"GET SMART" is a film mistaken about its own identity. As a reworking of one of the great 1960s TV comedies, you'd think being funny would be its main goal. But you would be wrong. Very, very wrong.Like its protagonist, in-over-his-head secret agent Maxwell Smart, "Get Smart" yearns to be something it's not. Unaccountably eager to walk in the footsteps of James Bond, "Get Smart" neglects the laughs and amps up the action, resulting in a not very funny comedy joined at the hip to a not very exciting spy movie. Talk about killing two birds with one stone. (more) However, in the back of the DVD bin... Peter Segal’s top five 'Get Smart' episodes Would you believe we asked Peter Segal, the director of the spy comedy "Get Smart," starring Steve Carell as Agent 86 Maxwell Smart and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99, to name his top 50 episodes of the classic TV series on which the film is based? Would you believe we asked him his top 25? How about his top 10? All right, we settled for his top five. (more) Get Smart - The Complete Original TV Series
The Phone Car is a modified by a 1975 Volkswagen Beetle. Created by Howard Davis as a way to promote his telephone biz, Datel Communications. Check out the video of this phone car on the road. The horn, of course, rings. (more) More Art Cars...
It is always heartwarming to see our eavesdropping and wiretap detection instrumentation winning international awards...
"The TALAN Telephone and Line Analyzer (manufactured by REI) has been awarded the 2008 Canadian Technical Security Conference (CTSC) Award for significant industry contribution, research and engineering design.
Telephone technology has advanced over the past several years, and so have the methods and possibilities for surveillance devices on telephone lines, making traditional eavesdropping tap detection methods outdated and ineffective. Additionally, multiple pieces of test equipment were required to conducted time consuming tests that provided limited results. The TALAN is a breakthrough in telephone and line testing, combining multiple tests into a single piece of equipment as well as introducing NEW technology providing effective tap detection tests for both digital and analog telephone lines.
The Canadian Technical Security Conference (CTSC) is an annual conference composed of Technical Security Specialists and members of the Canadian Technical Security Professional Association (CTSPA). Delegates and speakers of the conference include technical security professionals representing private companies, law enforcement, military and government organizations from Canada and around the world..." (more)
In the first prosecution of its kind in the nation, a man who is well known to members of the “botnet underground” pleaded guilty today to federal charges related to his use of “botnets” – armies of compromised computers – to steal the identities of victims throughout the country by extracting information from their personal computers and wiretapping their communications. John Schiefer, 26, of Los Angeles (90011), appeared today before United States District Judge A. Howard Matz and pleaded guilty to accessing protected computers to conduct fraud, disclosing illegally intercepted electronic communications, wire fraud and bank fraud...
Schiefer’s “spybot” malware allowed him to intercept communications sent between victims’ computers and financial institutions, such as PayPal. Schiefer sifted through those intercepted communications and mined usernames and passwords to accounts. Using the stolen usernames and passwords, Schiefer made purchases and transferred funds without the consent of the victims. Schiefer also gave the stolen usernames and passwords, as well as the wiretapped communications, to others. (more)
"DIY Wiretapping: The Ultimate Guide (And How to Fight Back)" via ITsecurity.com Even if you aren't involved in a criminal case or illegal operation, it's incredibly easy to set up a wiretap or surveillance system on any type of phone. Don't be surprised to learn that virtually anyone could be spying on you for any reason.
How to Wiretap Did you think wiretapping was just for the FBI and mobsters? It's actually so easy that we can show you how to install and manage different wiretapping systems yourself... (11 "tips" revealed)
Fighting Back Defend yourself against wiretappers and spies by following these tips. You'll be able to determine if someone is eavesdropping on your home phone, cell phone or VoIP calls. (13 "tips" revealed... including this one.)
• Check for any suspicious wires running from your phone: Spybusters LLC, a company that performs eavesdropping-detection audits, explains on its Web site the different types of wires your phone should have and which ones indicate wiretapping. (more)
Once a back-room government parlor trick, computer automated document reconstruction is now available to the general public!
Recommendations...
Ditch every stripcut (and partial stripcut) shredder in your company. They do not provide adequate business-level information security. Use crosscut, particle-cut or pulping shredders. Alert your Purchasing Department... "No more crummy stripcut shredders!"
NY - A Long Island doctor is accused of installing a hidden camera in the bathroom of his medical office.
Nassau County police say 54-year-old Vincent Pacienza was arrested Friday and charged with unlawful surveillance.
The doctor's staff discovered the camera, which had been concealed inside an air purifier.
Police believe the camera was placed in the restroom of the Manhasset medical office within the last two weeks. (more)
The kicker... The purifier, listed for $699, features a "built-in color camera and carrier current video transmitter is completely undetectable," according to the Web site.
The doctor's office staff discovered the device after receiving a bill from thespystore.com, said Det. Lt. Kevin Smith.
The staff looked at the Web site and recognized the air purifier listed there as similar to the one recently installed in the 8-by-8 office restroom, Smith said.
UK - A peeper used a mirror to spy on swimmers undressing in the cubicles of a Teesside pool, a court heard.
Paul Stoddart was spared a prison sentence as Teesside Crown Court ruled yesterday his crime was a “singular aberration”. The 46-year-old voyeur was seen holding a small mirror under the partitions of cubicles at Stockton’s Splash centre. He was caught as a mum saw two hands holding a mirror tilted upwards under the wall of her cubicle as she crouched to take off her jeans.
She was at Splash with her husband and their two-year-old daughter on November 29 last year. The woman saw Stoddart emerge from the adjoining cubicle.
Her husband went looking for Stoddart, saw him holding the mirror under other changing rooms and alerted pool staff. (more)
Watch out for that girl, laddie; you might be talking over her head but into her microphone.
As Willie Shakespeare once said, - “There’s more to this than meets the eye!” This, in the present case, happens to be the bodice of a Sweet Young Thing, said bodice containing microphone, batteries, antenna and transmitter—constituting a miniature radio station with a range of 200-300 feet.
The West German device is but one of several now being used in industrial espionage—the art of swiping your competitor’s business secrets without his knowing. It works like this:Sweet Young Thing has date with two scientists from Firm A.
Mike concealed in the bosom of her party dress picks up their shop talk and other bodice equipment transmits it to operative of Firm B waiting outside in a car equipped with tape recorder.
Sweet Young Thing gets paid off by Firm B.We realize that all’s fair in love and war but isn’t this going too far? (courtesy of those great folks at blog.modernmechanix.com/)
From the "Why are we not surprised?" file... The Italian government has proposed a bill that would limit the use of phone intercepts and their publication in the media. (more) Maybe this and this and this is why.
FutureWatch... "I'll Getta You Sucka: The Silvio Story" starring Robert De Niro
Guyana - The ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) yesterday distanced itself from drug accused Shaheed Roger Khan saying assertions being made through his attorney are “baseless” and it has no knowledge of any of its members ever being associated with him.
General Secretary Donald Ramotar made the assertions following queries from reporters yesterday at a press conference at Freedom House Boardroom. Ramotar was asked whether the party was concerned about the statements emanating from the US courts by Khan’s lawyers in the context of a purchase of high-tech surveillance equipment in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for which he allegedly secured the permission of the Guyana Government. In response Ramotar said he saw the statements as baseless. “I am not concerned about those statements. I tend to believe the Ministry of Home Affairs in this case. The statement is baseless and I am not worried about baseless statements,” he asserted.
Lawyers for Khan, who is facing drug charges in the US, have cited an FBI investigation which they claim revealed that the government had given Khan permission to purchase the sensitive electronic surveillance equipment from Spy Shops in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
In a subpoena to the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Khan’s lawyers stated: “FBI agent Justin Krider investigated Khan’s purchase of the computer telephonic surveillance equipment from Spy Shops in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and found Khan had permission from the Government of Guyana to purchase and possess this equipment.”
In a background paragraph, the subpoena said Khan was alleged to have used the equipment to improperly wiretap various high-ranking officials and others within Guyana in order to maintain his “alleged drug organization.”
...there has been no public information on what happened to the equipment and many questions posed to officials by this newspaper on how the equipment came into the country and what happened to it after the court case went unanswered.
It was believed that the surveillance equipment was passed back to Khan after the trial as he later acknowledged that he had taped several conversations of leading security officials and other personalities.
Prior to his arrest in Suriname and subsequently by the US authorities, Khan had maintained that he had assisted the Guyana government in fighting crime and subversive elements. (more)
UK - One of Britain's top intelligence officersspiesleft a dossier of secret files detailing the threat from al-Qaeda and the status of Iraqi security forces on a train, the British Government was forced to concede...
Marked "secret" and in a bright orange folder, the papers were left on a commuter train traveling between Surrey and Waterloo station, London. The al-Qaeda document, apparently commissioned jointly by the Foreign Office and Home Office, was classified "UK top secret" and was so sensitive that each page was numbered and marked: "For UK, US, Canadian and Australian eyes only."
...the file, handed to the BBC by a passenger... (more)
Plans to compress internet (VoIP) phone calls so they use less bandwidth could make them [more] vulnerable to eavesdropping. Most networks are currently safe, but many service providers are due to implement the flawed compression technology. (more)
Viral Marketing or Hogwash? You decide... Listerine mouth wash is being touted as the latest weapon in the war to repel that most pesky of insects, the blood-sucking mosquito.
...there is a bumper crop of the varmints and the threat of West Nile is still strong, say local naturalist Terry Sprague and health officials...
People being bugged has led to Listerine, which some swear by and have used on his hikes, Sprague said, although where the idea of using mouth wash to repel mosquitoes came from is not clear.
"You spray it on your person," he said. "I am not sure what the active ingredient is."
However, Listerine does contain some eucalyptus, which is an evergreen tree, and the herb thyme, two proven mosquito repellers, Sprague said. (more)
Three 'Get Smart' news reports in one day! Just coincidence? No... "Get Smart" the TV-show movie remake hits next week + Corporations are getting hit with more eavesdropping = Corporations are Getting Smart...
Targets of Spying Get Smart by M.P. McQueen
Tiny electronic-surveillance gadgets that James Bond could only dream of are increasingly turning up in boardrooms, bedrooms and bathrooms. Crooks are parking vans outside people's homes to steal bank-account passwords and credit-card numbers, using programs that tap into Wi-Fi connections. Paparazzi hide cameras and microphones in private jets, hoping to record embarrassing celebrity video. Corporate spies plant keystroke-recording software in executives' laptops and listen in on phone conversations as they travel.
Now, people are deploying counter-spy technology to fight back. Some celebrities and corporate executives get regular sweeps of their offices, limos and private jets in search of hidden devices. Others hire security experts to safeguard their phones and home computers...
Kevin D. Murray, an Oldwick, N.J., counter-surveillance expert, said he received several calls from worried executives asking for sweeps of their offices and homes as soon as the Porsche incidentsurfaced. (more)
We've gotten smart: Movie's spy gadgets do exist
The shoe phone on TV's "Get Smart" wasn't just a sneaky spy gadget, it was a technological marvel: a wireless, portable telephone that could be used anywhere — though it did require a dime to make a call.
Today, almost everyone has a pocket-sized version that also takes photos, shoots video, sends e-mail and surfs the Internet. About the only thing it doesn't do is protect your feet.
"Get Smart" comes to the big screen next week, along with a spate of new spy gadgets to help Maxwell Smart, Agent 99 and the other spies at CONTROL. The gadgets are just as goofy as they were in the original TV series, but because technology has caught up with the writers' imaginations, there's a big difference: many of the movie's doo-dads actually exist. (more)
Bugging of offices ‘grows sharply’
Wales - Boardrooms and similar high-level working environments are increasingly being bugged as rival businesses and even staff look to gain an advantage through industrial espionage... (more)
Snoopstation.com (currently in BETA) is a portal to free web-based public records checking sites in the U.S. - Cool! They are also the entry point to a fee-based investigative service for when public record checks are not enough ...or you don't have the time / patience to DIY.
UK - Customers in shopping centres are having their every move tracked by a new type of surveillance (Path Intelligence) that listens in on the whisperings of their mobile phones.
The technology can tell when people enter a shopping centre, what stores they visit, how long they remain there, and what route they take as they walked around.
The device cannot access personal details about a person’s identity or contacts, but privacy campaigners expressed concern about potential intrusion should the data fall into the wrong hands.
The surveillance mechanism works by monitoring the signals produced by mobile handsets and then locating the phone by triangulation – measuring the phone’s distance from three receivers. (more)
Lawyers Gone Wild Same trick! Different country. (previous report)
Scotland - A shamed solicitor who put a video camera in a ladies' toilet and filmed female staff is facing jail.
Peter Fitzpatrick, 49, from Rutherglen, hid the device in a cardboard box in the toilet at upmarket Stirling law firm Muirhead Buchanan.
The father-of-two, a solicitor for 27 years, was caught when a suspicious secretary noticed a circular hole in the side of the box was pointing straight at the pedestal. (more)
A single unsecured smartphone (or laptop) can jeopardize the security of your entire organization.
For those not schooled in the risks, smartphones are the back-door deployment that can provide hackers -- or the competition -- with access to your network.
Imagine... Jim, your employee, buys a smartphone and loads it up with contracts, sales quotes, pricing schemes, and other information you wouldn't want your competitors or customers to know.
The smartphone falls out of his pocket while he is boarding a plane in a crowded airport. Whoever finds the device will have instant access to all of Jim's emails and your corporate information.
Solution - Do these things... • Use VPN's • Block Access to Public Wi-Fi • Make Strong Passwords Mandatory • Block Removable Storage • Educate Employees • Educate IT • Encryption is Key • Better Security Through Software (here's how)
Skype, the eBay-owned company, says it is unable to comply with court-authorized wiretap requests.
"...because of Skype's peer-to-peer architecture and encryption techniques, Skype would not be able to comply with such a request," said Jennifer Caukin, Skype's director of corporate communications. (more)
NY - Susan Burgess, a Brockport attorney, and her former client, Carmen Coleman... accusing a school official and a Buffalo attorney for the school district of illegally eavesdropping on their private conversation in a district conference room nearly two years ago....
Named in their suit are the district; its board of education; Kevin Ratcliffe, director of Pupil Services; and Jay Pletcher, the attorney in question, and his law firm...
Burgess and Coleman met at school district offices with Ratcliffe and Pletcher, to discuss the educational needs of Coleman’s son. At one point, Burgess and Coleman asked to speak privately; Ratcliffe and Pletcher left the room.
But, they claim Pletcher called a cell phone and then left it on the table in the conference room so he could listen in from Ratcliffe’s adjoining office, presumably with Ratcliffe, on their private conversation in violation of their civil rights...
To support their claim, Coleman and Burgess say there was a series of subsequent events that led them to believe their conversation had been overheard. It began with Pletcher re-entering the room and removing a cell phone immediately after Coleman asked Burgess about the device lying on the table.
...They expect a decision in six to 10 weeks. (more)
Ireland - GARDAI (Irish national police) are to review all contracts given to garages which service its fleet after a mechanic, who was returning from a trip to the UK, was found with bugging equipment.
A number of cars, including unmarked vehicles used by detectives, were checked for bugging devices last week after a mechanic who services Garda vehicles was found with the specialist equipment during a routine search at Dublin Port.
A high-level investigation is now under way amid fears that cars used by senior gardai, including Commissioner Fachtna Murphy, could have been bugged and sensitive information leaked to criminals or terrorist organisations.
It is understood that a man employed by a company which won a contract to service garda cars was stopped with the equipment during a search at Dublin Port. (more)
Eavesdropping on the Boss: Is it “Cause” to Fire Me? by Alan L. Sklover Question: I was put on suspension for sharing information I learned when playfully eavesdropping on my boss. Then I was called at home and terminated. I was told my actions, and the actions of another employee who I shared the information with, did not meet the required level of integrity of the company. At the same time, one employee who is still there goes to strip clubs. Was my firing a wrongful termination? S.A.M., Houston, TX
Answer: Sorry, but on this issue I have to agree with your employer. Eavesdropping on your boss, even if it’s playful, is not something most any employer would tolerate. If people think their telephone conversations are being listened to, they may be reluctant to use them. If people think their conversations may be repeated, they may not speak openly. And taking precious time at work to do things like this just don’t help anyone. Additionally, the fact that someone else does things that are not proper (either on their own time or on company time) does not in any way excuse or justify your errors. Your conduct would be considered “cause” for firing at almost any employer. My best advice: learn from the mistake. Work is for working; eavesdropping isn’t working, and will get you fired. It’s that simple. Best, Al Sklover
"GET SMART" is a film mistaken about its own identity. As a reworking of one of the great 1960s TV comedies, you'd think being funny would be its main goal. But you would be wrong. Very, very wrong. Like its protagonist, in-over-his-head secret agent Maxwell Smart, "Get Smart" yearns to be something it's not.
Unaccountably eager to walk in the footsteps of James Bond, "Get Smart" neglects the laughs and amps up the action, resulting in a not very funny comedy joined at the hip to a not very exciting spy movie. Talk about killing two birds with one stone. (more)
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