CA - In a secret test of mass surveillance technology, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department sent a civilian aircraft over Compton, California, capturing high-resolution video of everything that happened inside that 10-square-mile municipality.
Compton residents weren't told about the spying, which happened in 2012.
"We literally watched all of Compton during the times that we were flying, so we could zoom in anywhere within the city of Compton and follow cars and see people," Ross McNutt of Persistent Surveillance Systems told the Center for Investigative Reporting.
The technology he's trying to sell to police departments all over America can stay aloft for up to six hours. Like Google Earth, it enables police to zoom in on certain areas. And like TiVo, it permits them to rewind, so that they can look back and see what happened anywhere they weren't watching in real time. (more) (video)
Spying on plant communication with tiny bugs...
Internal communications in plants share striking similarities with those in animals, new research reveals. With the help of tiny insects, scientists were able to tap into this communication system. Their results reveal the importance of these communications in enabling plants to protect themselves from attack by insect pests. (more)
Scientists explore possibilities of mind reading...
At Yale University, researchers recently used a brain scanner to identify which face someone was looking at — just from their brain activity. At the University of California-Berkeley, scientists are moving beyond "reading" simple thoughts to predicting what someone will think next.
And at Carnegie Mellon, in Pittsburgh, cognitive neuroscientist Marcel Just has a vision that will make Google Glass seem very last century. Instead of using your eye to direct a cursor — finding a phone number for a car repair shop, for instance — he fantasizes about a device that will dial the shop by interpreting your thoughts about the car (minus the expletives).
Mind reading technology isn't yet where the sci-fi thrillers predict it will go, but researchers aren't ruling out such a future.
"In principle, our thoughts could someday be readable," said Just, who directs the school's Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging. (more)
Today, in many countries, espionage has become a paramount threat to business corporations. Asia Pacific is no exception to economic espionage where the act of information theft, misappropriation, acquisition of sensitive financial, business or trade data, stealing proprietary and technology information, receiving, purchasing, or possessing a trade secret is becoming rampant. Many think it is fine to do this...
Today espionage committed across the corporate landscape accounts for up to 100 billion US$ per year. This figure is a reflection of the premise: We know what we know but the total losses per annum are probably unknown.
The vast majority of espionage activities are conducted by employees of those companies or by contractors employed by them. Statistically, 75 percent of proprietary information is lost from physical actions (bugging and traditional tactics), rather than hacking...
This course is a comprehensive and practical workshop on Economic Espionage... designed for security and business professionals who recognize the critical importance of protecting their intellectual property and sensitive data to predators.
Today espionage is the most lethal bug that spreads faster than diseases and cripples businesses. If it is not the decision of the Senior Management than who else to plug the gaps and do the wrong right.
This specialized training will be held on 18-19 Jun 2014 in Australia, Sydney. (more)
According to The New York Times, anti-spyware apps don't work very well.
The reason...
Most "spyware detection" apps only scan for known spyware. New and well hidden spyware goes unnoticed, and detecting baseband eavesdropping (very serious) isn't even considered.
SPYWARN™ IS DIFFERENT
(patent pending)
SpyWarn™ 2.0 is a new and unique forensic methodology. It provides the functionality to detect all active spyware by monitoring what the infection is doing, and... ALL spyware is doing something.
Plus, SpyWarn™ 2.0 detects both spyware and baseband eavesdropping in real-time.
Not just spyware detection...
This forensic app also contains an eBook version of, "Is My Cell Phone Bugged?" at no extra charge. This informative eBook is about regaining your overall communications privacy, and keeping snoops out of your life.
A forensic examination by a specialist generally costs between $200.00 - $300.00 per inspection, and the end result is not as informative as SpyWarn™.
SpyWarn™ 2.0 is priced to help everyone, only $2.99.
Don't wait until you have a spyware problem. Get SpyWarn™ on your phone now. Start conducting benchmark tests and saving them to SpyWarn's History file. When you do get a spyware infection it will be very apparent.
Privacy Policy - We are serious about privacy. Only you get to see the data SpyWarn™ collects; it never leaves your phone.
100% Satisfaction Guarantee
Try SpyWarn™ for 7 days. If you are not satisfied with its performance, tell me why so I can improve it, and I will refund the full purchase price to you. You keep the app and eBook.
If SpyWarn™ helps you, help others regain their privacy by writing a positive review on Google Play.
Thank you,
Kevin D. Murray CPP, CISM, CFE, MPSC
and The SpyWarn™ Team
Turkey - AK Party officials decided not to hold their biannual meeting at the Asya Termal, a hotel run by a Gülen Movement affiliate, over concerns that the venue may be bugged.
The hotel in Ankara's Kızılcahamam district was the traditional venue for the biannual consultation meetings of AK Party members until after private conversations in the previous meeting were secretly recorded and leaked.
Gülenists are also accused of secretly recording private meetings at hotel rooms via hidden cameras. (more)
Germany - A Cold War relic lies abandoned on top of a mountain made of rubble,
built over a Nazi college that couldn't be destroyed after the end of
World War II.
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The gates of the former US spy station are locked and
secure; its perimeter sealed by an uncompromising high fence, an angry
crisscross mesh of wires that clearly imply: “Eintritt Verboten!”
Welcome to Teufelsberg, literally “Devil's Mountain,”
a hill reaching 114.7 meters above sea-level, made from an estimated 12
million cubic meters of war rubble (apparently about 400,000 bombed
houses) pushed together in the north of the Grunewald forest in West
Berlin. (more) (video)
Canada - Driving aimlessly along country roads you never know what you will come across, and earlier this week while looking for visiting snowy owls, we came across something that seemed worthy of investigation. A lone government sign in a farmer’s field north of Richmond, simply labeled “Area 9” with a locked gate to a long abandoned road...
“The site was part of a Cold War Project for over the horizon radio detection finding, likely used to listen to embassy communications. It consisted of a very large array of receiver antennas laid out in a NS and EW axis. The array was almost a mile long and antennae wiring fed back to a building south along the lane-way.” (more)
...and David W. Brown chronicles...
5 Spy Tunnels From Around the World
The Belkin Secure Web Camera Adapter is designed to securely connect USB web cameras to computers in a secure environment. It is the perfect security solution where classified or sensitive information is presented in an environment where computers are present.
A time-limited activation button disconnects the web camera’s USB connection when it is not actively used, making it impossible to keep the web camera active when a video call is not in progress. The user must periodically press the button to extend the video call if needed.
The Belkin Secure Web Camera Adapter is easy and intuitive to operate, and should be used whenever web cameras are used in boardrooms, offices, and other areas where sensitive conversations take place. (more)
Note: This product was announced March 5th, but does not appear in any on-line stores as of today.
Turkey - Investigations carried out by the MİT concluded how the recordings were made and exposed, and who was responsible for them. It appears that a lower-level official working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and affiliated with the Gülen Movement placed a bugging device in a phone located in Davutoğlu's office and removed it immediately after the meeting concluded.
The issue will reportedly be taken to the courts once all the details are finalized by the MİT's investigation. (more)
UK - A spying scandal has rocked the English Premier League, with Cardiff City demanding its defeat against Crystal Palace earlier this month be wiped from the record.
The Welsh club has delivered a five-page letter to Premier League officials claiming that Palace manager Tony Pullis was given the exact starting line-up Cardiff would play several days before the teams met on April 5.
And Cardiff didn’t pull any punches in the letter, pointing the finger squarely at Palace sporting director Iain Moody as the man that obtained the team sheet...
How was it all uncovered? The BBC reports that Moody “accidentally” texted the line-up to Crystal Palace legend Dougie Freedman, who happens to be a friend of Cardiff manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. He called him to let him know that the opposition had received inside information. (more)
Our mission (should you choose to accept it) is to provide your group with some competitive outdoor fun!
Espionage is a game designed for companies and groups looking for an exciting event to inspire and engage. It is particularly effective as a team-building platform. The event is a hi-tech and fast paced treasure hunt around the City-Centre, that involves various gadgets, tasks and challenges. All of the action is tracked online so the teams can follow their progress using our special mapping scoreboard. Strong teamwork and tactics are essential in order to win the challenge. Both the half day mission and full day mission events are available. (more)
The Allegheny County district attorney will drop a disorderly conduct conviction being appealed by a high school student who recorded others who bullied him.
The prosecutor's decision Wednesday comes a day after South Fayette High School student, Christian Stanfield, publicly criticized the charge.
Township police charged Stanfield with violating the state's wiretapping law for using his iPad to record the taunts of other students in February. (more) (original post) (more coverage)
Romania's prime minister has moved out of his office because he believes the country's president has bugged his phone.
Victor Ponta cleared his desk in an office in the defense ministry to escape the alleged surveillance
by President Traian Basescu.
It is the latest development in a bitter feud between the two politicians. (more)
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that his country is not conducting mass wiretapping of its citizens...
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"Certainly, we do not take liberty of such a vast scale, an uncontrolled scale. Hopefully, we will never take this liberty," Putin said in his four-hour live chat with Russian citizens. "Besides, we do not have the hardware and funds the United States currently possesses..." (more)
via BlackBerry World...
"This app allows users to remotely control their BlackBerry 10 device using commands sent via email messages.
For example if the user has to lend their device to a friend or family for a period of time. In the meantime, the user would still like to know if there are any messages that came for them, or would still like to access some files that are stored in the device file system but since they do not have their device, they are currently out of reach. With this app, the user can simply send commands to the device to fetch this information even while they do not physically have access to the device.
Another example of a use case is if the user loses their phone, or misplaces it somewhere but they are in urgent need of their messages and some files stored in the file system. They might also want to actually track down where their phone is by using additional means outside of BlackBerry? Protect. For example, they might want to hear the background noise around where the phone is currently to help narrow down where the phone may have been placed..." (rolls eyes)
Two of the many features:
-Spy tools: Remotely turn on/off microphone and get live feed.
-Commands can be sent from anywhere as long as the device has access to the mailbox. This means no additional installation of any other software or plugins is necessary!
Permissions Explanation:
1) Calendar: App uses this to process the 'calendar' commands to let you access your calendar events remotely.
2) Camera: App uses this to process the 'flash' command to access the camera and turn on the flashlight.
3) Contacts: App uses this to process the 'contact' query commands to let you access your contact details remotely.
4) Email/PIN Messages: App uses this to monitor your target inbox to actually listen for command messages and reply to them with the requested data.
5) GPS Location/Location: App uses this to process the 'location' commands to let you access your device's location remotely.
6) Microphone: App uses this to process the 'mic' commands to let you access your device's microphone to record audio remotely.
7) Shared Files: App uses this to process the 'get' commands to let you access your files and media remotely.
8) Text Messages: App uses this to process the 'unread sms' commands to let you access your unread SMS messages remotely.
(more) (video)
Why do I mention this?
So you will know what you're up against.
You probably don't even own a BlackBerry, but if you are in a meeting and somebody else does, beware.
• Don't talk behind their back when they go to the restroom and leave their BlackBerry behind. They may have a second phone in their other pocket.
• Be aware they may have an accomplice remotely recording the meeting.
• Be skeptical if you hear, "Oh, I left my phone in your office/car by mistake."
Former American college student Glenn Duffie Shriver studied abroad in Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
There, he became a target of Chinese intelligence services and crossed the line when he agreed to participate in espionage-type activity.
He pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit espionage for a foreign government and was sentenced to a four-year term in federal prison.
This video contains excerpts from a prison cell interview where Shriver tells his own story, and warns U.S. students about the foreign intelligence threat. (more)
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