A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have assigned privacy grades to Android apps based on some techniques they to analyze to their privacy-related behaviors. Learn more here or browse their analyzed apps.
Grades are assigned using a privacy model that they built. This privacy model measures the gap between
people's expectations of an app's behavior and the app's actual behavior.
For example, according to
studies they conducted, most people don't expect games like Cut the Rope to use location data, but
many of them actually do. This kind of surprise is represented in their privacy model as a penalty to an
app’s overall privacy grade. In contrast, most people do expect apps like Google Maps to use location
data. This lack of surprise is represented in their privacy model as a small or no penalty. more
UK - Manchester United reportedly organised for their hotel to be searched for bugging devices prior to Saturday's match against arch rivals Liverpool...
According to the Manchester Evening News, security men used devices to check a meeting room at the Lowry Hotel before Van Gaal discussed tactics for the game.
The report adds that the Premier League giants have been checking hotels for more than a year after a bugging device was found in a meeting during the 2013-14 season. more
GA - A Valdosta police officer was out of a job as of Monday evening after being arrested for reportedly using a drone to eavesdrop on a neighbor.
Officer Howard Kirkland, 53, of Ray City, was fired Monday morning, Valdosta Police Chief Brian Childress confirmed.
He had been on suspension since September 4th. He was arrested at the police department by Lanier County Sheriff's Deputies on September 10th. The sheriff's office had been conducting an investigation for about a week. more
Twitter has been slapped with a proposed class action lawsuit, which alleges that the service uses URL shorteners in violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and California’s privacy law.
According to court documents filed Monday, Texas resident Wilford Raney brought the complaint to federal court in San Francisco, citing that although “Twitter represents that its users can ‘talk privately,’ Twitter ‘surreptitiously eavesdrops on its users private direct message communications.” The complaint alleges that Twitter “intercepts, reads, and at times, even alters the message” as soon as someone sends a direct message. more
The U.S. Navy has developed tiny drones that can fly in swarms like cicada bugs, the organisms that give the drones their names.
In this case, "Cicada" is short for Covert Autonomous Disposable Aircraft. They're small yellow devices that can fit in the palm of one's hand and are made of only ten parts. They can fly up to 46 miles per hour almost silently.
The military described the drones as "robotic carrier pigeons," though unlike the birds historically used to send messages, these drones have an array of sensors that monitor things like weather and location data, as well as microphones that or eavesdropping on anyone in the vicinity.
The Cicada drones are meant to be deployed in swarms; they will reportedly be used behind enemy lines to determine things like troop positions, whether or not a car is on a road, and where military forces should be deployed.
For now, the tiny devices cost $1,000, but the government plans to manufacturing them more cheaply: about $250 per drone. The future of surveillance drones is, apparently, a relatively inexpensive one. more
If you don't have a written Recording in the Workplace Policy, and an in-house inspection procedure, right now is the time to get one in place. Contact me. I can help you do this, easily and inexpensively. ~ Kevin
AZ - A worker at a Cottonwood business was arrested on suspicion of voyeurism after police said he hid a cellphone in a women’s restroom.
Oscar Valles, 22, of Rimrock, admitted during police questioning that he placed the cellphone behind a plant in the bathroom to record one of his coworkers, officers said.
Valles said he knew the coworker changed clothes there each at the end of her shift each day. He said he did not mean to record any other person but was not able to retrieve his phone before others used the restroom, according to police. more
All together now... "The dumb owner setting it up!"
A bungling voyeur was captured on a video camera he set up to record women using the toilet at a party - in a stunt inspired by an American Pie film.
Adam Stephen Barugh, 26, used velcro to hide the small digital camera beneath a sink directly facing a toilet, after being invited to a house in Brotton.
His solicitor Paul Watson told Teesside Magistrates’ Court yesterday that the “prank” was inspired by watching the comedy film American Pie: Bandcamp, which features women being secretly filmed...
During the party, a female at the house noticed a small blue light coming from beneath the sink while using the toilet, and alerted her mum and sister.
Quickly hooking the camera up to a laptop, they discovered it had captured a full facial shot of Barugh setting up the camera, and videos of two women using the toilet. more
Ms. Wu, age 26, is suing her former roommate, identified by his last name Lin, for installing a spycam in her bedroom...
Ms. Wu noticed that there was a large black trashbag that didn’t belong to her, stuffed into the space above her closet. Inside, she discovered a camera, and a wire that ran from the camera across the hall into her roommate’s bedroom.
Ms. Wu waited for her roommate, Mr. Lin, to return home from work before confronting him about the camera.
Mr. Lin denied that he’d put a spycam in Ms. Wu’s room, but broke down her door to steal the camera back and packed up his computer equipment.
Ms. Wu, while attempting to stop him from leaving with the evidence, was thrown from the moving car. Ms. Wu said she’d still file charges against him for the spycam, despite the lack of evidence, and would also be filing a vehicular assault charge. (more with video report)
A 44-year-old man turned himself in Monday for being the "person of interest" sought for a spy camera being found hidden in a Starbucks restroom...
A female customer of the Starbucks was in the unisex restroom around when she found a four-inch long device--about the size of a marking pen--hidden behind a bracket. She pulled it out and called police...
Forensic laboratory investigators confirmed it's a video camera that recorded images of men and women using the restroom...
Police posted images on its Twitter and Facebook pages of the spy camera, its hiding place and a "person of interest" seen loitering outside the coffeehouse: a dark-haired man wearing a black shirt with a white stripe...
After intense local television coverage Monday morning, a Starbucks spokesman emailed a statement to KTLA that afternoon that said, "We take our obligation to provide a safe environment for our customers and partners (employees) very seriously. As a part of regular store operations, we monitor the seating areas and restrooms in our stores on a regular basis to identify potential safety or security concerns." more
Suggestion: Spycams in public restrooms are "foreseeable"; a legal term loosely meaning "you better do something about this." At least one shift manager should receive spycam detection and deterrence training. Being pro-active and showing due diligence saves money (legal expenses and awards). Plus, if signage is posted, customer goodwill increases.
Fears of espionage have driven the U.S. government from New York’s famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, which has housed presidents and other top American officials for decades but was bought last year by a Chinese firm from Hilton Worldwide.
Instead, President Barack Obama, his top aides and staff along with the sizable diplomatic contingent who trek to Manhattan every September for the annual U.N. General Assembly will work and stay at the New York Palace Hotel, the White House and State Department said.
The Associated Press first reported the impending move in June but it wasn’t formally announced until Friday, a day after the final contract was signed with the Palace.
Officials said the change is due in large part to concerns about Chinese espionage, although White House and State Department spokesmen said the decision was based on several considerations, including space, costs and security. more
Filed June 1, 1959 by James S. Sellers, and granted July 17, 1962, this patent was for a system of hidden microphones, concealed within the bases on a baseball diamond. Apparently, the transmission of foul language was not a consideration.
Click to enlarge.
from the patent... "It is highly desirable for the spectators at a baseball game to hear what is transpiring on the playing field, such as arguments at the bases between opposing players, and discussions between the umpires and players. By transmitting the sounds from the playing field to the grandstand, the spectators feel that they are taking part in the game. Also, it enables the spectators to judge a play better as they can hear the baseball strike the glove or mitt of a player.
Click to enlarge.
It is an object of my invention to provide apparatus for transmitting sound from a baseball field which is positioned beneath a base on a baseball field and does not interfere in any manner with the playing of the game.
It is a further object of my invention to provide apparatus for transmitting sound from a baseball field in which a resilient pad or support for the base is formed of a greater surface area than the base and has perforations or apertures in the area adjacent the base whereby sound may be transmitted through the perforations to a microphone there beneath.
An additional object of my invention is to provide a rigid support for the resilient pad to which the pad and the base may be secured to retain them in position, and with the rigid support having openings to permit the passage of sound there through to a microphone positioned there beneath." more
via Lincoln Spector, Contributing Editor, PCWorld Microsoft pretty much admits it has a keylogger in its Windows 10 speech, inking, typing, and privacy FAQ: “When you interact with your Windows device by speaking, writing (handwriting), or typing, Microsoft collects speech, inking, and typing information—including information about your Calendar and People (also known as contacts)…”
The good news is that you can turn off the keylogging. Click Settings (it’s
on the Start menu’s left pane) to open the Settings program. You’ll
find Privacy on the very last
row.
Once in Privacy, go to the General section and Turn off Send Microsoft info about how I write to help us improve typing and writing in the future. While you’re there, examine the other options and consider if there’s anything else here that you may want to change.
Now go to the Speech, inking and typing section and click Stop getting to know me. (I really wanted to end that sentence with an exclamation point.)
You may also want to explore other options in Privacy. For instance, you
can control which apps get access to your camera, microphone, contacts,
and calendar. more
It’s being called a ‘revolt’ by intelligence pros who are paid to give their honest assessment of the ISIS war—but are instead seeing their reports turned into happy talk.
More than 50 intelligence analysts working out of the U.S. military's Central Command have formally complained that their reports on ISIS and al Qaeda’s branch in Syria were being inappropriately altered by senior officials...
Some of those CENTCOM analysts described the sizable cadre of protesting analysts as a “revolt” by intelligence professionals who are paid to give their honest assessment, based on facts, and not to be influenced by national-level policy. more
Q. Looking for a cheap, do it yourself debugging product. Any recommendations?
It's one thing to be ignorant. We all are at one point. But, we do our own homework and learn. Copying other people's homework never leads to the A+ answer. It's a, "Which end of the soldering iron should I hold?" question. If you don't know, better find something else to do. The Editor-in-Chief of PI Magazine, kindly responded with the following cogent reply... A. There really is no such thing as a cheap do-it-yourself debugging product. Even the most basic TSCM / debugging inspect requires you search for RF (radio frequency) signals, hidden video cameras that are either wired or wireless, on or off, hidden audio records, telephone instrument and phone line inspection, as well as searching for GPS trackers that can be battery operated or hardwired.
Each of the categories listed above require specialized equipment unique to the item(s) being searched. Even if you were to acquire a cheap RF detector, you wouldn’t know what type of signal you’re picking up or the source... Just because you own a piece of equipment doesn’t mean you’ll know how to use it.
By the way, the FTC has been known to criminally charge private individuals and PIs for “theft by deception” for conducting bugsweeps without the proper equipment and training.
For anyone seeking to hire a Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM) "expert", this is a cautionary tale. Please, do your due diligence. The TSCM field is littered with gum-under-the-table trolls out to make a fast buck with cheap sweeps. ~Kevin
UPDATE: A Blue Blazer Regular writes in with his two cents... "Doing it yourself is like do-it-yourself brain surgery."
For example, according to
studies they conducted, most people don't expect games like Cut the Rope to use location data, but
many of them actually do. This kind of surprise is represented in their privacy model as a penalty to an
app’s overall privacy grade. In contrast, most people do expect apps like Google Maps to use location
data. This lack of surprise is represented in their privacy model as a small or no penalty. more 
According to the Manchester Evening News, security men used devices to check a meeting room at the Lowry Hotel before Van Gaal discussed tactics for the game.
According to court documents filed Monday, Texas resident Wilford Raney brought the complaint to federal court in San Francisco, citing that although “Twitter represents that its users can ‘talk privately,’ Twitter ‘surreptitiously eavesdrops on its users private direct message communications.” 
The military described the drones as "robotic carrier pigeons," though unlike the birds historically used to send messages, these drones have an array of sensors that monitor things like weather and location data, as well as microphones that or eavesdropping on anyone in the vicinity.
His solicitor Paul Watson told Teesside Magistrates’ Court yesterday that the “prank” was inspired by watching the comedy film American Pie: Bandcamp, which features women being secretly filmed...
Ms. Wu noticed that there was a large black trashbag that didn’t belong to her, stuffed into the space above her closet. Inside, she discovered a camera, and a wire that ran from the camera across the hall into her roommate’s bedroom.
After intense local television coverage Monday morning, a Starbucks spokesman emailed a statement to KTLA that afternoon that said, "We take our obligation to provide a safe environment for our customers and partners (employees) very seriously. As a part of regular store operations, we monitor the seating areas and restrooms in our stores on a regular basis to identify potential safety or security concerns." more 
Instead, President Barack Obama, his top aides and staff along with the sizable diplomatic contingent who trek to Manhattan every September for the annual U.N. General Assembly will work and stay at the New York Palace Hotel, the White House and State Department said.
More than 50 intelligence analysts working out of the U.S. military's Central Command have formally complained that their reports on ISIS and al Qaeda’s branch in Syria were being inappropriately altered by senior officials...
It's one thing to be ignorant. We all are at one point. But, we do our own homework and learn. Copying other people's homework never leads to the A+ answer.
It's one thing to be ignorant. We all are at one point. But, we do our own homework and learn. Copying other people's homework never leads to the A+ answer.