HACK NYC 2018 - May 8-10

May 8th - 10th Time Square, New York City BRIEFINGS | WORKSHOPS | KNOWLEDGE

Join other information security decision makers, developers, penetration testers, cryptographers, analysts, engineers, and risk professionals. Influence the conversation and sharpen your technical skills. Bring your laptop and get your hands dirty with the latest tools and techniques.

Each training session and presentation offers attendees real-world skill building on technical topics ranging from the latest hunting strategies to malware analysis and reverse engineering processes. Visit the conference website for a full list of briefings, workshops and training sessions.   Content in support of The NIST Cyber Security Framework is aligned to five functional areas; Identify - "Develop the organizational understanding to manage cybersecurity risk to systems, assets, data, and capabilities." Protect - "Develop and implement the appropriate safeguards to ensure delivery of critical infrastructure services." Detect - "Develop and implement the appropriate activities to identify the occurrence of a cybersecurity event." Respond -"Develop and implement the appropriate activities to take action regarding a detected cybersecurity event." Recover - "Develop and implement the appropriate activities to maintain plans for resilience and to restore any capabilities or services that were impaired due to a cybersecurity event." Because the difference between a hard target and a soft target … is everything.

Women Prompted Early Surveillance Photography

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Modern day surveillance photography started in Britain in 1913 with an unassuming prison van parked in the exercise yard of Holloway Prison.

We only know the occupant of the van as Mr. Barrett, a professional photographer who had been employed by Scotland Yard to snap paparazzi-style shots of the women in the yard.

His long-lens photography equipment — the purchase of which was authorized by the then Home Secretary — was rudimentary, but effective.

And who were these women Barrett was photographing? 

Members of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), also, and perhaps better, known as the suffragettes. Suffrage campaigns were ongoing in both Europe and the United States in the early part of the 20th century, with Finland being the first country to grant women the right to vote and stand for office in 1906. more

Saudi Arabia's New Cell Phone Spying Line in the Sand

Saudi law has criminalized the act of spying on your spouse’s mobile phone illegally and has listed this act under cybercrimes. 

Husbands or wives who are caught spying on their spouse’s mobile phone in order to prove dishonest behavior can be imprisoned for up to a year, receive a SR 500,000 ($133,000) fine or receive both forms of punishment.

According to legal sources, the penalty is imposed on people who access their spouse’s mobile phone without their permission. Accessing your spouse’s mobile phone becomes illegal when you crack their mobile phone’s password, according to the law. more

Spycam Detection Training Tip: Be Aware of Holes in Odd Places

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This case, which happened last night, is a good example of this detection tip paying off...

MA - A custodian at Northampton High School is facing charges after police say he "modified" a girls' bathroom at the school, creating holes in the ceiling so he could take pictures of students.

Michael Kremensky, 22, of Florence, is facing four charges of photographing an unsuspecting nude person, said Police Chief Jody Kasper, in a statement.

Police were called to the school Thursday for a report of suspicious activity involving holes in the ceiling of a girls' bathroom on the first floor.

No other bathrooms or rooms were affected, Kasper said. The activity was "localized to the one bathroom," she said. more
Learn more about spycam detection.

Is Facebook Eavesdropping? A "Scientific" Test & A Possible Explanation

(no spoilers, just teasers)
 
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Testing the long-held belief that Facebook listens to your conversations to advertise stuff...

For years, people have speculated that Facebook and Facebook Messenger use your phone’s microphone to listen to your conversations and send you targeted adverts based on your IRL chats...

To put the rumor to rest, we at the New Statesman engaged in a very scientific test. Each employee had a scripted conversation in front of their phone with Facebook or Messenger open (after changing their settings to ensure that Facebook and Facebook Messenger had access to their microphones)...

Here's what went down... more

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Facebook Really Is Spying on You...

A conspiracy theory has spread among Facebook and Instagram users: The company is tapping our microphones to target ads...

“Facebook does not use your phone’s microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed,” says Facebook.

Yeah, sure, and the government swears it isn’t keeping any pet aliens at Area 51. So I contacted former Facebook employees and various advertising technology experts, who all cited technical and legal reasons audio snooping isn’t possible... more

Drones - China's Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone Industry

Brief Profile Dà-Ji?ng Innovations Science and Technology Co., Ltd, marketed and popularly known as DJI, was established in 2006 by Frank Wang. It has its specialization in aerial photography and videography equipment (unmanned aerial vehicles), gimbals, cameras, and propulsion systems among others. They are one of the market leaders in their segment and continue to gain popularity, especially since the 2010s. In 2015, the Economist named them as being at the forefront of civilian-drone industry. more

Brief Profile
SZMID was established in 2006 by intelligence, security and  telecom professionals with extensive backgrounds in the security sector providing a wide range of high quality security devices & solutions to customers around the world. Our business is mainly focus on detection and jamming areas. more

A lot of folks are gunning for drones...

Peeps - The New Fake Surveillance Cameras

via Boing Boing...
As if the Elf on a Shelf wasn't creepy enough, now they've put Peeps in the faux-surveillance game.

A new book and plush Peep sold together as Peep on a Perch is encouraging parents to start a new "Easter family tradition":

The soft plush Easter Peep included in the set can be perched anywhere throughout the home. Children will be proud to have the Easter Peep watch them being good all day as they get ready for bed without making a fuss, help out around the house, and use good manners. And the more kindness the Easter Peep sees, the happier the Easter Peep gets! PEEPS® fans of all ages will love to make this a new Easter family tradition.

One Amazon reviewer (who gave the product five stars) writes, "The book encourages children to help, share and be kind as the Peep reports directly to the Easter Bunny." No, just no. more

Yet Another World's Smallest Color Video Camera

These folks have been cranking out tiny cameras since 1997. 

Truly amazing...

more

Scientists Develop Tiny Tooth-Mounted Sensors That Can Track...

...what you eat!

Monitoring in real time what happens in and around our bodies can be invaluable in the context of health care or clinical studies, but not so easy to do. That could soon change thanks to new, miniaturized sensors developed by researchers at the Tufts University School of Engineering that, when mounted directly on a tooth and communicating wirelessly with a mobile device, can transmit information on glucose, salt and alcohol intake...

Tufts engineers sought a more adoptable technology and developed a sensor with a mere 2mm x 2mm footprint that can flexibly conform and bond to the irregular surface of a tooth. In a similar fashion to the way a toll is collected on a highway, the sensors transmit their data wirelessly in response to an incoming radio-frequency signal. more

Just in case you were disappointed that this was not a story about a mysterious tooth implant...

Caught on Surveillance Camera: Homeless Dog Nips Book...

...about abandonment, and gets adopted.
We've all seen some pretty weird surveillance camera footage. This one should make your holiday weekend. more

Extortionography: Group Planted an Intern to Take Covert Video

The American Phoenix Foundation — a now-defunct conservative activist group known for attempting undercover stings of lawmakers and lobbyists — planted an intern in a Texas state lawmaker’s office during the 2013 legislative session in an effort to expose misdeeds, testimony in federal court revealed Thursday.

Shaughn Adeleye, testifying in Houston in the federal fraud case against former U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman, said in court Thursday that he was planted in the office of state Rep. James White to obtain footage of the Hillister Republican engaged in “fraud and abuse” and also in more mundane activities like cursing or failing to tidy his messy car... more

What is Extortionography?

Building Maintenence Man Accused of Hiding Spycams in Office Building Bathrooms

FL - A Largo man has been accused of using video cameras to record multiple women and two men while using the women’s restrooms in an office building, the Pinellas Park Police Department said.

John Phillip Gibbs, 49, of Largo, was charged with 14 counts of video voyeurism, a felony. The investigation is ongoing as police officers continue to identify others who were video recorded. Additional charges are expected, officers said.

The investigation began March 2 when Pinellas Park Police were called to an office building at 12360 66th St. N to investigate a suspicious incident in one of the women’s restrooms inside the building. During the initial investigation officers said they found two separate video recording devices above the ceiling tiles inside two different women’s restrooms...

Detectives said they were able to identify Gibbs from images on the video as being a maintenance worker for the office building.

The building management has notified the 60 different small businesses inside the building where the common restrooms are located. more

Don't become a lawsuit defendant, or a spy camera victim.
Learn how to protect your guests, customers, employees and yourself.

FutureWatch: Eavesdropping... telepathically

Mary Lou Jepsen believes her technology will be 99.9% cheaper than MRIs (that’s an actual estimate, not a euphemism); radically smaller (the size of a ski cap, not a bedroom); and that its resolution will exceed that of MRIs by a factor of a billion. Yes, that’s an actual “b,” not a typo. And the really cool thing? Her creation might also enable telepathy.

If your mind rebels at the scale of these claims, reread Mary Lou’s credentials, then give an interview with her a listen. You can hear it by searching “After On” in your favorite podcast app...

Here’s where telepathy comes in...

Neurons range from 4 to 100 microns in diameter. This makes them invisible to MRIs, CAT scans, PET scans – pretty much anything other than a scalpel and a microscope. But Mary Lou’s technology could monitor them, if it delivers on its maximum promise. Add some clever machine learning, and the system could closely infer what those neurons are contemplating.

Might all this raise an ethical issue or two? To quote a one-time would-be VP, yooooou betcha! more

Spycam: John E. Lola kinks aim him to The Clink

MA - A former Framingham supermarket employee installed a spy camera in an employee ladies room last year, recording unsuspecting co-workers as they used the toilet, authorities said.

John E. Lola Jr., 47, of Holliston, pleaded not guilty to the charges at his Framingham District Court arraignment on Tuesday.

Lola was a longtime employee at the Stop and Shop on Temple Street. On Nov. 18 of last year, a female employee discovered the camera in a unisex employees-only restroom...

The camera was disguised as an electrical outlet. According to the report, the female employee was suspicious when she saw a new outlet in a stall. When she touched it, the outlet fell to the floor and revealed the camera, which was aimed at the level of someone sitting on a toilet, police wrote.

The small video camera had a disc attached to it. Police got a warrant to view the contents of the disc, which contained 34 videos, mostly about one-minute long each.

"Most were of females using the bathroom, primarily of the private parts are visible," police wrote in the report.



The videos did not show any of the people's faces. However, the video did catch a closeup of the person installing the camera. It appeared the camera was turned on as the man attached the camera to the stall's wall, police wrote in the video. more  The Clink

Note to businesses: This spy camera was found by chance. Lawsuits often follow this type of embarrassing discovery. Periodic inspections for hidden cameras in expectation of privacy areas by trained staff is a nice defense to have.

From Those Wonderful Folks Who Killed Air-Gap Security - This Bud Screws You

A research team from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev's cybersecurity research center has discovered a new way of data extraction from air-gapped computers via using passive devices like earbuds, earphones, headphones, and speakers.

Now, the same research center has claimed to be able to use computer speakers and headphones to act as microphones and receive data. The devices can be used to send back the signals and make the otherwise safe practice of air-gapping less secure.

As per the new technique [PDF], data is extracted in the form of inaudible ultrasonic sound waves and transmission occurs between two computers installed in the same room while data is shared without using microphones. more