A new study sponsored by the Dell computer company estimates that more than 12,000 laptop computers are lost or stolen each week at U.S. airports, and only 33% of those that turn up in "lost and found" are reclaimed.
The other 67% remain in the airport awhile before being disposed of, meaning there are "potentially millions of files containing sensitive or confidential data that may be accessible to a large number of airport employees and contractors," the study reports.
More than 53% of business travelers say their laptops contain confidential or sensitive information, but 65% of these people admit they don't take steps to protect it. Yet the average business cost when confidential personal information is lost or stolen is $197 per record, according to another Ponemon study. (more)
A full copy of the report can be found here. (pdf)What do you think happens to laptops left at the airport?
Could they fall into the hands of professional snoops?"The TSA turns it over to state surplus property agencies, which tend to sell it online or at retail stores."Let's dig further. We'll pick Texas, a big state with several major airports (7 to be exact). They have several method of disposal...• Online auctions at www.lonestarauctioneers.com and www.bandiauctions.com
• 3 live on-line auctions a year.• eBay under seller name texasstatesurplus.• At their walk-in stores.(Texas Surplus Brochure)It would not be difficult for business spies to track property disposal auctions from every airport. Solutions... Crypt your disk. Install theft reporting software. Engrave "Reward if found and returned..." on the bottom.
NY - Mikhail Mallayev, who was convicted in March of murdering an orthodontist whose wife wanted him killed during a bitter custody battle, stayed off his cellphone the morning of the shooting in Queens. But afterward, he chatted away, unaware that his phone was acting like a tracking device and would disprove his alibi — that he was not in New York the day of the killing.
Darryl Littlejohn, a nightclub bouncer, made call after call on his cellphone as he drove from his home in Queens to a desolate Brooklyn street to dump the body of Imette St. Guillen, the graduate student he was convicted this month of murdering.
The pivotal role that cellphone records played in these two prominent New York murder trials this year highlights the surge in law enforcement’s use of increasingly sophisticated cellular tracking techniques to keep tabs on suspects before they are arrested and build criminal cases against them by mapping their past movements. (more)
Georgia - The discovery of bugging equipment in opposition party offices indicates that the country is under a repressive regime, Georgian Public Defender Sozar Subari said on Tuesday. His statement followed claims by the Conservative Party and the Way of Georgia leaders that they found bugging equipment in their offices on Monday. ...the bugging equipment was discovered by one of the opposition leader’s security guards by using special equipment. Later on Monday Conservative Party leaders also claimed they had found bugging devices in their office.On Tuesday it also became known that similar devices had been found in the Alliance for Georgia’s office in Isani. One of the members of the Alliance, New Rights activist Mamuka Katsitadze, said that the New Rights is now checking its own offices. “I am also planning to examine my house...The Interior Ministry has denied any links with the bugging devices found in opposition party offices. Spokesperson Grigol Beselia said that the Ministry’s special agencies do not use these devices any more. “A criminal case has been launched concerning the bugging equipment found in the Conservative Party and Way of Georgia offices. No special license is needed to buy these kind of devices. Anyone can buy them... (more)
Psst: The super-secretive National Security Agency is about to build a huge, $1.9 billion data center at Camp Williams, Utah, to help spy on communications worldwide. (more)
OH - Why did that police cruiser camera start recording?That’s an unanswered question in the wake of the tape that showed Police Chief Tim Escola kissing and caressing a part-time officer under his command.
An attorney for the former chief suggested the cruiser camera may have been rigged, a claim township officials dispute.
POSSIBLE ANSWERSLaw Director Charles Hall said Escola or officer Janine England accidentally may have switched the camera system into a “covert mode,” which recorded their behavior June 2 as they drove a burglary suspect back from the Cincinnati area.
Those familiar with the equipment in Perry Township didn’t know the feature existed until Thursday after a review of the owner’s manual, Hall said. The system is less than a year old. “If you go to turn the device off and hold the power button, the camera goes into covert mode,” Hall said. In covert mode, the camera continues to record but the display screen and all lighting turns dark, he said.Escola abruptly retired Tuesday night. England remains on the force and faces no discipline. (more with interesting comments) (video)
The wife of the new head of Britain's spy agency has posted pictures of her husband, family and friends on Internet networking site Facebook, details which could compromise security, a newspaper said on Sunday.
Sir John Sawers is due to take over as head of the Secret Intelligence Service in November. The SIS, popularly known as MI6, is Britain's global intelligence-gathering organisation.In what the Mail on Sunday called an "extraordinary lapse", the new spy chief's wife, Lady Shelley Sawers, posted family pictures and exposed details of where the couple live and take their holidays and who their friends and relatives are. (more) (sing-along)
Tong Jian S11
China’s first "self-designed" hybrid sports car...Part Prius
Part Audi R8
Part Ferrari F430via China Car Times...The S11 was first unveiled at the Shanghai Auto show earlier this year to an impressed crowd. The car was designed by Shanghai based TJ Innova, the S11 looks fantastic, with Audi and Ferrari design tones slipped into its sleak body, under the platform there is an AWD drivechain pushing power to each corner of the car. (more)
Just coincidence?
You decide.
For more than 200 years, buried deep within Thomas Jefferson's correspondence and papers, there lay a mysterious cipher -- a coded message that appears to have remained unsolved. Until now.
The cryptic message was sent to President Jefferson in December 1801 by his friend and frequent correspondent, Robert Patterson, a mathematics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. President Jefferson and Mr. Patterson were both officials at the American Philosophical Society -- a group that promoted scholarly research in the sciences and humanities -- and were enthusiasts of ciphers and other codes, regularly exchanging letters about them. (more)
The latest revelation in the curious case of accused Cuban spies: They kept a copy of The Spy's Bedside Book
in their apartment.A peek inside the apartment of husband-and-wife spy suspects reveals a shortwave radio, a sailing guide to Cuban waters -- and now a copy of The Spy's Bedside Book, according to new court documents in the case. (more)
MA - A blind teenager was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Friday for hacking into the Verizon telephone network and using fake 911 calls to harass an investigator who was building a case against him...
Matthew Weigman, 19, from Revere, Mass., was part of a group of sophisticated and notorious telephone hackers who engaged in “swatting” calls. (Calls prompting police SWAT team dispatch.)
Swatters use spoofing technology to mask their real location when placing fake 911 calls. This makes it seem as though the call is legitimate, and coming from a potential victim’s home. Police are sometimes dispatched to the homes of these “victims,” allowing swatters to effectively harass their targets from a distance.
Weigman, known as “Little Hacker,” has been involved in telephone hacking since the age of 14. (more)
During Sweden’s EU Presidency (started July 1), Swedish government authorities and the defense forces will use Sectra’s Tiger XS personal voice encryptor for eavesdrop-secure communications. Sweden is the fifth country in Europe to use Tiger XS to protect telephone conversations from eavesdropping during its EU Presidency. (more)
from the web site...
One encryption device for all
Tiger XS is a personal encryptor that protects mobile and fixed communications. Use one encryption device to secure your voice, data, fax and SMS communications. Tiger XS is connected to your mobile phone via Bluetooth®. This enables a high level of security on communications networks such as GSM, PSTN, ISDN, IP networks as well as satellite systems. With Tiger XS you are safe to exchange classified information over GSM networks or ordinary telephone lines – from your office desk, at home or on the road. (more)
According to a July 2 broadcast on National Public Radio, the famed Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC is likely to face foreclosure because the owners have defaulted on a $69.9 million loan on the property.
Watergate is well-known to many Americans because of the events of June, 17, 1972, when DC police arrested five men trying to break in and wiretap the offices of the Democratic Party located in the building. Along with two others, they were tried and convicted in January 1973.
All seven were connected with President Richard M. Nixon's reelection committee, suggesting that what appeared to be a simple burglary/wiretap might involve high-level government officials. (more)
FutureWatch - Watergate is purchased (bailed out) by the National Park Service. Tours daily. Most popular stop... The Frank Wills Memorial Door, with tape over the lock.
If you own an iPhone, security researcher Charlie Miller can take control of it, and short of turning off the device, it appears there isn't much you can do to stop him. Not until Apple fixes the flaw, anyway.Exploiting a bug in the way iPhones parse SMS messages, the principal analyst at Independent Security Evaluators has demonstrated how to send malicious commands to monitor the phone's location, turn on its microphone, or cause it to join a DDoS, or distributed denial of service attack, according to this report from IDG News.The vulnerability is significant because there are few measures iPhone users can take to prevent an attack... (more)
CA - Police have arrested a man who allegedly admitted to stealing the identities of more than 500 people by going through the trash of local banks and businesses.
The criminal complaint filed against 30-year-old suspect Jonah Nelson claims that he made more than 1,000 fake ID cards that he used to rip off people, stores and banks. Nelson also allegedly admitted to stealing the identities of more than 500 people all across Northern California, ranging from the Bay Area to the Central Valley.
Federal agents say Nelson said it was easy to find new victims: All he needed to do was visit a local bank and search their dumpsters. (more)My amazing bank shredder story...
I received a package cushioned with strips of shredded paper filler...
made from bank records!
Names, addresses, deposit amounts, account numbers, phone numbers, Social Security numbers. It was all there. Easily reconstructed.
This was worth looking into.
My secretary wrote to the company who sent us the box...
“Your packing material was most interesting (the recycled paper). Is there a company that supplies it? Is there a charge for it? If you have a company name I would appreciate your sharing it with me. Thanks!”
Their reply...“Check with any local bank - they shred 6-10 bags per week - you can get it for free for the asking!”
Fortunately, this was an honest person. They could just as easily have been and investigator or spy... and, the bank could have been any business or government agency.
Were their hearts in the right place for recycling?
Probably.
Is this a good practice.
No.
Buy and use a good crosscut shredder. ~Kevin 
Hey gang, it's almost Independence Day here in America. Yup, July 4th is just around the corner.
Fireworks are in America's bloodstream... but, did you know your on-line curiosity could get you in trouble with the terrorist chasers? Your fireworks search engine enquires might start popping red flags...
"Ludlow Kissel and the Dago Bomb That Struck Back"
"What is a Dago Bomb?"
"How can I build a Dago Bomb?"
"Dago Bomb ingredients"
"What was blown up by the Dago Bomb?"
(Knock, Knock)
"We're from Homeland Security..."
"
Excelsior, you fathead!" Next time, don't use a search engine that captures your IP address. Search privately. Go to https://www.ixquick.com
ixquick is the only search engine which gives you anonymity.
Oh, and Ludlow... he had his 15 minutes of fame... about 2:17 into this Great American Fourth of July video. ~Kevin
UPDATE - NEW URL. Startpage.com
Twitter users have caused an uproar by impersonating celebrities on the popular micro-blogging service. Businesses, too, are targets of fake Twitter profiles -- sometimes from competitors.Exxon Mobil Corp. has found at least two unauthorized Twitter accounts under variations of its name. Twitter -- a networking service where users create profiles and send out short messages, or "tweets" to their followers -- terminated one of the profiles last summer. An Exxon spokesman says the oil company is considering what to do about the second profile, which it discovered several weeks ago.In a defensive move, AMR Corp.'s American Airlines in April "registered every possible Twitter name that could be associated with us," a spokesman says. The move came after airline employees last summer found a rogue profile in the name AmericanAir, which was shut down four weeks later.At Elevation Burger, a seven-outlet chain owned by Elevation Franchise Ventures LLC, a vendor in March found an unauthorized Twitter profile with tweets promoting rival Z Burger. Hans Hess, Elevation's founder and chief executive, complained to Z Burger and Twitter, which later suspended the profile after a letter from Mr. Hess's lawyer.Amusement-park operator Cedar Fair LP, of Sandusky, Ohio, received an email from a marketing consultant who had created a Twitter profile in the name of its Cedar Point amusement park. The consultant, David Goebel, president of Goebel Group Inc., offered to relinquish control of the account in exchange for season passes to the Cedar Fair park and suggested that the company hire his firm to oversee its Twitter account. (more)Recommendation: Get to know Twitter. Monitor it for malicious content about your company, the same way you monitor the Web and chat groups.
You do monitor, don't you?Ok, I'll give you this tip for free... Plug yourself into Addictomatic.com. It's free too.
In the office of Georgian opposition party “Way of Georgia” eavesdropping bugs were discovered to have been installed in the office’s electrical sockets.The leader of the party, ex-minister of foreign affairs Salome Zurabishvili, said that the devices were found where meetings take place among leaders of the party, which is demanding the resignation of current Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.“They were found by employees of the party in the electrical sockets of the room,” said Zurabishvili, who showed the devices to journalists. (more)
CA- Police in Newbury Park say they've found evidence that a man arrested for allegedly spying on his female neighbors with a hidden camera may have taped other people as well.
Police say Michael Farge, 38, recorded the daily activities of his neighbors, including them changing, for more than two years.
Residents of the community of condos near Wheelwright Lane told KTLA that Farge was good friends with the women he is accused of watching, a woman and her 19-year-old daughter.They said Farge had a key to the victims' house and watched their house and pets when they were out of town. (more) (video)
A federal grand jury indicted former Arlington Heights resident David Yen Lee on charges he stole trade secrets to divulge to a competitor.The indictment, which U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald announced Friday, charges Lee with five counts of economic espionage.According to the indictment, the 52-year-old Lee worked as technical director of new product development for the Wheeling branch of Valspar Corp., a Minneapolis-based paint company, from 2006 to March 2009.According to the indictment, Lee downloaded documents and data from Valspar and its China subsidiary, Huarun Ltd., to an external thumb drive... (more)
Researchers are studying creatures that fly through the night in hopes of making tiny flying spies.(right) AeroVironment's DARPA-funded prototype drone made a successful test flight, lifting itself and its energy source.The most popular of these drones are called Ravens, built by the Monrovia, Calif., company AeroVironment. They are about 4.5 feet across, weigh six pounds and can stay aloft for about an hour and a half. (More, with two cool clips of a bat flying in slow motion.)
A Tokyo district plagued with burglaries has turned to planting flowers to beautify its streets and help stamp out crime."'Operation Flower' began about three years ago. By planting flowers facing the street, more people will be keeping an eye out while taking care of the flowers or watering them," said Kiyotaka Ohyagi, a Suginami City official...Suginami, with a population of 528,800, saw a record 1,710 break-ins in 2002... Suginami says its efforts have paid off, with the number of burglaries falling to 390 in 2008, down almost 80 percent from 2002.Oh, by the way...The flowers are part of a wider crime prevention campaign. The district also has 9,600 volunteer patrollers and 200 security cameras set up in areas where there are frequent break-ins. It also emails crime information daily to residents. (more)
Broken Window Theory... (via The Atlantic - March 1982)
...at the community level, disorder and crime are usually inextricably linked, in a kind of developmental sequence. Social psychologists and police officers tend to agree that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken. This is as true in nice neighborhoods as in rundown ones. Window-breaking does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined window-breakers whereas others are populated by window-lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing. (It has always been fun.)
Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford psychologist, reported in 1969 on some experiments testing the broken-window theory. He arranged to have an automobile without license plates parked with its hood up on a street in the Bronx and a comparable automobile on a street in Palo Alto, California. The car in the Bronx was attacked by "vandals" within ten minutes of its "abandonment." The first to arrive were a family—father, mother, and young son—who removed the radiator and battery. Within twenty-four hours, virtually everything of value had been removed. Then random destruction began—windows were smashed, parts torn off, upholstery ripped. Children began to use the car as a playground. Most of the adult "vandals" were well-dressed, apparently clean-cut whites. The car in Palo Alto sat untouched for more than a week. Then Zimbardo smashed part of it with a sledgehammer. Soon, passersby were joining in. Within a few hours, the car had been turned upside down and utterly destroyed. Again, the "vandals" appeared to be primarily respectable whites. (more)
"How does this apply to information security?"
If management doesn't care, employees won't care. When employees don't care, your company is easy pickings for info-vultures. Patch all the holes. ~Kevin
For those struggling with privacy on the Web, security researchers at Hewlett-Packard might have found the light at the end of tunnel.
A duo from HP's Web security group, Billy Hoffman and Matt Wood, are scheduled to present an idea at the BlackHat security conference in July that could shed new light on an old idea about how to communicate privately over the Internet.
The researchers, who previewed their concept to Forbes, say their model works like a private Internet on top of the existing public one: People can share information like files and messages via the Internet medium, but without the kind of public-facing personally identifiable information that Internet protocol addresses provide...
The darknet concept as we know it today has been around for a while, and current implementations usually rely on some sort of third-party technology to make it work. The model Hoffman and Wood are previewing is notable in that it uses the latest in rich Internet technologies to make using a darknet as simple as browsing a Web site. That innovation should drastically reduce the barrier to sharing secure information over darknets. (more)
"You can only give them as much security as they will take," the old saying goes.Most organizations don't take much. "Not our corporate culture." "People would quit." "How do you enforce that!"These excuses are lame.Worse, they are profit suckers.Considering information is the genesis of profits, it is hard to fathom laissez faire attitudes. Employees want to be part of a successful, cool, winning organization. They want their company to be profitable. To them it means job security, better salaries and prestige.
All they need is leadership."Prove it," I hear you say.via The New York Times...Apple is one of the world’s coolest companies. But there is one cool-company trend it has rejected: chatting with the world through blogs and dropping tidbits of information about its inner workings.
Few companies, indeed, are more secretive than Apple, or as punitive to those who dare violate the company’s rules on keeping tight control over information. Employees have been fired for leaking news tidbits to outsiders, and the company has been known to spread disinformation about product plans to its own workers.“They make everyone super, super paranoid about security,” said Mark Hamblin, who worked on the touch-screen technology for the iPhone and left Apple last year. “I have never seen anything else like it at another company.”...Secrecy at Apple is not just the prevailing communications strategy; it is baked into the corporate culture. Employees working on top-secret projects must pass through a maze of security doors, swiping their badges again and again and finally entering a numeric code to reach their offices, according to one former employee who worked in such areas......the culture of secrecy had its origin in the release of the first Macintosh, which competitors like Microsoft and Sony knew about before it was unveiled. (more)There is a lesson here.
On September 25, 1981 Apple stock traded at $1.78; today, $139.86.This doesn't happen by letting someone pick your intellectual pockets.Be proactive. Create a strong information secuity program.
Your employees will love it, and respect you for it.
For once, it seems that someone is actually interested in what Paris Hilton has to say, as the heiress' bodyguards have reportedly found a secret recording device hidden in her hotel room in Dubai.
The U.K. Daily Express reports that Hilton, 28, was less than pleased after the bug was discovered, immediately ordering more security and demanding that hotel staff investigate where the device came from. The incident has not stalled production of the Dubai edition of Hilton's My New BFF reality show.
"We're not sure what the device picked up or whom it was transmitting to. But it did leave Paris very jittery," a source working with Hilton told the Express. "Everyone she has come into contact with during her stay in Dubai has been fantastic and gracious. We've been told there are some quarters where there is anti-American feeling." (more)
While you may not be a Paris Hilton fan, give her credit. She hired competent security who knew how to find bugs. Should you need the same, contact me. ~Kevin
Update...
Paris Hilton has played down media reports that her Dubai hotel room was bugged, saying stories in the British tabloids were "another lie created by the media"... None of Hilton's spokespeople were available to comment on Wednesday morning. (more)
We'll keep you posted.
The electric-utility industry is planning a pilot initiative to see whether Chinese spies have infiltrated computer networks running the power grid, according to people familiar with the effort.
Officials of the North American Electric Reliability Corp., an industry regulatory group, are negotiating with a defense contractor for the job of searching for breaches by cyberspies, according to people familiar with the plans...The Wall Street Journal reported in April that Russian and Chinese spies had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. (more)
About 4,200 people participated in the U.S. National Security Agency-supported challenge... Programmers from China and Russia have dominated an international competition on everything from writing algorithms to designing components... Of 70 finalists, 20 were from China, 10 from Russia and two from the U.S.... Of the total number of contestants, 93% were male, and 84% were aged between 18 and 24. (more)"You too may be a big hero,Once you've learned to count backwards to zero.'In German oder English I know how to count down,Und I'm learning Chinese,' says Wernher von Braun."
Tom Lehrer
1965
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has put his youngest son in charge of the country's spy agency in a move aimed at handing the communist regime over to him, a news report said Wednesday. (more)The Obama administration is planning to eliminate a spy satellite program at the Department of Homeland Security that had produced concerns about domestic spying, officials said. The program would have given state and local law enforcement officials access to high-resolution imagery from spy satellites to aid them in disaster relief efforts, bolster border security and help secure major events like the Super Bowl. (more)The Iranian regime has developed, with the assistance of European telecommunications companies, one of the world's most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online communications on a massive scale. (more)Kuwait's parliament will hold a vote of no-confidence on the interior minister next week after he was quizzed on Tuesday over accusations that include spying on MPs and squandering public funds. (more)Colombia's Prosecutor General's office called Noguera and three other former DAS directors for questioning about their alleged involvement in the wiretapping scandal of the intelligence agency. (more)Canadian police will be given new powers to eavesdrop on Internet-based communications... (more)
If you're planning to apply for a job with the city of Bozeman, Montana, be prepared to hand over much more than your references and résumé. The Rocky Mountain city instructs all job applicants to divulge their usernames and passwords for "any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc."
"Before we offer people employment in a public trust position we have a responsibility to do a thorough background check," Chuck Winn, Bozeman's assistant city manager, told CBSNews.com in an interview on Thursday. "This is just a component of a thorough background check." (more)
FutureWatch...
Yin: Expect this trend to continue and expand.
Yang: Expect to see dual social networking - one for due diligence consumption, and a sub-rosa one, for real.
...unconfirmed, but interesting..."Erricson's WAP, Wireless Application Protocol, suffers from a security flaw that allows attackers to listen into other WAP sessions traveling on the cellular carrier wave... This attack is limited, since you cannot choose which number to wiretap on, and you cannot talk at the same time that you are wiretapping a line. This vulnerability shows the lack of security of WAP as it is offered in today's cellular networks. (more)Blue Blaze Irregulars, check and advise!How to wiretap from an Erricson Cell Phone:1) Type 9040592) Menu3) Yes4) 15) RCL6) Yes7) 8300**8) Yes9) 86(Instead of the ** you can write any number you wish, except for the number 00)To stop the wiretapping:1) Type RCL2) 33) Yes
So, I am updating my address book. Up pops Michael Silva, a very smart independent security consultant in Edmonds, Washington. I verify his web site address. Interesting. It sidetracks me and I begin poking around. I found a gem for you! Security Of Desks and File Cabinets <-- clickThere may be nothing in this brief article you don't already know, but refresh your memory anyway. When it comes to securing information, this topic ranks right up there with shredding and eavesdropping.
Necessity spawns invention...
At the start of my career an executive countered my suggestion that he clear his desk at night. "I have my paperwork in very specific piles. I can't be moving all of them every night."
I invented a desk condom for him. Custom made to fit his desk, it was lightweight ripstop nylon with a drawstring along the edges. Flip it over the desk at night, pull the cord, lock the lock. Simple. Cheap. It worked for him. Kept after-hours snoops away, and kept the cleaners from knocking over his piles of papers. Stored easily, too.
If you get any grief, ask your execs, "Would you leave a stack of twenties on your desk overnight?" ~Kevin
Photo (Click to enlarge.) - My worst case.
"...a trade secret once lost, is, of course, lost forever."
Anacomp, Inc. v. Shell Knob Servs., 93 Civ. 4003 (PKL), 1994 U.S. Dist. Lexis 223 (S.D.N.Y. 1994).
Like eavesdropping and other forms of espionage, properly executed, you'll never know. Only the failed, suspected, obvious and fortuitously uncovered cases surface. And, of those... very few are documented in court records.
We can extrapolate the depth of trade secret espionage from documented court records.
Thanks to R. Mark Halligan, a Partner at Nixon Peabody LLP in Chicago, this is fairly easy to do. He keeps track of trade secret cases at his Web site - tradesecretshomepage.com It is billed as, "The most complete source for trade secret information on the Web!"
On with the show!Let's look at the trade secret cases in Mr. Halligan's vault. (Click here. Stand back.) WOW! Just think... those are the cases which made it to court, and got reported - the tip of an apparently huge knowledge-berg of melting profits.
Computation: Chances look very good someone (or many people) have, are, or will be, picking your corporate pockets, too.
Did you know?: The courts determine the existence of a trade secret based on six factors. One of them is... "What security measures (above and beyond normal security) have been taken to protect the trade secret?"
Solutions:
- Make friends now with Mr. Halligan and myself. Besides due diligence, our services are very cheap insurance.
- Check out The Trade Secret Office. It provides software products that make determination of trade secret status simpler and more concrete. FREE Trade Secret Primer.
- Visit Professor Jon Cavicchi's The Trade Secrets Vault for late breaking news.
Two Dutch men have been arrested after a boy they allegedly mugged spotted them using an application on the Google website... he discovered the incident had been recorded on Google's StreetView application.Under Google's rules, his attackers' faces were blurred, but the men were identified after the company gave investigators the original unobscured picture. Police then identified the men - twin brothers - and made an arrest. (more)"Quick, call Google...
...and Homeland Security, too!"Golf balls are bombarding the Port of Everett and anti-terrorism cameras are being trained on a residential neighborhood to hunt down the source... port officials believe someone on Rucker Hill is whacking golf balls down the hill onto port property, endangering dozens of workers and millions of dollars worth of equipment and cargo... they say pointing video surveillance cameras toward the residential area is an appropriate use of the equipment. The cameras were paid for, along with fencing and other security equipment, with $2.3 million in grants from the Department of Homeland Security... (more)
South Australia's Health Minister John Hill says sensitive files on planning for the new Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) have disappeared.He says the files kept on a USB drive were lost by an employee from SA Health's Major Projects Office this month...The SA Opposition says a review must find out why it took nine days for Government ministers to be told the sensitive material had been lost.Opposition health spokeswoman Vickie Chapman says loss of the files could sabotage the tendering process for the project."The biggest item of infrastructure promised by this Government is now at risk," she said."Now the most serious interpretation of this is that these documents contain material perhaps even the public sector comparative figures that will just give a field day for prospective tenderers." (more)You know you are going to loose your USB drive some day.
Why not encrypt it today?
It's FREE. Click here.
Want an easy OTS solution? Click here.Pick one, or risk being a NIT.
(Negligent Idiot Twit)
Old Lyme, Conn.-based Sennheiser is the latest vendor–and one of the few–to offer a microphone that uses optics rather than electrical signals to capture and transmit sound.
The underlying concept is relatively straightforward. A light source–usually a light-emitting diode (LED)–shines against the diaphragm, and the reflections are picked up by a photodetector that's on the same side of the diaphragm. When the diaphragm moves, so do the reflections, creating changes in light intensity. The photodetector notes these changes, beginning the process of capturing them as sound waves. The light waves travel along a fiber optic cable to a unit that, besides providing power, includes a photodiode that converts the light into electrical signals.
Sennheiser's new mics, along with those from rivals such as Israel-based Optoacoustics, are aimed primarily at specific vertical markets...
...optical mics are a potential fit for high-security environments, such as government and defense contractor offices, where eavesdropping is a concern. That's because the alternative–mics with copper cables–even when they're shielded can double as antennas, radiating whatever content is traversing them.
How far those "broadcasts" travel depends on factors such as whether there are multiple walls in the area to attenuate the signal. But if the copper cables are in, say, an executive conference room that has lots of windows, there's a better chance that the signals can be picked up by someone in the parking lot below.
That scenario is one of the reasons why many government guidelines, such as the National Security Agency's TEMPEST, require fiber for secure applications. Often, the concerns such guidelines address often apply to the general enterprise market, too. (more)
In 1994, while optical microphones were still esoteric spy tools, I created a fiber optic microphone teacup for my clients. (front view) (rear view) (bottom view). Only 323 were made. If you still have yours, hold on to it. It's rare. ~Kevin
A great-grandson of Alexander Graham Bell has been arrested on charges of being an international spy.Walter Kendall Myers, 72, and his wife Gwendolyn, 71, were arrested June 4 in Washington, D.C. after the FBI alleged the pair were spying on the United States for Cuba for three decades.Myers is a former U.S. State Department analyst who had top-secret security clearance, according to The Associated Press. (more) (interesting historical background)
from the website...PrivacyHarbor.com’s private and FREE (Basic Account) email system keeps your messages out of the hands advertisers and others who want to see your email. You don’t want people reading your letters or listening in on your phone calls, so why would it be acceptable for spammers and companies to pry on your emails? The clear answer is, it’s not. Keep every message private, safe and secure with PrivacyHarbor... Private webmail account: More secure than online banking.
They offer a nice FREE package as well as moderately priced accounts. Compare the features of each here. ~Kevin
...use a Cell Phone Jammer?"71% YES29% NOSelected comments received..."Perfect place to use them in conference rooms and Churches.""The worst place for me is the bank, you're standing there, waiting, quiet (I have my phone on vibrate usually) and phone nearby you rings and someone cusses and argues or talks about idle crap while everyone else has to stand around and listen? Or in a diverse place, you might get a loudmouth in Spansih, another in Mandarian, or someone giving an idiotic opinion that doesn't make sense and then me and people in line start discussing and bickering cause that's all we can DO!!! I want to JAM em so bad right then and there. Legal or not. ;)"
... if it were your BlackBerry?
NJ- A bill sponsored by Senator Raymond J. Lesniak which would require telecommunications companies to provide caller location information for crime victims to law enforcement agencies was approved by the Senate Law, Public Safety and Veterans Affairs Committee Monday.The measure would amend the state's wiretapping statute to require cell phone carriers and mobile broadband providers to disclose location information regarding a crime victim's mobile or wireless communications device under certain circumstances.
Lesniak's recent experience in which intruders broke into his Elizabeth home and robbed him underscored the need for this legislation. During the robbery, the thieves took his BlackBerry. Had the senator's cell phone carrier been able to cooperate with local law enforcement officials, police could have tracked down and apprehended the thieves much quicker, reducing the risk to the rest of the community. (more)
(click to enlarge)...and, he might want to give BAK2u a try on his new BlackBerry. It backs-up and wipes-out confidential information on stolen BlackBerrys. ~Kevin
The other 67% remain in the airport awhile before being disposed of, meaning there are "potentially millions of files containing sensitive or confidential data that may be accessible to a large number of airport employees and contractors," the study reports.
