Corporate Espionage Alert: Deep Portrait Videos – Not Just a Government Problem

The bad actors have stepped up their game with perhaps the most potentially devastating cyber ruse of all – the high-tech “Deepfake” videos...

Deepfake videos are the residue of new internet technology that supplies almost anyone the ability to alter reality so that subjects can be manipulated to say anything the hacker wants, from the ludicrous and inflammatory to the downright incriminating...appears so real it is almost impossible to spot the bogus video.

The potential security impact of these altered videos has both the federal government and the U.S. Intelligence community on high alert...

“This started several years ago with fake videos and then it turned into Deepfake videos and it’s currently progressing to deep portrait videos,” says Bob Anderson, who is a Principal in The Chertoff Group’s global Strategic Advisory Services and a former national security executive and former Executive Assistant Director with the FBI...


“This is a potentially huge national security threat for a variety of reasons. Picture telecommunication calls or video conference calls that an adversary could potentially interject a fake deep portrait video of a three-star general or CEO of a company directing members of that company or organization to partake in potential detrimental national security or criminal actions,” Anderson says. “Nation-states like Russia, China and Iran could potentially utilize this technology for a variety of counterintelligence, corporate espionage, economic espionage and political influence campaigns across the United States.” more

More Security Cameras Vulnerable to Spying

A popular wireless security camera designed to safeguard businesses and homes was vulnerable to a spying hack.

The flaw meant it was possible to hijack video and audio streamed from other people's properties by making a minor tweak to Swann Security's app.

Researchers found the problem after the BBC reported a case where one customer had received another's recordings.

Australia-based Swann and OzVision - the Israeli provider of its cloud tech - said the issue had now been fixed.

Swann said that the vulnerability had been limited to one model - the SWWHD-Intcam, also known as the Swann Smart Security Camera - which first went on sale in October 2017. Retailers including Maplin, Currys, Debenhams, Walmart and Amazon have sold them.

However, there are concerns that other companies' cameras supported by OzVision could have problems. more

It is argued that the company offers cloud service to around three million smart cameras and users rely upon its app to connect to their IoT devices, and if anyone can gain access to live stream then all the smart cameras stand at risk. These include the Flir FX smart camera and other brands apart from Swann. The problem lies in the tunnel protocol that is responsible for verifying is a particular viewer is authorized to access the live stream or not.  more

Dad Charged With Felony Eavesdropping - Phone Ownership Irrelevant

MI - An Antrim County man faces two felony charges after authorities said he recorded conversations between his ex-wife and his 12-year-old daughter for nearly three years...

Carlson, who has custody of his daughter ... had been using a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) setting to record all telephone calls associated with his cellphone number, according to a report from the Michigan State Police.

Investigators contend Carlson let his daughter use the phone so she could talk to her mother, Kellie Poehner, who lives in Genesee County, but did not inform Poehner or his daughter that he was recording the calls, nor did he ask for their consent. Both believed the conversations were private, the report said.

Carlson is suspected of emailing some of the recordings in March to John Poehner, who is married to Kellie Poehner. That alleged action prompted an investigation that led to the distribution and dissemination charge... more

Silicon Valley – Den of Spies

Foreign spies have been showing up uninvited, to San Francisco and Silicon Valley for a very long time.

According to former U.S. intelligence officials, that’s true today more than ever. In fact, they warn—especially because of increasing Russian and Chinese aggressiveness, and the local concentration of world-leading science and technology firms—there’s a full-on epidemic of espionage on the West Coast right now. And even more worrisome, many of its targets are unprepared to deal with the growing threat.

Unlike on the East Coast, foreign intel operations here aren’t as focused on the hunt for diplomatic secrets, political intelligence or war plans. The open, experimental, cosmopolitan work and business culture of Silicon Valley in particular has encouraged a newer, “softer,” “nontraditional” type of espionage, said former intelligence officials—efforts that mostly target trade secrets and technology.

“It’s a very subtle form of intelligence collection that is more business connected and oriented,” one told me. But this economic espionage is also ubiquitous. Spies “are very much part of the everyday environment” here, said this person. Another former intelligence official told me that, at one point recently, a full 20 percent of all the FBI’s active counterintelligence-related intellectual property cases had originated in the Bay Area. (The FBI declined to comment for this story.) more

Auction: Some Remarkable Pieces of Telephone History

If you like old school gear that seems like it would kill you if you look at it wrong, well, we have an auction for you.

Click to Enlarge.

Auction Starts

Aug 4, 2018 11am EDT

The Telephone Pioneers of America was a group founded by various employees and bigwigs at telecom companies back in 1911. Alexander Graham Bell, the man Americans are often taught invented the telephone, was an early member.

At first, it was a way to create a community around the various people who pioneered the tech of telephony, then it shifted to a philanthropic mission. These days, it functions as a network of volunteers that help out in their community. Along the way, the non-profit set up a bunch of little museums around the U.S. dedicated to preserving old equipment and ephemera related to the history of the telephone.

Now, two of those branches are closing and you can buy their goods in an auction online or IRL on August 4th. Bruneau & Co, an auction house based in Cranston, Rhode Island, will handle the bidding. more

How Not to Write Your Name Electronically on Your Hotel Room Door

Reprint of LinkedIn post by Brian Creter...

"At my hotel last week in Los Angeles, I walked up and down my hallway and was able to identify multiple hotel guests who used their full and very unique legal names on their phones, which shows on personal wifi hotspots (see below). 

 

This is essentially like writing your name on a stickie and putting on your hotel door, or wearing a name tag while sitting in the airport. Range is typically 25 to 50 ft. so you can usually narrow down to one of several rooms. 

 

Go to Settings > General > About > Name OR change in iTunes. Also, remove any info that identifies the device (i.e. iPhone, iPad, etc.)."

The Telephone Unmasked - The New York Times - October 13, 1877

The Telephone Unmasked

The New York Times

Published:  October 13, 1877

It is time that the atrocious nature of the telephone should be fully exposed, and its inventors, of whom there are any quantity, held up to execration.

When this nefarious instrument was first introduced, it was pretended that its purpose was an innocent one. We were told that the telephone would enable a man in New-York to hear what a man in Philadelphia might say; and though it was difficult to understand why anybody should ever want to listen to a Philadelphian’s remarks - which, notoriously, consist exclusively of allusions to the Centennial Exhibition and an alleged line of American steam-ships - there was nothing necessarily immoral in this possible use of the telephone.

Then it was claimed that by means of the telephone conversations could be carried on with other than Philadelphians, and that political speeches delivered in Washington could be heard in any city of the continent.

As the President was at that time making speeches in Vermont instead of Washington, the public was not alarmed by this announcement, and it was not until the telephonic conspirators mentioned that the uproar of a brass-band could be transmitted to any distance through the telephone that any general feeling of uneasiness was developed.

Nevertheless, the vast capabilities for mischief of the telephone, and the real purpose of its unprincipled inventors have been studiously concealed, and it is only by accident that the greatness and imminence of the danger to which the public is exposed have suddenly been revealed.

Suspicion ought to have been awakened by the recent publication of the fact that if the lamp-posts of our City were to be connected by wires, every confidential remark made to a lamp-post by a belated Democratic statesman could be reproduced by a telephone connected with any other lamp-post. It is true that this publication was ostensibly made in the interest of the Police force, and it was recommended that patrolmen should use the lamp-posts as means of communication with Police Head-quarters. It was evident, however, that the result would be to make every lamp-post a spy upon midnight wayfarers.

Men who had trusted to friendly lamp-posts for years, and embraced them with the upmost confidence in their silence and discretion, would find themselves shamelessly betrayed and their unsuspecting soliloquies literally reported to their indignant families; strange to say this suggestive hint of the powers of the telephone attracted no attention, and has ere this been in all probability forgotten.

A series of incidents which has lately occurred in Providence has, however, clearly shown the frightful capabilities of the telephone. Two men, to whom, so far as is known, no improper motive can be attributed, were recently experimenting with a telephone, the wire of which was stretched over the roofs of innumerable buildings, and was estimated to be fully four miles in length. They relate that on the first evening of their telephonic dissipation they heard men and women singing songs and eloquent clergymen preaching ponderous sermons; and that they detected several persons in the act of practicing upon brass instruments. This sort of thing was repeating every evening, while on Sunday morning a perfect deluge of partially conglomerated sermons rolled in upon them.

These are the main facts mentioned by the two men in what may be called their official report of their experiments, but it is asserted that they heard other things which they did not venture to openly repeat.

The remarks of thousands of midnight cats were borne to their listening ears. The confidential conversations of hundreds of husbands and wives were whispered through the treacherous telephone, and though the remarks of Mr. and Mrs. Smith were sometimes inextricably entangled with those of Mr. and Mrs Brown, and it was frequently impossible to tell from which particular wife came the direful threat, “O! I’ll just let you know,” or from what strong husband in his agony came the cry, “Leggo that hair!” the two astonished telephone experimenters learned enough of the secrets of the leading families of Providence to render it a hazardous matter for any resident of that city to hereafter accept a nomination for any office.

Now is has been ascertained that the wire of this telephone was not in contact with any other wire, and thus the hypothesis that the sounds heard by the two men were messages in process of transmission by the usual telegraphic wires is untenable. Moreover, a little reflection will show that cats do not send telegraphic messages, and that leading citizens do not transmit by telegraph petitions to their wives advocating a policy of conciliation in respect to hair.

The scientific persons whom the two men have consulted have no hesitation in saying that the telephonic wire picked up all the sounds in its neighborhood by the process of induction.

When the wire passed over a church, it took up the waves of sound set in motion by the preacher and reproduced them on the telephone. In like manner it collected the sounds from the concert-halls and dwelling-houses over the roofs of which it passed, and the peculiar distinctness with which is transmitted the remarks of cats was due to the fact that it must have passed in close proximity to several popular feline resorts.

We can now comprehend the danger of the telephone. If any telephonic miscreant connects a telephone with one of the countless telegraphic wires that pass over the roofs of the City there will be an immediate end of all privacy. Whatever is said in the back piazza by youthful students of the satellites of Mars will be proclaimed by way of the house-top to the eavesdropping telephone operator. No matter to what extent a man may close his doors and windows, and hermetically seal his key-holes and furnace-registers with towels and blankets, whatever he may say, either to himself or a companion, will be overhead.

Absolute silence will be our only safety. Conversation will be carried on exclusively in writing and courtship will be conducted by the use of a system of ingenious symbols. An invention which thus mentally makes silence the sole condition of safety cannot be too severely denounced, and while violence even in self-defense, is always to be deprecated, there can be but little doubt that the death of the inventors and manufacturers of the telephone would do much toward creating that feeling of confidence which financiers tell us must precede any revival of business.

Trust No One, or Life-locked

via Kreb's on Security...
Identity theft protection firm LifeLock — a company that’s built a name for itself based on the promise of helping consumers protect their identities online — may have actually exposed customers to additional attacks from ID thieves and phishers. 

The company just fixed a vulnerability on its site that allowed anyone with a Web browser to index email addresses associated with millions of customer accounts, or to unsubscribe users from all communications from the company.

The upshot of this weakness is that cyber criminals could harvest the data and use it in targeted phishing campaigns that spoof LifeLock’s brand. more

If you use LifeLock carefully check future emails using their name before clicking on anything. Also, check occasionally to make sure you haven't been unsubscribed. ~Kevin

Richard Simmons: P.I. Who Allegedly Planted Bugging Device Charged

The private investigator who allegedly planted a tracking device on Richard Simmons' car has been charged with a crime.

Scott Brian Matthews was charged with 2 counts of the crime of unlawfully using a tracking device.

Prosecutors say Matthews planted the device on the car Richard bought for his housekeeper, Teresa Reveles. They say he planted it so he could shadow Simmons and see if he was going to doctors or hospitals. more

A New Type Of Inductor - Last Barrier To Ultra-Miniaturized Electronics Is Broken

For those keeping an eye on the future of electronic surveillance, this is really interesting news. Others may find the story a bit technical and dry. ~Kevin

In the race for ever-improving technology, there are two related technical capabilities that drive our world forward: speed and size...

But at the same time these advances have comes in leaps and bounds, one fundamental circuit element — the inductor — has had its design remain exactly the same...

The breakthrough... a phenomenon known as kinetic inductance...

Click to enlarge.

That’s where the work of Banerjee’s Nanoelectronics Research Lab and their collaborators comes in. By exploiting the phenomenon of kinetic inductance, they were able to, for the first time, demonstrate the effectiveness a fundamentally different kind of inductor that didn’t rely on Faraday’s magnetic inductance.

Instead of using conventional metal inductors, they used graphene — carbon bonded together into an ultra-hard, highly-conductive configuration that also has a large kinetic inductance — to make the highest inductance-density material ever created. more

High School Coach Caught Spying

An investigation by the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) and Sarasota County Schools, has led to more fallout for the Braden River High School Football Program.

...the district was alerted in May to alleged improper use of HUDL, a national online football management database where teams and players put their highlight reels and can playback games and review old plays.

Through an investigation, it was determined that there was an improper recruit account used to access video footage...

The Sarasota School District says that recruit account was tracked back to the coaching staff at Braden River High School. more

Economic Espionage: Hackers X-Ray X-Rays and Other High-Tech Medical Devices

A mysterious hacking group has been spying on the healthcare sector by going as far to infect computers that control X-ray and MRI machines with malware.
Fortunately, sabotage and patient data collection doesn't appear to be a motive behind the hacking. The attackers were probably focused on corporate espionage and studying how the medical software onboard the computers worked, the security firm Symantec said on Monday.

Over the past three years, the hacking group Orangeworm has been secretly delivering the Windows-based malware to about 100 different organizations, said Jon DiMaggio, a security researcher at Symantec. He speculates this may have been done to learn how to pirate the medical software onboard. more

Spycam'er Arrainged on New Charges

An Idaho Falls man arrested in late June for reportedly hiding a camera in a teenage girl’s room was arraigned Friday on new charges.

Eric Kidman, 23, was charged with five counts of sexual exploitation of a child, in addition to the charge of sexual abuse of a child by making an electronic recording of a minor under 16. The charges come from a cache of child pornography discovered in a Dropbox account.

The 13-year-old victim from the original charge found a camera hidden in a plant in her room while she was watering it. Kidman initially denied hiding the camera but later admitted to police he had placed it in her room and destroyed the micro SD card to cover his tracks.

A video of the victim in her room from a different angle was discovered on his laptop. Another spy camera was delivered to Kidman’s address via the United States Postal Service on July 25, after Kidman had been arrested. more

Bed Bugger of Multiple Beds Arrested

TN - Metro police on Wednesday arrested a man after they say he used a baby monitor to spy on a female coworker in her Sylvan Heights home.

Christopher G. Neel, 35, is charged with wiretapping and aggravated burglary in connection with the incident involving a female victim, according to an arrest affidavit.

According to the affidavit, the woman found the baby monitor underneath her bed in her home in February and suspected Neel was the person who put it there.

The report states that when Neel was confronted by the woman he admitted he placed the monitor in her home. Neel, the affidavit continues, also told the woman that he entered her home after he watched someone enter the keycode to her front door at a party in November.

Police also reported Neel also placed a baby monitor in other co-workers' homes, and that when confronted by his co-workers in March he wrote letters to at least one of them apologizing for his actions. more

Liechtenstein Protects Geneva Airport Against IMSI Catchers

Telecom Liechtenstein (FL1) announced a contract to protect Geneva Airport against electronic eavesdropping and disruptions to mobile networks.

FL1 Overwatch is a service specifically designed to protect companies or information-sensitive individuals. The system reports any detected attempts at espionage directly to the Mobile Security Alarm Centre in Liechtenstein, which triggers alerts and countermeasures.

Specifically, so-called IMSI catchers (fake mobile communication base stations) or jamming transmitters can be identified, located and analyzed before countermeasures are taken...

By using FL1 services, Geneva is the first airport to offer its visitors full integrity of mobile networks in critical areas and can therefore ensure enhanced protection of mobile communications as well as mobile devices used by passengers, employees and security personnel against electronic attacks. more