Facilities Managers: Everything You Need to Know about Counterespionage Bug Sweeps

You know everything about managing facilities, but a request from management to debug your building can throw even the most seasoned FM for a loop. With the help of an outside professional, you can ensure speech privacy and business security.

Business espionage is a growing concern, yet it’s mistakenly thought of as an IT department problem. The reality is that the information IT protects is vulnerable to theft long before it is put into the computer – what people talk about and with whom provides the most valuable information.

Electronic eavesdropping has also become cheap and easy. Spy gadgets, such as bug transmitters, micro voice recorders, and covert video cameras, were once expensive and hard to come by. All are now available online for under $100. Some even use Wi-Fi, Internet, and cell phone networks as communication conduits.

Because building owners are focused on physical security, the chances are slim that a corporate spy will be detected or caught. A technical information security survey, however, can put an end to electronic eavesdropping and remote surveillance. (more) P.S. If you like the article, please give it a nice star rating, and have it help others via a social media plug. Thank you.

"OK, which one of you said 'coool'?"

The National Security Agency has built a surveillance system capable of recording “100 percent” of a foreign country’s telephone calls, enabling the agency to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place, according to people with direct knowledge of the effort and documents supplied by former contractor Edward Snowden. (more)

MIT's Crytophone Round-Up

Ever since Edward Snowden came forward with a trove of secret documents about the National Security Agency, business has been booming for Les Goldsmith, CEO of ESD America.

Goldsmith’s company sells a $3,500 “cryptophone” that scrambles calls so they can’t be listened in on. Until recently, the high-priced smartphone was something of a James Bond–style novelty item. But news of extensive U.S. eavesdropping on people including heads of state has sent demand from wary companies and governments soaring. “We’re producing 400 a week and can’t really keep up,” says Goldsmith...

For the most part, consumers haven’t joined the security rush. According to Gartner, a firm that tracks technology trends, few have even purchased antivirus software for their phones. Sales of mobile security software are about $1 billion a year, a fraction what’s spent on desktops, even though mobile devices now outnumber PCs.

Yet secure communication products could eventually have mass appeal as consumers tire of being tracked online. Some of the most successful apps of the past year have featured self-destructing messages or anonymous bulletin boards. (more)

Officer 'Bugged Force Office' Without Permission

UK - A Greater Manchester Police officer has been accused of bugging a force room without authorization, as the police watchdog begins an investigating a range of allegations.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is investigating whether a GMP detective chief inspector bugged the office and whether their actions “put public safety at risk”. The force has confirmed the bugging took place, the watchdog said. (more)

"And there are plenty more court orders where that came from."

A South Korean intelligence agency official was arrested on charges of forging official documents for the spy agency's pursuit of an espionage case against a North Korean defector, prosecutors said Sunday. (more)

Spouse Spying a Sin... unless, of course, you have a good reason.

Kuwaiti religious scholar has said that checking a spouse's cell phone or computer without his or her permission amounts to committing a sin.

Ajeel Al Nashmi, the head of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Scholars' League, said that from the religious perspective, a spouse must not access his or her spouse's mobile phone or computer without his or her authorization, Gulf News reported.

He added that neither the wife nor the husband may spy on each other or check each other's emails or messages without a proper permission, and whoever does it is a sinner. 

The only exception is when there is strong and reasonable suspicion about unacceptable behavior, he said. (more)

Zuckerberg Calls Obama Over Spying

Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg blasted the U.S. government's electronic surveillance practices on Thursday, saying he'd personally called President Barack Obama to voice his displeasure. 

"When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government," Zuckerberg said in a post on his personal Facebook page.

"I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform," the 29-year-old Zuckerberg continued. (more)

Japan Vows to Tackle Corporate Spying

Japan vowed on Thursday to fight industrial espionage after domestic media reported technology and information from local companies, including chipmaker Toshiba Corp, had been leaked to rivals from other countries.

"Safeguarding Japan's cutting-edge technology and preventing leaks are extremely important," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters. "The government as a whole will respond to ensure that such a thing doesn't occur again."

Suga declined to discuss specific cases but several media outlets said police had arrested a former engineer at a Toshiba affiliate on suspicion of improperly providing technical data to South Korea's SK Hynix Inc.

The Nikkei newspaper also reported on Thursday that police had arrested in 2012 an unspecified number of people in Yokohama and Aichi for alleged leaks of industrial secrets to Chinese companies. (more)

So, the question is not what's in your wallet, but what's on your key ring...

via Futility Closet...
After observing security measures at a number of organizations, University of California psychologist Robert Sommer reflected that a person’s status seems to be tied to his keyring:


S is a person’s status within the organization, D is the number of doors he must open to perform his job, and K is the number of keys he carries. A janitor who can open 20 doors but must carry 20 keys has a status of 1; he’s outranked by a secretary who can open only two doors but can do it with a single key. A staff scientist who can open six doors or cupboards using two keys has status 3, and the lab director might open 15 doors with three keys, giving him a status score of 5.

They’re all outranked by the president of the company, who never has to carry keys at all, since there’s always someone around to open doors for him. “With a K of zero and a high D,” Sommer concluded wryly, “his status rank in the company reaches infinity.”

(“Keys, Kings and Kompanies,” from The Worm Runner’s Digest, 3:1 [March 1961], 52-54)

Chinese-Made Bugs in Demand in Vietnamese City

Bugging devices smuggled in from China are widely sold in Ho Chi Minh City though lawyers say their use is illegal. 

Also available on eBay.

A shopkeeper named Duong in an alley in District 3 offered a Thanh Nien reporter two bugging devices smaller than a matchbox for VND900,000 (US$43).

“They can hear clearly within a 15-30 meters radius,” he said, offering a 12-month guarantee.

One needs to buy a prepaid SIM card, an unregistered one which is also widely available illegally so that it cannot be traced, insert it into the device, and call to activate it, he said.

A call to that SIM card then will pick up sounds from around the device.

Another bug costing VND1.6 million automatically sends signals to one’s phone number when there is any noise in the vicinity.
 
But their prices vary largely around the city...
A company, only identified as N.N., rents an office building in Vo Van Tan Street to provide bugging services. 

Tai, a representative, said a full package of calls, messages, history of web browsing and online chats, images from a ’s mobile phone, and the location of the target costs VND10 million a year and VND3-4 million the second year. 


He said it only takes 15 minutes to install a software on the target’s mobile phone. An Internet connection is needed to activate the software, and once that is done all information from the phone is sent to the customer’s email. A contract is signed to offer a guarantee, he said. 

Several companies like Tai’s operate in the city, labeling themselves as detective agencies. (more)

Wiretapped Doctor Sues Med Center $5 Million+

GA - A trial date was set for September 15, 2014 in a highly publicized lawsuit alleging wiretapping and racketeering against Tanner Medical Center. An amended lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of Carroll County by law firm Gary Bunch, P.C. on behalf of prominent Atlanta physician Randy Warner, seeks monetary damages in excess of $5 million.

According to the lawsuit, Tanner Medical Center, a subsidiary of Tanner Health System, eavesdropped on a private telephone conversation of Warner and used the contents of that conversation to "coerce and functionally blackmail" him. In addition, the suit claims that Tanner interfered with Warner's business relationships and engaged in wire fraud, mail fraud and a pattern of racketeering that damaged Warner... (more)

Scientists Create a Real 'Cone of Silence'

Metamaterials are already being used to create invisibility cloaks and "temporal cloaks," but now engineers from Duke University have turned metamaterials to the task of creating a 3D acoustic cloak. 

In the same way that invisibility cloaks use metamaterials to reroute light around an object, the acoustic cloaking device interacts with sound waves to make it appear as if the device and anything hidden beneath it isn't there.

Steven Cummer, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and his colleagues at Duke University constructed their acoustic cloak using several sheets of plastic plates dotted with repeating patterns of holes. The plastic sheets, which were created using a 3D printer, were stacked on top of each other to form a device that resembles a pyramid in shape. 
 
The geometry of the sheets and the placement of the holes interact with sound waves to make it appear as if the device and anything sitting underneath it isn't there. (more)

The Comprehensive Guide to Facebook Privacy Settings

via techlicious.com...
The first thing you have to realize about Facebook: Nothing you put there is truly private.

Yes, you can control how users see or don’t see your profile. But every time you like a product or even look at a page, the company itself is taking note. This doesn’t mean that some day Facebook will malevolently release your every click to the world. But it does mean that Facebook is not your private diary, and what you do on the website gets collected and catalogued. That's worth keeping in mind whenever you use the service.

So let’s go over the various settings you can change to ensure pictures of your wacky jaunt to Vegas don’t end up at the top of your boss's news feed... (more)

Georgia On Their Mind

Georgia - NGOs are launching the campaign It Concerns You once again. After undertaking moves in terms of the election system in 2013, the current campaign aims at combating illegal eavesdropping and surveillance.

The organizers of the campaign demand creating a legal base against the action and systemic guarantees. According to them, the situation has not changed after the change of the government and the coalition leadership still owns a mechanism to eavesdrop on 21,000 people simultaneously.

Under the leadership of the previous government, special black boxes were installed at the headquarters of the mobile operators that enabled the Interior Minister of Georgia to eavesdrop on thousands of people. After the Georgian Dream coalition came to power, thousands of such illegal recordings and videos were destroyed. However, the black boxes still remain at the offices and the lever is still in hands of the MIA. (more)

Greek Eavesdropping News

Greece - Former PASOK minister Michalis Karchimakis, who is being charged in connection with a wiretapping scandal that showed the telephones of former Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and his cabinet were being listened to, has been released on one million euros bail and ordered not to leave the country. (more)

And, in other Greek eavesdropping news...
 

Théodore Jacques Ralli (Greek, 1852-1909) Eavesdropping 55.5 x 37 cm. Sold for £62,400 (US$ 103,675)