Hamas Claims: We Trapped a Dolphin Spying for Israel

Hamas claimed on Wednesday that the terrorist organization trapped a dolphin that was spying for Israel.

Sources in Gaza say that the dolphin was outfitted with spyware and cameras, Army Radio reports. Israel has not confirmed that it has a dolphin spying on its behalf. more

Dressing Room SpyCam'er Convicted - Taped over 30 Females

NY - A Victor businessman is slapped with the maximum sentence after illegally videotaping dozens women in and outside his store.

At least nine women spoke directly to Glen Siembor in court today. Calling him a despicable man.

Glen Siembor was sentenced to 5-15 years for video tapping over 30 females anywhere from the ages of 8 to 49...

Siembor was convicted of 33 counts of 2nd degree unlawful surveillance and one count of possession of child pornography.

Many of his videos were taken in his victor shop's dressing room.. With the victims either nude or partially nude stood. more

Trashnet - Garbage Trucks with License Plate Readers

CA - San Jose may enlist garbage trucks as eyes on the ground for a short-staffed police force.

Equipping trash haulers with license plate readers would turn them into roving scouts for the San Jose Police Department. Already, the trucks travel every city street every single week, covering more ground than a cop car.

Mayor Sam Liccardo proposed the idea with support from council members Raul Peralez—a former policeman—and Johnny Khamis. more

Freaks Tattoo Owner Charged - Spied on Female Employee with (11) Hidden Cameras

MO - In March 2014, a 21-year-old woman who worked at, and lived in an apartment above, Nu Troost Tattoo (4101 Troost) discovered an intricate system of wires and hidden cameras installed inside her apartment that led down to a computer in the basement of the building. When the police were called, they found 11 hidden video cameras in the apartment. Four had been installed in the tenant's bathroom, including one with a view of the shower and one facing the toilet.

The building and the business were owned by a 47-year-old man named Rodney Sanell, who also owned the three branches of Freaks Tattoo and Piercing: Freaks on Broadway, Freaks on 39th, and Freaks on Noland. The woman told police that Sanell had been in her apartment to install smoke detectors while she was out of town the previous October. She also said Sanell had sexually propositioned her several times — advances she had rebuffed.

As we reported at the time, the discovery shook up the local tattoo community. Some Freaks tattoo artists quit on principle, some had to scramble to find new jobs, and others — who had nothing to do with Sanell's activity — tried to repair the Freaks public image.

Today, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker announced that Sanell will face 42 counts of invasion of privacy for using cameras to "observe victims in states of full or partial nudity without their knowledge," Baker's office says. Five victims — names withheld — are listed in the complaint.  more

Tapes Released - Eavesdropping on Henry Kissinger's Telephone Conversations

CIA director William Colby’s openness about more odious U.S. intelligence practices did not go over well with Henry Kissinger.

Speaking on the phone with McGeorge Bundy, the National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Kissinger referred to Colby as a “psychopath.”

[A film by the son of CIA spymaster William Colby has divided the Colby clan]

The two men were chatting about congressional investigations into the CIA activities post-Watergate and worried about leaks and misinformation.

“On top of it you have the pysopath(sic)/running the CIA. You accuse him of a traffic violation and he confesses murder,” Kissinger said in the June 1975 telephone conversation. Colby, Loop fans will recall, was replaced soon after as director of CIA by George H.W. Bush.

That conversation is part of 900 final Kissinger phone transcripts from the Gerald Ford administration released Wednesday by the National Security Archive, which sued the State Department in March to have them released. For history buffs the tapes are precious gold... more

...thus making future eavesdropping devices infinitely more effective.

Although the ability tends to wane as we get older, the human auditory system is pretty good at filtering out background noise and making a single voice able to be understood above the general hubbub of a crowded room.

But electronic devices, such as smartphones, aren't quite as gifted, which is why getting Siri or Google Now to understand you in crowded environments can be an exercise in futility. But now researchers have developed a prototype sensor that’s not only able to figure out the direction of a particular sound, but can also extract it from background noise.

To create the sensor, scientists at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina used a class of materials known as metamaterials, which boast properties not found in nature, and a signal processing technique known as compressive sensing. The disk-shaped device is made of plastic and doesn't have any electronic or moving parts. Rather, it features a honeycomb-like structure and is split into dozens of slices which each feature a unique pattern of cavities of different depths. It is these cavities that distort the sound waves and give the sensor its unique capabilities. more 

See Through Walls by the Glow of Your Wi-Fi

Researchers at University College London (UCL) have devised a system for detecting the Doppler shifts of ubiquitous Wi-Fi and mobile telephone signals to “see” people moving, even behind masonry walls 25 centimeters thick. 

The method, which could be useful in situations from hostage-takings to traffic control, won the Engineering Impact Award in the RF and Communications category at this National Instrument’s NI Week 2015 meeting (which convened in Austin, Tex., 3-9 August). more

Related...

Wi-Vi Sees Movement Behind Walls Using Cheap Wi-Fi Tech (2013)

Wireless Network Signals Produce See-Through Walls (2009)

Secrets: Managing Information Assets in the Age of Cyberespionage

The following is from Jim Pooley’s new book on trade secrets — Secrets: Managing Information Assets in the Age of Cyberespionage.

Bankrupt networking giant Nortel reveals that its key executives’ email passwords were stolen and the company’s network hacked for a decade.

Boeing, hiring away Lockheed employees who bring documents to their new employer, pays $615 million to avoid criminal prosecution, while two of its former managers are indicted.

Apple scrambles to recover a sample of its unreleased new model iPhone that was left by an employee in a bar – a year after the same thing happened in a different bar.

Starwood employees leave to join Hilton, taking with them ideas for a new kind of hotel.

And the owner of Thomas’ English Muffins goes to court to protect its “nooks and crannies” recipe from being used by a competitor.

What do these corporate crises all have in common? Trade secrets. They reflect the enormous value of – and threats to – the most important assets of modern business...

Reading my new book — Secrets: Managing Information Assets in the Age of Cyberespionage — will give you a deeper understanding of how your business differentiates itself from the competition, and how it must work to keep its edge. As an executive or manager or small-business owner you will come away armed to protect and exploit your company’s advantages. As an individual you will have a greater appreciation for what intellectually belongs to you and how to use it to advance your career without being sued. And whatever your interest or line of work, you will have a much better understanding of how information has become the global currency of the 21st century.

J. Wallace LaPrade, New York F.B.I. Chief in ’70s, Dies at 89

J. Wallace LaPrade, who oversaw the safe return of several celebrity kidnapping victims and was later fired as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York chief, accused of not being forthcoming about the bureau’s role in illegally investigating radical groups in the 1970s, died on July 31 in Lexington, Va. He was 89. more 
(Thank you for giving me what I needed to get through college.)

NEW Cyber-Flashing - Thus proving there is a first time for everything.

Police are investigating a "new" crime of cyber-flashing after a commuter received an indecent image on her phone as she traveled to work. The victim received two pictures of an unknown man's (you know what) on her phone via Apple's Airdrop sharing function.

Lorraine Crighton-Smith, 34, said she felt "violated" and reported it to the British Transport Police (BTP). Supt Gill Murray said this particular crime was new to her force and urged people to report any other incidents. more

Four Things You Didn’t Know Could Be Hacked

At two big hacking conferences in Las Vegas over the past week, security pros revealed new vulnerabilities in daily items we never considered security risks. These events serve as annual displays of the latest hacking tricks.

Rifles 
The Austin, Texas-based company TrackingPoint makes auto-aiming rifles that increase a shooter’s accuracy and have Wi-Fi connectivity. Within the 100- to 150-feet range of the Wi-Fi and using a mobile phone, a hacker can compromise the weapon and change the target of the shooter, says Runa Sandvik, one of the researchers who presented at the annual hacker gathering Def Con last week.

In a demonstration for Wired, Sandvik and a research partner finagled with a rifle’s software to shift aim 2.5 feet to the left, hitting a different target...

Electronic skateboards 
Electric skateboards can make your ride smoother — until the board no longer listens to your controls and throws you off. Two researchers developed a hack they dubbed “FacePlant,” which gave them total control over digital skateboards by manipulating the Bluetooth connection.

An attacker could force the skateboard to connect to a laptop and then stop the board, alter its direction or disable its brakes.

Death records 
It’s pretty simple to kill someone off — at least on paper — Chris Rock, chief executive officer and founder of the security company Kustodian, showed in a presentation at Def Con. Using information found online, anyone can complete state electronic death records, Rock found, and then register to become a funeral director online to complete a certificate of death.

Why kill someone off officially, but not physically? For revenge against an ex-partner or a jerk boss, according to Rock’s presentation, or to enjoy the insurance benefits or access elderly parents’ estates.

Teslas
We already know that the modern car is like a smartphone on wheels in that it’s susceptible to hack attacks like any other connected device... What they found: Teslas are, in fact, built with more security in mind than the average vehicle. But they also found several vulnerabilities, and were able to remotely open and close trunks, lock and unlock doors and stop a Tesla, depending on what speed it was being driven at.

The researchers worked with Tesla, and Tesla automatically pushed an update to all the cars so drivers could patch the vulnerabilities within one to two weeks — unlike other car companies, which have had to issue recalls on vehicles with security flaws.  more

Four Reasons To See ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'

• 60’s Cool Spy Style
• The Action
• Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki and Hugh Grant
• Perfect Soundtrack
more

Four Signs Your Boss Is Spying on You

Chances are, your boss is keeping an eye on you. Forty-three percent of companies actively monitor employee emails, according to the American Management Association (AMA), and roughly the same number track the time you spend on the phone and who you call (16% go so far as to record those calls). Nearly half of companies say they use video to reduce theft and workplace sabotage...

1. You’re secretly planning to quit – and your boss already knows
More companies, including Credit Suisse and AOL, are mining big data to make predictions about which employees are likely to leave their job in the near future. VoloMetrix, Inc., an analytics firm, examined employee emails and calendar data and discovered that it could predict up to a year in advance who would be putting in their notice, the Wall Street Journal reported...

2. You’re called out for a conversation that you thought was private
If your boss reprimands you for a less-than-professional conversation or email exchange that you thought was private, there’s a chance you have a tattletale co-worker. Or your supervisor may be spying on you, perhaps by scanning your email, monitoring your phone conversations, or even looking at the text messages you send on your work-issued device. If they’re using a key-logging program or other monitoring software, they may even know what you’re saying in your personal emails.

3. Your boss knows what you did this weekend before you tell him
Does your boss seem to know an awful lot about your personal life? He or she could be checking out your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other social media profiles, even if you haven’t added him to your network or given him your password (something that some employers really do ask for, though laws about that are changing). Stalking your public profiles is a bit creepy, but it’s not all that unusual...

4. There’s some suspicious software on your devices
If your company’s IT department is monitoring your computer use, it’s not always going to be immediately obvious. However, you can poke around on your desktop to see if there are any telltale signs of monitoring software (Online Tech Tips has some advice on how to do that, if you’re so inclined). The same goes for unusual apps installed on smartphones... more

Spying Claim New Headache for SeaWorld

Accusations of spying have put a new twist on the battle between SeaWorld Entertainment and animal-welfare activists, which experts say could cause more trouble for the theme-park company.

Orlando-based SeaWorld has opened an investigation and placed an employee on paid leave after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals accused the employee of attending protests posing as an activist...

It's not unheard of for both corporations and nonprofits to gather intelligence on critics or competitors, said Kirk O. Hanson, executive director of Santa Clara University's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

"To me, the line is crossed when one presents oneself deceptively and certainly is crossed when one tries to incite violent action," Hanson said.

Typically companies that snoop on critics hire outside firms to put some distance between them and the surveillance, said Gary Ruskin, who authored a 2013 report on corporate espionage for a nonprofit citizen-activism organization, Essential Information.

If management encouraged its own employee to spy, Ruskin said, "it's espionage incompetence on the part of SeaWorld." more

Government-Level Spy Gear Found Used for Blackmail and Bid Rigging

South Africa - In what has been described as a serious compromise of the sovereignty of the state, three men appeared in court this week after they were found in possession of a super-spying device which can tap into more than 10 000 phones and eavesdrop on conversations from as far as 3km away.

The discovery is creating sleepless nights for South African intelligence officials and the police, as the men allegedly acquired the device with the help of government officials.

The Sunday Independent understands the device has been used to bug top politicians, cabinet ministers and prominent business people who do business with the government.

The men behind the acquisition of this powerful device had been using it for almost a year.

They apparently used it to manipulate and blackmail people in powerful positions, as well as sway multibillion-rand tenders in state institutions. more more