We have a winner! Congratulations!!
Answer below.
Clues...
• Born 1897.
• Died 1973.
• Expert wiretapper.
• Good high speed driver.
• Sharpshooter.
• Last known occupation: Security Officer, National Airlines, Miami, FL.
• Initials: PWR
• Co-author of a book about the part of his career for which he is famous. Claimed his boss was portrayed on TV as too flattering.
Excellent prize of our choice from the Spybusters Countermeasures Compound vault. ~Kevin
This is Paul Wenzel Robsky, the last of The Untouchables.
Birth: Oct. 16, 1897, Illinois, USA
Death: Nov. 1, 1973, Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA
Paul was the only child of Theodore and Martha (Ellis) Robsky. He grew up in Galesburg, Illinois. Martha died when Paul was just a child. He married Louise B Bargeron and they had a daughter, Ena. Paul and Louise were later divorced and he married Helene R. Frame in Jan 1956.
Paul served in the military from Nov 7, 1917 until March 22, 1927. By 1928, he was a Prohibition Agent hunting bootleggers in the hills around Greenville, South Carolina. He was well known for his fast driving and sharpshooting skills. He made such an impression that in 1930, he was handpicked to join a band of lawmen in Chicago who became known as The Untouchables. He was an expert at wire-tapping and Elliot Ness called him "a good man to have around when more than ordinary courage was needed." Paul spent his last years in Florida and was the last living of The Untouchables.
His news photo, shown above, is available here...
http://www.tribunephotos.com/HJS-617-BS-Photo-Robsky-Wire-Tapping-Expert/dp/B00CD5URR6
His book, The Last of the Untouchables is also still available, as is the 1957 edition of The Untouchables, by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley.
Privacy Journal announced their Compilation of State and Federal Privacy Laws 2013 is now available for sale. This new book replaces the 2002 book and all subsequent supplements in one consolidated hard copy edition, 80 pages, ISBN is 9780930072568.
This new book
includes new privacy laws on demands for social-media passwords by
employers and universities, use of credit reports by employers, new
tracking technologies, new state restrictions on use and disclosure of
Social Security numbers, plus updated chapters on credit reporting,
medical, financial, testing in employment, insurance, government
information, and much more, grouped by categories and listed
alphabetically by states. Descriptions of state, federal, and Canadian
laws are included.
There is an electronic edition that you may store it in your computer and search later by key words and states. $51 for both hard copy and pdf version ordered at the same time. Pdf only, $26.50. Hard copy only, $35 (includes shipping). Or, Discounts for five or more units ordered at one time.
Want to learn how to search like a spy?
This 600+ page tome will help you do it.
Untangling the Web, A Guide to Internet Research – has just been declassified, to satisfy a Freedom of Information Request. Download the irony here.
The Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the deliberations. (more)
Meanwhile...
Is the government
recording and listening to your every phone call and probing every email
for dangerous ideas?
Probably—if certain insiders are to be believed.
According to one former FBI agent, the US government may indeed keep a
massive database where all domestic communications are recorded and stored....
From CNN interview transcripts:
(Ex-FBI) CLEMENTE: …We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation.
(CNN) BURNETT: So they can actually get that? We can know what people are saying, that is incredible.
(Ex-FBI) CLEMENTE: …Welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not. (more)And, where would you store all that chit-chat?
"The Utah Data Center, code-named Bumblehive, is the first Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative (IC CNCI) data center
designed to support the Intelligence Community's efforts to monitor, strengthen and protect the nation...
NSA is the executive agent for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and will be the lead agency at the center." (more)
The
heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in
September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in
near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including
the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google
searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts,
travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket
litter.” (more)
Traveling in dangerous places?
No cell phone service?
You may want one of these...
The Emergency II is equipped with a microtransmitter alternately operating on two separate frequencies over a 24-hour period. It transmits a first digital signal on the 406 MHz frequency intended for satellites and lasting 0.44 seconds every 50 seconds; as well as a second analog signal on the 121.5 MHz homing and rescue frequency, lasting 0.75 seconds every 2.25 seconds.
The development of this dual frequency transmitter specifically designed for the Emergency II was a major technical challenge, essentially due to its dimensions that had to be adapted to the wrist. Conducted in cooperation with an institute specializing in aerospace, defense and industry, it notably involved creating a new circuit exclusively dedicated to this instrument in order to be able to transmit on two frequencies and to do so within an extremely compact volume.
The result is a record in terms of both miniaturization and guaranteed reliability, which lays down new benchmarks reaching well beyond the sphere of watchmaking. (more)
Price?
About US$18,600.00, if you go for the titanium bracelet instead of a rubber strap.
Hey, how much is your life worth?
A Princeton University team has successfully merged electronics and biology to create a functional ear that can “hear” radio frequencies. The tissue and antenna were merged via the use of an “off-the -shelf” 3D printer, and the results have the potential to not only restore but actually enhance human hearing in the future...
The ear itself consists of a coiled antenna within a cartilage structure, with two wires leading from the base and winding around the helical “cochlea” – the area of the ear that senses sound. The signal registered by the antenna could be connected to a patient's nerve endings in a similar way to a hearing aid, restoring and improving their ability to hear. (more & more)
"I'm so jaded at this point that I'm not surprised. And from my perspective, let them all wear wires. Let's catch everybody. Maybe if we clean out the whole system, we can move forward."
~STATE SENATOR TONY AVELLA, a Queens Democrat, on the disclosure that a second state legislator had been secretly recording conversations with colleagues.
Sixty years after an MI19 bugging operation of German POWs, Secrets of The Dead brings hours of chilling and totally uncensored recordings of Nazi elite to life through intense, full-dialogue dramatic reconstructions.
Hearing these shocking conversations will be like taking a time machine back into psyche of Hitler's Germany. For more, visit http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/
CamJAMR is a reusable plastic film sticker that fits over camera lenses installed on computers, tablets and smart phones. Web developer Josh Luft, 24...
To thwart any unwanted spying, Luft, who creates websites in Somers, first put Post-It notes over his computer’s web camera. The sticky papers kept falling off, so Luft began researching materials until he settled on a plastic film similar to the removable plastic films that cover screens on new cellphones.
Luft’s website, CamJAMR.com, sells the sticker packages of 12 lens covers for $4.99. The covers have various sizes to fit computer and cellphone cameras. The stickers leave no residue on the lenses, he said.
A federal magistrate judge has denied (PDF) a request from the FBI to install sophisticated surveillance software to track someone suspected of attempting to conduct a “sizeable wire transfer from [John Doe’s] local bank [in Texas] to a foreign bank account.”
Back in March 2013, the FBI asked the judge to grant a month-long “Rule 41 search and seizure warrant” of a suspect’s computer “at premises unknown” as a way to find out more about these possible violations of “federal bank fraud, identity theft and computer security laws.” In an unusually public order published this week, Judge Stephen Smith slapped down the FBI on the grounds that the warrant request was overbroad and too invasive. In it, he gives a unique insight as to the government’s capabilities for sophisticated digital surveillance on potential targets.
According to the judge’s description of the spyware, it sounds very similar to the RAT software that many miscreants use to spy on other Internet users without their knowledge. (more)
Google's Glass wearable computer have been hacked so video and audio can be transmitted online to anyone.
Hackers have been able to remotely watch and hear everything a wearer does, and today warned 'nothing is safe once your Glass has been hacked.'
Although Glass does not go on sale to the public until next year, the attack raises major security and privacy questions over Google's plans for the device. (more)
Spain - A pedophile computer expert spied on hundreds of his neighbors by hacking into their Wi-Fi and taking control of their webcams, Spanish police said.
The 34-year-old is accused of recording thousands of hours’ worth of intimate material — which included numerous sexual encounters of his unsuspecting victims.
He then posted some of the footage online. (Darwin Award)
Police say he cracked modem passwords to access PCs. He then installed a Trojan virus — letting him watch via the webcam exactly what the laptop owner was doing. (more)
Yet another strange use for spycams...
...or...
New from the Science Channel... if you like "How It's Made", you'll love "Watch It Made!"
Estonia - Old Town Tallinn in Estonia feels like it should be on top of a wedding cake, the old city walls, church steeples, narrow cobblestone streets, and pastel colors putting forth a true Medievil vibe...
There are many hotels located within the Old Town walls to choose from, but if you want a true taste of KGB history during your visit, consider the Sokos Hotel Viru just outside Old Town. Opened in 1972, it's the largest hotel in Estonia with over 500 rooms, and during Soviet occupation, the KGB had an office on the top floor (the 23rd floor, which did not have a button on the elevator).
They always denied their presence, but they bugged the guests, literally.
The KGB tapped 60 rooms, installed mics in the plates in the dining room, instructed elevator attendants to keep track of guests’ comings and goings, and drilled holes through hotel room walls to take photographs and keep a watch on suspected guests, which included visiting journalists and Finnish visitors who would hold meet and greets with their families in the lobby (the visiting Fins weren’t allowed to visit their family in their homes under Soviet Law). Even if you don’t stay the night, be sure to pop in for a drink and to check out the museum that allows you to tour the former KGB offices. (more)
