How Domestic Abusers Use Smartphones to Spy on Their Partners

There’s more creepy spyware out there than you think — and regulating it is a legal and technological challenge.

More and more people who commit violence against their intimate partners are using technology to make their victims’ lives worse...

News media, academic researchers, and victim advocates have long acknowledged the threat of spyware in domestic abuse situations. But our research (conducted with our students) brings to light the ease with which spyware can be deployed by abusers, and the broad scope of software usable as spyware...

Installing powerful spyware is just a few clicks away. Search on the web for “track my girlfriend” and you’ll find plentiful links to software, how-to guides, and forums all aimed at making it easy for abusers to spy on victims. (Protection advice is also available.) All the tools an abuser needs are present on Google and Apple’s app stores; installation is as simple as grabbing the victim’s device, typing the password (possibly stolen), and downloading an app. Many such apps require a fee, but in some cases, you can spy free of charge.

And our research shows that current anti-malware programs most often don’t identify such software as problematic. (ours does) more

Click the "our research" link above for the research paper. ~Kevin

Secretly Recording a Witness Gets Two Arrested

NH - Two Tolles Street residents were arrested Monday morning, charged with secretly recording a witness’ private conversation from a previous investigation, police said.

The charges stem from Aug. 3, 2017, when members of the Special Investigations Division learned a witness's private conversation from a previous investigation involving Bellino and Madison may have been recorded without the witness's consent.

Zachary Madison, 27, was charged with wiretapping, a Class B felony, Brittney Bellino, 25, was charged with conspiracy to commit wiretapping during their arrest about 9:40 a.m. Both charges are Class B felonies. more

Darwin Award to Another Spycam'er Who Shot Himself

MA - A Taunton man faces allegations that he placed a small recording device in a preschool bathroom with the intent of filming the women who worked there.

Darin McNeil, 48, was arrested at the Learning Experience on Main Street on May 18 by Foxborough Police and charged with possession of a device for wiretapping, attempting to conduct secret sexual surveillance, and unlawful wiretapping...

Police responded to a report of a shiny object found in a hat placed on a shelf across from a toilet in a staff bathroom at the preschool around midday on May 18. Once officers were given the item, it was determined that it was an audio and video recorder with a small USB connection that is designed to look like a pen, according to a police report.

Video from the pen allegedly showed a worker at the Learning Experience in the bathroom and a man placing the device where it was found. The man was identified as McNeil, who was an electrician doing some work at the daycare. more

Security Installer Turned Spycam'er... again

LA - Police are looking for Jules Chauvin, the owner of Telecom Security Solutions in West Monroe.

Chauvin allegedly installed cameras in the victim's business in West Monroe.

According to police, a victim contacted them on May 7th saying she was being watched without her consent by the man who installed her security system. Police say the victim fears that Chauvin may be watching other people as well.

Police ask that anyone who feels that they may be a victim of video voyeurism to contact the police department. more

This isn't the first time a security installer got caught installing spycams...

• https://spybusters.blogspot.com/2016/09/surveillance-camera-installer-scopes-it.html
• https://spybusters.blogspot.com/2018/01/white-marsh-mall-spycam-man-suspect.html
  

Largest Ever Women’s Rally Protests Spycam Pornography

Some 12,000 women gathered in Seoul on Saturday to protest against the “discriminatory treatment” of cases involving male and female victims of digital and online sexual violence, including spy-cam pornography. The event was the biggest women’s rights rally in Korea’s recent history...

According to 2016 data from the Korean National Police Agency, some 5,184 sexual harassment cases including those that involved spy-cam footage -- illegally uploaded video footage created using hidden cameras in public spaces such as public toilets -- were reported that year. More than 80 percent of the victims were women.

Furthermore, more than 7,300 requests were made to remove revenge porn that was uploaded by victims’ ex-romantic partners. more

Phone Companies Know Your Location 24/7 - and they're selling it.

via Krebs on Security 
Your mobile phone is giving away your approximate location all day long.

This isn't exactly a secret: It has to share this data with your mobile provider constantly to provide better call quality and to route any emergency 911 calls straight to your location.

But now, the major mobile providers in the United States -- AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon -- are selling this location information to third party companies -- in real time -- without your consent or a court order, and with apparently zero accountability for how this data will be used, stored, shared or protected. 

It may be tough to put a price on one's location privacy, but here's something of which you can be sure: The mobile carriers are selling data about where you are at any time, without your consent, to third-parties for probably far less than you might be willing to pay to secure it. more

"Secure" Cell Phone Spyware Springs a Leak

At least one server used by an app for parents to monitor their teenagers' phone activity has leaked tens of thousands of accounts of both parents and children.

The mobile app, TeenSafe, bills itself as a "secure" monitoring app for iOS and Android, which lets parents view their child's text messages and location, monitor who they're calling and when, access their web browsing history, and find out which apps they have installed.

Although teen monitoring apps are controversial and privacy-invasive, the company says it doesn't require parents to obtain the consent of their children. more

IBM Bans Removable Drives and Shows World's Smallest Computer

IBM has allegedly issued a worldwide ban against the the use of removable drives, including Flash, USB, and SD cards, to transfer data.

This new policy is being instituted to prevent confidential and sensitive information from being leaked due to misplaced or unsecured storage devices.

According to a report by TheRegister, IBM's global chief Information security officer Shamla Naidoo issued an advisory stating that the company “is expanding the practice of prohibiting data transfer to all removable portable storage devices (eg: USB, SD card, flash drive).” This advisory further stated that this policy is already in effect for some departments, but will be further enforced throughout the entire company. more

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Today, IBM will be showing off the world's smallest computer at its Think 2018 conference. This computer is the size of a grain of salt, contains a million transistors, and only costs .10 to manufacture.

This micro computer is being unveiled as part of IBM's crypto-anchors initiative, which are digital fingerprints that can be embedded in products such as medicine, cell phones, toys, watches, and even wine to detect counterfeit products. With product fraud costing the global economy $600 billion dollars a year, IBM is hoping crypto-anchors can help stem the tide of fraudulent products and counterfeit drugs...

FutureWatch: Within the next five years, cryptographic anchors — such as ink dots or tiny computers smaller than a grain of salt — will be embedded in everyday objects and devices. more

Cell Phone Problems Predicted in 1919

Click to enlarge.

W. K. Haselden’s 

The Pocket Telephone: When Will it Ring?

Published in The Daily Mirror Mar. 5, 1919

Social Meddling on Social Media

The massive trove of Facebook ads House Intelligence Committee Democrats released Tuesday provides a stunning look into the true sophistication of the Russian government’s digital operations during the presidential election. 

...a swath of empirical and visual evidence of Russia’s disinformation campaign, in the form of more than 3,000 incredibly specific and inflammatory ads purchased by an Internet troll farm sponsored by the Kremlin.

The ads clearly show how Russia weaponized social media, the senior Democrat on the panel investigating Moscow’s interference in the presidential election said. more

Beware the Venmo

Nicole found out the guy she was dating was already in a committed relationship. Abby learned that her ex had most likely hooked up with someone new, and Ben discovered that a long-ago casual fling had apparently developed a drug habit.

The sleuthing tool that cracked these relationship mysteries was not a private investigator, but the peer-to-peer payment app Venmo.

The mobile payment service, which processed more than $35 billion in payments last year, is a no-fuss solution for splitting the dinner bill after a night out with friends.

But Venmo users have found it’s also an extremely effective tool for keeping tabs on friends, partners and exes, researching crushes, and in some cases, uncovering infidelity. Some even say Venmo is a better method for watching people than more explicitly public social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram.

Some users seem to forget that their transactions are public by default, and their payment activity provides an unfiltered paper trail of what’s really happening in their lives. more

The Skim Reaper - Detects Credit Card Skimmers

After three years of study, Patrick Traynor and two Florida graduate students invented a device they call the “Skim Reaper,” a credit-card thin gadget that slides into card reader slots and can easily and quickly detect if an ATM or gas pump has been compromised. The New York Police Department is testing the Skim Reaper with some early success in its effort to rid the streets of the pervasive devices...


Most credit card skimmers work by installing an extra “read head” inside or outside a machine. This extra read head allows criminals to make a copy of the card’s information as a consumer swipes it. Skim Reaper was built to detect when more than one read head is present, Traynor said...

The device looks like a long credit card that can be slid into a card slot in a gas pump or ATM. It’s attached by a wire to a cellphone-sized box with a small readout screen that says “possible skimmer!” when multiple read heads are detected...

Right now, it costs about $50 to make each Skim Reaper, Traynor said, but his team is working daily to get that number down...
Nolen Scaife, one of the graduate students who designed the device with Traynor, said the team is working to improve the Skim Reaper’s design so that it is wallet-sized. Then, consumers would be able to carry the device and dip it into a card reader before they get gas or use the ATM to ensure they aren’t being skimmed. more

FontCode: Embed Secret Messages Within Text

Click to enlarge.

Computer scientists have invented FontCode, a way to embed hidden information in ordinary text by imperceptibly changing the shapes of fonts in text. 

The hidden information persists even when documents or images with perturbed texts are printed or converted to another file type. Method could prevent document tampering, protect copyrights, as well as embed QR codes and other metadata without altering the look or layout of a document.

"While there are obvious applications for espionage, we think FontCode has even more practical uses for companies wanting to prevent document tampering or protect copyrights, and for retailers and artists wanting to embed QR codes and other metadata without altering the look or layout of a document," says Changxi Zheng, associate professor of computer science and the paper's senior author.  more

Hidden Smart Device Commands: Manchurian Candidate, or "Yes, master."

Many people have grown accustomed to talking to their smart devices, asking them to read a text, play a song or set an alarm. But someone else might be secretly talking to them, too.

Over the past two years, researchers in China and the United States have begun demonstrating that they can send hidden commands that are undetectable to the human ear to Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant.

Inside university labs, the researchers have been able to secretly activate the artificial intelligence systems on smartphones and smart speakers, making them dial phone numbers or open websites.  

In the wrong hands, the technology could be used to unlock doors, wire money or buy stuff online — simply with music playing over the radio. more

Spycam: Aurora Cop Caught Spying on Ex-wife

An Aurora police officer will not be reinstated after he was fired for spying on his ex-wife through three cameras hidden in her Sugar Grove home, a judge has ruled. 

The decision by Kane County Judge David Akemann also cancels an arbitrator's ruling that would have reinstated Daniel Wagner to the Aurora Police Department this past January...

Wagner's now ex-wife found a hidden camera in her home in September 2016 and called police to investigate. Officers found a total of three cameras.
Records show she had filed for divorce in 2015, and Wagner installed the cameras during the divorce proceedings and reactivated them after it was final. more