SpyCam Story #594 - Tap Cappy Defender

Turkey - The lawyer of former Eskişehir police chief Hanefi Avcı -- who is suspected to have illegally wiretapped dozens of individuals -- is accused of having installed a hidden camera in the management room of the apartment building where he currently resides.

Lawyer Fidel Okan, who resides in the Baymak Apartment in Ankara’s Eryaman neighborhood, is said to have installed the camera to record building management meetings. The residents of the building noticed the camera during a recent meeting. (more)

SpyCam Story #593 - Cops Play Hardball

OK - A former Oklahoma City high school coach has admitted to police that he secretly videotaped his girls’ softball team while players changed clothes in the locker room, a police detective reported Wednesday...

Police have been investigating him since May, when the new coach found Hestand’s personal Sony video camera and tapes in the softball equipment room...

Police officers also viewed the tapes and found evidence the girls were recorded on different days in the locker room and that the hidden camera was repositioned to capture a better angle, the detective reported. The officers discovered numerous teenage softball players were recorded in various stages of undress.

“After the softball players leave the room … a male voice asks, ‘Is everyone out?’ After receiving no answer, a hand is shown and the video ends,” the detective wrote. (much more)

Doh! Another spycam'er shoots himself.

Cop Bugs Exam Room - Caught, Testing 1-2-3-4

UK - A senior officer in Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad has been sacked after trying to cheat in a promotion exam.

The detective inspector bugged an examination room where rival candidates were being interviewed — but the recorder was discovered when the tape holding it to the bottom of a table came unstuck and it fell to the floor...

The senior officer conducting the interview called the Yard's internal investigations unit to launch an inquiry. The detective inspector had tested the machine earlier by using his own voice and was quickly recognised by colleagues. (more)

Doh! Another bugger shoots himself.

A Brief History of U.S. Tap and Bug Law

Congress enacted the first federal wiretap statute as a temporary measure to prevent disclosure of government secrets during World War I. Later, it proscribed intercepting and divulging private radio messages in the Radio Act of 1927, but did not immediately reestablish a federal wiretap prohibition. By the time of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928), however, at least forty-one of the forty-eight states had banned wiretapping or forbidden telephone and telegraph employees and officers from disclosing the content of telephone or telegraph messages or both. (more) 

Extra Credit:

• Murray's Eavesdropping History Emporium

• Whispering Wires: The Tragic Tale of an American Bootlegger

...thus giving Santa a run for his money in the spying department.

If the popularity of spy toys as holiday gifts is any indication, the future of our TSCM services to business and government is secure for decades to come. Kids learn through play.

The only thing that has changed since my last big review in December, 2006 is the sophistication of the toys themselves. There are some amazing gadgets out there this year.

Check out this toy... 

"The Spy Net Secret Mission Video Watch is the ultimate infiltration tool and comes packed with high-tech features. The working video camera and microphone record over 20 minutes of video, 2,000 photos or 4 hours of audio. The watch's full color 1.4" TFT screen lets you watch recorded videos and provides live playback. Onboard memory lets you store your secret evidence, which you can then load onto your home computer with the included USB cable. Video missions are available for download on the cool Spy Net website."

 Only one of their many spy tools for kids...

"Spy Net takes high end electronics and interactive gadgets and puts them in the hands - and on the wrists! - of burgeoning young secret agents. For undercover surveillance, detection and communication, Spy Net provides all the technology you'll need to tackle any secret mission!"

Think this is a myth meme? 

Google "spy toys for kids" you will see about 756,000 results in .2 seconds. (sing-a-long)

Third Man Spy Gets First Memorial Plaque

Russia on Thursday unveiled a memorial plaque to British double agent Kim Philby at the headquarters of the Foreign Intelligence Service in Moscow, the Echo of Moscow radio station reported.

Philby, who died in 1988, was a decorated member of British intelligence who worked as a spy for the Soviet Union. He was exposed in 1963 as one of the so-called Cambridge Five spy ring and defected to Moscow. (more) (historical video) (The Third Man)

British reaction: "Some memorials should be urinated upon."

SpyCam Story #592 - The Eggman, superhero.

Anonymous for Animal Rights, an Israeli nonprofit dedicated to exposing cruelty in factory farms, has done something truly revolutionary. Instead of sending in an undercover volunteer to collect horrific footage at slaughterhouses and Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), the group has installed a web camera at an egg farming facility to stream the cruelty live. 
 
And because factory farms are so enormous and indistinguishable, the farmers can’t find the camera.

This ingenious move is part of a larger, ongoing campaign by Anonymous to outlaw battery cages for egg laying hens in Israel. These cages mean that hens spend their entire lifetime in a space smaller than even a page of a trade paperback book—about 550 square centimeters. Click on the link and you’ll see the daily life of egg laying hens, crammed three (or more) to a cage. They can’t spread their wings, bathe in dust, forage, fly, run, or engage in any of their natural behaviors. They don’t even get to stand on solid ground — their feet poke through the gaping wire mesh they’re forced to stand on, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. (more)

SpyCam Story #591 - The Nappyman, supercreep

Nappie fetish copycat.

Australia - A man who filmed naked boys in a changeroom at a swimming centre with a camera hidden in his bag has been sentenced to at least 18 months' jail.

The Adelaide District Court heard Julius Fabian Ohmer, 31, had been secretly filming children at the Elizabeth Aquadome for some time before he was arrested by police last November.

Ohmer was also found to have more than 200,000 images and films of child pornography at his home and the court heard he had a sexual fetish for nappies.

Judge Rosemary Davey said she was revolted by the offending. (more)

Hamlet with Headphones

Canada - A file folder opens to reveal surveillance photos of a young couple embracing. Around the periphery of a government office, blocky security guards stand vigilant, occasionally opening their briefcases to reveal eavesdropping equipment. The forces of paranoia have won.

If each generation gets the Hamlet it deserves, then the National Theatre’s much-lauded version, which will be shown in Canadian movie theatres Thursday, is WikiLeaks set in Denmark. The older generation, desperate to maintain power, feels the world shifting irrevocably beneath its feet. (more) (trailer)

Kevin's advice... "Give thy thoughts no tongue."
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1.3

Security Director Budget Booster - The Value Of Corporate Secrets

Here are the findings from a Forrester Consulting paper on the value of corporate secrets.

• Secrets comprise two-thirds of the value of firms’ information portfolios. Despite the increasing mandates enterprises face, custodial data assets aren’t the most valuable assets in enterprise information portfolios. Proprietary knowledge and company secrets, by contrast, are twice as valuable as the custodial data. And as recent company attacks illustrate, secrets are targets for theft.

• Compliance, not security, drives security budgets. Enterprises devote 80% of their security budgets to two priorities: compliance and securing sensitive corporate information, with the same percentage (about 40%) devoted to each. But secrets comprise 62% of the overall information portfolio’s total value while compliance related custodial data comprises just 38%, a much smaller proportion. This strongly suggests that investments are over-weighed toward compliance.
 

• Firms focus on preventing accidents, but theft is where the money is. Data security incidents related to accidental losses and mistakes are common but cause little quantifiable damage. By contrast, employee theft of sensitive information is 10 times costlier on a per-incident basis than any single incident caused by accidents: hundreds of thousands of dollars versus tens of thousands.
 

• The more valuable a firm’s information, the more incidents it will have. The “portfolio value” of the information managed by the top quartile of enterprises was 20 times higher than the bottom quartile. These high value enterprises had four times as many security incidents as low-value firms. High-value firms are not sufficiently protecting data from theft and abuse by third parties. They had six times more data security incidents due to outside parties than low-value firms, even though the number of third parties they work with is only 60% greater.
 

• CISOs do not know how effective their security controls actually are. Regardless of information asset value, spending, or number of incidents observed, nearly every company rated its security controls to be equally effective — even though the number and cost of incidents varied widely. Even enterprises with a high number of incidents are still likely to imagine that their programs are “very effective.” We concluded that most enterprises do not actually know whether their data security programs work or not. (more)

Need help. Call us.

SpyCam Story #591 - You can stop saluting now.

Australia - An army corporal has gone on trial accused of putting a tiny camera in women's showers at his barracks.

Prosecutors told Adelaide Magistrates Court Nathan William Freeman disguised a tiny camera as a car remote control and put it in the women's showers at Woodside army barracks in the Adelaide Hills last December.

A police analysis of the footage allegedly showed Freeman putting the device in the shower. (more)

Doh! Another spycam'er shoots himself.

Stolen Laptop Reward... Drugs

PA - A Philadelphia man used his skills as an advertising executive to devise a unique way of getting back his stolen laptop... Surveillance video captured the robbery on tape... Refusing to take the robbery lying down, Kurt Shore devised a campaign to find the missing notebook.

First, he posted the surveillance video on the Philly-based website wheresthefairness.com with hopes of getting attention for his cause. The same video also went to YouTube, announcing a reward of an ounce of marijuana.

He then printed and posted posters offering a “fabulous drug stash” to whoever returned the computer.

Shore isn’t actually offering drugs. The bottom of the poster reads “Actual reward may vary.” (more)

The Wrong Question

I am asked some really odd security questions. Take this one from a media editor, for example…

“I’ve been reading various articles in which experts are quoted as saying that terrorism is a threat that is just as important as malware to corporations. But I’m not sure whether that is the case, or if it is, what terrorism means in the enterprise context. Also, how can corporate terrorism be guarded against?”

She was right. The debate didn’t make sense. She smelled a rat and was double-checking. I asked her to bear with me while I steered the discussion back to sanity. I began…

Malware is annoying and can be damaging, but keep it in perspective. It won’t sink your ship. A “terrorist spending vs. IT spending” debate also misses the mark... The welfare of the employees and their companies is better served with an “intellectual assets spending vs. IT spending” debate. (more)

Why you want us on your team in 2011...

“The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows.”
—Aristotle Onassis (1906-1975)

You know some things.

We help you keep them confidential.

Have us check your offices for bugs, taps and more in 2011.

—Kevin D. Murray, counterespionage.com

Is Your Cell Phone Spying On You?

It's possible that someone could listen to your conversations -- even when you're not on the phone. (video news report)

The solutions mentioned, while helpful, do not present a complete picture. Coming soon... Is My Cell Phone Bugged - Everything you need to know to protect your mobile communications.

SpyCam Story #590 - Can't Stand the Heat

OH - A 51-year-old former Mayfield Heights fire captain accused of hiding cameras in bathrooms filed a motion to change his not-guilty plea, instead of going on trial...

The camera found in an air freshener in a men's bathroom stall at the YMCA was there for less than a day, before a worker noticed a blinking light in it. Investigators said (the man) could be seen in the video installing the camera.

Detectives seized 60 videotapes lasting up to eight hours each from (his) home. They found pinhole cameras hidden in three of the walls in (the) bathroom. Wires in the walls connected the cameras to recording equipment in a closet. (more)

Doh! Another spycam'er shoots himself.

Tapped Out after Tapping

UK - A jealous husband confessed to his wife that he had bugged her phone because he wrongly suspected her of having an affair. 

Harvinder Singh Gora, a successful businessman, was sued by Georgina Bansal and agreed to pay her a five-figure out-of-court settlement.

But last week, on the day the payment was due, he filed for bankruptcy and now she may never see a penny of the money she is owed. (more)

The Spin on the BlackBerry News

via FastCompany...
BlackBerry smartphones have been under fire around the world from terrorism-fearing governments. Now RIM's revealed how it'll let the Indian government spy on users, so the service can stay running. It's not too bad...

...RIM has consented to the governments wishes. It will allow access to BlackBerry Messenger communications inside India on a "case by case" basis, where "lawful" access requests are made. This means the government will have to follow due legal process to spy on BlackBerry users, on an individual basis, and with the consent of the courts. (more)

Expect more consenting as other governments squeeze BlackBerry with offers they can't refuse... "Say yes, or you're out of business."

A similar story, Anatomy of a Wiretap, in The Hindu newspaper has had the link to this graphic pulled. ("The article you are looking for is no longer available in this website.")

Odyssey of an Eavesdropper - now an e-book

Originally released as a hard cover book in 2006, Odyssey of an Eavesdropper: My Life in Electronic Countermeasures and My Battle Against the FBI by Martin Kaiser III with Robert S. Stokes is now available in an e-book version.

From Publishers Weekly 
Modesty aside," says electronic surveillance expert Kaiser, "I was to the FBI, and the CIA, and the rest of the intel community, what 'Q'—the British Secret Service technical genius—was to James Bond." And Kaiser, who consulted on the 1998 film Enemy of the State, which he says is loosely based on his story, first made his name in the late 1950s and early '60s, when he helped develop a missile-directing system. Eventually he began making "bugs" for the FBI and CIA as well as private companies. But after his 1975 testimony before the House of Representatives about his work in government intelligence, the FBI, he says, came after him. He was indicted for illegal wiretapping and other crimes, and while he was acquitted on all charges, his business was ruined and he suffered an emotional breakdown that he attributes, in part, to childhood abuse. Kaiser ends the book with a chapter about the lack of privacy in America today—and while some of his warnings seem alarmist, his background will make readers of this compelling and sympathetic book (written with journalist and novelist Stokes) think twice.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Spy Holiday Gifts & and a Free offer from me!

This year, I'm giving lock picks.
What's your cool spy gift going to be?

My friends at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC have a few suggestions. My personal favorite is the Spy Gnome. Put him anywhere and your statement is made... "You don't know-m me!"

Here are some more of their suggestions...

Kryptos Replica
Stealth Secret Amplifier

Watch Phone
Mission Video Watch

Spy Video Trakr (free gift with purchase)

Of course, they have hundreds of other cool spy gifts to choose from. Hey, you're in the security business. What are you going to give? Socks?!?! Heck, no. You have a reputation to uphold.

Yes, they sell lock picks. But they are not half as cool as mine. :)

Hey, if your business card says "Security Director" or similar on it, and you want one of our complimentary stainless steel lock pick cards, just sign in here and let me know before December 24th.

P.S. - The International Spy Museum offers Free shipping on orders over $25. Use secret coupon code "fs25" at checkout.

SpyCam Story #589 - Chicken Soup?!?!

CA - Donald Lee Bedford said he hid a small video camera in his girlfriend’s daughter’s bedroom because he was concerned about her financial welfare and wanted to listen in on her conversations about it. What he wound up recording, though, is 46 minutes of footage of the victim and her boyfriend talking and watching TV in their underwear... his victim discovered the camera — cut into the spine of a Chicken Soup for the Soul book — and turned it over to authorities.

The 55-year-old Carpinteria resident is now facing a felony charge of eavesdropping, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in jail, and a misdemeanor charge of unlawful electronic peeping.

...Bedford filmed himself setting up the camera and later admitted to his girlfriend a version of what he had done. (more)

Doh! Another spycam'er shoots himself.

Business Espionage - Snooping interne

France - After months of squabbling, walkouts and fears of a feud in the upper echelons, France 24's boardroom drama has taken a turn for the worse after police were called in to investigate accusations of spying and computer-hacking in the organisation. Journalists at the channel were stupefied this week to discover that police are looking into charges of a massive spying operation at the top. (more)

Merry Christmas, kid.

"Mommy has a new toy she would like you to play with."

 "Find out who's telling the truth—and who's not—by giving your suspect a lie detector test! Attach the sensor to your suspect's finger. Ask tough questions to really make 'em squirm! The indicator lights light up when your suspect isn't telling the truth. Busted!"

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
He's making a list
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice
Santa Claus is coming to town... (sing-a-long)

Need to track a package?

Check this out...

 from the seller's website...

The United States Postal Service (USPS) processes and delivers more than 212 billion pieces of mail per year to Americans. The U.S. Postal Service continually aims to increase its quality of service, to reduce delivery times, to pinpoint logistical inefficiencies, to save costs and to eliminate waste.

To support this challenging task, the USPS commissioned TrackingTheWorld Inc., a leading global positioning technology firm, to develop a letter-tracking GPS device that would meet the agency’s precise needs.

These needs include reporting the positioning of letter mail from anywhere on the planet at customizable time intervals, interfacing with Google Earth, and recording down time, all fitted in a device conveniently and completely unnoticed within a standard size envelope. (more)

Can you zoom in on that license plate?

The recent video enhancement post sparked additional interest in the subject. Upon doing some more research, it became clear that enhancing is only part of the picture. (Geez, I am starting to sound like Mr. Peabody.) 

Even more important is investing in technology which works in the first place. For example, the video surveillance system required in a small store is not what works best for surveying a parking lot.

The following explanation at Jim Hoerricks' blog is really insightful and educational...

Can you zoom in on that license plate? Can you zoom in on his face? Why can't you make this image clearer. These are questions that many forensic video analysts deal with on a daily basis. To illustrate the answer to these questions, let's consider this image:

This Monitoring image comes from an Avigilon system's 16 megapixel camera.

With the above image in mind, let's consider the outstanding advice from the UK's Home Office Scientific Development Branch:

To judge the quality of images that will be necessary, you will need to take into account the purpose for which CCTV is used and the level of quality that will be necessary to achieve the purpose. The Home Office Scientific Development Branch (HOSDB) recommends identifying the needs of a CCTV system by using four categories:

1. Monitoring: to watch the flow of traffic or the movement of people where you do not need to pick out individual figures.
2. Detecting: to detect the presence of a person in the image, without needing to see their face.
3. Recognising: to recognise somebody you know, or determine that somebody is not known to you.
4. Identifying: to record high quality facial images which can be used in court to prove someone’s identity beyond reasonable doubt.

Take a look at the picture above. Can you make out faces or license plates? No. So, if your purpose is to identify these items, that picture view just won't do. 

With Photoshop, we can zoom in. Let's see what happens.

This Detecting view comes from zooming in a 16 megapixel image.

We can now see the people and vehicles more clearly. We can gain a general awareness of types of vehicles. We are closer to identifying them, but we don't have anything yet that will help us to prove identity beyond a reasonable doubt. We can zoom in further to see if we can Recognise anyone.

This Recognising view comes from zooming in a 16 megapixel image.

 At this level of magnification, someone who knows this person or car should be able to say, "that's him" or "that's not the man/car you are looking for." At this point, we can begin to accurately describe the individual in the scene. Let's zoom in some more to see if we can positively identify this man and the car.

This Identifying view comes from zooming in a 16 megapixel image.

With a 16 megapixel image, we can even zoom in closer than this image. But notice what's happened along the way. We've sacrificed field of view for detail. No longer are we looking at the whole parking lot (monitoring). We can't see the other people who are walking around (detecting). In order to identify this individual, we've had to zoom in so far that we've excluded much of this scene from our view. A CCTV Installer might position a camera/lens combination at a choke point specifically to get facial recognition whilst installing other cameras around the area to monitor and detect movement of unauthorised persons.

But what about real life. The good folks at Avigilon have a small piece of a very large market. What if that same monitoring image was only 4CIF or 2CIF. Could we still zoom in and identify the individuals in the scene? You be the judge.

The image from Avigilon contains 15,824,256 pixels and can come in a lossless RAW format.

This image contains only 426,400 pixels and is compressed. 

With an almost 97% reduction in the amount of available pixels and the additional compression, the results speak for themselves.

The result of zooming in on a low pixel count image.

So, the answer to "can you zoom in on that license plate" is ... it depends on the quality of the image and the number of available pixels. ~Jim Hoerricks - author of Forensic Photoshop, a comprehensive imaging workflow for forensic professionals