The Security Service of Ukraine, the nation’s intelligence agency, have its white mini-van back, courtesy of the Berkut anti-riot police officers.
Demonstrators seized the van during a protest rally on the evening of Nov. 25, suspecting that it contained sophisticated equipment for eavesdropping on telephone conversations of protest leaders.
The taking of the van prompted clashes last night between police and protesters. After a 30-minute standoff, punctuated by fighting, the demonstrators recovered evidence from the van and the police reclaimed it.
Opposition lawmaker Mykola Kniazhytsky posted a picture of a passport, car tag numbers and what he said were technical listening devices found in the van on his Facebook page. Opposition leaders promised to analyze the recordings and release their findings.
Equipment believed to be listening devices found in the white mini-van that SBU officers were using while parked near European Square.
That left officials trying to explain what the van was doing at the protest site...
License plates that protesters say they found inside a van used by SBU officers that was parked near European Square...
According to eyewitnesses, protesters overtook the van, prompting hundreds of riot police to descend on the scene, triggering the violent clashes. An SBU officer in the van eventually escaped with police help, while the leaders of the demonstration took to the stage in triumph after police backed off about 9 p.m. (more) (video footage)
Indonesia's former spy chief has said intelligence agencies tapping the phones of national leaders is "normal", and dismissed as an overreaction Jakarta's furious response to reports Australia spied on the president's calls. (more)
So-called "smart TVs" have hit the marketplace, essentially turning TVs into computers that let watchers search for videos, install applications or interact with ads. But that connectivity may be a two-way street, as manufacturer LG investigates claims that its line of smart TVs is collecting data on its customers.
According to an LG corporate video, "LG Smart Ad analyses users' favorite programs, online behavior, search keywords and other information to offer relevant ads to target audiences. For example, LG Smart Ad can feature sharp suits to men or alluring cosmetics and fragrances to women."
But what happens when your online behavior trends just a bit naughtier than clothes or cosmetics? Meghan Lopez talks to RT web producer Andrew Blake about spying smart TVs and other trending tech topics in this week's Tech Report. (more)
In other news...
LG has admitted it continued collecting data on viewing habits even after users had activated a privacy setting designed to prevent it.
The TV manufacturer has apologized to its customers and said it would issue an update to correct the problem. (more)
India's electronic surveillance market - currently at Rs 10 billion ($160,393,125.35 USD) — is growing at a rate of 25% per year as a growing number of people opt for DIY surveillance.
Cameras are being installed everywhere — outside buildings to prevent burglaries, in cars to keep track of whether the chauffeur is giving unauthorized lifts, inside homes so that people can keep an eye on everything from nannies to grannies. Even the pet dog has a watchful eye on him, as does the teen.
When it comes to security, privacy concerns go out the window - the one with the CCTV attached. (more)
The FBI is expected to reveal Thursday that because of the rise of Web-based e-mail and social networks, it's "increasingly unable" to conduct certain types of surveillance that would be possible on cellular and traditional telephones.
FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni will outline what the bureau is calling the "Going Dark" problem, meaning that police can be thwarted when conducting court-authorized eavesdropping because Internet companies aren't required to build in backdoors in advance, or because technology doesn't permit it.
Any solution, according to a copy of Caproni's prepared comments obtained by CNET, should include a way for police armed with wiretap orders to conduct surveillance of "Web-based e-mail, social networking sites, and peer-to-peer communications technology." (more)
A Miami convenience store owner is fed up with his employees and
customers being allegedly harassed by police. So he installs
surveillance video to get evidence against the local cops. (more)
What is The OSS Society?
The Office of Strategic Services Society celebrates the historic
accomplishments of the OSS during World War II, the first organized
effort by the United States to implement a centralized system of
strategic intelligence and the predecessor to the US intelligence and
special operations communities. It educates the American public
regarding the continuing importance of strategic intelligence and
special operations to the preservation of freedom in this country and
around the world.
Why pass a law?
The OSS was the World War II predecessor to the U.S. intelligence and
special operations communities. It was founded and led by the legendary
General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, the only American to receive our
nation's four highest military honors, including the Medal of Honor.
President Roosevelt called General Donovan his "secret legs."
When General Donovan died in 1959, President Eisenhower said: "What a man! We have lost the last hero."
It's time to honor the "last hero" and all the heroes of the OSS with the Congressional Gold Medal. (more)
Click each link below to show support...
S. 1688 and H.R. 3544: A bill to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the members of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), collectively, in recognition of their superior service and major contributions during World War II.
A car that transformed into a submarine in
the James Bond movie "The Spy Who Loved Me" has been sold at a London
auction for 550,000 pounds ($865,000).
The sale price was below the auction house's initial estimate price
of 650,000 to 950,000 pounds — perhaps because the vehicle (a distinctively-shaped white Lotus Esprit) cannot be
driven on the road, although it is said to be a fully operational
submarine. (more)
How common is corporate espionage against nonprofits?
Most of the cases of corporate espionage we know about in recent years have been uncovered by accident. There has been no comprehensive, systematic effort by federal or state government to determine how much corporate espionage is actually occurring, and what tactics are being used. It is likely that corporate espionage against nonprofits occurs much more often than is known.
Who actually conducts the espionage?
When a nonprofit campaign is so successful that it may impair a company’s profits or reputation, companies may employ their own in house espionage capabilities, or they may retain the services of an intermediary with experience in espionage...
The intermediary may hire a private investigations firm that either has multiple espionage capacities or that specializes in the particular kind of intelligence needed – such as human intelligence and the infiltration of nonprofits, or electronic or physical surveillance. These private investigations firms may subcontract out espionage to experienced operatives, which gives corporations access to specialized talent while further increasing the level of plausible deny-ability...
Corporations may also hire the services of experienced nonprofit infiltrators who may pose as volunteers, to scout out workplaces and to steal documents left unattended or unguarded. Corporate spies may also plant bugs to obtain and transmit verbal communication. Both offices and homes may be targeted for the gathering of physical intelligence. (more)
Security Directors: FREE Security White Paper - "Surreptitious Workplace Recording ...and what you can do about it."
Infographic via David Schilling, Industry Tap.
According to the FBI, competitors criminally seek economic intelligence by aggressively recruiting employees and conduct economic intelligence through bribery, cyber attacks, theft of property, dumpster diving and wiretapping.
They also establish seemingly-innocent business relationships between foreign companies and U.S. industries to gather economic intelligence, including trade secrets.
Technologies Used for Espionage
Many of the technologies now used for espionage are just updated versions of previous technology: smaller, lighter and orders of magnitude more powerful.
- Spying Equipment
- Spy Cameras
- Lock Picks
- Computer Hacking
- Network Intrusion
- Video Pen Cameras
- Miniature Cameras
- Mobile Phone Spy Gadgets
- Call Recorders
- SIM Card Readers
- Stun Guns Looking Like Cell Phones
- Telebugs
- Bionic Ear Boosters
- Voice Changers
- Audio Jammers
- Wireless Video Cameras
- Pinhole Video Cameras
- Google Glass type sunglasses, or glasses that record video, pictures and sound
- Asset Tracking Devices
- GPS Tracking Devices
Equipment to Protect You from Spies
- Cellphone Detectors
- Bug Detectors
- Thermal Vision
- Surveillance Cameras (more)
And, of course, us.
Click here for statutes.
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Data is the currency of surveillance, and it's not just the NSA and GCHQ looking to cash in. As a newly released cache of documents and presentation materials highlights, the private surveillance industry is booming. More shocking is that many firms claim in their own corporate PowerPoints that they've got capabilities that rival that of the government giants.
The document trove, called the Surveillance Industry Index (SII) and released by Privacy International, and contains 1,203 documents from 338 companies in 36 countries, all of which detail surveillance technologies...
Of course, that world isn't open to average consumers, which is why SII—and previously, Wikileaks' Spy Files, among others—is eye-opening. What's even more concerning than systems that guarantee "complete data inflow from all networks" is who's buying it. And while all the brochures I've read so far are careful to specify that surveillance tech is only for legal data collection, "legal" is a very fluid term worldwide...
There's a very good reason that the UN High Commissioner called privacy a human right earlier this year: The vast tools available to people with enough money and network access are more capable of accessing private information than ever before...
"There is a culture of impunity permeating across the private surveillance market, given that there are no strict export controls on the sale of this technology, as there on the sale of conventional weapons," Matthew Rice, a research consultant with Privacy International, told The Guardian. (more)
French police are questioning top executives of the Swedish furniture chain IKEA after allegations that the company illegally used police files to spy on staff and customers.
The arrests of the chief executive officer of IKEA France, Stefan Vanoverbeke, his predecessor, and the chief financial officer, come after more than a year and a half of investigations.
Police searched the company’s head office outside Paris 11 days ago. (more)
Researchers at the University of Surrey, UK have successfully used readily available and inexpensive electronic components, combined with a shopping cart antenna, to eavesdrop on NFC and HF RFID contactless communication.
The shopping cart did not perform as well as a small inductive loop antenna (that could be concealed with the electronics in a backpack) but neither are likely to arouse suspicion.
The researchers say that the eavesdropping distance can be as much as 100cm but is dependant on the strength of the magnetic field generated by the victims device.
Companies like VISA, Mastercard and Google who have already developed platforms for contactless payments can now add eavesdropping to the existing security threats of skimming and relay attacks. Original paper here (PDF).
