A History of Wiretapping in the United States

Our privacy was not first invaded by J. Edgar Hoover. They’ve been listening in for far longer than that. 

Wiretapping is nearly as old as electronic communications. Telegraph operators intercepted enemy messages during the Civil War. Law enforcement agencies were listening to private telephone calls as early as 1895. Communications firms have assisted government eavesdropping programs since the early 20th century―and they have spied on their own customers, too. Such breaches of privacy once provoked outrage, but today most Americans have resigned themselves to constant electronic monitoring. 

How did we get from there to here? Hochman explores the origins of wiretapping in military campaigns and criminal confidence games, and tracks the use of telephone taps in the U.S. government’s wars on alcohol, communism, terrorism, and crime... more

Snopes Fact Checks Spy Shoes Story

For the last few years at least, an image has been circulating on the internet containing a bright yellow pair of shoes with lifted heels where the toes should go. The image was often shared alongside commentary that the shoes were warn by spies, who used them to throw would-be spy hunters off their trail.

We were unable to locate the original photograph, but there is no evidence that the pictured shoes were worn by real spies, during World War II or any other time.

We reached out to the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., asking whether the shoes look like anything that could have plausibly been worn by real spies... more

Ex-Biotech Executives Sentenced for Genentech Trade Theft

Two co-founders of a Taiwan biotechnology company were sentenced Tuesday for plotting to steal trade secrets from Genentech in a $101 million scheme, prosecutors said.

Racho Jordanov, former CEO of JHL Biotech Inc., and former chief operating officer Rose Lin were sentenced in San Francisco federal court to a year and a day each in federal prison, the U.S. attorney's office said. more  original press release. 

A year and a day in prison over a $101 million scheme to steal trade secrets?!?! Doesn't seem like much of a deterrent for stealing trade secrets. Companies with trade secrets have to be more self-reliant. Consider adding Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM bug sweeps) to the security program.

Attorney Deborah S. Brenneman at Thompson Hine LLP explains some fine points of U.S. trade secret law...

Reasonable Efforts to Protect the Secrecy of Trade Secret Information
When prosecuting a trade secret claim, a company must not only demonstrate the value of the information at issue, but also that it exercised “reasonable efforts under the circumstances” to protect the information. In effect, courts will not step in to help if the owner has failed to help itself with security measures that match the business risk. 

In DePuy Synthes Prods. v. Veterinary Orthopedic Implants, Inc., 990 F.3d 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2021), the issue was whether to seal a court filing that contained confidential information about a manufacturer’s identity. There was no NDA or other contract establishing confidentiality; instead, the litigant relied on proof that it had kept the information confidential through its own internal security policies and protocols, but this was held to be insufficient. 

Similarly, the plaintiff in ASC Engineered Sols., LLC v. Island Industries, Inc., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 117177 (WD Tenn), sought summary judgment on the question of whether its efforts to protect its trade secrets were reasonable. The employer pointed to its policies and practice to inform employees about confidentiality and its marking of emails and documents with secrecy legends. The court was not persuaded. It held that such information could be considered but was not decisive because the company’s employees had denied seeing the security policies.

These cases highlight the need for companies to audit and evaluate the steps they take to protect their trade secrets. Policies are important, but practices are determinative. more

Tough Week for Spies

• Bulgaria expels 10 Russian diplomats on allegations of spying. more
  
  
• U.S. accuses five of spying and harassing China’s critics, effort to smear congressional candidate. more
  
  
• Norwegian photographer arrested in Greece on spying charges. more
  
  
• Reported Detention of Russian Spy Boss Shows Tension Over Stalled Ukraine Invasion more
  
  
• Submarine Spy Couple Tried to Sell Nuclear Secrets to Brazil more
  
  
• Russian spy captain killed on 'top secret' operation in Ukraine. more
  
  
• Spy agencies' leaks of Russian plans point to the future of information warfare. more
  
  
• Slovakia expels 3 Russian diplomats after spy services info. more
  
  
• The long-haul fight over police spying allegations is on. more
  
  
• Muslims Continue Battling FBI For Spying on OC Mosques After Supreme Court Ruling more
  
  
• Russian spy chiefs ‘under house arrest’ as Putin turns on his security chiefs over invasion setback. more
  
  
• New FBI documents link Saudi spy in California to 9/11 attacks. more
  
  
• Cyberspace making Canadian secrets more vulnerable, spy service official warns. more
  
  
• Why 78% Of Employers Are Sacrificing Employee Trust By Spying On Them more
  
  
• Neighbour fed up with spying child: 'I'm entitled to privacy in my own garden'. more
  

The Government Will Pay for Your Bug Sweep... if you're an Australian

Domestic violence survivors to get government support to scan for spyware and hidden cameras.

Mobile phones will be checked for spyware and homes will be swept for cameras under a government plan to expand support for people who have experienced abuse by a current or former partner...

Nearly $55m will be invested in a program that provides technology checks to ensure people who have experienced domestic violence are not subjected to further abuse.

It includes checking a person's phone and computer to see if any GPS tracking programs or bugs have been installed, as well as searching for cameras hidden in toys, vents or lights in homes. more

Don't live in Australia? Want to check for spycams yourself? Learn how to do it.

Some Thoughts on Mobile Spyware

It really is a great time to be a mobile threat. As mobile devices become ever more critical in our daily lives, hackers are seizing on a vulnerable blindspot in the enterprise attack surface...

Mobile threats often emanate from app stores, where many types of mobile malware hide as legitimate apps...

As Sun Tzu once said, “There is no place where espionage is not possible.” Spyware exemplifies that statement perfectly. Spyware turns a personal mobile device into a corporate espionage bug just by entering an office, nestled in someone’s pocket...

To secure this largely-unrecognized vector, enterprises can look to mobile threat defense. When incorporated as part of a zero trust approach, MTD technology can examine the security of individual mobile devices, alerting the enterprise to threats and blocking access. It can ensure the device hasn’t been infected, jailbroken or compromised and act to protect corporate data if a threat arises. more

Aerospace Company Accuses California Aviation Start-Up of Stealing Trade Secrets

Aerospace supplier Moog Inc. said stolen trade secrets and an all-out raid of its flight software employees by an aviation startup in California have jeopardized its foray into unmanned helicopter aviation.

The Elma company called the data allegedly stolen by a former employee "breathtaking in its scope."

Moog, in a federal lawsuit filed this week in Buffalo, said a software engineer who quit the company's Los Angeles-area office in December took more than 136,000 digital files related to flight control software to her new employer, Skyryse, a six-year-old startup.

Moog accuses Misook Kim, a former employee, of copying to an external hard drive files that contained the source code of Moog's proprietary software programs, which it said took more than 15 years to develop by dozens of Moog engineers at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Moog said it is not aware of any other instance where a Moog employee copied to an external hard drive even a fraction of the data it said Kim did in November.

According to the lawsuit, "What Kim did is entirely without precedent at Moog." more

How Apple's FaceTime Glitch Allowed Eavesdropping

It's the bug taking a bite out of Apple. A flaw in the FaceTime app allowed eavesdropping. Here's how the glitch worked:

Users swiped up while calling someone then tapped add person. By adding their own number, it created a group FaceTime call and then...

"Just like magic that other phone number picked up automatically and you're able at that point to hear everything that's acquirable from an audio perspective from that phone without the other person picking up,” said Jonathan S. Weissman, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computing Security at RIT.

Weissman says the glitch went even further... more

Ex-Russian Spy who fell in love with target blasts Putin:

‘He’ll stop at nothing’

A former Russian spy who says she was trained in the same grueling military program as Vladimir Putin is speaking against her country’s president, claiming he will stop at nothing to win the war in Ukraine.

Aliia Roza, 37, hit headlines last year after it was revealed she had fallen in love with a target she had been trained to honeytrap.

The brunette beauty — who fled Russia after barely escaping with her life — says Putin is used to getting exactly what he wants and won’t take kindly to any kind of loss. more

Industrial Espionage Movie: A 30 Minute Wake-Up Call

The FBI's Office of Private Sector, Counterintelligence Division and Training Division present this 30-minute film entitled Made in Beijing: The Plan for Global Market Domination. In the world of global adversaries, the People’s Republic of China stands at the forefront with its sustained and brazen campaign of industrial espionage, posing the single greatest threat to our freedom, national security, and economic vitality.  Made in Beijing: The Plan for Global Market Domination sounds the alarm, helping private sector partners recognize the urgent need to protect their crown jewels against industrial espionage. more

Shocking Security Discovery: Fake Surveillance Cameras Don't Deter Crime

TX - Mount Bonnell is known for its spectacular views of Austin, but it’s also getting a reputation as a hot spot for car break-ins... 

From Jan. 1 – March 7, there have been 100 car burglaries within 2,000 feet of the park according to the Austin Police Department’s Crime map... 

Austin Parks and Recreation told KXAN after a rash of incidents in July, August and September, it installed dummy cameras at Mount Bonnell as a theft deterrent... 

The department told us the fake cameras were later removed since crime did not decrease. more

Spybuster Tip # 712: How to Thwart Off-Site Meeting Spies

The National Executive Council of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, on Sunday, changed the venue of the meeting... A reliable source said the venue was changed due to the fear of bugging of the auditorium by secret agents of the Nigerian government. more

RIP: Peter Earnest

Peter Earnest, a veteran of the CIA’s Cold War clandestine operations who ran agents in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, then helped promote and preserve the history of espionage while serving as the founding executive director of the International Spy Museum in Washington, died Feb. 13 at a hospital in Arlington, Va. He was 88...

Mr. Earnest acknowledged that his personality sometimes made it difficult to spend years working undercover. “It’s hard when you’re an open person by nature,” he told Washingtonian magazine in 2013. “In some cases, people say, ‘You don’t seem like a spy.’

“The best spies don’t seem like spies.” 

In a video interview for the Spy Museum, Mr. Earnest described what he called “my Bond moment” at the CIA, in which he slipped out of a black-tie reception at the home of an asset and bugged the person’s office. Lying on his back, with a handkerchief positioned on his chest to catch the shavings, he drilled small holes in the bottom of the target’s desk and installed a recording device. more

 

US Football Team Settles Video Voyeurism Suit for $2.4 Million

THE DALLAS COWBOYS paid a confidential settlement of $2.4 million after four members of their iconic cheerleading squad accused a senior team executive of voyeurism in their locker room as they undressed...

Each of the women received $399,523.27 after the incident. One of the cheerleaders alleged that she clearly saw Richard Dalrymple, the Cowboys' longtime senior vice president for public relations and communications, standing behind a partial wall in their locker room with his iPhone extended toward them while they were changing their clothes... Dalrymple gained entry to the back door of the cheerleaders' locked dressing room by using a security key card.
more

What Could be the Penalty for Posting a Spycam Video to the Net?

WV - A former Logan County resident pleaded guilty today to a federal wiretapping charge. According to court documents and statements made in court, Randall Dwight Holden II, 33, admitted to secretly recording a video of a woman engaged in sexually explicit conduct in her Logan County home on November 25, 2017. The video was later uploaded to the internet without the victim’s knowledge. The video was one of several secretly recorded videos that Holden had created and posted online depicting the victim. Holden is scheduled to be sentenced on June 2, 2022 and he faces up to five years in prison. more