The Man Who Hacked Former President Francois Mitterrand's Phone

One of the richest men in France claims to be a former spy who once hacked former President Francois Mitterrand.

The billionaire co-owner of Le Monde newspaper, Xavier Niel, 52, told the Parliamentary Channel that as a teen in the 1980s he worked undercover for the Directorate of Territorial Surveillance after he was caught hacking the French channel Canal+...

Niel claims he was tasked with hacking into the mobile telephone of President Mitterrand in 1986 as well as the car company Renault. In the process he found that Renault was being hacked by people from Australia who were downloading large chunks of data.

“We were doing all this for ourselves as a game and we would pass on the information,” Niel said. “It was just fun. It was thrilling to get around the system. They told us it was impossible.” more

Yet Another Spy Movie List

The 58 Best Spy Movies of All Time

Were this a year like any other, we’d already have seen the year’s two most-anticipated spy movies: the 25th James Bond film No Time to Die and Marvel’s Black Widow solo film.

Both were scheduled for spring releases and will now open in theaters in November…if theaters are, in fact, open.

Fortunately, there’s no shortage of great spy movies to keep us occupied while we wait... The List

From The Very Practical News (VPN) File...

Hong Kong saw a spike in downloads of VPN software designed to mask internet usage Thursday after Beijing signaled plans to usher in a new national security law that could tighten its grip... more

Bosnian Leader Brags He Illegally Wiretapped - (WWHT)

Opposition parties and Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TIBiH) have filed criminal charges against the Serb member of the tripartite Bosnian state presidency member Milorad Dodik, whom they accuse of illegal wiretapping based on his own statements.

The charges were filed after Dodik told the parliament in the mainly Serb entity of Bosnia, Republika Srpska, on May 20 that he often listened in to telephone conversations between representatives of the opposition parties, saying it was normal practice.

Dodik stated that he was eavesdropping on the representatives of the opposition by phone, that every government was eavesdropping on the opposition, and he recounted the content of telephone conversations of opposition members...  more

Proposed Bill: Anti-Espionage Theft in Airports

U.S. Rep. Ross Spano (R-FL) signed on to co-sponsor a bill designed to protect the transportation infrastructure from espionage and intellectual property theft. 

The bill, HR 6917, the Airport Infrastructure Resources (AIR) Security Act, would prohibit federal airport improvement funds from being used in the purchase of passenger boarding bridges made by companies that have violated the intellectual property rights of the United States.

Introduced by Reps. Ron Wright (R-TX) and Marc Veasey (R-TX), the bill is intended to keep the Chinese Communist Party from spying on American airline passengers, and to prevent China from any further power grab, Wright said. more

Amsterdam School Bugging Incident

The director of the Cornelius Haga Lyceum in Amsterdam planted eavesdropping equipment in the office assigned to the Education Inspectorate for its investigation into the school...

This is not Soner Atasoy.

During the investigation, the school made an office available to the inspectors, where they had sensitive conversations with each other, with pupils, and with staff. These conversations were recorded and eavesdropped on multiple times...

NRC's sources said that school director Soner Atasoy wanted to keep an eye on the Inspectorate's investigation and on what employees of the school said about him and the school...

The Education Inspectorate told NRC that there was a "suspicion" that the room given to inspectors to use was being tapped. After that, the inspectors slightly adjusted their working methods at the school, switching rooms "with some regularity" and conducting confidential conversation by phone or outside.

The office in question was never searched for eavesdropping equipment because there was "insufficient cause" for it and it would have led to "unnecessary unrest", the Inspectorate said. more

Cheap TV Equipment Eavesdrops on Sensitive Satellite

An Oxford University-based security researcher says he used £270 ($300) of home television equipment to capture terabytes of real-world satellite traffic — including sensitive data from “some of the world’s largest organisations.”

James Pavur, a Rhodes Scholar and DPhil student at Oxford, will detail the attack in a session at the Black Hat security conference in early August...

It appears to boil down in large part to the absence of encryption-in-transit for satellite-based broadband communications.

It also reveals how some of the eavesdropping was conducted using a “75 cm, flat-panel satellite receiver dish and a TBS-6983 DVB-S receiver… configured to receive Ku-band transmissions between 10,700 MHz and 12,750 MHz. A set of 14 geostationary satellites were selected [and from them] over 350 transponders were identified using existing “Blind Scan” tools. more

German Intelligence Gets Wiener Schnitzel'ed

In the world of online spying, great power lies with those who can get their hands on the data flowing through the world’s Internet infrastructure.

So the fact that Germany is home to one of the world’s biggest Internet exchange points—where data crosses between the networks that make up the Internet—has given a lot of power to the country’s equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency.

The Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND, gets to freely sift through all the foreign traffic passing through that exchange junction in search of nuggets that can be shared with overseas partners such as the NSA. But now that power is in jeopardy, thanks to a Tuesday ruling from Germany’s constitutional court...

“With its decision, the Federal Constitutional Court has clarified for the first time that the protection afforded by fundamental rights vis-à-vis German state authority is not restricted to the German territory,” the court said in a statement.

The German chapter of Reporters Without Borders, which brought the case in partnership with the Berlin-based Society for Civil Rights (GFF) and a few other journalists’ associations, is overjoyed. more

Alliance Trust Savings Censured After Whistleblower’s ‘Spying’ Concerns

A Dundee-based financial firm has been censured by the Information Commissioner over the use of a mobile app which allowed it to access an “excessive amount” of employees’ sensitive personal data...

Alex Forootan, 36, began investigating after receiving an unexpected text message from Microsoft saying someone had attempted to access his email account.

Mr Forootan worked as a database administrator at ATS’s Dundee headquarters between October 2017 and October last year and is set to take the company to an employment tribunal next month.

He recently rejected a £10,000 pay out from ATS over the issue, citing concerns about his ability to raise it to public attention should he accept. more

Regulator Ask for Credit Suisse Directors' Mobile Data in Spy Inquiry

Swiss regulators have requested electronic messaging data from the mobile phones of several Credit Suisse managers and supervisory board directors as part of a probe into spying at the bank, three people familiar with the matter said. more

ADT Employee Had Access to Hundreds of Home Security Camera Streams, Lawsuit Alleges

Hundreds of ADT customers are suing the home-security firm after it admitted that a former employee gained unauthorized access to their systems over the last several years—including the live video streams of their in-home cameras. 

Two federal class-action lawsuits have been filed on behalf of the customers, The Dallas Morning News reports.

The employee was able to add his email address to customers’ accounts during home-service visits, according to the company. With his email address added to the accounts, he was then able to use the company’s mobile app to snoop on in-home security cameras. 

“Moments once believed to be private and inside the sanctity of the home are now voyeuristic entertainment for a third party,” the lawsuits state. “And worse, those moments could have been captured, shared with others, or even posted to the internet.”

ADT reportedly fired the employee after discovering the abuse, and said it brought in measures to prevent a similar incident from taking place in the future. more

Leaked Phone Call Uncovers Possibly Moldy Marijuana | Fact or Business Espionage Trick?

An audio recording of a detailed phone conversation between two people in the Alaska marijuana industry surfaced on YouTube this week, posted by an account that goes by the name of “Bobb Dogg.”

The conversation cannot be confirmed as legitimate, and could even be business espionage...

In the audio, a person who appears to be a manager of one of Anchorage’s largest marijuana stores admits that his company sold 100 pounds of possibly moldy marijuana, and that CBD oil that was supposed to have a low psychoactive level of THC was found to, in fact, contain high amounts...

The video can be viewed by searching for Bobb Dogg on YouTube. The audio is labeled “Weedileaks.” more

Sir Frederick Barclay's Nephew 'Caught with Bugging Device' at Ritz Hotel

The footage is at the centre of a bitter legal row between the families of the billionaire Barclay twins.

Sir Frederick, 85, and his daughter Amanda are suing three of Sir David Barclay's sons for invasion of privacy.

They claim the surveillance gave the men commercial advantage and they sold the Ritz for half its market value.

The Barclay brothers' businesses include the Telegraph Media Group, the online retailer Very Group, the delivery business Yodel, and - at the time of the bugging - the Ritz hotel in London.

Sir Frederick, the elder twin by 10 minutes, and his daughter Amanda are suing Sir David Barclay's sons - Alistair, Aidan and Howard, Aidan's son Andrew, and Philip Peters, a board director of the Barclay group for invasion of privacy, breach of confidence and data protection laws.

The claim stems from a falling out between the children of the famously private twins...


The CCTV footage allegedly shows Alistair Barclay handling a bugging device at the Ritz hotel on 13 January this year. The recording shows Mr Barclay inserting a plug adaptor, which is claimed to contain a listening device, into a socket.

In court documents lodged by Sir Frederick and Amanda Barclay, it is claimed the bug - which was placed in the hotel's conservatory where Sir Frederick liked to conduct business meetings and smoke cigars - captured more than 1,000 separate conversations amounting to some 94 hours of recordings.

The pair claim the recordings amount to "commercial espionage on a vast scale"....

Voice Activated Wireless GSM Spy Bug SIM Mains 2 Way Adapter Plug Doubler Surveillance Adaptor

Second bug

It is also claimed a separate Wi-Fi bug was supplied by private investigation firm Quest Global. Its chairman is former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Stevens.

The claimants' documents say that Quest invoiced for 405 hours of listening and transcribing.

The recordings, it is alleged, captured "private, confidential, personal and Sir Frederick's privileged conversations with his lawyers, and with his daughter's trustees, bankers and businesspeople".  more

Oddly, there is no mention of the video bug which recorded the incident. It does however make the nephew eligible for our Darwin Award for capturing himself with his own bug. ~Kevin

And, The Number One Spy Job Nobody Would Want Is...

North Korea has axed its spy chief as well as the long-running head of Kim Jong Un’s security — signs of a major shakeup during the ongoing mystery over the dictator’s status.

Jang Kil Song was ousted as head of the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), the North’s military intelligence agency, according to the Korea Herald, citing a report by South Korea’s Unification Ministry.

The RGB is behind the Hermit Kingdom’s most high-profile attacks as well as spy missions, including those against the US, the report says...

(Surprise) No reason was given for the switch. more

Assembling an Ikea Spy Case

Ikea and some of its former executives were ordered to face trial in France over accusations they conspired with police officers to spy on staff.

An Ikea unit in France was accused of collecting information on employees and people applying to work for the furniture giant, according to an indictment dated April 30.

In exchange for a fee, police officers provided confidential information to former Ikea executives on past convictions.

This was in turn used to dismiss staff or turn down applications.

Ikea France said it has “always firmly disapproved” of such practices. more