Basic Spy Tradecraft: "Beware of pretty faces that you find..."

A German spy's romantic time in Latvia has ended up in a Munich court. The love-struck agent has lost his job, and a court case. 

A German spy fell in love with a Latvian woman in Riga and lost his job for violating policy. He has lost a legal battle against the BND intelligence agency.

The unnamed spy dated a Latvian woman while station chief in Riga, despite being instructed against having romantic relations with locals. Instead of informing the BND, he asked Latvia's intelligence agency to run a background check on his girlfriend, who came up clean.

Only after the Latvian woman had moved in with him did the station chief inform his superiors. That landed him in hot water, leading the BND to recall the spy and find him unfit for duty.

The man then sought compensation from the BND for lost earnings and other losses to the tune of 400,000 euros ($421,920). more sing-a-long

Spycam News: Multi-Millionaire Landlord Pleads Guilty to Secretly Filming his Tenants

Australia - A multi-millionaire Sydney landlord will face sentencing next month after pleading guilty to charges relating to secretly filming his tenants without consent to obtain sexual arousal.

Masaaki Imaeda, 66, installed hidden cameras into his rental properties so he could spy on tenants having sex or undressing...

After finding a warning about Imaeda and his spy cameras on a Japanese website, a husband and wife who rented a bedroom from him found a camera in their bedroom light fitting.

The young couple called police, who found multiple other hidden cameras inside the house...

He faces up to two years in prison. more

UK - A Starbucks customer in London was left “shocked and disgusted”* after finding a hidden camera above a toilet in a branch of the coffee shop. 

Ricci Arcari, 33, was at the Starbucks in Vauxhall when he spotted the device hidden in an air vent directly above the unisex toilet.

He told The Independent: “I go in [to the store] regularly. I ordered my drink and while I was waiting I popped in to use the toilet.

“I was standing using the toilet when I noticed a little glint Iike the way glass reflects.

“I stood on top of the toilet seat to get a better look and realised it was a webcam or some other kind of recording device.”

Mr Arcari, who used to work for Starbucks himself, said he ran out of the toilet, asked to speak to the store manager and showed him the camera.

The manager seemed “pretty shocked” and reportedly said “Oh God, that’s not good".

The device was immediately taken down and placed in a bag to be passed to police. more

 * May also be applied to the dirty air vent grill.
Protect yourself.

Business Espionage Today: Sling TV Launches Cloud DVR Hours Before DirecTV

Sling TV users will soon be able to record some TV shows and store them online for later viewing.

The feature, which will initially be available as an invite-only beta to users of Dish's online streaming video service, is being announced on the same day that a major rival is appearing on the scene. Details of AT&T's DirecTV Now will be unveiled at a press event in New York later today. more

Just coincidence? You decide. 
How secret is your marketing strategy? 
When was the last time you checked? ~Kevin

3 Ways Corporate Spies Might Be Watching Your Business and How to Stop Them

Business is a game of constant competition, but the widespread emergence of covert surveillance and tracking tools has expanded the playbook. Now, industrial espionage has a new dimension.

In the corporate world, the practice is nothing new. In fact, it's been a marketing tactic for decades... But the digital age has given corporate spying a new face. And with the modern proliferation of web-based spying options, corporate surveillance is more sophisticated and covert than ever.

Today, corporate spies for hire carry titles like "Competitive Intelligence Analyst" and "Competitive Market Strategist." There are many lucrative opportunities for these workers. And they might be watching your business right now. Here are three of the ways they do it—and also how to dodge their efforts. more

Turn Any Computer Into an Eavesdropping Device

Researchers at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have devised a way to turn any computer into an eavesdropping device by surreptitiously getting connected headphones or earphones to function like microphones.

In a paper titled "SPEAKE(a)R: Turn Speakers to Microphones for Fun and Profit," the researchers this week described malware they have developed for re-configuring a headphone jack from a line-out configuration to a line-in jack, thereby enabling connected headphones to work as microphones.

The exploit works with most off-the-shelf headphones and even when the computer doesn’t have a connected microphone or has a microphone that has been disabled, according to the researchers. more

 Spoiler Alert: It ain't easy to do, or likely to happen to you. ~Kevin

Business Espionage: GSM Bugs Are Mini Cell Phones in Disguise

(from a seller's website in the UK)
GSM bugs are also known as mobile phone bugs and infinity bugs. Based around mobile technology, these devices provide a discreet listening facility with an unlimited distance.

Click to enlarge.

Up until a few years ago radio frequency transmitters were relied upon to provide an eavesdropping solution, albeit over only relatively short distances, generally up to about 800 metres line of sight. These devices are still available, but have been outlawed by OFCOM legislation and are therefore not legal to sell into the UK or operate in the UK without a radio broadcast licence. GSM Bugs use the existing GSM network as a transmission tool.

When they fist became available, the GSM bugs were literally modified mobile phones that auto-answered silently to open up the microphone and listen into the surrounding environment. These devices are still available today and some dedicated (dead phone) units have had enhanced microphone adjustments to make them more attuned to pick up sounds in a wider area, turning them into dedicated listening devices.

As the technology has moved on, these eavesdropping devices have become smaller and more sophisticated. They are really only restricted in size at present by the battery size, however, some of the latest units are built into mains powered devices such as multi-plug adapters and mains sockets, thereby making them invisible to the naked eye and with no power consumption restrictions.

Some of these eavesdropping devices are obviously for the UK market.
Bugs for other electrical standards are also available. 

Do you have electrical extension strips in your office?
Have they been inspected and sealed by a TSCM specialist? 
~Kevin

Hot Tech History: The "iPod" of 1938

via Matt Novak 
 Today we take it for granted that we can bring music with us wherever we go.

But that obviously wasn’t always the case. As just one example of how cumbersome portable music could sometimes be, take a look at this portable radio receiver from 1938. It was all the rage in France.

The May 1938 issue of Short Wave and Television magazine included a photo-filled spread of new radio sets that had recently been featured at an electronics exhibit in Paris. As you can see in the photo on the far left, the latest “portable radio” included a strap so that you could lug it around with you.

Radio miniaturization was happening at a quick pace in the 1920s, and this was far from the only portable radio of the 1930s. But it’s a decent reminder that portability is and always has been relative... more

3D Industrial Espionage

Your 3-D printer is leaking, but not in ways you can see.

It leaks sounds and energy. That's not a problem — unless you want to keep your creation a secret. In that case, it's time to get serious about security. Computer scientists have now shown that hackers can eavesdrop on 3-D printers — and then copy what they made. All it takes is your average smartphone.

As 3-D printing becomes more widespread, thieves will find new ways to steal original designs, worries Wenyao Xu. This computer scientist at the State University of New York in Buffalo led the new work...

To hack these printers, a spy needs to merely “listen” to the noise and energy the machine emits, including the magnetic fields that vary as it works. Both sound and electromagnetic energy travel as waves. By tapping into these waves, Xu says, a spy could identify the shape of what was being printed. This would allow someone to steal a design without ever seeing the original.

“We need to prevent these attacks,” Xu says. more

The Most Intrusive Spying Powers in the “History of Western Democracy.”

Britain’s Investigatory Powers Bill, voted through Wednesday, 

gives the government what critics claim will be some of the most intrusive spying powers in the “history of Western democracy.”

U.K.-based Internet service providers will be expected to keep full records of every customer’s browsing history, stretching back a year, and the statute will provide enough legal clout for the government to force companies to decrypt data on demand as well as create security backdoors on the devices they sell in order to facilitate spying. more

The Spy Who Couldn't Spell Straight

...and now we're going to hear a story that sounds just too bizarre to be true. 

More than a decade before Edward Snowden famously leaked thousands of classified records to the world, another U.S. government contractor tried a similar move the old-fashioned way. His name is Brian Regan. And in 1999 and 2000, he smuggled classified documents out of his office and buried them in the woods hoping to sell them to a foreign government. But he was foiled in part by his own terrible spelling.

This thrilling story is out this month in a new book called "The Spy Who Couldn't Spell: A Dyslexic Traitor, An Unbreakable Code And The FBI's Hunt For America's Stolen Secrets." Michel Martin talked with author Yudhijit Bhattacharjee about the strange story of Brian Regan.

MM: Why do you think most people have never heard of this story?

YB: The main reason is that Brian Regan was arrested just two weeks before 9/11. And so his story got completely overshadowed by the coverage of what was arguably the biggest story of the last 20 years... more

How to Get Into a Locked iPhone... and what to do about it.

It's Pretty Easy For Someone To Access Your Photos And Other Personal Info On Your Locked iPhone

YouTuber iDeviceHelp is "not a hacker" but still managed to find a fairly simple way to get into a locked iPhone running iOS 9. No passcode needed.


If you have an iPhone you want to turn off SIRI when the screen is locked. ~Kevin

China Secretly Spying on Android Devices

According to Cybersecurity firm Kryptowire, some Android phones, including those from American phone manufacturer BLU, are being preinstalled with software that monitors where users go, who they call, and what they text. The information is then sent back to Chinese servers.

A software dedicated to spying on users is the trojan horse hidden inside some phones manufactured in China. Kryptowire, a Cybersecurity consulting firm, has released a report stating that such malware is being used to gather sensitive information such as GPS locations, text messages, etc. to send back to Chinese servers every 72 hours.

The piece of code has been lurking inside the Android operative system. As such, the program managed to conceal itself from the user’s perspective.

Tom Karygiannis from Kryptowire revealed that the malicious program was created by the Chinese company Adups, with the sole purpose of spying, stating that it isn’t the result of an error. Karygiannis said that the malware’s goal may be is to perform state espionage or to merely to sell advertising data....

Adups has over 700 million active users, and a market share exceeding 70% across 200+ countries and regions. 

The company’s software is used in phones, cars, and other devices. American phone manufacturer, BLU Products, said that 120,000 of its phones had been affected, promptly stating that it had released an update to remove Adups’ spyware. more

Happy Holidays, or How Not to Get Scammed Online This Season

Protect yourself against online shopping scams by watching for these 10 telltale signs...

Many mom-and-pop retail stores maintain websites for selling their wares, and some entrepreneurs create online-only stores that ship products directly from warehouses. Unfortunately, scammers also use ecommerce as an opportunity to take shoppers' personal and financial information from afar. An odd-looking site or too-good-to-be-true deal might be the work of scammer rather than an ecommerce amateur. The following 10 signs can help shoppers distinguish between the two. more

Lawyers Should Not Bug Opposing Lawyer's Email

Alaska may have only about 2,500 active resident lawyers, but its bar ethics committee has become just the second authority in the country to weigh in on the practice of “bugging” the e-mail of opposing counsel.

The committee disapproved of this spy method in an opinion issued in late October, saying that it violated the Last Frontier’s version of Model Rule 8.4, which prohibits dishonesty and misrepresentation.

A “web bug” is a tracking device consisting of an object embedded in a web page or e-mail, that unobtrusively (usually invisibly) reveals whether and how a user has accessed the content. Other names for a web bug are web beacon, pixel tracker and page tag. more

Want to check who is secretly bugging you? Little Snitch for OSX does an excellent job and offers a free trial. Similar products exist for PC based computers. ~Kevin

This $5 Device Can Hack Your Locked Computer In One Minute

Next time you go out for lunch and leave your computer unattended at the office, be careful. A new tool makes it almost trivial for criminals to log onto websites as if they were you, and get access to your network router, allowing them to launch other types of attacks.

Hackers and security researchers have long found ways to hack into computers left alone. But the new $5 tool called PoisonTap, created by the well-known hacker and developer Samy Kamkar, can even break into password-protected computers, as long as there’s a browser open in the background. Kamkar explained how it works in a blog post published on Wednesday.


And all a hacker has to do is plug it in and wait. more

Tune into PI's Declassified! Thursday, 9 am Pacific, Noon Eastern

Is Your Cell Phone Bugging You?
Do you want to know how to protect your cell phone privacy or detect spyware on your smartphone? Are there warning signs that your phone is infected with spyware? Are there applications available to prevent your phone from being tapped or to catch the spy red-handed? Kevin D. Murray is an expert on mobile phone electronic surveillance and eavesdropping detection, known as technical surveillance countermeasures. He is also the author of Is My Cell Phone Bugged? Tune in to hear Kevin Murray discuss detecting mobile phone spyware, and tips to protect your most private conversations.
Link to show

Shazam, You're Bugged!

Shazam Keeps Your Mac’s Microphone Always On, Even When You Turn It Off

What’s that song? On your cellphone, the popular app Shazam is able to answer that question by listening for just a few seconds, as if it were magic. On Apple’s computers, Shazam never turns the microphone off, even if you tell it to.

When a user of Shazam’s Mac app turns the app “OFF,” the app actually keeps the microphone on in the background.

For the security researcher who discovered that the mic is always on, it's a bug that users should know about. For Shazam, it’s just a feature that makes the app work better. more

TSCM School: How Small Can Electronic Surveillance Bugs Be?

...or, why we listen to the wires.

Electronic surveillance devices (audio, video, data) are often referred to by their generic term — bugs.

Amplified Mic (enlarged)

Bugs may be highly specialized, as in a video only spy camera, or may incorporate audio, video and data snooping. An example of this is a device which is secreted in a vehicle, which collects GPS data, audio and video.

Most people, however, think of bugs as audio-only radio transmitters.

Often the simplest bugs are the most effective. These are just microphones attached to a length of wire.

The other end of the wire can be connected to a distant radio transmitter, voice recorder, or simply an amplifier with headphones.

Most people are surprised to learn all homes and offices come prewired, bugging-ready.

Standard telephone cables have unused pairs, and computer Ethernet cables generally only use two of the four pairs they contain. Most older office buildings also have legacy wiring which was never removed.

These "hardwired" bugs are among the most difficult to detect, which is why spies and law enforcement favor them.

Since a microphone is the main element of a hardwired bug,
I thought it might be very useful to show you how small they
can be.

These fingers are holding a real microphone, actual size.

Now you know just how much the other picture was enlarged.

Amazingly small, these microphones are mass produced by the millions.

Fortunately, most wind up in cell phones and hearing aids. However, many are sold on eBay for pennies, and then become bugs.

Not everyone knows how to find these. But, don't worry, we do.

Business Espionage: Agribusiness Now in the Crosshairs

In an industry where information is power, dishonest competitors may steal agrichemical company data and use it to their advantage. While this may sound a little like a James Bond movie plot, industrial espionage is a real event.

Take for example, the case from October 2016, when a Chinese man was sent to prison for 3 years... The crime was part of a years-long conspiracy involving several Chinese citizens aimed at stealing valuable patented corn seeds from Iowa farm fields so they could be smuggled to a Chinese agriculture conglomerate.”...

Worse still, is that this case is not an isolated incident, with Robert Anderson Jr., assistant director of counterintelligence at the F.B.I. explaining that, “Agriculture [industrial espionage] is an emerging trend that we’re seeing.” Adding that, until two years ago, “the majority of the countries and hostile intelligence services within those countries were stealing other stuff.”

Such is the power of a trade secret in modern agribusiness, that attempts to steal it are replacing efforts to learn military secrets.

Possibly, this is part of what geo-political experts call ‘food security’...

When it comes to agribusiness data, industrial espionage should leave you neither shaken nor stirred, but should simply be a case of, ‘We’ve been expecting you Mr. Bond.’ more more

Double Creepy

Oklahoma City Police arrested a man
accused of creeping around an apartment complex and spying on people. The suspect is a funeral director and embalmer.

News 9’s Adrianna Iwasinski got a copy of both the police report and court record from last Friday's arrest, and it states that police found a gun under the man’s driver's seat and they also found a video camera. more

The Sounds in Your Head That Nobody Else Hears May Come From...

...an ultrasound Audio Spotlight invented by Dr. F. Joseph Pompei.

The ultrasound, which contains frequencies far outside our range of hearing, is completely inaudible. But as the ultrasonic beam travels through the air, the inherent properties of the air cause the ultrasound to change shape in a predictable way. This gives rise to frequency components in the audible band, which can be accurately predicted, and therefore precisely controlled. By generating the correct ultrasonic signal, we can create, within the air itself, any sound desired.

Sound is literally made from thin air.

Note that the source of sound is not the physical device you see, but the invisible beam of ultrasound, which can be many meters long. This new sound source, while invisible, is very large compared to the audio wavelengths it's generating. So the resulting audio is now extremely directional, just like a beam of light. more

WindTalker - A Smartphone Intercept Technique

The way users move fingers across a phone's touchscreen alters the WiFi signals transmitted by a mobile phone, causing interruptions that an attacker can intercept, analyze, and reverse engineer to accurately guess what the user has typed on his phone or in password input fields.

This type of attack, nicknamed WindTalker, is only possible when the attacker controls a rogue WiFi access point to collect WiFi signal disturbances.

Details about the real-world attack and WindTalker, in general, are available in a research paper titled "When CSI Meets Public WiFi: Inferring Your Mobile Phone Password via WiFi Signals."

WindTalker attack has a 68%+ accuracy. more
video

Robert Vaughn, 'Man from U.N.C.L.E.' Star, Dies at 83

Robert Vaughn, the debonair, Oscar-nominated actor whose many film roles were eclipsed by his hugely popular turn in television’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E., has died. He was 83.

Vaughn died Friday morning after a brief battle with acute leukemia, according to his manager, Matthew Sullivan.



The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was an immediate hit, particularly with young people, when it debuted on NBC 1964. It was part of an avalanche of secret agent shows (I Spy, Mission: Impossible, Secret Agent), spoofs (Get Smart), books (The Spy Who Came in From the Cold) and even songs (Secret Agent Man) inspired by the James Bond films.

Vaughn’s urbane superspy Napoleon Solo teamed with Scottish actor David McCallum’s Illya Kuryakin, a soft-spoken, Russian-born agent.

The pair, who had put aside Cold War differences for a greater good, worked together each week for the mysterious U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement) in combating the international crime syndicate THRUSH. more

Business Espionage Problem: Car Spy Photographers Using Drones

...automakers are looking at ways to put a stop to this practice.

Click to enlarge.

One answer may be coming from the German company Deutsche Telekom, which is working with developers on ways to keep drones out of certain areas.

The American company Dedrone also has a DroneTracker system that can locate drones more than half a mile away. We're sure that more creative and interesting means of inhibiting drones are coming down the road as well. more

Spy vs Spy Sweepstakes - Win Original Artwork

Spy vs. Prize Department
MAD’s year-end issue chronicling “The 20 Dumbest People, Events and Things” of 2016 is coming soon. But you don’t have to wait to experience the dumbness of MAD!

Enter now for a chance to win an original piece of Spy Vs Spy artwork by renowned artist Peter Kuper.

This rare piece has never been published, and no, not because one of the editors spilled coffee on it. (Note: The stain has since been removed. Coffee not included in this sweepstakes.)

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR TO WIN. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. ODDS OF WINNING WILL DEPEND ON THE TOTAL NUMBER OF ELIGIBLE ENTRIES RECEIVED.The “MAD® Spy vs. Spy Original Art Sweepstakes!” begins on 11/9/16 at 10:00a.m. PT and ends on 11/30/16 at 9:59 a.m. PT. Only open to legal residents in the 50 U.S. and D.C. who are 13 years of age or older. Void in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, U.S., Military installations in foreign countries, all other U.S. territories and possessions and wherever prohibited or restricted by law. Total Prize ARV is: $100.00. Sponsor: DC Entertainment. This Sweepstakes is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Facebook, Twitter or any other social media sites.

Wiretapping & Electronic Surveillance - The IT Spy Guy v. Estranged Wife

PA - An employee of a midstate county faces charges of spying on his estranged wife.

36-year-old David Randall Maurer - who works for the Dauphin County information technology department - is charged with violating the wiretapping and electronic surveillance act.

State Attorney General Bruce Beemer alleges that Maurer installed spyware monitoring software that captured key strokes, screenshots and websites that his estranged wife visited on her laptop.

He allegedly used the information to log into her private email and Facebook accounts. more

Business Espionage: Bugger Caught in the Act

UK - A camera recording with audio was found under a chair during a private meeting of MPs. 

British sportswear company Sports Direct was being paid an unannounced visit by members of the House of Commons’ Business Select Committee. The MPs were there to insure that good working practices were being upheld by the company.

The MPs gave Sports Direct a one-hour warning before arriving, part of a long-running investigation into conditions at the company. During their visit, they were having a private meeting over lunch to discuss their findings. It was then that Labour MP Anna Turley spotted a staff member hiding a camera in the room where they were meeting. 

Turley says a woman came into the room to bring sandwiches to the MPs, then she crouched down to hide a camera under a chair. “I saw her trying to arrange it to get the best angle so that they could video us up at the board table and listen to what we were saying.” more

The device was identified as a small Go-Pro camera, which records excellent audio as well as video. ~Kevin

Kevin's Security Scrapbook Reaches One Million Pageviews

...actually 1,001,644 as of today.
Thank you!
~Kevin

Bugging Devices Found at Iran Nuclear Talks Hotel, Say Swiss Officials

A number of computers at a five-star Geneva hotel that has hosted sensitive talks, including Iranian nuclear negotiations, were found to be infected with malware used for espionage, Swiss prosecutors have revealed...

The long-running nuclear talks were a magnet for the world’s intelligence agencies as they sought to find out more about the Iranian nuclear programme and the negotiating positions of the six nations involved.

When the talks shifted to a luxury hotel in Vienna, the microwave radiation from the surveillance efforts of competing intelligence agencies was so intense that diplomats had to walk some distance from the venue to use their mobile phones.

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, would take walks with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in what was seen as a publicity stunt, but which was also a practical means of dodging electronic bugs.

When diplomats attending talks in Lausanne wanted to call their capitals, they would stroll around the grounds of the venue, another five-star hotel, rather than call from their rooms. more

Happy 64th Birthday NSA

The National Security Agency celebrates its 64th birthday today.

The agency was established on Nov. 4, 1952, by President Harry Truman in the wake of World War II.

More information about NSA and its history is available online at nsa.gov.

IoT - Hackers Get A Bright Idea

The so-called Internet of Things, its proponents argue, offers many benefits...

Now here’s the bad news: Putting a bunch of wirelessly connected devices in one area could prove irresistible to hackers. And it could allow them to spread malicious code through the air, like a flu virus on an airplane.

Researchers report in a paper to be made public on Thursday that they have uncovered a flaw in a wireless technology that is often included in smart home devices like lights, switches, locks, thermostats...

The researchers focused on the Philips Hue smart light bulb and found that the wireless flaw could allow hackers to take control of the light bulbs...

That may not sound like a big deal. But imagine thousands or even hundreds of thousands of internet-connected devices in close proximity. Malware created by hackers could be spread like a pathogen among the devices by compromising just one of them. more

UPDATE
This Virus Automatically Kills Smart Light Bulbs
A group of researchers says they found a way to have a self-replicating worm spread through internet-connected lightbulbs, turning them them off, bricking them, or make them all turn on and off multiple times to disrupt the electric grid. “A single infected lamp with a modified firmware which is plugged-in anywhere in the city can start an explosive chain reaction in which each lamp will infect and replace the firmware in all its neighbors within a range of up to a few hundred meters,” the researchers wrote in the paper. more

Business Espionage Trick #763 - The CD VD

A cautionary tale...

Telephone pitch
A senior prosecution source in Tel Aviv told the BBC that Ruth Haephrati was the expert at implanting the trojan into the unknowing victims office computer system.

He said she would contact a senior executive proposing a bogus business deal.

She would start with a telephone pitch, before offering to send more detailed information on a CD.

She stressed that the offer was so commercially sensitive that only the executive should open it.

Once the CD was installed, the trojan was let loose, but the company and the executive were none the wiser.

The Haephratis were jailed earlier this year.

But the techniques the Haephratis used are being adapted by others. more

A Spy's House with a 007 Connection—For Sale

NY - This Long Island estate at 189 Terrace Lane in Upper Brookville
was once owned by English novelist Ian Fleming’s dear friend Ivar Felix C. Bryce — a real-life British spy and, in Fleming’s James Bond books, 007’s best friend, Felix.

The 6,800-square-foot, five-bedroom brick mansion was built in 1917 as a carriage house for the 90-acre Mill River Farm estate. Fully restored, it’s now on the market for $2.99 million. The Bryces bought the estate in 1936 and renamed it Farlands Estate. more

AT&T Requires Police to Hide Hemisphere Phone Spying

AT&T built a powerful phone surveillance tool for police, called Hemisphere. Every day, AT&T adds four billion call records to Hemisphere, making it one of the largest known reservoirs of communications metadata that the government uses to spy on us. Law enforcement officials kept Hemisphere “under the radar” for many years—hidden from courts, legislators, and the general public—until the New York Times exposed the program in 2013...

New documents published by The Daily Beast earlier this week reveal that AT&T required this corrosive secrecy. Specifically, the contract AT&T prepared for police seeking access to Hemisphere provides:

[T]he Government agency agrees not to use the data as evidence in any judicial or administrative proceedings unless there is no other available and admissible probative evidence. The Government Agency shall make every effort to insure that information provided by the Contractor is non-attributable to AT&T if the data is provided to a third-party.

In other words, the first rule of Hemisphere is: you do not talk about Hemisphere. more

Former Rutgers Student Pleads Guilty in Webcam Spying Case

NJ - A former Rutgers University student accused of spying on his gay roommate, who later committed suicide, pleaded guilty Thursday to a reduced charge, ending a long-running case that drew international attention to cyberbullying.

The former student, Dharun Ravi, now 24 years old, streamed video of his roommate, Tyler Clementi, and another man during a sexual encounter in their dorm room in September 2010. Mr. Ravi pleaded guilty in New Jersey’s Superior Court to one felony count of attempted invasion of privacy, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office said. more

"Mr. Bond, you're fired."

Here’s some news that could leave James Bond feeling shaken and stirred: The head of Britain’s top spy agency doesn’t want to hire him.

Alex Younger, the real-life head of M16, the British intelligence agency where the fictional super spy works, tells the British website Black History Month that Bond doesn’t have the qualities he wants for his spies.

“In contrast to James Bond, MI6 officers are not for taking moral shortcuts,” Younger told the website. “In fact, a strong ethical core is one of the first qualities we look for in our staff.”

Although Bond has managed to get through scrapes that would kill many real spies, Younger thinks he’d be weeded out early.

“It’s safe to say that James Bond wouldn’t get through our recruitment process and, whilst we share his qualities of patriotism, energy and tenacity, an intelligence officer in the real MI6 has a high degree of emotional intelligence, values teamwork and always has respect for the law… unlike Mr Bond!” more

Agent Kingfisher Dead - Just Coincidence? - You Decide

Serial protester and spy enthusiast...

who called himself 'Agent Kingfisher' and disrupted a royal James Bond premiere suffers ‘unexplained’ death days after he was caught urinating in the MI5 foyer. more

Iceland's Pirate Party Prepares for Power

The party that could be on the cusp of winning Iceland’s national elections on Saturday didn’t exist four years ago.

Its members are a collection of anarchists, hackers, libertarians and web geeks. It sets policy through online polls – and thinks the government should do the same. It wants to make Iceland “a Switzerland of bits,” free of digital snooping. 

It has offered Edward Snowden a new place to call home. And then there’s the name: in this land of Vikings, the Pirate Party may soon be king...

The Pirates, they say, are less about any specific ideology than they are about a belief that the West’s creaking political systems can be hacked to give citizens a greater say in their democracy. more

IoT Takes Down the Net — "Wow, didn't see that coming."

If you followed this blog you would have. The topic has been in the Scrapbook for years.

The IoT insecurity trend has been building for a long time. Few paid attention. When it knocked out the Internet people start taking notice.

Let's review a few of the old posts. Then, imagine a month without the electrical grid.

2009 Video over IP. Convenient, but not secure.
2011 Security Director Alert: Unsecured Webcams Hacked
2011 Man Hacks 100+ Webcams and Makes Blackmail Videos
2011 Scared of SCADA? You will be now...
2012 SpyCam Story #647 - Unintended Exhibitionists
2013 Shodan - The Scary Search Engine
2013 Baby Cam Hackers Can See You, Hear You, and Talk to You... and Your Kids
2013 The Ratters - men who spy on women through their webcams
2013 Spybusters Tip #972 - Own a Foscam camera? There is a security update for you!
2015 Is Your Home Security System Putting You at Risk? ...news at eleven.
2015 Some Top Baby Monitors Lack Basic Security Features
2016 FutureWatch - Keep Your Eye on IoT - The Encryption Debate is a Distraction
2016 Do You Have an IoT in the Workplace Policy? (you need one)
2016 Security Alert: Your Security Camera May Have Friends You Don't Know About
2016 Your New IoT Ding-Dong Can Open Your Wi-Fi... to hackers
2016 Security Director Alert - 46,000 Internet-accessible Video Recorders Hackable
2016 Mom Alerted - Daughters' Bedroom Nanny Cam Streaming on Internet
2016 Hackers Infect Army of Cameras, DVRs for Massive Internet Attacks 

Lawmakers, force the manufacturers of these devices to a higher security standard. ~Kevin

O.S.S. Heros Honored ...except by Congress

In February 1945, a small group of personnel assigned to the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime spy agency, scrambled to prepare for a particularly risky mission: inserting a team of agents deep behind Nazi lines with the goal of gleaning crucial enemy information.

For a host of reasons, the proposed operation seemed like a suicide mission. The area targeted for dropping the three-man team into Nazi territory was high in the Austrian Alps, surrounded by towering peaks and flanked by antiaircraft weaponry. Even if the drop went as planned, some of the spies tapped to infiltrate enemy ranks were European-born Jews, increasing the dangers they faced.

After the Royal Air Force refused the dangerous mission, code-named Operation GREENUP, John Billings, then a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps, was given the job.

Billings and other veterans who made possible some of World War II’s most daring spy missions were among those honored this weekend by the OSS Society, a group that includes former OSS members and members of the U.S. intelligence, military and Special Operations communities.

In addition to Billings, Gaetano Rossi and Caesar Daraio, two then-sergeants who were part of operational groups made up of Italian American volunteers, were honored with OSS Society awards for their work advancing the Allied cause during World War II. Also honored at this year’s “spy ball” was David Cohen, who served as director of operations at the CIA and as a senior intelligence official with the New York City Police Department, and retired Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, former Air Force chief of staff.


After retiring from the military as a captain, Billings became a commercial pilot. At age 93, he still pilots a Cessna Cutlass. Most of the time he flies “angel flights,” transporting people in need of medical attention.

The OSS Society is advocating passage of a proposed measure that would honor the wartime spies, which so far has not gained required congressional support. The proposal, which would award living OSS veterans the Medal of Honor, has stalled in the House.*  more

*You can help get this bill passed. It's easy. Click here, see top right corner.

The OSS Society is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. All donations are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law. Membership in The OSS Society is available to OSS veterans, their descendants, current and former members of the U.S. intelligence community and U.S. Special Operations Forces, and people who are interested in General Donovan's "unusual experiment" - the Office of Strategic Services.

The OSS Society^®
7700 Leesburg Pike, Ste. 324
Falls Church, VA 22043
Phone: 703-356-6667
Email: oss@osssociety.org

Indianapolis Colts App Accused of Eavesdropping

The Indianapolis Colts, mobile developer YinzCam and audio technology company LISNR were named in a class action lawsuit filed Oct. 14 in Pennsylvania

App asking for access.

alleging that features of the team’s official app allowed them to listen in to private conversations without consent.

Plaintiff Alan Rackemann, a citizen of Indiana pursuing punitive and statutory damages, lists San Francisco-based law firm Edelson PC as a member of his legal counsel in the case. The Golden State Warriors’ official team app was the focus of a similar lawsuit filed in August that saw Edelson PC also represent the plaintiff in that case, LaTisha Satchell.

“It’s a lot of things that are fishy,” LISNR CEO and founder Rodney Williams said in response to the allegations. “It’s a little bit of lawyers being opportunistic, and it’s a lot of false allegations and just bad information.” more

Interception of LTE Cell Phone Calls, or LTE = Let's Telephone Eavesdrop

Ruxcon Hacker Wanqiao Zhang of Chinese hacking house Qihoo 360 has blown holes in 4G LTE networks by detailing how to intercept and make calls, send text messages and even force phones offline.

The still-live attacks were demonstrated at the Ruxcon hacking confab in Melbourne this weekend, with the demo offering a recording of the hack perpetrated in part on a live network. It exploits fall-back mechanisms designed to ensure continuity of phone services in the event of overloads.

The tested Frequency Division Duplexing LTE network is more popular than TDD-LTE and operates in Britain, the US, and Australia. The competing Time Division Duplexing (TDD) LTE network is more common in Asian countries and in regions where population densities are higher.

Zhang conducted further tests after The Register inquired whether the attacks would work against TDD-LTE and found all LTE networks and devices are affected.

"I asked my colleagues to test TDD-LTE yesterday and it works well, so it really can work against all LTE devices," Zhang says.

"This attack exists [and] it's still reasonable."

...Zhang says the attacks are possible because LTE networks allow users to be handed over to underused base stations in the event of natural disasters to ensure connectivity.

“You can create a denial of service attack against cellphones by forcing phones into fake networks with no services,” Zhang told the conference.

“You can make malicious calls and SMS and … eavesdrop on all voice and data traffic.” more

Spy Camera News: Seven Cameras Found in One Airbnb

NV - A man is facing criminal charges after eight people were recorded secretly by hidden cameras in his Airbnb vacation rental home in Las Vegas.

Clark County District Court records show that Christopher Gregory Rogers was indicted last week on five counts of capturing an image of the private area of another person, a gross misdemeanor...

According to a declaration prepared by a Las Vegas police detective, a man and his employees needed a place to stay during the annual Consumer Electronics Show and found Rogers’ listing on Airbnb...

On Jan. 4 the renters met with a host, whom police believe is Rogers’ employee. They noticed security cameras in the common areas of the home and were told the private rooms had no cameras, according to the police report.

Five days later, the renters noticed the smoke detector in the master bathroom had a small camera hidden in it. The renters found other hidden cameras in the private areas of the home and notified Las Vegas police.

A total of six hidden spy cameras were found in the bedrooms and a bathroom. The cameras were being fed to a server room, which contained a digital video recording device, according to the report.

An Additional iHome radio contained a small camera that recorded to a flash drive. Some cameras were pointed at the beds, some at a sitting area in the master bedroom and one at the master shower, the report said. more

Learn how to protect yourself from spycams. Visit http://spycamdetection.training

Man Admits Spying on UEA Students in Toilets and Shower

UK - Luke Mallaband, 22, was once in a relationship with one of the women he recorded showering, although she had not consented to being filmed.

Norwich Magistrates Court heard the filming of students at the UEA, and other locations, had been “going on for a number of years”.

Josephine Jones, prosecuting, said a woman using a gender neutral toilet in the UEA library noticed a “white plastic bag on the floor which appeared to have a hole in one corner”.

She had noticed the bag a few days before and opened it to discover a box which also had a hole in it.

“Inside the box she found an iPhone 6 which was recording.”

In total 38 videos had been recorded on an iPhone at various locations, including toilets at the UEA, a bathroom and also at Mary Chapman Court student accommodation at UEA. more

Student Fined for Spying on Women via their Webcams

Student from Munich fined €1,000 for spying on 32 different computers, using their webcams to take photographs, or record their keyboard history. more

Former Director of Enchanted Forest Denies Spying on Women

The former director of the Enchanted Forest lightshow and Pitlochry Festival Theatre has been accused of secretly spying on women and filming them for more than three years. more

Yet Another Spycam Story This Week

UK - Jack Eldred hid a secret camera at his unsuspecting victim's house and filmed her drying herself off with a towel.

Eldred later sent the victim some of the shots on Facebook and threatened to forward them to her boyfriend.

"There is no dispute he made the recordings - they were not only found on his phone, but in one of the videos he can be seen setting up the hidden camera" she said.

In the clip, he was wearing a hoodie as he smiled directly at the camera and gave a thumbs up sign with both hands. more

What Do You Call the New Vinyard in Spy Valley? ..."The Must Sea"?

NZ - A Marlborough wine company with an espionage theme is calling on members of the public to help name their new vineyard.

Crowd sourcing names can be a risky business, as the National Environment Research Council in the United Kingdom found out earlier this year...

Although they derived their name from the presence of the communications orbs in the Waihopai Valley, McCone said Spy Valley Wines did not hold any contracts to supply spooks with wine.

"They do occasionally come in their unmarked vans to buy some wine on a Friday afternoon though," he said. more

Sheriff Arrested - Bugged Ex-girlfriend

TX - The sheriff of Palo Pinto County has turned himself in on felony charges 

of spying on his ex-girlfriend.

Ira Mercer is accused of using an electronic device to intercept his former girlfriend's communications. The indictment lists two incidents, one on Jan. 24, 2015 and again on Dec. 10, 2015...

He is not seeking re-election and his term ends at the end of the year. more

Shades of...
Former Lake Co. deputy accused of illegally recording ex-girlfriend