A Las Vegas limousine company executive was convicted Friday of hacking into the emails of his former employer.
John Sinagra, vice president and general manager of VIP Limousines of Nevada, was indicted last year on charges of obtaining information from a protected computer and aggravated identity theft.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Sinagra, who once was charged as a mob hitman in a sensational New York murder case, hacked into the emails of rival Las Vegas Limousines, owned by Frias Transportation, and stole key information. (more) (The Mechanic)
On Dec. 26, a grand jury handed down several indictments against the owners of the Columbia Packing Company for dumping pig blood into a creek. They now face hefty fines and even prison time stemming from the water pollution, and the plant has since been shuttered.
Neighbors had complained about noxious fumes and other issues for a while, according to the local news. But investigators didn’t get involved until this drone pilot took his pictures.
Under a new law proposed in the Texas legislature, sponsored by a lawmaker from the Dallas suburbs, this type of activity could soon be criminal. Not the pollution--the drone. (more)
And from down under...
One Tasmanian man is using a drone to help take video in tricky places and some of the video has gone viral. (video)
Cute animated video from The New York Times... (more)
GLOBE reveals that the royal couple’s new home, Kensington Palace, is bugged, and it seems that Camilla Parker-Bowles is the prime suspect for bugger.
According to the cover of GLOBE’s current edition, February 18, two listening devices were discovered right inside the couple’s apartments. In this royal bombshell GLOBE will explain exactly how and where the royal bugs were discovered and why suspicion naturally fell on evil Camilla.
Now that the bugs have been discovered and removed what will Camilla do? Do you think that there are other listening devices spying on the royal couple? (more)
Déjà vu...
Princess Diana hired a private security firm to secretly sweep Kensington Palace for bugs.
She was so concerned about eavesdropping that she called in a four-man team to carry out a search for listening devices.
The check was ordered in May 1993 after the princess expressed fears that her conversations were being monitored...
But it went disastrously wrong when police detained the security firm's workers, who had arrived at the palace posing as carpet-fitters...
She had her butler Paul Burrell and his colleague Harold Brown - later both cleared of stealing from her after her death - arrange for the de-buggers to access the palace without the police knowing.
They gained access to the palace by claiming to be from a carpet firm. The secret mission was only discovered-when one of the team went to the palace gate house and asked for access to mainframe telephone equipment located in the engineers' room next to the police gate house.
Officers became suspicious and realised that the team from Moran Security Support Services Ltd had been contracted to "de-bug" the royal apartment. (more)
Interesting read...
A competitive intelligence consultant discusses things that can help a business--at the expense of another. (more)
According to the report*, many staff members worry there are bugs in city hall that an exterminator cannot remove.
So much so, that one of the official recommendations is to sweep city hall.
"The Council should retain an outside firm to conduct a sweep of City Hall for bugs or other surveillance or electronic devices," the report reads. "While it is doubtful that any such devices exist in City Hall, there is a clear and present perception among staff that the facility is not secure and possibly bugged. Many employees in the City have resorted to the use of their personal cell phones and often leave the premises to discuss sensitive matters. A sweep of City facilities would help restore confidence in the security and privacy of the City buildings."
The findings of fact revealed that "based on credible and objective evidence, Police Chief Debra Duncan secretly tape recorded former City Manager Wayne Herron." (more)
* The rest of the story...
"the report" aka "The Fox Report" - "Attorney Anthony Fox led the team of two attorneys, Sarah Hutchins and
Mary Crosby. They interviewed about 24 people, including current and
former employees." "The report cost $50,000."
A sweep of the sensitive City Hall areas would have cost less than 1/4 of that. ~Kevin
An Ohio lawmaker plans to introduce a bill that would allow parents to wiretap their child’s cell phone conversations to be used in court.
Under the bill, only parents or guardians would be allowed to track online or cell phone communications of a minor under the age of 18. (more)
For the past few months, some of the world’s leading cryptographers have been keeping a closely guarded secret about a pioneering new invention. Today, they’ve decided it’s time to tell all.
Back in October, the startup tech firm Silent Circle ruffled governments’ feathers with a “surveillance-proof” smartphone app to allow people to make secure phone calls and send texts easily. Now, the company is pushing things even further—with a groundbreaking encrypted data transfer app that will enable people to send files securely from a smartphone or tablet at the touch of a button. (For now, it’s just being released for iPhones and iPads, though Android versions should come soon.) That means photographs, videos, spreadsheets, you name it—sent scrambled from one person to another in a matter of seconds.
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“This has never been done before,” boasts Mike Janke, Silent Circle’s CEO. “It’s going to revolutionize the ease of privacy and security.”
The sender of the file can set it on a timer so that it will
automatically “burn”—deleting it from both devices after a set period
of, say, seven minutes. Until now, sending encrypted documents has been
frustratingly difficult for anyone who isn’t a sophisticated technology
user, requiring knowledge of how to use and install various kinds of
specialist software.
What Silent Circle has done is to remove these
hurdles, essentially democratizing encryption. It’s a game-changer that
will almost certainly make life easier and safer for journalists,
dissidents, diplomats, and companies trying to evade state surveillance
or corporate espionage. Governments pushing for more snooping powers, however, will not be pleased. (more)
The U.K. plans to install an unspecified number of spy devices along the country’s telecommunications network to monitor Britons’ use of overseas services such as Facebook and Twitter, according to a report published Tuesday by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee.
The devices — referred to as “probes” in the report — are meant to underpin a nationwide surveillance regime aimed at logging nearly everything Britons do online, from Skype calls with family members to visits to pornographic websites. The government argues that swift access to communications data is critical to the fight against terrorism and other high-level crime.
Authorities have been at pains to stress that they’re not seeking unfettered access to the content of emails or recordings of phone calls, but rather what many have described as “outside of the envelope” information: Who sends a message, where and how it is sent, and who receives it. (more) ...for now.
MO - A Chinese business owner and one of his employees have pleaded guilty in Missouri to conspiring to steal trade secrets from a U.S. company, in what one expert called a rare example of foreign business people being successfully prosecuted for corporate spying.
Ji Li Huang, 45, and Xiao Guang Qi, 32, admitted Friday, Jan 25 in federal court that they tried to buy Pittsburgh Corning Corp.’s proprietary formula for cellular glass insulation by bribing an employee of the company’s Sedalia plant.
U.S. District Judge Brian Wimes sentenced Huang to 18 months in federal prison and fined him $250,000. Qi — Huang’s employee at a plastic novelties manufacturer called Ningbo Oriental Crafts Ltd. — was sentenced to time served and fined $20,000, with the understanding that he would leave the United States immediately. Both men paid their fines Friday, The Kansas City Star reported. (more)
The British army has demonstrated a new tiny spy drone as the latest weapon against Taliban militants in Afghanistan.
Soldiers from the Brigade Reconnaissance Force at Camp Bastion demonstrated the eight-inch long plastic moulded drone, which has three cameras hidden inside its nose and weighs just 15 grams.
Codenamed the Black Hornet, the tiny aircraft is being used by British troops against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The small flying machine, which has a smooth grey body and twin black rotors, can either be controlled directly or programmed to fly to a given set of co-ordinates and then return to base after carrying out its spy missions. (more)
The apps cloaks as cache cleaners but instead snoop around once connected to PC. Superclean and DroidCleaner are the two applications uncovered by Kaspersky Labs. Both feature clean-up of Android phone or tablet cache files.
The so-called "cleaners" promise to make devices faster and to increase processing but turns out to download three separate files - autorun.inf, folder.ico, and svchosts.exe. These components are automatically placed in the root of the device's SD card, and once the user connects it to the computer using USB mode, the malware begins to execute itself.
The malware activates the desktop microphone, encrypts all recording, and send all gathered information back to the developer of the malicious application according to Kaspersky. Aside from infecting the PC, the malware also uploads Android device's information, opens arbitrary browser links, uploads and deletes SMS, and distributes contacts, photos, and coordinates online. (more)
It’s becoming easier than ever to keep an eye on spouses, children, business partners, and nannies with a new wave of spy gear.
Note: The spy gadgets are real, and work very well — the 'antidote' gadgets used to protect against them, not so well. Save your money.
Need protection? Find a professional electronic countermeasures specialist. Invest your money with them. Need help finding one? Check here. ~Kevin
A former CIA officer who pleaded guilty to identifying a covert intelligence officer was sentenced on Friday to 30 months in prison.
John Kiriakou and prosecutors agreed on the term as part of the plea agreement he struck in October.
Kiriakou, 48, declined to make a statement at the Alexandria, Virginia, federal court prior to sentencing by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema. "Alright, perhaps you've already said too much," Brinkema said. (more)
These unmanned flying robots–some as large as jumbo jets, others as small as birds–do things straight out of science fiction.
Much of what it takes to get these robotic airplanes to fly, sense, and kill has remained secret. But now, with rare access to drone engineers and those who fly them for the U.S. military, NOVA reveals the amazing technologies that make drones so powerful as we see how a remotely-piloted drone strike looks and feels from inside the command center.
From cameras that can capture every detail of an entire city at a glance to swarming robots that can make decisions on their own to giant air frames that can stay aloft for days on end, drones are changing our relationship to war, surveillance, and each other. And it's just the beginning. Discover the cutting edge technologies that are propelling us toward a new chapter in aviation history as NOVA gets ready for "Rise of the Drones."
Sneak preview...
The full program is available on-line. ~Kevin
According to the cover of GLOBE’s current edition, February 18, two listening devices were discovered right inside the couple’s apartments. In this royal bombshell GLOBE will explain exactly how and where the royal bugs were discovered and why suspicion naturally fell on evil Camilla.
They gained access to the palace by claiming to be from a carpet firm. The secret mission was only discovered-when one of the team went to the palace gate house and asked for access to mainframe telephone equipment located in the engineers' room next to the police gate house. 
