San Antonio's Northside Independent School District (NISD). The tracking tags gave NISD a better idea of the numbers of students attending classes each day - the daily average of which dictates how much cash it gets from state coffers. (more)

In other tracking news...

As U.S. turns to ear tags over brands, cattle ranchers fear end of tradition

* Get 'um here pard'ner.

Holiday Shopping Safety Infographic

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Click to enlarge.

Defending Privacy at the U.S. Border: A Guide for Travelers Carrying Digital Devices

Thanks to protections enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, the government generally can’t snoop through your laptop for no reason. 

But those privacy protections don’t safeguard travelers at the U.S. border, where the U.S. government can take an electronic device, search through all the files, and keep it for a while for further scrutiny – without any suspicion of wrongdoing whatsoever. (more) (pdf guide)

The Wall Street Wiretap Sword Of Damocles

Mark Pomerantz, a former federal prosecutor, says the government wants everybody on Wall Street to believe all their conversations are being taped.

Pomerantz tells MarketWatch that the perception of wiretaps being employed in a widespread way is great for deterrence. However, he said he didn’t think they were being employed extensively by federal prosecutors. (more)

Researchers Find iOS is Rich Target for Spying Software

Takeaway: The popularity of Apple devices makes them a prime target for spying programs, malware, and simple thievery.

According to a report in TechWeek Europe, researchers have found that spying programs like SpyEra, SpyBubble and StealthGenie are used by attackers much more heavily on devices running iOS. In two samplings of infected devices, Israeli mobile security company Lacoon found that significantly more iOS devices were being targeted over other mobile operating systems (74 % in one sampling and 52 % in a second sampling).

Attackers are, of course, taking advantage of the relative popularity of Apple devices, and are using the spying programs in highly targeted attacks — for example, against business executives — “to watch over personal and business data, letting the attackers view all the victim’s emails, text messages and geo-location information.” (more)

Cyber Espionage Infographic

Click or download to enlarge.

Infographic courtesy F-Secure

City Hall Fingered for Eavesdropping - Claims 'Inadvertance'

Chicago City Hall officials violated Illinois' strict eavesdropping law when they ‘inadvertently’ recorded conversations with Chicago Tribune reporters without their consent.

The Tribune sent the city a letter Friday demanding that officials stop secretly recording conversations with reporters. The newspaper also requested copies of the recorded conversations.

“This failure was due to inadvertence – not some practice or plan to record interviews without consent,” City Attorney Stephen Patton stated in a letter responding to the Tribune. (more)

What the Well Dressed Spy Wants for Christmas

Upon first glance, it appears to be a standard pair of cuff links.

However, a covert, hidden handcuff key has been engineered in to the design. This concealed hand cuff key will to open almost all Standard Hand cuffs. It’s also designed to hold your French Cuffs closed. A must have for any international SPY or the average citizen looking for some styling carbon fiber inlaid cuff links that happen to open hand cuffs.

*WARNING: The use of this product may result in you being shot.*

Don’t Break the law. 
You are not Bond'ed. (more) (more weird cufflinks)

Scientific Breakthrough Gives Paranoids Another Thing to Worry About

Click to enlarge.

A tiny ear-powered device extracts energy from an ear and transmits information wirelessly to a nearby radio. (more)

2012 China Report Released... no surprises.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission was created by Congress to report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China.

"This Report conveys our findings from the past year, along with providing recommendations to Congress about how best to respond to some of the problems we have identified."
2012 REPORT TO CONGRESS
 
Excerpts:
"Travelers to China sometimes report Chinese officials tampering with their electronic devices upon entry or exit. Customs or border enforcement entities may perform or enable such activities."

"Some corporate entities in China may engage in, support, or benefit from cyber espionage. The prevalence of stste-owned or -controlled enterprises in the telecommunications and IT sectorsin China mean that such activities would often constitute state sponsorship."

Just coincidence?