Ex-boyfriend Faces Jail - Concealed Hidden Listening Devices in Her Bedroom

An "evasive and dishonest" ex-boyfriend faces jail after spying on his lover by concealing hidden listening devices in her home.

Wayne Bamford, 47, mounted a stalking campaign after being spurned by mother-of-one Joanna Dawson, a court heard.

He hid two secret listening devices in her bedroom in what was described as a "highly sophisticated" covert operation. She found a twin dual adapter plug - which had a hole in it - in her bedroom next to her bedside cabinet.

Experts revealed it was, in fact, a listening device and Bamford was arrested and then bailed by police.

Bamford called the second listening device at least 1,600 times in a bid to hear what was happening in Miss Dawson's house over 15 days from March 1, 2017, to March 16, 2017, the court heard.

But Bamford's surveillance op was foiled after Miss Dawson sought advice... more

The Implications of Recording in the Workplace

Workplace recordings have made headlines in recent weeks. For example, Omarosa Manigault-Newman publicly played a recording of a meeting with her then-boss, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, to bolster her claim that he threatened her during the meeting.

White House officials quickly fired back that the recording was a breach of protocol and possibly illegal.

Given the controversies in the news, employers might be wondering when recording is legal and what policies they can lawfully implement on recording in the workplace.

Although recordings can be useful to resolve disputed facts about a conversation, surreptitious recording in the workplace can create both legal and business risks for employers. Both employers and employees may violate state and federal wiretap laws by recording without consent. Even with consent, employers should hesitate before taping employees, because pervasive surveillance in the workplace can put workers on edge and damage their morale.

Similarly, employee recording may discomfit employees and customers, and put the employer’s confidential information at risk. Some employers respond to these risks by outright prohibiting recording in the workplace. more

Seoul to Inspect Public Toilets Daily to Tackle 'Spy-Cam Porn' Crisis

South Korea’s capital and largest city, Seoul, is set to begin daily checks for hidden cameras in public toilets in response to growing public outrage over an epidemic of “spy-cam porn”.

South Korea is in the middle of a battle against videos secretly filmed in places such as toilet stalls and changing rooms. Police have said more than 26,000 victims between 2012 and 2016 have been identified, but many cases go unreported...

Record numbers of women have held a monthly protest on the streets of Seoul calling for the government to do more, with last month’s demonstration drawing 70,000 protesters, according to the organizers.

At present, the Seoul government checks each toilet about once a month, and employs only 50 inspectors to monitor more than 20,000 public bathrooms, according to news agency Yonhap. The new plan will call for the 8,000 city workers who maintain and clean the bathrooms to conduct daily checks. more

Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Drone Stealers

In what might be the most 2018 news story ever, head coach Mike Tomlin and the Pittsburgh Steelers have erected a tarp near one of their practice facilities.

Why is this news? Well, said tarp is meant to protect the Steelers from being spied on with drones. more

Why Vienna Is the Spy Capital of the World

via Cindy Otis 
A former chief in the Austrian intelligence service once told the Telegraph that more than 7,000 spies operated in Vienna, a city of nearly 1.8 million people. It’s “a nice place for spies to live and bring their families,” he added. Although there are many reasons to visit Vienna for tourists and spies alike, Austria’s famous chocolate cake (sachertorte) and the city’s perfectly preserved Habsburg palaces are not the reason intelligence services still flock to the city.

Austria has some of the most relaxed laws on spying of any country in the world and those laws have not been updated since the Austro-Hungarian empire fell, even with two world wars and the Cold War since then. In fact, the only spying activities that are illegal in the country are the kind that directly target Austria. Vienna also hosts one of four headquarters of the United Nations and is home to about 40 other important international organizations that have delegations from all over the world, including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). With approximately 320 bilateral and multilateral diplomatic representations operating in Vienna, nearly 4,000 diplomats, and more than 6,000 international officials, Vienna is brimming with information foreign intelligence services want to collect.

But it is in wandering the streets of Vienna that you really start to see why the city lives up to its cloak and dagger history. Vienna’s famous coffee houses have played an important role as meeting places for writers, musicians, artists and philosophers throughout history. At Café Central in the heart of Vienna, you can dine on Apfelstrudel in the same place where Leo Trostky and Sigmund Freud sat. You can also take advantage of the seemingly endless coffeehouse chatter to meet your sources under the radar and to mask any clandestine conversations you need to have. more hum-a-long

Apple Smacks Down Facebook's VPN Spying App

Back in 2013, Facebook acquired Israel-based Onavo, a small mobile analytics company that offered a virtual private network (VPN) app called Onavo Protect. In general, VPN apps seek to give users greater privacy and control around their data by routing traffic through a secure network. In this case, Onavo Protect started sending all that user data back to the Facebook mothership...

In its ongoing quest to protect user privacy, Apple just told Facebook to pull Onavo Protect from its App Store. more

Business Espionage: Fish Settlement Flounders

National Fish & Seafood and Kathleen A. Scanlon, the former employee the seafood processor is suing for allegedly stealing trade secrets for her new employer, had appeared to be heading for a settlement.

Now, not so much.

The Gloucester-based seafood processor last week amended its complaint against Scanlon, its former head of research and development and quality assurance, and her new employer, Tampa Bay Fisheries, by adding more defendants and more details of the alleged conspiracy and corporate theft.

The complaint accuses Scanlon of spending most of her final days at NFS feverishly downloading company trade secrets and emails onto two portable storage devices, video-recording the clam processing line and "granting Tampa Bay's IT director unauthorized access to NFS' computers through remote access software."

The filing includes screen grabs of text conversations from Scanlon's company-issued smart phone, including one from Scanlon to Paterson that read: "I am on my way will be there in 30 minutes. Feel like I need to go to confession. More like a hypocrite."

It also states that on July 10, Scanlon was observed on video surveillance and by other NFS employees "taking video and photographic recordings of the clam production process, including the machinery and ingredient-mixing processes used in producing NFS' clam products, including its Matlaw's Stuffed Clams."

The next day, according to NFS, Scanlon resigned after more than 20 years with the company. more

Business Espionage: Quote of the Week

"We must recognize that we now live in an era of uneven, ruthless, state-sponsored global competition. Many executives do not understand the totality of the new forces they are forced to deal with." ~T. Casey Fleming  more 

Auction: Apple I on the Block

A piece of computer history that helped launch a trillion dollar company is hitting the auction block.

A fully functioning Apple-1 being auctioned by Boston-based RR Auction in September is one of only 60 or so remaining of the original 200 that were designed and built by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976 and 1977...

The Apple 1 originally sold for about $666. It could get $300,000 or more at auction. more

2018 ERII Annual Counterespionage Conference Espionage Research Institute International (ERII)

ERII today announced registration for the 2018 Annual ERII Counterespionage Conference, a gathering of worldwide technical surveillance countermeasures (TSCM), counterintelligence and counterespionage professionals, is now open to ERII members and non-members. The conference will be held September 20-22, 2018, at the Embassy Suites Old Town in Alexandria, Virginia. Three-day, two-day and single-day conference tickets are available to ERII members and non-members. Special government ticket pricing is also available. more

Sperm Bank Espionage Case Moves Forward

via Ellen Trachman 
Who are these sperm bank spies, and what secrets are they accused of stealing?

The area of assisted reproductive technology doesn’t just involve difficult family law questions. It also involves intrigue! Did you know that sperm banks have trade secrets that are closely guarded? Apparently, they do. And they are now the subject of a fierce lawsuit between Seattle Sperm Bank and Cryobank America.

Earlier this month, a Washington federal court made a ruling in the case, in which it denied in part, and granted in part, Cryobank America’s motion to dismiss. The court granted the motion to dismiss on a vague claim of unfair competition under Washington law. But it denied the motion — and let the lawsuit proceed, in other words — on two other claims: a federal claim under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act, and a state claim under the Washington Uniform Trade Secrets Act. more

Salted Peanuts: Spy News Clips

Denny Hatch: All your emails are being stolen and sold all over the world. (a must read) more
---Israel-based Bosco, an app that lets parents monitor their children’s smartphone activities, has raised $4 million in a Series A funding round... more
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A woman’s encounter with a man accused of spying on her 12-year-old daughter is going viral. Salt Lake City police arrested 36-year-old Jorge Leon-Alfaro, Saturday, after witnesses said he tried to record the girl from an adjacent dressing room stall inside the Rue 21 store at Brickyard Plaza. The girl’s mother tracked the man down and recorded her comments toward him as she waited for police to arrive. more
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Israeli researchers attached a surveillance device onto a seagull's leg in order to track its route. During its flight, the innocent bird landed in Tripoli where locals caught it and transferred the bird to the authorities on suspicion of spying for Israel; The ornithologist who attached the device: 'Let the bird live and set it free.' more
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Ufologist Scott Waring has published photographs of a UFO spying on deer peacefully grazing. An interesting phenomenon happened in the U.S. in Mississippi. more
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SC - An upstate couple is under investigation after Greenville County Deputies say a camera was discovered in a room they rent out to the public through Airbnb. more
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Scotland - Scientists eavesdrop on disappearing sea trout. They have positioned a total of 40 acoustic receivers at various locations around Loch Laxford, near Scourie, on the far north-west coast. more
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Austria’s far-right ordered a raid on its own intelligence service. Now allies are freezing the country out. more
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Mozilla has removed 23 Firefox add-ons that spy on user activity. more
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WA - A judge has awarded a couple $1 million in damages after they sued a former lifeguard and city employee who admitted to videotaping women while they used a staff changing area at an aquatic center. more
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South Korean woman given rare jail term for spycam crime. more 
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Secretly filming women in motel rooms or toilet stalls to upload online is a multimillion-dollar business operation in Korea. more
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Study from Vanderbilt professor finds Google tracking is even creepier than you thought. more
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It is remarkably easy to buy “Spy Pens” if you were inclined to record secret conversations at the White House. more (but you knew that :)

Hollywood Spy News

Let’s get this out of the way first.
As a title, The Spy Who Dumped Me suggests a parody of The Spy Who Loved Me, one of Roger Moore’s outings as James Bond. However, those expectations are misplaced. The Spy Who Dumped Me has little to do with Ian Fleming’s creation or his cinematic representations. Instead, this film is about an ordinary woman whose ex is, well, a spy. more trailer
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Aston Martin is creating a limited edition version of the definitive James Bond car, the 1964 Aston Martin DB5. 

In collaboration with James Bond film producer EON Productions, the automaker will build 25 "Goldfinger DB5s," with a straight-six, 282 horsepower, 3,995cc motor that will allow a top speed of 145 mph and 0 to 60 time of 7.1 seconds.

It will even sport the famous revolving license plate and other gadgets, built by Oscar-winning James Bond effects supervisor Chris Corbould. ...if you can find a spare £2.75 million ($3.5 million) plus tax between the couch cushions, you can have one of your own. more & more
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"Mile 22 a fast-paced spy thriller." more trailer
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Danny Boyle no longer directing James Bond 25, due to 'creative differences'. Sadly, it looks like Daniel Craig's James Bond will need to find another director. more

The Line between Security and Privacy can be a Thin One

At the Zelzate Psychiatric Centre, patients’ conversations in the most secure wing are often eavesdropped. The issue emerges from a report by the Flemish Care Inspectorate, echoed by De Morgen, on Tuesday. Conversations with loved ones, mediators and lawyers are monitored in this way... Various sources instanced surveillance cameras and recordings in private rooms, where patients meet their families... The report stipulates, “Conversations between patients and visitors can be eavesdropped and routinely are.” more

Throwing Money at Cyber Security Solutions is a False Economy

Andy Miles via Finextra...
With the option to wield large budgets in the fight against cyber crime there is, however, a tendency for financial service IT leaders to be drawn to the latest, shiniest technology solution of the moment...

What needs real investment, and not necessarily in cash terms is the trinity of People, Process and Technology (PPT). A security vulnerability can appear in any element of the business and a holistic approach that covers all colleagues and operations is vital for a good active defensive strategy.

Technology cannot answer all issues and won’t always work together with the culture and processes already instilled in an organization.

That is why it is so important to have a holistic approach that encompasses a security-first culture, enables constant review of processes and understands the importance of investment in technologies that evolve to combat emerging vulnerabilities and threats. more