Off-Hook Telecoms Call for Attorneys' Fees - Disconnected

AT&T, Verizon and other telecoms cannot recover attorneys' fees after ducking claims that they overcharged for electronic surveillance, a federal judge ruled.

Former New York Deputy Attorney General John Prather had filed the lawsuit on behalf of the U.S. government, claiming that AT&T, Verizon, Qwest Communications International and Sprint Nextel overcharged federal, state and city governments for services under the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Agencies Act (CALEA), which requires the companies to provide the government with electronic surveillance of their customers in exchange for reasonable expenses.

Prather claimed to have "observed eavesdropping charges increase tenfold after CALEA despite changes in technology that should have made it easier for Telecoms to provide wiretaps, and believed that the Telecoms were overcharging for wiretaps." (more)

Wiretapping Case Costs South Bend, IN almost $1 Million... so far

Summary: Former police communications director KarenDePaepe was fired in 2012 in the wake of an investigation into whether she and Chief Boykins violated the federal Wiretap Act by recording certain telephone conversations between Metro Homicide Commander Tim Corbett, officers Steve Richmond, David Wells and Brian Young and Young’s wife Sandy Young.
Timeline of the case.
TV report.

Brazil, Europe Plan Undersea Cable to Skirt Spying

Brazil and the European Union agreed on Monday to lay an undersea communications cable from Lisbon to Fortaleza to reduce Brazil’s reliance on the United States after Washington spied on Brasilia.

At a summit in Brussels, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said the $185 million cable project was central to “guarantee the neutrality” of the Internet, signaling her desire to shield Brazil’s Internet traffic from U.S. surveillance. (more)

Shhhh... Apparently, they missed reading this, this 1918 experiment and this modern day story. Not to mention... Operation Ivy Bells, Operation Tempora and Glimmerglass.

Computer Allegedly Bugged by Ethiopians

A Maryland man is suing the Ethiopian government after it was discovered that it infected his computer with spyware, wiretapped his calls made via Skype, and monitored his family’s computers for months.

"We have clear evidence of a foreign government secretly infiltrating an American's computer in America, listening to his calls, and obtaining access to a wide swath of his private life," said Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Nate Cardozo. 

"The current Ethiopian government has a well-documented history of human rights violations against anyone it sees as political opponents. (more)

Turkish Watergate - Surprise - The Guard Gets Blamed for Bugging the Place

Turkey - A police officer only known as S.D., allegedly responsible for placing a bugging device in Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's study inside his Ankara residence, has reportedly been working as a bodyguard for Saudi Arabian businessman Yasin al-Qadi, the Taraf daily claimed on Tuesday.

“It has come out that S.D., who has been accused in connection with the bugging device discovered in Prime Minister Erdoğan's Ankara house, was assigned to protect Yasin al-Qadi,” Emre Uslu wrote in his Taraf column, which was also the daily's headline story.

Four covert listening devices, as Erdoğan explained in December 2012, had been discovered in the office of his Subayevleri home in Ankara, without detailing exactly when the devices had been found, adding that an investigation was being launched. (more)

Netflix New Drone Delivery Service

Another nail in the Post Office's Coffin...
 
Sorry, this just couldn't wait until April 1st.

Going Down - Goldman Elevator Eavesdropper Exposed

The author of the anonymous Twitter feed purportedly recounting conversations in the elevators of Goldman Sachs has been unmasked as a former bond executive living in Texas who has never worked at the bank. The revelation hasn't affected John Lefevre's six-figure book deal with Simon & Schuster based on the feed @GSElevator. (more)

"My ankle bracelets are so good, I wear one myself!"

CA - FBI agents arrested a Mexican tycoon named Jose Susumo Azano Matsura at his Coronado, Calif. home on Wednesday as part of a political bribery investigation based on captured emails, seized banking records, and covertly recorded conversations.

The unfolding scandal is soaked in irony: Azano is a surveillance evangelist whose company won a secret, no-bid contract with the Mexican military for computer and mobile phone hacking and spying technology in 2011. He is chairman of a company called Security Tracking Devices SA de CV, and he is now chained to a tracking device—on house arrest. (more)

Privacy Art that Tells You a Story... really

This company (lithographs.com) turns the text of various books into a piece of appropriately themed text-art and makes lithographs, tees and tote-bags out of it. 

Cory Doctorow announced that the company has produced a line of Lithographs based on his novel Little Brother, with a gorgeous anti-surveillance design by Benjy Brooke. (more)

via wikipedia.com...
Little Brother is a novel by Cory Doctorow, published by Tor Books. It was released on April 29, 2008. The novel is about four teenagers in San Francisco who, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack on the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge and BART system, defend themselves against the Department of Homeland Security's attacks on the Bill of Rights. The novel is available for free on the author's website under a Creative Commons license, keeping it accessible to all.

The book debuted at No. 9 on The New York Times Best Seller list, children's chapter book section, in May 2008. As of July 2, it had spent a total of six weeks on the list, rising to the No. 8 spot. Little Brother won the 2009 White Pine Award, the 2009 Prometheus Award. and the 2009 John W. Campbell Memorial Award. It also was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel. Little Brother received the Sunburst Award in the young adult category. 

The New York Times says, “Little Brother isn't shy about its intent to disseminate subversive ideas to a young audience. The novel comes with two afterword essays by cryptographer and computer security specialist Bruce Schneier, and hacker Andrew "bunnie" Huang, and has a bibliography of techno-countercultural writings, from Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" to Schneier’s "Applied Cryptography." (more)

Blackphone - A Smartphone That Keeps Its Mouth Shut

via the Blackphone store...
Blackphone. The high-end smartphone which puts privacy and security ahead of everything else.

Blackphone includes a unique combination of operating system and application tools which offer unparalleled security and privacy to information workers, executives, public figures, and anyone else unwilling to cede ownership of their privacy to other authorities. Blackphone's PrivatOS, built on Android™, and combined with a full suite of privacy-enabled applications, allows users to regain control over their communications activities. 

No longer will the use of a smartphone demand acceptance of unauthorized surveillance, commercial exploitation of activity data, and the loss of privacy, security and fundamental human rights...

Selling for US$629 (plus shipping and any local taxes or duties for the destination address), Blackphone is a real no-excuses solution for traveling executives looking to BYOD...

Blackphone comes unlocked and features several pre-installed privacy tools, all of which are fully enabled for at least two years of usage. These tools include the Silent Circle suite of apps, including Silent Phone, Silent Text, and Silent Contacts; anonymous search, private browsing, and VPN from Disconnect; and secure cloud file storage from SpiderOak. In addition, Blackphone ships with the Smart WiFi Manager from Mike Kershaw, Chief Architect for SGP Technologies, and a powerful remote-wipe and device recovery tool. (more)

Guzman Trapped By Tap

After fruitlessly pursuing one of the world's top drug lords for years, authorities finally drew close to Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman using a cellphone found at a house where drugs were stored. 

The phone belonging to a Guzman aide was recovered with clues from a U.S. wiretap and provided a key break in the long chase to find Guzman, officials told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Another big leap forward came after police analyzed information from a different wiretap that pointed them to a beachfront condo where the legendary leader of the Sinaloa cartel was hiding, according to a U.S. government official and a senior federal law enforcement official. (more)

Privacy Hero - Keep Your Snooping Nose Out of My Car

NY - Sen. Chuck Schumer is calling on federal regulators to set guidelines to protect consumers as car companies collect personal information through “smart car” technology and sell it to third parties.

The New York Democrat announced Sunday that he’s asking the Federal Trade Commission and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to establish guidelines requiring carmakers to notify drivers when they are being tracked and allow drivers to opt out from sharing information. (more)

Ireland's Watergate Reveals Bug Sweeps (TSCM) are Common Business Practice

Ireland - The Department of Finance and the National Treasury Management Agency carry out regular sweeps to ensure they are not subject to any bugging or surveillance.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan confirmed the steps were taken due to the commercial sensitivity of issues being discussed within the department... Mr Noonan said he was “aware of the importance of maintaining security given the commercially sensitive meetings held in the department and the sensitive information held by the department”...

A spokesman for the NTMA said it also carries out sweeps.

“Given the sensitivity of the business activities of the NTMA and its various linked business units, including Nama, the agency carries out regular, comprehensive security checks, including sweeps for any evidence of bugging. ” (more)

Business Espionage: Casino Caught Spying - Fine $1 million

NV - The commission considered a two-count complaint by the Gaming Control Board against Peppermill Casinos Inc., which owns operations in Reno, Sparks, Henderson and Wendover, for sending out an employee to illegally gather information on the slot machine win percentages of its competitors. The complaint also recommended a $1 million fine. 

The complaint alleged that since 2011, Peppermill employee Ryan Tors had a slot machine "reset" key that allowed him to enter the slots in other competitors to determine the amount of hold — the amount kept by casinos on wagers.

On July 12, hotel security officers at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno caught Tors using a reset key at their property. An investigation revealed that, beginning at least in 2011, Tors had used the reset key to obtain the information in 10 other casinos in the Reno-Sparks and Wendover areas. (more)

FutureWatch: Your Visitors are Spying, Just by Walking Around

Google on Thursday unveiled Project Tango, an effort to "give mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion" using a combination of robotics and computer vision.

The project has a prototype phone loaded with sensors and software "designed to track the full 3D motion of the device, while simultaneously creating a map of the environment," the Project Tango leader Johnny Lee said in a blog post. (more)



FutureWatch...
Smartphone business espionage spy tools are coming. A visitor to your organization will be able to walk out with a floor map, record the sounds of your manufacturing process (for later analysis), and use other sensors to gather competitive intelligence. And, they won't be as obvious as the folks you saw in the video.

Security Directors: I wasn't kidding. It is time to create a Surreptitious Workplace Recording Policy. 
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