Spy Plants, or Mr. Potato Head Goes to Washington

DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office (BTO) is hosting a Proposers Day to provide information to potential proposers on the objectives of the upcoming Advanced Plant Technologies program.

The program aims to control and direct plant physiology to detect chemical, biological, radiological, and/or nuclear threats, as well as electromagnetic signals.

Plant sensors developed under the program will sense specific stimuli and report these signals with a remotely recognized phenotype detectable by existing hardware platforms. more

The Proposers Day will be held on Tuesday, December 12, 2017, from 8:00 AM – 4:30 PM ET at the Westin Arlington Gateway Hotel, Arlington, VA 22203; potential proposers also have the option of participating via webcast. Advance registration is required. The registration deadline to attend in person is Wednesday, December 6, 2017, at 12:00 PM ET, and the deadline for the webcast is Monday, December 11, 2017, at 12:00 PM ET. Please register at: https://events.sa-meetings.com/APTProposersDay. There will be no on-site registration.

Extra Credit: Robot-Plant Biohybrids Growing in European Laboratories

Buy an App - Bug a Phone

Commercial spying apps for Android devices are being openly advertised on Google and – upon installation – can be used to snoop on text messages, calls and Facebook chats.

While they are advertised as a way for parents to keep track of their children, or businesses to watch employees, experts warn they could be used for more nefarious – potentially illegal – purposes. According to security firm Kaspersky Lab, the popularity of such services is spiking.

Now, there is often no need for the dark web or sophisticated hacking attacks – surveillance software can be quickly discovered with a simple Google search and purchased online for well under £100 ($133.00)...

One company, FlexiSpy, was even advertising 20% off its services for 2017's Black Friday. more

There is also an app to detect this.

EU: Spying Technology Export Control

EU lawmakers overwhelmingly backed plans on Thursday to control exports of devices to intercept mobile phone calls, hack computers or circumvent passwords that could be used by foreign states to suppress political opponents or activists...

The EU has felt that spyware or malware and telecom of Internet surveillance technologies are increasingly threatening security and human rights and proposed a modernization of its export control system to cover cyber-surveillance. more

Meanwhile, on Alibaba.

Netflix Spy Movies for the Holiday Weekend

Click for the trailers...

1. Spy Hard
2. The Spy Who Went Into the Cold
3. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
4. Inglourious Basterds
5. Burn After Reading
6. The Debt
7. XXX
8. and elsewhere for a few cents more one of my favorites... Top Secret. 

For some interesting real-life business espionage shorts, visit counterespionage.com/resources/movies.

Check Your Local Laws Before Recording

PA - A Franklin County jury took just seven minutes to return a guilty verdict against Chambersburg man William Alexander Himchak III on felony counts of illegal wiretapping. Himchak, 50, recorded two phone calls with tax officials, then posted them online, violating the wiretap act laws that require both people to consent to a recording before the recording has started. more

Spybuster Tip #105: In the United States, federal law requires that only one party to a conversation has to consent to the recording of the conversation. Some states, however, require two parties (meaning ALL parties) need to consent. Pennsylvania is a two party state. You can discover what the legal requirements are in your state here. 

If you are concerned your office is bugged visit counterespionage.com.

Google Android Tracking You - Bad News / Good News / Bad News

Bad News...
Your phone knows where you are at pretty much all times. This is no surprise—that's part of the appeal. But while there are options to disable GPS and Location Services in the settings of Android phones, this won't stop Google from knowing where you are. Short of turning off your phone, there's actually no real way.

New details about the length to which Google tracks Android phones surfaced today from Quartz, which reports that Android phones will track your location even if you disable location services and even if you aren't logged into the phone...

Good News...
The practical effect of this is that, so long as your Android phone is on and not inside a Faraday cage, your location data is being communicated. Google told Quartz that this practice has existed for 11 months, but that the information was never stored or used and furthermore that the process will now be ended.

Bad News...
While the practice is just generally creepy, it also can have profound legal implications. Loose restrictions allow law enforcement in many states to obtain cell tower location information without a warrant until an upcoming Supreme Court case will ultimately decide if this will remain legal. In the meantime, there's nothing much to do besides be aware of how much and how easily your phone may be tracking you. If you really want privacy, you'll just have to turn the thing all the way off. more

Voyeur Hides Spycam in Starbucks Toilet

A hidden camera recorded customers using the toilet in a branch of Starbucks for up to a month. 

The small device was found in the ceiling of the coffee shop close to the headquarters of MI6 in south London.

Police believe the camera was planted by a voyeur who apparently captured himself on film in the process.

It had recorded several video files of members of the public using the only customer toilet at the store in Vauxhall, detectives revealed.

They believe the camera had been installed for a maximum of four weeks "for the purpose of voyeurism".
 It was seized by police after a member of the public discovered it in a ceiling grate. more

It is surprising how many spycam'ers are caught because they captured themselves during the installation. This guy gets our Darwin Award. 

Spybusters Tip #361: Do-it-yourself Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM) for spy cameras by "members of the public" can be very effective. One just needs to know where to look, and what to look for. Learning the wheres and whats is easy. Check here for more information.

Video voyeurism is a foreseeable issue. Any business offering customers, visitors, and employees access to expectation of privacy areas (restrooms, changing areas, showers, etc.) has a duty of care to protect them against spycams.

Spybuster Tip #362: Management, train your security and facilities personnel how to conduct and document due diligence video voyeurism inspections to detect spycams on a regular basis. Just think of the legal fees, and PR damage this will save you.

The Patek Philippe Wiretapping Device

Patek Philippe is known for making some of the highest quality (and most expensive) watches in the world. But at some point, it also turned out an unexpected device: a wiretapping machine.

Auction Page

One of the lots in Antiquorum’s recent watch auction in Geneva was the Patek Philippe ZL 4 N and ZG 4, two desktop modules which the listing describe as “a fine and very rare, electronic wiretapping device and clock used by the Swiss police.” Hodinkee’s Jack Forster points out that it looks not unlike a clock synchronizing apparatus: the higher unit could be used to set the time, while the lower one has plugins for four coordinating timepieces.

But with all the testing, research, and verification that goes into high-end auctions (the units sold for CHF 11,250, about $11,366 at current exchange), this thing probably was used for what Antiquorum says it was: to listen in on the conversations of whoever was committing high crime in the world’s most famous neutral nation. As for having the Patek Philippe name attached, well, at least the Swiss police could count on knowing exactly what time any espionage they overheard was going to occur. more

Additional Information from a 2009 auction...
Description: Two Patek Philippe Master Clocks A. Electronic Master Clock Patek Philippe, Genève, Model L4031. Made circa 1975. Very fine, Electronic Center Seconds Master Clock. B. Digital Time Display Master Clock Patek Philippe, No. 841637 & No. 851900, Model ZG 4 & ZL 4. Made in the 1970s. Fine and rare, electric 110/220v aluminium and blue coated LED digital master clock display with day and month indication and control unit. To be sold without reserve C. Rectangular with two handles, wood-effect sides. D. Black with Arabic numerals, outer minute divisions, outer Arabic fivesecond numerals and divisions, brushed fascia with buttons for adjusting the 1/10 and 1/1000 seconds. White baton hands. M. Electronic, a very powerful Master Clock System capable of controlling an almost unlimited number of "slave" clocks and can be regulated to 1/1000th of a second. Dial and case signed. more

Now Playing - The Science Behind Spying

The Science Behind Spying is a 1960's documentary to educate viewers on the past history of the US and how spying played a role in it. more

Runtime: 50 minutes, Amazon Prime

Corporate Espionage: Beware the Cupid Spy

Between oversharing about their job and workplace with dating matches and divulging trade secrets, 25% of business leaders using dating apps may be accidentally threatening their workplace's security, according to new research from Kaspersky Lab...

Of those using dating apps, 19% of business leaders have had their device infected via a dating app, including malware, spyware, or ransomware...

The work-related bragging can lead to infected devices and corporate espionage if trade secrets fall into the wrong hands, the report said. If malware allows a match access to a work device, the attacker may have access to work documents stored on that device. more sing-a-long

Foreign Agent Man

A new report by a U.S. government panel has called for staff members of Chinese state-run media groups in the U.S. to be made to register as foreign agents.

The U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission alleged Wednesday that journalists at some Chinese media organizations engage in spying activities, feeding information back to the Chinese government.

The report comes just days after the production company behind the American version of the Russian state-funded network RT officially filed as a foreign agent following pressure from the Department of Justice. more

The concerns are justified. I've seen proof. ~Kevin

Wiretapper's "Suicide" - Update

Greek officials did not adequately investigate the death of a telephone company executive found hanging in his apartment a day before lawmakers and the prime minister learned their cellphones had been tapped, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday.

Costas Tsalikidis, a Vodafone Greece executive, was found hanging in his Athens apartment...

An investigation into the wiretaps revealed another telecom had planted spyware into Vodafone’s equipment, and that Tsalikidis had allowed the spyware’s placement and met regularly with the other telecom. The wiretaps went live in June 2004 and were removed a day before Tsalikidis’ death.

Tsalikidis’ family refused to accept the man had taken his own life and hired their own investigators, who uncovered several inconsistencies to the suicide theory.

• a lack of injuries common during hanging, contradictions as to the rope marks on Tsalikidis’ neck,
• and an extremely complex sailing knot used for the noose that would have been quite impossible given Tsalikidis’ complete lack of sailing experience...

Investigators ... did find...

• Tsalikidis’ hyoid bone was broken – an indication he’d been strangled. 
• Tsalikidis’ personality was not compatible with a suicide profile...

The court ordered the Greek government to pay Tsalikidis’ family $59,000 in damages.

After years of investigating, the Greek government issued an international arrest warrant for a CIA official they believe was at the heart of the wiretapping affair while he was stationed in Athens. more

Remember The Fugs?

Quote of the Week – Bob Woodward on J. Edgar Hoover

"FBI director J. Edgar Hoover didn’t object to Nixon’s wiretapping because it was illegal, he objected because wiretapping was his job!" — legendary journalist Bob Woodward, who spoke Thursday night to a packed house at the University of Utah’s Kingsbury Hall.

Corporate Espionage: Spies Have a Deep Black Bag of Tricks

A Toronto-based private equity firm is alleging that its employees were targeted in a covert corporate espionage operation involving an agency with operations in London, Paris and Tel Aviv staffed by former members of the Israeli Defense Force and former agents of intelligence agency Mossad.

The agency cited in court documents filed by West Face Capital Inc. is Black Cube, the same one reportedly retained on behalf of former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein to investigate women who had accused him of sexual misconduct...

Some, including the former general counsel of West Face, were wined and dined, and flown to England on the false pretense that they were being courted for employment with international companies, the court documents allege...

The court documents filed by West Face Wednesday say different approaches were used for each employee or former employee approached, but that there were common elements, including “using false businesses, websites, identities, LinkedIn profiles, and business cards.” more

Wiretapper's "Suicide" Revisited for Foul Play

An appeals court prosecutor in Athens has asked to see the case file concerning the death of a telecoms engineer in 2005 shortly before the outbreak of a scandal involving the wiretapping of Greece’s political leadership...

The decision to revisit the case came after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) deemed on Thursday that Greece had failed to fully investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of former Vodafone employee Costas Tsalikidis, 38, who was found hanged in his apartment.

The investigating prosecutor at the time, Ioannis Diotis, had ruled out foul play, concluding that Tsalikidis had committed suicide.

Tsalikidis’s death occurred the day after the spyware planted in Vodafone’s network was removed...

The spyware diverted phone conversations made by Vodafone’s subscribers to 14 “shadow” pay-as-you-go mobile phones, allowing calls to be monitored. more sing-a-long