Eavesdropping — at the Ian Potter Museum of Art Melbourne

WHAT: Eavesdropping — Tue, 24. July–Sun, 28. October 2018
WHERE: Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia
ADMISSION: Free

Eaves­drop­ping is a unique col­lab­o­ra­tion between Liquid Archi­tec­ture, Mel­bourne Law School and the Ian Potter Museum of Art, com­pris­ing an exhi­bi­tion, a public pro­gram, series of work­ing groups and tour­ing event which explores the pol­i­tics of lis­ten­ing through work by lead­ing artists, researchers, writ­ers and activists from Aus­tralia and around the world.

EAVES­DROP­PING used to be a crime. Accord­ing to William Black­stone, in his Com­men­taries on the Laws of Eng­land (1769): ​‘eaves­drop­pers, or such as listen under walls or win­dows, or the eaves of a house, to hear­ken after dis­course, and there­upon to frame slan­der­ous and mis­chie­vous tales, are a common nui­sance and pre­sentable at the court-leet.’

Click to enlarge

Two hun­dred and fifty years later, eaves­drop­ping isn’t just legal, it’s ubiq­ui­tous. What was once a minor public order offence has become one of the most impor­tant politico-legal prob­lems of our time, as the Snow­den rev­e­la­tions made abun­dantly clear. Eaves­drop­ping: the ever-increas­ing access to, cap­ture and con­trol of our sonic worlds by state and cor­po­rate inter­ests. But eaves­drop­ping isn’t just about big data, sur­veil­lance and secu­rity... more

"New" Theory on the Cuba / China Sonic Headaches

The mystery illness afflicting American diplomats in Cuba and China could be a side effect of bugging or surveillance rather than a sonic weapon attack, according to a US researcher.

Dr Beatrice Golomb, professor of medicine at the University of California San Diego, said the reported symptoms strongly matched the known effects of radio frequency and microwave radiation.

“Surveillance is my lead hypothesis, as opposed to something like attacks or weaponry,” said Golomb, whose research will be published in the journal Neural Computation on September 15. more

Security Scrapbook fans already knew this might be a botched spying attempt, and how it worked, back in August 2017. ~Kevin

Drive-by Hackers Can Spy on Millions of Chrome Users Through Their Webcams

Drive-by hackers can spy on millions of Chrome users through their WEBCAMS experts claim, after finding a security glitch in the browser.

• According to UK cyber-security experts, hackers could attack entire streets.
• They might be able to steal passwords and activate webcams in an attack.
• Experts reported the issue to Google earlier this year but was told that it was working fine.

The glitch affects people who have logged onto their router as admin and saved details in their browser. more

Smart Home Technology Being Used by Abusers to Control and Terrorize

Imagine the temperature changing on your thermostat without you doing it, or seeing your lights turn off and on without you touching the switch.

Or your Alexa blaring music in the middle of the night. Or finding hidden cameras placed in your home -- without your knowledge or consent.

These are the sort of things abusive partners and exes can use to try to control their loved ones and if it's happening to you, you need to report it.

"It was awful, absolutely awful," said Aubrey, a Houston woman who spoke with News 6 sister station KPRC about her fiancé secretly watching her in her home. "Everywhere I went, everything I did, he could hear it. He could see it. It was awful."

Aubrey says after she and her fiancé moved in together, she discovered he had installed cameras throughout the house without her knowledge or consent. She said she discovered it by accident while using his cellphone...

"Every time we get an advance in technology, the bad guys seem to take advantage of it," Oviedo police Lt. Travis Cockcroft said.

So what are some things you can do to break free of an abuser's digital trap?

• Make sure you change your passwords on all of your accounts.
• Reset your Wi-Fi settings to something only you would know.
• Educate yourself about what your smart home devices can do.
• Reset privacy settings.
• Keep a journal of any peculiar activity with dates and times and description of what happened. 

more and more

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