The detention by Chinese authorities of a British corporate investigator and his American wife in the wake of a corruption probe into pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has had a chilling effect on other risk consultants working in China.
It's unclear why Peter Humphrey and Yu Yingzeng, whose firm ChinaWhys has done work for GSK and other drug makers, were detained. But corporate investigators said they were concerned about the repercussions for the industry.
Multinationals, banks and investors rely on corporate investigators for information about potential partners and investments in China, where a lack of transparency is a hurdle to doing business. Restrictions in the flow of such background information could potentially leave foreign investors exposed to greater risk in the world's second-largest economy. (more)
Canada - Men are forced to use the women’s washroom at Peterborough city hall when council is in closed door meetings. The reason? Fear of people eavesdropping.
Peterborough city council thinks there is more than one kind of leak happening in the men’s bathroom.
City officials are closing down the washroom — which shares a wall with council chambers — for fear that people could eavesdrop on proceedings.
That means men needing the washroom during any closed-door meeting are being asked to use the ladies’ room instead — and a security guard is positioned in the hallway to make sure of that.
City clerk John Kennedy defended the decision to close down the washroom, saying it happens whenever there is a confidential meeting. (more)
In a significant victory for law enforcement, a federal appeals court on Tuesday said that government authorities could extract historical location data directly from telecommunications carriers without a search warrant.
The ruling is the first that squarely addresses the constitutionality of warrantless searches of the historical location data stored by cellphone service providers. (more)
(подталкивать, подтолкнуть, подмигивание)
A major Russian newspaper reported that Moscow’s metro system is planning what appears to be a mobile phone tracking device in its metro stations—ostensibly to search for stolen phones.
According to Izvestia (Google Translate), Andrey Mokhov, the operations chief of the Moscow Metro system’s police department, said that the system will have a range of five meters (16 feet). “If the [SIM] card is wanted, the system automatically creates a route of its movement and passes that information to the station attendant,” Mokhov said.
Many outside experts, both in and outside Russia, though, believe that what local authorities are actually deploying is a “stingray,” or “IMSI catcher”—a device that can fool a phone and SIM into reading from a fake mobile phone tower. (IMSI, or an International Mobile Subscriber Identity number, is a 15-digit unique number that sits on every SIM card.) Such devices can be used as a simple way to see what phone numbers are being used in a given area or even to intercept the audio of voice calls. (more)
A beautiful way to get the point across...
Be sure to visit the interactive original HERE.
"According to the Max Planck Institute, you're 100 times more likely to be surveilled by your own government if you live in the Netherlands or you live in Italy," Baker said.
"You're 30 to 50 times more likely to be surveilled if you're a French or a German national than in the United States." (more)
India - Verint's leadership team recently met communications minister Kapil Sibal
in Israel and indicated the company's desire to work with the
government to intercept all forms of encrypted communications to address
India's cyber security needs.
Sibal has also apprised Israel's
IT & communications minister Gilad Erdan about engaging Verint to
implement an interception solution. "Verint is willing to work with the
Indian government to address the issue of intercepting encrypted
communications like Gmail, Yahoo-. mail and others. It will shortly
co-ordinate with DoT's security wing and CERT-In teams to implement a customized interception solution," says an internal telecom department
note, a copy of which was reviewed by ET. (more)
But wait! There's more!
India - Worried over increasing tiger deaths each year and many due to poaching
and poisoning, India plans to start round-the-clock electronic surveillance of some of the tiger habitats using high definition cameras. (more)
A US security expert says he has identified ways to remotely attack high-end surveillance cameras used by industrial plants, prisons, banks and the military, something that could potentially allow hackers to spy on facilities or gain access to sensitive computer networks.
Craig Heffner, a former software developer with the National Security Agency (NSA) who now works for a private security firm, said he discovered the previously unreported bugs in digital video surveillance equipment from firms including Cisco, D-Link and TRENDnet...
He plans to demonstrate techniques for exploiting these bugs at the Black Hat hacking conference, which starts on July 31 in Las Vegas.
The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.
If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused. (more)
The evidence of insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors LP includes court-authorized wiretaps, a U.S. prosecutor said at the $14 billion hedge fund’s arraignment in federal court in Manhattan.
“The discovery will be voluminous, including a large number of electronic recordings, including electronic messages, instant messages, court-authorized wiretaps and consensual recordings,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Antonia Apps told U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain yesterday about the pretrial evidence-gathering process. “In short, a tremendous volume.” (more)
iSpy (64-bit) uses your webcams and microphones to detect and record movement or sound and provides security, surveillance, monitoring and alerting services. You can Control cameras with PTZ, one-click or auto upload to YouTube, auto FTP to any servers, Listen to and monitor audio live over the network, connect and monitor as many cameras and microphones as you like, import and export object lists to share with colleagues, connect multiple computers in a group and manage over the web. FREE Download. (free warning sticker - download and print)
Of course, you can see how this could be used against you, and there is no free lunch. The software download is free, but there are $ enhancements ~Kevin
• The new NSA center in Utah is 15 times the size of MetLife Stadium, home to the New York Giants and Jets, and 7 times bigger than the Pentagon. (more)
• Spy blimps can stay aloft for almost 3 weeks. (more) And, they are coming to Washington, DC (more) (video)
• 1,600 intelligence gatherers working at the Rivanna Station along with NGIC— DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and the frequently-in-the news National Security Agency (NSA)— call them the "crown jewels" of the Department of Defense intelligence. (more)
• The S&P 500 SPDR (SPY, A) is the oldest and best-known exchange-traded fund. (more) (oops, wrong spy)
• Authorities in eastern Turkey have cleared a small bird detained on suspicions of spying for Israel. (more)
• North Korea to put captured US spy ship on display. (more)
• The real danger the NSA poses can be found here.
On July 26, 1947,
President Truman signed the National Security Act, creating the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (more)
Invest in SPYs Spies.
The string of revelations about America's surveillance apparatus by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has cast a spotlight on the growing number of American companies involved in electronic spycraft.
It hasn't visibly damped enthusiasm among Silicon Valley investors and military contractors looking for ways to get into a business many see as one of the few growth areas left as U.S. military spending contracts.
Some of the country's most influential venture capitalists and former spy chiefs are investing in companies now providing the government with the sweeping electronic spy system and evolving cyberwarfare programs exposed by Mr. Snowden. (more)
With all the concern about the government spying on us, is it any wonder that couples spy on one another?
Dating site SeekingArrangement.com surveyed over 22,000 Americans and found that 55% admitted to spying on their partners.
In Houston, at least according to the survey, it isn’t that bad. Only 48.8% of the people admitted to spying, which ranks us as the 10th most trusting city in the county. (more)
"You're 30 to 50 times more likely to be surveilled if you're a French or a German national than in the United States." (more)
“The discovery will be voluminous, including a large number of electronic recordings, including electronic messages, instant messages, court-authorized wiretaps and consensual recordings,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Antonia Apps told U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain yesterday about the pretrial evidence-gathering process. “In short, a tremendous volume.” (more)
President Truman signed the National Security Act, creating the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (more)
