FutureWatch: When Light Bulbs Become Eyeballs

Visitors to Terminal B at Newark Liberty International Airport may notice the bright, clean lighting that now blankets the cavernous interior, courtesy of 171 recently installed LED fixtures. But they probably will not realize that the light fixtures are the backbone of a system that is watching them. 

Using an array of sensors and eight video cameras around the terminal, the light fixtures are part of a new wireless network that collects and feeds data into software that can spot long lines, recognize license plates and even identify suspicious activity, sending alerts to the appropriate staff...

Fred H. Cate, director of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research at Indiana University, described the potential for misuse as “terrifying.” ...

The light fixtures are outfitted with special chips and connect to sensors, cameras and one another over a wireless network. Data that is collected — say, a particular car pulling up to the terminal — can then be mined and analyzed for a broad range of applications...

“No one really wanted the smartphone 20 years ago because they didn’t know they could have it,” said Fred Maxik, founder and chief technology officer of Lighting Science Group, which manufactures LEDs. “And I think the same is true of lighting today: No one knows what lighting is going to be capable of.” (more)

Crowdpilot - Eavesdropping in a Back Seat Driver Sort of Way

Late last week–just in time for Valentine’s Day–artist and software developer Lauren McCarthy launched Crowdpilot, an iOS app designed to let anyone invite friends and strangers to listen in on a live audio stream of a private conversation and offer text-based advice and encouragement. 

“Crowdpilot lets you crowdsource your conversations by inviting a group of people to listen in and give you suggestions in real time,” says McCarthy. “I see the possibility of having this networked hivemind that weighs in on your decisions, like having a ‘wingman’ in a bar.”

Just launch the app, choose from an array of conversation types including “date,” “argument,” “meeting,” or “family gathering,” and choose who you want to listen in. ... 

McCarthy strongly suggests that anyone using the app warn all participants in a conversation Crowdpilot’s crowd will be listening in. (Sure, Lauren.)

Although it’s possible to run Crowdpilot on your iPhone with the screen turned off, it can’t run in the background, reducing the app’s potential as a stealth spy tool. (Screen turned off should suffice for most spies.) (more)

FutureWatch: Covert remote coaching during business negotiations?

Off Topic Moment of Zen

No cat has two tails.
Every cat has one tail more than no cat.
Therefore every cat has three tails.
(more)

Maryland Bill Would Shut Down NSA Spy Center

MD - A group of legislators in Maryland has introduced legislation that would deny state support to federal agencies engaged in warrantless electronic surveillance in a move aimed at curtailing the National Security Agency's power to monitor and track citizens.

Eight Republicans in the Maryland House of Delegates last week introduced the "Fourth Amendment Protection Act," which would deny the NSA "material support, participation or assistance in any form” from the state, its political subdivisions or companies with state contracts, US News reported.

The bill would deprive NSA's headquarters in Ft. Meade, Md., water and electricity carried over public utilities, prohibit the use of evidence gathered by the agency in state courts and prevent state universities from partnering with the NSA on research, according to the report. (more)

Tennessee proposed the same thing last month. (more)

Ol' McDonnell Had a Drone

IL - In January a UPS truck pulled up to the farm of Bill McDonnell north of Ottawa.

McDonnell’s order had come through. It was a brand new Phantom 2 drone, a four-rotor, remote-controlled quad-copter with a camera.

“It’s something I’ve been researching for the past year to see how we can integrate this into our farming operation,” McDonnell said.

Like many cutting-edge technologies in the United States, drones have crossed over from military to domestic use. Military drones appear like airplanes and are used to explore and survey landscapes or deliver missiles and bombs. Domestic drones look more like hobby helicopters and carry small cameras...

This coming season McDonnell plans to survey his corn and soybeans with his Phantom. (more)

The Littlest Eavesdropper

A new computer chip invented by researchers from Columbia University allows scientists to "listen in" on bacteria, as they exchange information between individual cells. Integrated circuit (IC) technology allows biologists to record images from the bacteria, as well as "listen in" to what they are saying. (more)

...and, on the other end of the spectrum...

Scientists can now spy on whales from space.
There are two ways of looking at this story. One is as a triumph of new technology: Using high-resolution satellites, scientists can identify and track whales without disturbing them in any way. The other is as a tale of space voyeurism: Scientists are spying on whales from the sky. And not just spying on whales — spying on whales while there was a good chance the whales were doing it. (more)

DIY Surveillance - Home Brew Vehicle Tracker (Cheap)

• Grab an old cell phone (make sure it has GPS).
• Turn on its Internet access.
• Tweak the settings. Presumably, you're only going to use this for vehicle tracking. Set the ringer volume to 0 and mute the keypad.
• Next step is choosing a tracking/mapping service. InstaMapper (free) or AccuTracking (about $6/month)
• The final step is the trickiest. For real 24/7 tracking, you'll need to hardwire the phone to your car's battery. (more)

Covert Animal Cruelty Videos Induced Gags - Result... Ag Gag Bill No Gag

ID - Milk producers convinced state senators Tuesday to back a bill aiming to halt spying on their operations, a measure prompted by animal activists who captured cruelty at a southern Idaho dairy on film in July 2012.

The Agricultural Affairs Committee voted to back what proponents called an "agricultural security measure" — and what foes branded a heavy-handed and punitive response to groups seeking to expose horrendous abuses.

The industry-backed bill now goes to the full Senate for a vote. A Democrat, Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking of Boise, opposed the measure.

The legislation would put people who surreptitiously enter and record agricultural operations in jail for up to a year and slap them with a $5,000 fine. It would criminalize obtaining records from dairies or other agricultural operations by force or misrepresentation, as well as lying on a farm's employment application. (more)

Muckracking used to prompt decent laws...
Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968), was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle (1906). It exposed conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.[1] (more)

Dutch Minister Admits Lying on Eavesdropping

Netherlands - A Dutch cabinet minister faced calls to quit on Tuesday after admitting he wrongly told parliament that 1.8 million telecommunications intercepts had been collected by the US National Security Agency, rather than the Dutch spy service.

The departure of Internal Affairs Minister Ronald Plasterk would come at a bad time for Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s coalition government. It is polling near its lowest level since taking power in November 2012...

Plasterk wrote on Monday in a letter to parliament that it was the Dutch intelligence service, not the NSA, that had collected the so-called metadata. (more)

But we already knew this seven years ago. (more) 
And again last year. (more)

UPDATE:
The Dutch branch of British telecom company Vodafone has taken a stand on privacy by asking various Dutch ministries for permission to disclose the number of demands it receives for wiretapping, the telecom company announced in a statement Wednesday.

"We want to invest in a healthy ICT future by providing information to our costumers about what we do with data," Vodafone wrote in the statement. 

"But if you really want to boost consumer confidence, the government should be more transparent," Vodafone added.

Wiretap Conviction Overturned for Founder of CopBlock.org

NH - The state's highest court has reversed the wiretapping convictions of the founder of a police watchdog group who secretly recorded conversations with Manchester police and school officials. (more)

Business Eavesdropping: Bugged Bra Company Employee Going for Bust

Scotland - A former employee of Ultimo bra tycoon Michelle Mone's company is suing for constructive dismissal after claiming the resignation of a director left him with an increased workload and some of his conversations were bugged.

Hugh McGinley is demanding compensation at a Glasgow employment tribunal for loss of earnings after he resigned from MJM International in March last year.

Mr Kilday's bugging has been accepted by MJM, which is now known as Ultimo Brands International, but lawyers claim they were recording his conversations with operations director Scott Kilday because they feared he was betraying company secrets. (more)

2007 and Still Smokin'

Researchers have uncovered a sophisticated cyber spying operation that has been alive since at least 2007 and uses techniques and code that surpass any nation-state spyware previously spotted in the wild.

The attack, dubbed “The Mask” by the researchers at Kaspersky Lab in Russia who discovered it, targeted government agencies and diplomatic offices and embassies, before it was dismantled last month. It also targeted companies in the oil, gas and energy industries as well as research organizations and activists. Kaspersky uncovered at least 380 victims in more than two dozen countries, with the majority of the targets in Morocco and Brazil.

The attack — possibly from a Spanish-speaking country — used sophisticated malware, rootkit methods and a bootkit to hide and maintain persistence on infected machines. The attackers sought not only to steal documents, but to steal encryption keys, data about a target’s VPN configurations, and Adobe signing keys, which would give the attackers the ability to sign .PDF documents as if they were the owner of the key. (more)

TSCM Find - Police Ombudsman Headquarters' Conference Room & Wi-Fi Bugged

Ireland - The headquarters of the Garda Ombudsman Commission has reportedly been targeted by a secret bugging operation. 

According to a report in today's Sunday Times, the watchdog's phone and internet were compromised in a highly sophisticated hacking incident...

The spying operation was uncovered when the Ombudsman hired security consultants to investigate whether its office had been bugged.
The investigation found that a phone in a meeting room had been rigged to eavesdrop on confidential conversations.

The room was used to hold case conferences related to investigations being carried out by the commission.

The Wi-Fi network at the Garda Ombudsman office had also been hacked - allowing emails and confidential material to be intercepted. (more)

UPDATE:
Mr Shatter has asked the Commission for a report on its decision to hire a British Security company last year to investigate if it had been placed under electronic surveillance.

A source within GSOC has confirmed to RTÉ that the company told it that it had found evidence of electronic surveillance in one of its meeting rooms and that its wi-fi system may have been compromised. (more)

Today's Chinese Espionage Revenge Had Roots in Tea (among other rip-offs)

Darjeeling tea, the Champaigne among teas, owes its genesis to an industrial espionage of epic proportions. Planned by the East India Co and executed by a daring Scot, the early 19th century operation gave the world the thin-bodied, light-colored infusion with a floral aroma that is revered by tea connoisseurs the world over. 

British tea expert Malcolm Ferris-Lay said...

"For nearly 200 years, the East India Co sold opium (derived from Papaver Soniferum) to China and bought tea with the proceeds... in May 1848, Robert Fortune (born in Eldrom village in Berwickshire, Scotland) was approached by East India Co to collect valuable information on tea industry in China.

"Fortune learned Mandarin, shaved his head, adopted a pigtail as worn by Manchus, dressed in local clothes and disguised himself as a Chinese from a distant province. He sneaked into remote areas of Fujian and Jiangsu province, forbidden parts of China. Fortune managed to collect 20,000 plants and seedlings and had then transported it to Kolkata in Wardian cases, small greenhouses which kept the plants healthy due to condensation within the case," Ferris-Lay explained.

These seedlings were planted in Darjeeling and grew into bushes that over the time produced the unique tea. "Many of the teas that Fortune brought back perished. But the knowledge that he brought back from China together with plants were instrumental in what is today a huge flourishing tea industry in India," he said. (more)

Swiss Swatch on Swish Laws in Russia. Neutral. And by the way U.S...

The eccentric chief executive officer of Swatch Group (Nick Hayek), one of the world's top watchmakers, was so incensed by recent allegations of mass U.S. spying that he chastised a top New York official over the matter in a letter late last year... 

Hayek's comments were released this week, along with those from five other companies that responded... (They were asked to take a stance against Russia's recent clampdown on gays ahead of the winter games in Sochi.)

Please make me one, Nick.

"As you claim you are an investor with Swatch Group you should be equally preoccupied about what has been publicized lately: the massive collection of data of the NSA worldwide including Switzerland," fumed Hayek, whose first language is not English, in a letter dated December 13.

"Swatch Group is an innovative industrial leader; at the heart of our success are very innovative products," Hayek continued. "The integrity of our confidential information is key to develop successful products. The practices that apparently have become a habit from organizations like the NSA can create huge damage to our company and our shareholders."
 
"As an investor you should have all interest to speak up loud about such potentially damaging practices coming from the USA," Hayek said. (more) (sing-a-long)