Chinese Spy Museum - Now Open to All

The Yuhuatai Memorial Park of Revolutionary Martyrs is hallowed ground for the Chinese Communist Party...

...the most recent addition to the site has garnered less interest than the memorial, or the souvenir stalls nearby — but serves as a tangible testament to China’s perennial preoccupation: espionage.

Billed as the country's only such institution, the Brutalist, barrel-shaped Jiangsu National Security Education Exhibition Hall — a.k.a. the Spy Museum — opened in 2009, closed for more than a year and reopened in mid-April after a face-lift. The reopening came on China’s inaugural national security education day.

The newly renovated exhibition hall has emerged as a showcase of curated propaganda about the myriad threats posed by foreign spies. Gone is a warning sign in four languages that once barred all foreign visitors. more

Surveillance Camera Installer 'Scopes It Out'

NJ—A 38-year-old Franklin Township business owner... Thomas Canales was arrested at his South Lawrence Avenue home in the Somerset section of Franklin Township...
 
He owns a security based company "Scope It Out" in Somerset, according to authorities, who also charged him in connection with his work installing a surveillance system at a private residence.

The charge of "computer theft" came after he installed a surveillance system in a customer's home, and then monitored the residence from his computer and mobile phone. more

Business Espionage: Tram Boss Quits due to Buses Spying

Scotland - The former boss of Edinburgh Trams quit his job in anger over the “outrageous” spying carried out against his colleagues by rival transport firm Lothian Buses. 

According to his leaked resignation letter, Tom Norris left his £80,000 a year post last year over the bus company’s covert monitoring of staff.

He also wrote it was “extraordinary” the individual behind the snooping had not been fired and hit out at the “gross mishandling” of the scandal.

Edinburgh Trams and Lothian Buses are separate companies, but they share IT, media relations and human resources and are ultimately owned by the city council. more

Alert Security Guard Nails Corporate Espionage Spy

South Korea - A senior official at Samsung Electronics Co. was arrested for trying to steal a core chip-making technology...


The international crime investigation unit at Gyeonggi Police Agency on Thursday arrested an unnamed executive vice president at Samsung Electronics of the semiconductor division on suspicion of committing industrial espionage.

A security guard at the company reportedly found confidential documents in his car during a routine security check.

The company immediately searched his house and called the police upon discovering thousands of classified documents he kept at his house. more

Bird, James Bird - Suspected of Fowl Play

The Indian police on Saturday detained another pigeon that flew into a village near the heavily militarised border with Pakistan on a suspicion of 'spy'. 

The state intelligence and army officers were inspecting the pigeon that might have flown across border from Pakistan and landed in Punjab's Hoshiarpur district with some words in Urdu inscribed on its wings.

The bird was handed over to police by a local Naresh Kumar who spotted some 'suspicious text' on the wings which were actually names of the week days. The pigeon was X-rayed to verify if something was hidden inside but no clues were discovered having any links with Pakistan.

It is pertinent to mention here that in 2015, Indian authorities had captured a pigeon which was claimed to be a 'spy' pigeon from Pakistan. In 2013, Indian security forces found a dead falcon fitted with a small camera, and in 2010 another pigeon was detained over espionage fears. more

When the porn hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's a-problem.

WA - Ferino’s Pizzeria owner Adam Burns says he may not reactivate the interactive part of his Facebook page ever again after it was hacked and photos of female employees using a restroom were posted online.

Burns said he first thought that someone was prank-calling the Port Hadlock business, but then he looked on the business’s Facebook account and “it was blowing up with disgusting comments.”

The videos showed females, in various levels of undress, using the restroom...

Brett Anglin, Jefferson County Sheriff's Office detective, confirmed that the sheriff's office received a call from Adams about a video recording device having apparently been used inside an employee restroom...

Deputies came and checked the restaurant for hidden cameras. Burns did not reopen the restaurant that day.

“They found nothing,” he said. “Whatever was in here is gone now. Never in a million years did I feel like this would happen here. It's like it's not real,” he said. more 

WA - Redmond Police arrested a 25-year-old lifeguard for allegedly taping a cell phone to a wall in the female locker room of Redmond’s Hartman Pool.

Redmond Police said the man was suspended from his job and prohibited from returning to the property as detectives continue their investigation. A female coach discovered the phone and immediately called 911. more

IN - The man accused of recording topless women in his Granger Tiki Tan tanning salon pleaded guilty to four felony charges; three counts of voyeurism and one count of obstruction of justice. Albert Reasonover was arrested in April when an alleged victim discovered she was being filmed during a spray tan. more

Talk to Real Secret Agents on New 'Call a Spy' Hotline

If you ever wanted to chat to a spy, now's your chance – a group of German artists have set up the "Call a Spy" hotline.

Ariel Fischer from the art group "Peng!" told Sputnik Deutschland that they can set up the hotline anywhere with a stable internet connection. It looks like an ordinary telephone, but is connected to the "Call a Spy" server.

The server contains a database of spy's numbers, and randomly selects one to connect the caller with. Calls are routed through a private network that masks the original source of the call.


Fischer said that despite the secrecy of intelligence work, the majority of the numbers were freely available on the internet, and come from a range of different countries.  more

USB Warning: Treat Unsolicited USB Sticks Like Junk Mail

Police in the Australian State of Victoria have warned citizens not to trust un-marked USB sticks that appear in their letterboxes.

The warning, issued today, says “The USB drives are believed to be extremely harmful and members of the public are urged to avoid plugging them into their computers or other devices.”... 

(...and who could forget the attempt at industrial espionage that saw USB sticks left in the parking lot of Dutch chemical giant DSM?) more

Photons FUBAR Eavesdropping

In a first, scientists have successfully teleported a photon – particle of light – over a distance of six kilometres, an advance that may enable secure communication without having to worry about eavesdropping.

Researchers at the University of Calgary in Canada, led by professor Wolfgang Tittel, set a new record for distance of transferring a quantum state by teleportation, using fibre optics cable infrastructure.

“Such a network will enable secure communication without having to worry about eavesdropping, and allow distant quantum computers to connect,” said Tittel.

The experiment is based on the entanglement property of quantum mechanics, also known as “spooky action at a distance” – a property so mysterious that not even German physicist Albert Einstein could come to terms with it. more

Spying & Espionage Infographic

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One Spy Outs Another at City Council Meeting

CA - A former Scientologist confronted a City Council candidate at a California meeting, where she revealed they both had been sent as spies by the group to harass one of the church’s critics.


Paulien Lombard, who has since left the church, addressed a City Council meeting in Garden Grove, describing how she and candidate Clay Bock had been sent by Scientology’s spy wing, the Office of Special Affairs, to intimidate a man who’d been protesting outside the group’s “Int Base,”... 
 
Bock was actually in attendance when Lombard outed him as a Scientology spy, and the stunned City Council candidate nervously addressed the meeting afterward.

“I had no idea Paulien would be here or that this would be an issue,” Bock said. more

Spycam News: Video Voyeur Builds Spy Camera into Toy Jukeboxes—Gives them to Kids

FL - Deputies with the Lake County Sheriff's Office seized various equipment after Robert Anthony O'Hare's arrest last year. Through the seizure, they learned O'Hare had placed hidden cameras in two miniature jukeboxes that were later delivered to children.

"They didn't go through the post office, it looks as they he hand-delivered them," said John Herrell, with the Lake County Sheriff's Office.

The hidden cameras were used to film the children unbeknownst to them, according to deputies.

"As long as they (the jukeboxes) were plugged into the wall, those cameras were activated," Herrell said. "He could use a remote control and remotely control what the camera was viewing."

O'Hare is accused of producing hundreds of videos using a telescopic lens and camera found in his closet during a search of his home in October 2015, deputies said.

Hundreds of downloaded pornographic videos involving adults were also found on his devices, according to authorities. O’Hare is also accused of downloading child porn at a coffee shop. more

Revision to Federal Criminal Procedure Rule May Lead to Widespread Electronic Surveillance

US - Effective December 1, 2016, Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure will be amended to expand the reach of the authority of federal judges when they are issuing search warrants. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon contends that the upcoming changes present a major threat to civil liberties associated with content stored on or accessible through electronic devices.

As modified, Rule 41 will permit federal judges to authorize expanded remote searches of electronic devices including computers and smartphones. Senator Wyden contends that the revised rule will enable federal judges to issue search warrants to permit remote searches of virtually any device, and the material accessible through that device, no matter where the device is located.

Wyden claims that this broad authority would enable a single federal judge to facilitate remote searches of millions of devices and all the materials accessible through those devices. He has proposed legislation which would block this rule modification. His legislative proposal has, however, not yet been enacted, thus the proposed rule changes currently remain on track for the December 1 effective date. more

Spy Chip Implants - Common Complaint - Best handled with an X-ray

United Kingdom-based NRI (A Non-Resident Indian is a citizen of India who holds an Indian passport and has temporarily emigrated to another country for six months or more...) who claims ‘spying chips’ were installed in his body would be examined at Jalandhar’s Army hospital after the Ministry of Home Affairs forwarded his plea requesting their removal to the Punjab government.

Harinder Pal Singh, who returned from the UK three years ago, claimed British police had installed chips in his body for spying...

Narrating his bizarre-sounding story... “I went to UK in 1987 at the age of 15 with my grandmom. One day, I was sleeping in my room and some plainclothes policemen made me unconscious and got instruments installed in my body.”

“In 1996, my nearly four-year-old daughter died in an accident, which was changed into murder. I was convicted for it and sentenced to 15 years. After completing my jail term on February 13, 2013, I was deported,’’ he claimed. more

Federal Court to Unseal Secret Electronic Surveillance Records... maybe

US - In a major victory for journalists and privacy and transparency advocates, a federal court has started the process of unsealing secret records related to the government's use of electronic surveillance.

US District Court Judge Beryl Howell said at a hearing Friday morning that absent an objection by government attorneys (the maybe), the court would post to its website next week a list of all case numbers from 2012 in which federal prosecutors in Washington, DC applied for an order to install a pen register or a trap and trace device.

A pen register is an electronic apparatus that tracks phone numbers called from a specific telephone line (though the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act expanded the definition of pen register to allow for collection of email headers as well). A trap and trace device is similar, but tracks the phone numbers of incoming calls. For decades, court records relating to these documents have typically been sealed in their entirety, including even the docket numbers. more