Sunday, August 10, 2025

Security Director FYI: Disclaimr.AI Monitors Security News

Security Intelligence Aggregation

(from website) Disclaimr uses AI to monitor every security source that matters so you're always the first to know, never the last to respond. Sends out a sharp 6AM daily security brief distilled from 500+ sources, so that you never miss a critical update. Coming soon.

Notes: There is a waitlist for the launch. No information about the company behind the project appears on the website. Signup requires answering a few reasonable marketing questions. Previous offerings appear to include "spreadsheet to map" and general newsletter aggregation services.
 
While this is not unusual for startups finding the right markets for themselves, consider using a blind email address until the service is proven to be legitimate and necessary for you.

RIP: Stella Rimington, First Woman to Lead U.K.’s MI5, Dies at 90

Widely regarded as the inspiration for the recast of the James Bond character “M,” she was the first British spy chief to be publicly named and photographed.


Stella Rimington, who battled a fiercely protective old boy’s network to become the first woman to lead MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence service, and whose tenure as the country’s spymaster was widely seen as an inspiration for James Bond’s first female boss in the movie franchise, died on Sunday. She was 90.

The Security Service announced her death in a statement on Monday without specifying the cause or place of death.

Her cool demeanor and reputation for quiet competence, according to Bond aficionados, helped shape the character of “M” starting with Judi Dench’s portrayal in “GoldenEye” in 1995. (The Bond movies involved a fictional agent of MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence agency.) more

Weird Science

Scientists Shine a Laser Through a Human Head 
It’s the first step toward an inexpensive new medical imager...
For the most part, anyone who wants to see what’s going on inside someone else’s brain has to make a trade-off when it comes to which tools to use. The electroencephalograph (EEG) is cheap and portable, but it can’t read much past the outer layers of the brain, while the alternative, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), is expensive and the size of a room, but can go deeper. Now, a research group in Glasgow has come up with a mechanism that could one day provide the depth of fMRI using equipment as affordable and portable as an EEG. The technology will rely on something that previously seemed impossible—shining light all the way through a person’s head. more

Magnetocaloric Refrigerator - Runs on magnets instead of harmful gases.
Very few companies have mastered the science of magnetocalorics sufficiently to develop a commercial refrigerator, but perhaps none have also been successful in making the concept “cool” from a marketing standpoint. Now, though, a young academic spinoff company from Darmstadt, Germany is changing the landscape with its Polaris beverage refrigerator. The company is MagnoTherm Solutions GmbH, a pioneering upstart in sustainable cooling. It recently took part in ChangeNOW in Paris, a global event that unites change-makers from around the world to drive positive transformation for our planet. more

A Stratosphere Cell Tower
Starting next year, Tokyo’s SoftBank Corp. will be beaming a prototype 4G and 5G phone and broadband service from the stratosphere to Japanese end users. Floating 20 kilometers above the Earth, the company’s airship-based mast will be using energy-regeneration tech and newly allocated spectrum. And the tech could ultimately pose a real, competitive threat to satellite-based platforms like Starlink. more

Man Is Controls iPad With His Thoughts
You can officially control an Apple device with your thoughts, as long as you have the Stentrode brain implant made by NYC-based Synchron. First announced in May, the capability connects brain-computer interfaces (BCI) to Apple products through a Bluetooth connection. It works with iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS, so that means iPads, iPhones, and the Vision Pro can recognize a BCI just like a keyboard or mouse. Apple designed it to be a standard connection for all implants, including Elon Musk's Neuralink, but Synchron is the first to offer the capability to its patients. more

Monday, August 4, 2025

Documentary: The Thing (No, not the 1951 & 1982 monster movies. The Russian Spy Thing.)

'The Thing' a captivating short film
that uncovers one of history's most astonishing espionage incidents of the 20th Century. The documentary uncovers the amazing story behind the Great American Seal bug. 

John Little of TSCM Consulting tells this complex story of spying, counter spying, genius, betrayal, political wrangling and espionage. 

£15.50 donation supporting The National Museum of Computing.
✓ Full access pass to the documentary
✓ Access to future releases & updates
✓ Stream & watch anytime
✓ Donate to The National Museum of Computing

You can live in a spy movie if...

...you’ve got some cash sitting around: 

British underwater jetpack maker CudaJet has done what you’d expect an underwater jetpack maker to do: they made an underwater jetpack.

 The 31-pound hands-free, backpack-like device, which is made to order and starts at ~$31k, will help rich people live out their dolphin dreams — diving 130+ feet down and propelling them forward 7 mph at a time. 

CudaJet says it comes with a controller and that it all takes five minutes to get comfortable with it. more

Weird Spy News: A Son Bugging Dad? (technically speaking)

India - PMK founder leader S Ramadoss on Saturday alleged his son Anbumani spied on him.

Asked whether it would be appropriate to allege that it was Anbumani who had planted a listening device as the police probe was still on, Ramadoss shot back, asking, “Who else could have planted it?"

He alleged it was his son Anbumani who had planted the bugging device at his residence. Ramadoss said complaints had been filed by him with Kiliyanur police (Villupuram district) and the cybercrime wing as well. The bugging device and its parts had been handed over to the police. more

Spies Demise Times Two

...Swedish diplomat found dead.
A veteran Swedish diplomat recently arrested on suspicion of espionage has died days after being released from police custody, his lawyer has revealed. 

Sweden's Sapo security service detained the man, who has not been named, on Sunday and kept him for questioning until Wednesday. He was released the same day, subject to investigation the country's prosecution service has said.

Police told Swedish outlet Svenska Dagbladet they had now opened an investigation into his death, but “there is no suspicion a crime has been committed”. more

Top Somali spy investigating assassination attempt on president killed...
A senior officer with Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA), who was leading a sensitive investigation into a recent assassination attempt on President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, has been mysteriously killed in Mogadishu, Caasimada Online news website reported on Saturday. more

Quote of the Week: "Nobody with Sensitive Information is Immune to Espionage"

Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation director-general Mike Burgess said that in the “prevailing threat environment, national security truly is national security – everybody’s business”.


He said foreign intelligence agencies were “aggressively targeting” three key areas: science and technology, particularly advanced technology; public and private sector projects to gain a commercial advantage; and Antarctic research, green technology, critical minerals, and rare earths extraction and processing.
What information are spies taking?

Mr Burgess warned this meant “nobody with sensitive information is immune” and gave examples of recent operations investigated by ASIO. more

The Farmhouse Spy

A simple farmhouse and a mysterious dish set the stage for a real-world spy thriller.
When French counterintelligence spotted that setup, they realised someone was tapping into high-value space communications.

The homeowner, Dong H., was no ordinary resident. A former employee of Beijing’s Academy of Science and Technology and president of Stahd Europe—a subsidiary of Emposat, the Chinese communications specialist—she had all the credentials for espionage. Emposat’s failed bid to install a ground station in the Czech Republic underscored how wary governments are of hidden antennas.

French investigators couldn’t prove data theft outright, but they confirmed the dish was finely tuned to CNES frequencies. Instead of a raid, authorities filed legal charges for illegal antenna installation, quietly dismantling the operation. Dong’s rural hideout shows how easy it can be to set up covert surveillance right under everyone’s nose. more

Spycam News: From That Wonderful Country That Brought You the Noodle Splash Guard

A spycam chindogu for you. Still a concept project... 


Noodle Splash Guard

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Candidate for Swimming with the Fishes

Mohamed Orahhou, a Norwegian who worked as a security agent at the US embassy in Oslo has been charged with spying for Russia and Iran...

The 27-year-old man is accused of having supplied information on embassy activities... In return, he was paid in euros and bitcoin.

He is accused of having supplied ... the contact details of diplomats, embassy staff and their families. He is also accused of having supplied the diplomatic licence-plate numbers of vehicles used by the embassy.

The charge sheet also alleges he handed over the plans of the embassy, security routines and a list of couriers Norway's intelligence service used. more


Apparently, the dude never heard about his predecessor, Hvaldimir, a white beluga whale famously suspected of being a Russian spy, found dead off the coast of Norway.

Hey, Security. Talk to the hand...

Anviz innovative biometric Palm Vein Access Control Reader.  Seamless and touch-less access.
Key features and Advantages comparing to biometric of fingerprint and Face.

Accuracy
Palm vein recognition is one the most accurate biometric technologies, primarily due to its internal, unique, and stable biological characteristics.
FAR is typically around 0.00008% (or 1 in 1.25 million), FRR is 0.01%

Stability 
Palm vein patterns remain stable throughout a person’s life, make it suitable for long-term us 
Secure
Because palm veins are not visible to the naked eyes, also liveness detection requires active blood flow, adding a natural anti-spoofing layer. It is very hard to be duplicated.
Privacy
Unlike fingerprint or facial recognition that may be captured without user’s permission, palm vein can not be captured secretly as the vein patterns are inside the body, which makes almost impossible to collect or clone without the user’s participation.
Hygienic
Non-contact enrollment and identification surfaces. more

The Latest Eavesdropping Buzz

Amazon's New AI Wearable: Listening to You Like a Best Friend (or a Creepy Ex)

It's officially a wild world out there in tech land, where your devices are not just smart—they're practically eavesdropping. 

Amazon has taken a significant step into the AI wearable realm by acquiring a startup called Bee, which creates a device that records everything you say. Yes, you read that correctly: everything. Talk about a leap in user experience—or a giant leap toward a reality show called “Keeping Up with the Amazons.”

• Always Listening: Bee can record everything, theoretically capturing all your brilliant thoughts and awkward moments.

• Privacy Concerns: Remember when Amazon had to address Alexa's ability to record conversations? The Bee wearable might be stirring up some déjà vu. more

FutureWatch: As You Distort Wi-Fi Space You Become Identifiable

Wi-Fi networks could soon track you without devices, as Italian researchers harness signal distortions to create unique biometric identifiers...
Researchers in Italy have shown that even ordinary Wi-Fi signals can be used to track people, without needing them to carry any device at all.

A team from La Sapienza University of Rome has developed a system called ‘WhoFi,’ which can generate a unique biometric identifier based on how a person’s body interacts with surrounding Wi-Fi signals. WhoFi can identify people within a Wi-Fi area with an accuracy of 95.5%.

The approach, described in a preprint paper, uses signal distortions caused by the human body to re-identify individuals as they move across spaces covered by different Wi-Fi networks.

More information: Danilo Avola et al, WhoFi: Deep Person Re-Identification via Wi-Fi Channel Signal Encoding, arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2507.12869

Protector App - Uber with Guns?

Short-Term Security. 
Immediate Protection with No Commitment

An app you can use to hire a trained law enforcement professional in NYC or LA. Launched after the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December.

"Protector provides discreet, high-level protection for executives, public figures, and innovators facing elevated risk. We work behind the scenes to assess threats, monitor digital exposure, and ensure medical readiness, so our clients can operate with confidence and clarity." more