Music to Spy By

via Jason Whiton, SpyVibe.blogspot.com...The UK distributor, Network (the "Criterion Collection" of retro TV/Film), has been tempting us for some time with news of upcoming remastered vinyl soundtracks from spy shows like The Prisoner, Department S, and The Saint. Some lucky collectors in Britain even had a chance to pick up a limited-edition EP of spy tunes during the last Record Store Day.

From Network's On Air newsletter: "It’s a measure of the quality of the music from these series that it can be enjoyed outside of the context of the programmes themselves, as our previous soundtrack releases on CD have demonstrated. 

Now, with the resurgence of interest in that formerly archaic artefact the LP record, we’re proud to present the first in a series of brand-new audiophile releases on 180g virgin vinyl. 

Although high-quality masters were already available from the CD releases, we have returned to the original analogue tapes which have been mastered afresh for vinyl to take advantage of the format’s more subtle dynamic range. Mastering and vinyl cutting have been supervised by one of the very best in the business – Ray Staff of AIR Studios – ensuring that these tracks have never sounded so good since they went down onto tape in the late 1960s." (more)

High School Football Spying?!?! - Four Destrehan Coaches Accused

LA - Five people, including four Destrehan High School assistant football coaches, were booked with unauthorized use of intellectual property Wednesday after they allegedly used a leaked computer password to get a sneak peek at the game plan of their upcoming opponent, South Lafourche. 

Others could still be charged, said Brennan Matherne, public information officer for the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office...

The criminal charges are the latest fallout stemming from an incident in which the coaches allegedly used computers to spy on South Lafourche’s football practices last week.

The scandal already has resulted in a forfeit for Destrehan and sanctions for the coaches involved. (more)

Encryptor's Unite! - From Those Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Lavabit & Silent Circle

Our Mission - To bring the world our unique end-to-end encrypted protocol and architecture that is the 'next-generation' of private and secure email.

As founding partners of The Dark Mail Alliance, both Silent Circle and Lavabit will work to bring other members into the alliance, assist them in implementing the new protocol and jointly work to proliferate the worlds first end-to-end encrypted 'Email 3.0' throughout the world's email providers. 

Our goal is to open source the protocol and architecture and help others implement this new technology to address privacy concerns against surveillance and back door threats of any kind. (more)

In the Days Before Spread Spectrum Communications - Spread Wings Communications

Read all about America's secure communications laboratory, just miles from the Countermeasures Compound, in Ft. Monmouth, NJ... (more)

Mobile Phone Use a Significant Security Risk for Companies

New research suggests that companies are leaving themselves open to potentially serious security and legal risks by employees’ improper use of corporate mobile devices.

Buy them the Cone of Silence.

Experts from the University of Glasgow looked at a sample of mobile phones returned by the employees from one Fortune 500 company and found that they were able to retrieve large amounts of sensitive corporate and personal information. The loss of data such as this has potential security risks, inviting breaches on both an individual and corporate level.

A University of Glasgow release reports that the data yielded by this study on thirty-two handsets included a number of items that could potentially cause significant security risks and, lead to the leakage of valuable intellectual property or exposed the company to legal conflicts. (more)

Kremlin Alledegly Slipped Spy Gadgets into G20 Summit Gift Bags

Russian hosts of the Group of 20 summit near St. Petersburg in September sent world leaders home with gifts designed to keep on giving: memory sticks and recharging cables programmed to spy on their communications, two Italian newspapers reported Tuesday.

A Kremlin spokesman denied the allegations reported by Il Corriere della Sera and La Stampa, both of which attributed their stories to findings of technical investigations ordered by the president of the European Council and carried out by German intelligence.

The USB thumb drives marked with the Russia G20 logo and the three-pronged European phone chargers were "a poisoned gift" from Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turin-based La Stampa said in its report.

“They were Trojan horses designed to obtain information from computers and cellphones,” the paper said.

The bugging devices were included in gift bags given to all delegates who attended the Sept. 5-6 summit at the palace in Stelna, outside of St. Petersburg, the newspapers said. (more)

Too obvious to be true? 
You decide.

Do You Have an IT Spy Guy?

Two tales to get you thinking...

Old tech equipment rarely dies, it just finds a new home -- and sometimes, that home is with your IT employees... The problem with taking equipment bound for the scrap heap or the recycling bin is that it often still contains sensitive data, which if lost could result in massive liability for the company that owns the equipment. Think... It is more than just theft, much more.

"There are no secrets for IT," says Pierluigi Stella, CTO for managed security service provider Network Box USA. "I can run a sniffer on my firewall and see every single packet that comes in and out of a specific computer. I can see what people write in their messages, where they go to on the Internet, what they post on Facebook. In fact, only ethics keep IT people from misusing and abusing this power. Think of it as having a mini-NSA in your office." Also think... "The scariest thing is that the same people who present the greatest risk are often the very people who approve access." (more)

Business Espionage in America - We Lose More Than We Take in Taxes

The United States has known for sometime that it has been victimized by economic espionage mounted by other countries, especially China and Russia. According to a counterintelligence expert hired by companies to help them counter this threat, the toll for these crimes is far, far higher than what has been officially reported.

Economic espionage represents “the greatest transfer of wealth in history,” said General Keith Alexander, NSA director and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, at the American Enterprise Institute in 2012...

Due to the nature of the business, it is often difficult to place solid numbers on the cost of economic espionage. To protect their investors, companies rarely want to announce breaches by spies or hackers to the public, and government agents often find gathering enough evidence to charge an insider with espionage difficult.

The lack of transparency on economic espionage makes it a difficult problem to tackle.

The FBI estimates that economic espionage costs the U.S. $13 billion a year, yet their numbers are based only on current FBI cases where spies have been caught and charged. It does not include the majority of theft that was not reported, or the scale of breaches that are unknown to the companies...

During his speech, General Alexander said investigations by the FBI and other agencies find that for every company that detects a cyberattack there are 100 others that are unknowingly being hacked...

Nonetheless, U.S. companies are still largely on their own when it comes to defending against economic espionage, and the threat is very real. When the “Economic Espionage Penalty Enhancement Act of 2011″ was passed, former U.S. Senator Herb Kohl said in a press release “As much as 80 percent of the assets of today’s companies are intangible trade secrets.” (more)

You don't have to be on your own. Help is available. Call me.

Ankle Bracelets Have Criminals Bugged

Ankle bracelets featuring GPS tracking technology can do more than allow authorities to follow the whereabouts of criminals ordered to wear them. They also can be used to eavesdrop on conversations without the wearer knowing what’s going on.

In Puerto Rico, defense lawyer Fermín L. Arraiza-Navas learned about the bracelet’s expanded surveillance capabilities after meeting with clients fitted with the technology. He told the Puerto Rico Center for Investigative Reporting (CPIPR) that clients noticed the bracelets would vibrate when having conversations with lawyers and others.

One client said authorities spoke to him through a hidden phone feature included in the bracelets, which are manufactured by a Utah-based company, SecureAlert. (more)

A Brilliant Halloween Costume, More LED Fun, and a tip of the tin foil hat to the ultimate paranoid!

It's Friday. 
Oddball time!


Weekend Electronics Project
Extreme LED Throwies

Click to enlarge.

LED throwies are cheery glow-dots you can make in seconds from simple components and stick to any ferro-magnetic surface. But that’s just the beginning — click link to learn how to hack and modify them. Easy to make!

...and an anti-NSA home... (just kidding)

Encryption Infographic

Every wonder how good your encryption is?

Citing "Terrifying" Surveillance Tactics, Yet Another U.S. Privacy Service Shuts Down

Yet another American Internet privacy service has bitten the dust, prompted by fears about broad government surveillance demands.

San Francisco-based CryptoSeal, a provider of virtual private networks that can be used to browse the Internet anonymously, has closed its doors to users of its private VPN service. 

In a statement posted online, CryptoSeal announced that a key factor in the closure was the government’s recently revealed attempt to force email provider Lavabit to turn over its private encryption keys. Lavabit shut down in August as part of an effort to resist a surveillance demand believed to involve NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden, who was a Lavabit customer. Lavabit was ordered to turn over its master encryption keys in a way that could have potentially compromised thousands of users’ private data. (more)

Court Rules: NO GPS for LEOs w/o CO

A federal appeals court has ruled that law enforcement officials must obtain a warrant before attaching a GPS unit to a suspect’s car and tracking them... 

“Today’s decision is a victory for all Americans because it ensures that the police cannot use powerful tracking technology without court supervision and a good reason to believe it will turn up evidence of wrongdoing,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Catherine Crump said in a statement. “These protections are important because where people go reveals a great deal about them, from who their friends are, where they visit the doctor and where they choose to worship.”

The three-judge panel determined that installing GPS technology was a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the US constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. The judges’ final decision said the actions of the police were “highly disconcerting.” (more)

Rental Company Settles Spyware Case

The Federal Trade Commission says Atlanta-based furniture renter Aaron's Inc. has agreed to a settlement over allegations that it helped place spyware on computers that secretly monitored consumers by taking webcam pictures of them in their homes.

The FTC said in a Tuesday news release that Aaron's will be prohibited from using spyware that captures screenshots or activates the camera on a consumer's computer, except to provide requested technical support.

Aaron's officials previously blamed individual franchisees for the spyware. But the FTC said Aaron's knowingly played a direct role in the use of the spyware. (more)

No Jail for Skype Sex Scandal Cadets

Australia - The two men at the centre of the Australian Defence Force Academy Skype scandal have avoided jail time.

Daniel McDonald, 21, secretly filmed himself having sex with a female cadet and streamed it live to Dylan Deblaquiere, 21, in a nearby dorm room at ADFA in Canberra in 2011.

Earlier this year a jury found the pair guilty of sending offensive material over the internet without consent. McDonald was also found guilty of an act of indecency.

In sentencing today in the ACT Supreme Court, Acting Justice John Nield rejected jail time... Instead he handed McDonald two 12-month good behaviour bonds, to be served concurrently, and Deblaquiere a single 12-month good behaviour bond. He warned they will go to jail if they breach their orders... "General deterrence has been achieved," he said...

The Department of Defence has confirmed it will take action in relation to McDonald. (more)