...thus leaving us all to wonder which one will get their clock cleaned in court.

NY - A major New York watch dealer has been forced out of his home and arrested after his estranged wife accused him of criminally accessing her email account.
 

Evan Zimmermann was arrested late last month in his Manhattan apartment on charges of computer trespass, eavesdropping and unauthorized use of a computer.

According to the New York Post, his wife Jennifer Zimmermann took out the charges in order to gain advantage in their pending divorce and as 'retaliation' for his refusal to move out of their Westchester home.

His lawyer Robert Wolf said: 'The charges are all fabricated, she gave him her password to prove she was not cheating on him.' (more)

Hammacher Schlemmer's World's Best Paper Shredder? You decide.

...which they will gladly sell to you. 

"The Best Cross Cut Shredder"
This shredder earned The Best rating from the Hammacher Schlemmer Institute because it shredded the most sheets at once and cut paper into unrecognizable, 1/8" x 1" pieces. The Best Cross Cut Shredder's steel gears cut credit cards and CDs into miniscule pieces that were impossible to reassemble or decipher.

Testing Criteria
A consumer panel determined that security, ease of use, shredding capacity, and quietness were the most important attributes when purchasing a cross cut shredder. The importance of each category was weighted proportionally during the Hammacher Schlemmer Institute's tests.


Test Methodology
Security: Analysts shredded paper and CDs with each model and measured the shreds to determine which unit provided the best security.

Ease of Use: The shredders were rated on how easily they accepted paper, maneuverability, and how easy it was to empty each unit's receptacle.

Shredding Capacity: Analysts determined the maximum number of 20-lb. bond paper sheets each model could shred at one time.

Quietness: A digital sound meter was used to measure the amount of noise produced by each shredder.

Additional Paper Shredder Resources
• "How to Choose A Shredder" - Dahle
(Hint: Crosscut not Stripcut. Always.)
• Lynde-Ordway
• ABCO Office Solutions
• Advantage Business Equipment
• Allegheny Paper Shredders
• Ameri-Shred
• Capital Shredder Corp
• Cummins Allison Corporation
• Dahle USA
• ECCO Business Systems
• Fellowes Manufacturing Company
• Ideal
• Industrial Paper Shredders, Inc.
• Intimus Paper Shredders
• MBM Corporation (Destroyit)
• Security Engineered Machinery
• Whitaker Brothers
• General search (Yahoo)

Never Get a Blocked Caller ID on Your SmartPhone Again

If you have an iPhone, Android or Blackberry... and are willing to spend $5.00 per month for the service, you can defeat Caller ID blocking. Just remember, it can be used against you, if someone else is willing to pay.

TrapCall has just been placed in the iPhone apps store. (more)

Gucci, gucci, goo... - LAN Man Gums Up Works

NY - A former Gucci America Inc. computer network engineer was charged with remotely taking over the company's computers, shutting down servers and deleting emails, Manhattan prosecutors said on Monday.

Sam Chihlung Yun, 34 years old, allegedly created an account in the name of a fictional employee and used it to access the company's network after he was fired in May 2010, prosecutors said. He allegedly caused more than $200,000 in diminished productivity, as well as remediation costs, prosecutors said. (more)

"The world’s #1 private investigation team, EVER!"

Hey, that's how What's Your Problem? is billed. It's an amusing independent film about a private investigations firm, but I'll let the folks at Grey Sky Films speak for themselves...

"The world’s #1 private investigation team, EVER! This was a short comedy film that we wrote, produced, directed, and edited ourselves in 2006 and released in January 2007. The film features current Grey Sky Films team member Matt Horutz who also co-wrote and co-produced the film as well. What’s Your Problem? was accepted into a few film festivals and now can be seen on DVD. If you ask us very nicely we will send you a copy – get in touch!"

Did you get that!

A free DVD.

Wow, better than Netflix!

Why do I mention this? The free DVD, of course, but many of my Scrapbook reader friends are in business for themselves (like real PI's), and they are always looking for marketing tips. Here's a tip. Video. People don't have time to read your message right off the bat. But they will watch something to see if it catches their interest.

Grey Sky Films create quality videos, at surprisingly low cost. How do I know? They did mine! And no, I didn't get a discount or any other favor. I am just a satisfied customer spouting off. Use anybody you like, but do it. Market with video. It's fun. It works.

Here's the guy who helped me ...and can get you the free DVD. Dan Hollis is a real gentleman and is a deep well of movie / entertainment trivia knowledge. Send him your trivia questions, you'll see. He is also the answer man for your video marketing questions. The rest of the gang? Well, they are just as much fun as they look.

This Week in World Spy News

The Pakistani government has given another one-year extension to the chief of its powerful spy organization, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate. (more)

Musa Kusa, the former Libyan intelligence chief who defected to Britain, was acting as a double agent for the MI6 and the CIA for a decade, an official said. (more)

The recently exposed Iranian spy network could just be the tip of the iceberg, a part of Iran’s larger conspiracy against Kuwait and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Al-Seyassah daily quoted a high-level security source as saying. (more)

Australia (sports spy) - Melbourne and Hawthorn have re-ignited their spy games as the two clubs prepare for the twilight clash at the MCG today. The Demons asked a Hawthorn spy to leave a closed Melbourne training session at Casey Fields in Cranbourne on Friday after he was caught monitoring the Demons from up a tree. (more)

The U.S. military likes to be a little sneaky with its robotic space planes. Unlike typical spacecraft, these vehicles can shift their orbits, frustrating the global network of skywatchers who keep track of just about every man-made object rotating the planet. But the sleuths have their tricks, too. They’ve tracked down the X-37B on its second secret mission. And the information the skywatchers are finding says quite a bit about the classified operations of this mysterious spacecraft. (more)

A federal class action claims that 3-D software developer Transmagic secretly planted surveillance technology in its software that "commandeered the computers of its customers, spied on them, and used the ill-gotten intelligence to build a recurring revenue stream exacted from an involuntary customer base." (more)

As Water Seeks its Own Level... Watergate Redux

CA - Most presidential libraries are as much celebrations of a president as historical repositories. They are packed with official papers, photographs, limousines, proclamations and baby shoes representing the president’s life and times; dark chapters are traditionally ignored or at least understated.

That tradition was exploded Thursday as the Watergate Gallery opened here at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. The unveiling ended a nearly yearlong struggle between national archivists and the Richard Nixon Foundation, a group of Nixon loyalists who controlled the former president’s papers until ceding them to the National Archives four years ago. The fight was over how to portray the scandal that led to Nixon’s resignation.

From the first words a visitor sees entering the gallery — a quotation from Nixon, “This is a conspiracy” — the exhibit offers a searing and often unforgiving account of one of the most painful chapters of the nation’s history. The timeline methodically chronicles the stream of misdeeds leading up to the Watergate break-in, followed by the attempts to cover it up, which led to Nixon’s resignation.

It is a far cry from the library’s original Watergate exhibition, “The Last Campaign,” created by the Nixon Foundation with the former president’s direct involvement. That installment portrayed Watergate as an orchestrated effort by Democrats to overturn the 1972 election. (more)

Security Director Report - Emergency Satellite Phone Review

There are 3 main choices in "global" satellite phones. Here is a quick summary. 
(If you only need coverage in specific regions contact me and I'll fill you in on your other options.)

click to enlarge

• Globalstar (partial global coverage - low Earth orbit satellites)The map above shows expected coverage for all USA Globalstar satellite phone subscribers using the Globalstar GSP phone series. For customers using the Globalstar FAU-200 fixed satellite phone calls can be placed from US/Caribbean Home Service Area and Canada to any standard phone number in the world.

Airtime minutes included in the Globalstar satellite phone service plans only apply to the United States and Caribbean Home Service Area. Roaming rates apply outside of the United States and Caribbean.

The Globalstar GSP-1700 satellite phone offers an ergonomic design that makes it comfortable for hand-held operation. The phone measures 225cc in total volume and weighs 200 grams (including battery). The height is 135 mm, the width is 55 mm and the thickness is 37 mm. The satellite antenna, when held in a vertical position, communicates with the Globalstar satellite at elevations more than 10 degrees above the horizon. The Globalstar antenna rotates and stows into the handset for convenience when not in use.

• Inmarsat (global - excepting polar regions - geosynchronous satellites)

click to enlarge

Inmarsat IsatPhone Pro, LandPhone, and FleetPhone Coverage

The map depicts Inmarsat's expectations of coverage, but does not represent a guarantee of service. The availability of service at the edge of coverage fluctuates depending on various conditions.

"The new IsatPhone satellite cell phone provides voice and data over the I4 satellite network. This is the newest satellite phone on the market, now providing some competition with Iridium.

The IsatPhone Pro, using high quality satellite phone service from Inmarsat, currently provides coverage over the entire planet, except the polar regions, using Inmarsat's latest generation Inmarsat-4 satellite network.  This phone is packed with features and compares very competitively with satellite cell phone offerings from Iridum.

The Isatphone Pro is an affordable satellite cell phone option for people who work, live, or travel to areas where communication may be non-existent or emergency back up communications is needed.  The Isatphone Pro is one of the smallest satellite phones on the market today.  It is easy to use, lightweight, and rugged. It even has a built-in GPS receiver. Your can text or email your position!" 

• Iridium (fully global - low Earth orbit satellites)

This is the smallest of the Iridium handsets.

"Iridium provides complete coverage of all ocean areas, air routes and all landmasses - even the Poles. Iridium delivers essential services to users who need communications access to and from remote areas where no other form of communication is available. Select from our range of Iridium satellite phone rental or Iridium satellite phone purchase solutions, and we will deliver a ready-to-use handheld IRIDIUM Satellite Phone kit to you overnight anywhere across North America.

Standard Voice Services

The Iridium system provides true global voice services by covering areas that cellular and landline do not. Voice services are supported using the smaller, lighter, water resistant 9505 satellite phone. The excellent signal strength provided by the Iridium constellation supports reliable connectivity across wide ranging landscapes and situations.

The three Restricted Countries where the Iridium phone will not complete a call to the local phone system are: N. Korea, Poland, and Hungary.

The embargoed countries where a satellite phone will work in these countries (we cannot guarantee service), but there (may be) issues taking an Iridium phone into these areas at customs/border patrols: Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Angola & Yugoslavia. You may need special government permission to bring a satellite phone into embargoed countries.

The Iridium 9555 satellite phone is designed to withstand the toughest environments and will work from anywhere on the planet to anywhere. All that is required is a clear view of sky.

Users can choose from prepaid service plans or monthly service plans to complete the package. With Irdium there are no roaming and no long distance charges, just one simple rate."

I'll keep you posted on worthwhile advancements as they emerge. ~Kevin

Data courtesy of: http://www.globalcomsatphone.com

eBlaster'ed Wife Kicks Butt

TX - An Austin man is accused of spying on the e-mails of his estranged wife and one of her friends, using the information to build a case for divorce...

Austin police investigators charged Karl Redden Dalley, 41, with unlawful interception of electronic communication -- a second-degree felony. He allegedly spied throughout much of 2010.

Investigators said Dalley used eBlaster, made by SpectorSoft , to monitor his wife's e-mails from their home computer. They also claim he used the same software to spy on a computer at an Austin karate school.

Police said Dalley's wife also claimed her estranged husband used photos from her cell phone as evidence during their divorce proceeding in November 2010.

Police first learned of the case in February 2010, when Dalley's wife told them that he had sent an e-mail to all of the brown and black belts in the Austin area karate school. Dalley's wife was an instructor there, and the e-mail accused her of having an affair with the school's president. (more)

Cell Phone Panic Button App

There's a new app being developed by the U.S. Government and it seems like everyone should want to add it to their phone for all kinds of different reasons. If a cell phone is confiscated by police or government agency, the panic button app will wipe the cell phone's address book, history, text messages and broadcast the arrest as an emergency alert to fellow activists...

 Since 2008, the U.S. has budgeted about $50 million to promote new tech to help out social activists. Secretary Hillary Clinton is behind the U.S. technology initiative to "expand Internet freedoms." (more)

Several cell phone operating systems, like iPhone's iOS, already have a similar capability built in. The emergency broadcast is a new twist... but would that identify who all the cohorts are?

Security Tip - $5 p/m Stolen Laptop Solution

Eighteen-year-old "technology entrepreneur" and Bentley College student Mark Bao had his MacBook Air stolen in February. Unlike other bright-eyed college freshmen, Bao didn't write his laptop off as gone forever (ok, maybe he did--he went out and purchased another laptop the very same night it was stolen), he set out to find the thief.

Using online backup software BackBlaze that he'd installed on his laptop, Bao was able to see the machine's browser history and track any hard drive updates.

"Woah. Thanks to @Backblaze, I think I might be able to figure out who stole my MacBook Air at college. Creeping through the Safari history!" Bao Tweeted on March 19.

(D'oh!)

Apparently the first thing the thief did was take a photo of himself using the laptop's Photo Booth program... After discovering the photo, Bao discovered a video the thief had taken of himself dancing to Tyga's "Make it Rain." Bao uploaded the video to Vimeo, managed to hunt down the guy's Facebook page using the aforementioned Safari history, and then turned everything over to the police. 

Bao told the Daily Mail that he holds no grudges against the thief, because "I don't have time nor patience to. There are more important things in life." Mark no longer has any use for his old laptop, so he's selling it and donating the proceeds to the Red Cross Japan fund. (more)

Security Tip - Free Program Protects USB Ports from Maleware Infections

Did you find a USB memory stick and are afraid to plug it in? (good)

Does your friend want to insert their (possibly infected) drive into your computer? 

Panda USB Vaccine may help...

There is an increasing amount of malware which, like the dangerous Conficker worm, spreads via removable devices and drives such as memory sticks, MP3 players, digital cameras, etc. To do this, these malicious codes modify the AutoRun file on these devices.

Panda USB Vaccine is a free antimalware solution designed to protect against this threat. It offers a double layer of preventive protection, allowing users to disable the AutoRun feature on computers as well as on USB drives and other devices:

Vaccine for computers: This is a ‘vaccine' for computers to prevent any AutoRun file from running, regardless of whether the device (memory stick, CD, etc.) is infected or not.

Vaccine for USB devices: This is a ‘vaccine' for removable USB devices, preventing the AutoRun file from becoming a source of infection. The tool disables this file so it cannot be read, modified or replaced by malicious code.

This is a very useful tool as there is no simple way of disabling the AutoRun feature in Windows. This provides users with a simple way of disabling this feature, offering a high degree of protection against infections from removable drives and devices.

You can download Panda USB Vaccine free here.

Samsung - Installed Keylogger on their Laptop Computers! (UPDATE)

[UPDATE: Samsung has launched an investigation into the matter and is working with Mich Kabay and Mohamed Hassan in the investigation. Samsung engineers are collaborating with the computer security expert, Mohamed Hassan, MSIA, CISSP, CISA, with faculty at the Norwich University Center for Advanced Computing and Digital Forensics, and with the antivirus vendor whose product identified a possible keylogger (or which may have issued a false positive). The company and the University will post news as fast as possible on Network World. A Samsung executive is personally delivering a randomly selected laptop purchased at a retail store to the Norwich scientists. Prof. Kabay praises Samsung for its immediate, positive and collaborative response to this situation.]

By M. E. Kabay and Mohamed Hassan Mohamed Hassan, Network World...

The supervisor who spoke with me was not sure how this software ended up in the new laptop thus put me on hold. He confirmed that yes, Samsung did knowingly put this software on the laptop to, as he put it, "monitor the performance of the machine and to find out how it is being used."

In other words, Samsung wanted to gather usage data without obtaining consent from laptop owners.

...This is a déjà vu security incident with far reaching potential consequences. In the words of the of former FTC chairman Deborah Platt Majoras, "Installations of secret software that create security risks are intrusive and unlawful." (FTC, 2007).

Samsung's conduct may be illegal; even if it is eventually ruled legal by the courts, the issue has legal, ethical, and privacy implications for both the businesses and individuals who may purchase and use Samsung laptops. Samsung could also be liable should the vast amount of information collected through StarLogger fall into the wrong hands.

We contacted three public relations officers for Samsung for comment about this issue and gave them a week to send us their comments. No one from the company replied. (more)

"You vare personally responsible for your spy equipments...

...lose zem, and ve dock your pay!" 

You’ve gotta hand it to Russian intelligence, they’ve got chutzpah. First they planted a network of sleeper agents in the United States. Now, two of the busted and deported spies are demanding that the feds fork over their impounded spy gear...

...two former members of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service  (SVR) who hid in the U.S. for years, have hired lawyers to demand the FBI give them their stuff back. Vladimir and Lidia Guryev (a.k.a. Richard and Cynthia Murphy) are asking the Justice Department to return their cars, money, video cameras, computers, digital photos and unnamed “other equipment.” They’d also like the data on their digital gear back, too or, failing that, copies of it. Their tech gear and files have no “material value,” the request claims; it’s just “dear to the Guryevs.”(more)

Security Director's: The IT guys are stealing your lunch...

...and, unless you take control they will also eat your budget and make you irrelevant. 

Their recipe... Take accurate "S&P 500" statistics, add a pinch of "cyber" for a taste of scary, let it cook over "1,000 IT decision makers" with vested interests, serve as "hot news" written by... oh, no one in particular.

Cybercriminals understand there is greater value in selling a corporations’ proprietary information and trade secrets which have little to no protection making intellectual capital their new currency of choice, according to McAfee and SAIC.

The cyber underground economy is making its money on the theft of corporate intellectual capital which includes trade secrets, marketing plans, research and development findings and even source code.

McAfee and SAIC surveyed more than 1,000 senior IT decision makers in the U.S., U.K., Japan, China, India, Brazil and the Middle East. Their study reveals the changes in attitudes and perceptions of intellectual property protection in the last two years. (more)

Fight back...

Tell the boss:

1. All of the information IT claims it needs money to protect (and more) is available elsewhere long before it is ever reduced to computer data.

2. "Cybercriminals" is a self-serving label invented to scare. News and entertainment media glorify this one aspect of criminal behavior. Truth: Criminals don't care how they make a buck. Foreign governments don't have preferential spy techniques. Both want your intellectual property. The fresher, the better. Reality: Cybercriminals get the table scraps.

3. You are the front line of defense. Your job is more important today than every before in history. The proof is in the S&P 500 chart.

4. "I can take the lead in designing the overall company counterespionage strategy." 

Priority One: Realign the security budget.
• Is 80% of the budget being used to protect tangible assets? (20%) If so, change it.
• Is the budget strong enough to protect the intangible assets? (80%) If not, change it.

Need help implementing a counterespionage strategy? Call us.

P.S. Be kind to the IT guys. They have a hard time keeping up with the regular demands of their job, let alone the security issues. They will be happy you took control and can advise you on what they really need to keep their data safe.

Sell Spy Plane on Ebay? To Feds? Feedback? Arrest Warrant

FL - A Philippine man was arrested and charged with illegally selling an unmanned U.S. spy plane known as the Raven, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa said on Monday.

A grand jury indicted Henson Chua, 47, of Manila on March 10 on charges that he sold the Raven to undercover federal agents on Ebay...

The Raven is a four-pound plane equipped with three cameras that U.S. troops use for battlefield surveillance. It can be taken apart and carried by troops and then reassembled for use.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, agents with the Homeland Security Department found out last May that Chua was offering a Raven for sale on Ebay for $13,000. (more)

Photo Sharing App Bares All

Critics of the much-talked-about new photo-sharing app Color can add another bickering point to the pot: A simple GPS "spoof" allows for spying on any Color user's photos. 

The problems with the highly publicized new iOS and Android photo-sharing app Color continue to mount. According to Forbes, the app has an easily exploitable feature that makes it simple for tech-savvy users to view all the photos of anyone who uses the app.

That’s not to say Color is known for its tight privacy settings — in fact, the exact opposite is true. When a user takes a photo with Color, the photo is automatically uploaded to the Color servers. Then — and this is what makes the app so notable — anyone within a set perimeter of where that photo was taken can see that picture, along with the pictures of any other Color user who happens to be snapping off shots in that particular location. (more)
Another cool use... establishing and identifying dead drops for spies.

High School Hacking Nets Great Grades... for a while

CA - Omar Khan worked the school like it was a movie, installing spyware, stealing passwords and breaking into administrator offices.

A former Tesoro High School senior was convicted Monday of breaking into his high school on multiple occasions to steal advanced placement (AP) tests from classrooms, alter test scores and change official college transcript grades.

Omar Shahid Khan, 21, of Coto de Caza, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of commercial burglary and one felony count each of altering public records, stealing or removing public records, and attempting to steal or remove public records. He is expected to be sentenced Aug. 26 to 30 days in jail, three years of probation, 500 hours of community service and more than $14,900 in restitution. 

A subsequent search by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department revealed that Khan had installed spyware devices on the computers of several teachers and school administrators throughout his senior year, according to the D.A. The devices were used to obtain passwords to access teacher computers in classrooms and school administrative offices. (more)

Oh, one more thing...

One security feature I would like to see on my future cell phone is the option of not using a password.

Think of this... all business-level cell phones have camera capability; all have (or could easily be designed to have) touch screen capability; and of course a microphone. The next logical step is adding facial, fingerprint or voice recognition to replace the access PIN code. 

In addition to the security benefit, it would sure make using the phone while driving safer. (Just kidding. I would never do that. Well... not often, anyway.) ~Kevin

Your Next Cell Phone May Seem Like a James Bond Gadget

10 Things Your Phone Will Soon Do 

via onlinedegree.net...

1. Replace your credit cards
2. Transform into a wearable accessory
3. Display content on more than one side
4. Expand into a PC
5. Receive holographic text messages
6. Actually recognize what you say
7. Perform like a PC
8. Act as your personal assistant
9. Go more than 24 to 36 hours without being recharged

10. Repel dirt and grime

(more) 

Aston Martin teams with Mobiado for transparent touchscreen concept phone

British car maker Aston Martin is looking to leverage its luxury brand into the world of consumer electronics by teaming up with Canadian mobile phone manufacturer Mobiado to produce a line of high-end handsets to be launched in May of this year. Until then, the company has provided a tantalizing peek at possible future designs with the CPT002 Aston Martin Concept Phone that takes the 'slab of glass' design of many current smartphones to the next level. With a solid sapphire crystal capacitive touchscreen, the CPT002 is completely transparent. (more)

How to Put Out an Electrical Fire, or... Fight Fire With Fire?

It's certainly an established fact that electricity can cause fires, but today a group of Harvard scientists presented their research on the use of electricity for fighting fires. In a presentation at the 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, Dr. Ludovico Cademartiri told of how they used a unique device to shoot beams of electricity at an open flame over one foot tall. Almost immediately, he said, the flame was extinguished... Apparently, it has been known for over 200 years that electricity affects fire – it can cause flames to change in character, or even stop burning altogether. 

It turns out that soot particles within flames can easily become charged, and therefore can cause flames to lose stability when the local electrical fields are altered.

The Harvard device consists of a 600-watt amplifier hooked up to a wand-like probe, which is what delivers the electrical beams. The researchers believe that a much lower-powered amplifier should deliver similar results, which could allow the system to be worn as a backpack, by firefighters. It could also be mounted on ceilings, like current sprinkler systems, or be remotely-controlled. (more)

Bill, don't cross the beams. ~Kevin

"Have you ever been the victim of..." poll results.

Click to enlarge.

Kevin's Security Scrapbook has been running this poll for several months now. It is a follow-up to a similar poll we ran a few years ago. Time to look at the results.

Not much has changed. No one surveillance tactic is more popular than another. People will use any tool or tactic that does the job.

This parallels our corporate counterespionage field experience.

Thanks to all who shared their experience with us. ~Kevin

Export, eh... or, The PC is Smokin'

Dumpster diving isn't something Saskatchewan's privacy commissioner makes a habit of, but this time Gary Dickson says he was left with little choice.

Dickson and two assistants had to wade through a massive recycling dumpster this week to recover medical files. They sorted through paper more than 1 1/2 metres deep after getting a tip directing them to the container behind the Golden Mile Shopping Centre in Regina... "So we seized all of this stuff immediately and the only way we could do that was getting into the recycling bin."

It took a couple of hours to go through the dumpster. Dickson estimates they found more than 1,000 files that should have been shredded.

Whoever tossed the files had to know what they were, he said.

The commissioner said doctors, regional health authorities and other health professionals have long been told to follow Saskatchewan's Health Information Protection Act. The act says trustees have to safeguard personal health information in their custody.

There are fines of $50,000 for individuals and $500,000 for organizations for breaching the act. (more)

A shredder is beginning to look like a bargain, Doc.

The Case of the Bugging Barrister

South Africa - A PIETERMARITZBURG advocate (attorney) who is already under investigation in connection with the alleged theft of a hard drive from the CCTV surveillance system at the Pietermaritzburg advocates’ chambers last year, is now being investigated by police in connection with a bugging device alleged to have been planted in chambers.

The Witness (newspaper) has reliably learnt that a listening device was discovered in a ceiling in the office of the bar administrator at the advocates’ chambers on Monday this week, after police obtained a warrant to search the premises.

It is believed police also seized the computer hard drive of the computer belonging to the advocate in question.

It was alleged that she instructed an employee of a local surveillance systems company to remove the hard drive and replace it with a new one on a pretext that he had been authorised to do so by another advocate. The motive for the alleged theft is not known. (Three guesses, the first two don't count.) (more)

It’s Tracking Your Every Move

As a German Green party politician, Malte Spitz, recently learned, we are already continually being tracked whether we volunteer to be or not. Cellphone companies do not typically divulge how much information they collect, so Mr. Spitz went to court to find out exactly what his cellphone company, Deutsche Telekom, knew about his whereabouts.

The results were astounding. In a six-month period — from Aug 31, 2009, to Feb. 28, 2010, Deutsche Telekom had recorded and saved his longitude and latitude coordinates more than 35,000 times. It traced him from a train on the way to Erlangen at the start through to that last night, when he was home in Berlin.

Mr. Spitz has provided a rare glimpse — an unprecedented one, privacy experts say — of what is being collected as we walk around with our phones. Unlike many online services and Web sites that must send “cookies” to a user’s computer to try to link its traffic to a specific person, cellphone companies simply have to sit back and hit “record.” (more)

Let's hope it's also blue under the hotel carpeting...

via the BBC...

A rare photo, released by the White House, shows Barack Obama fielding calls from a tent in Brazil, to keep up with events in Libya. The tent is a mobile secure area known as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, designed to allow officials to have top secret discussions on the move.

They are one of the safest places in the world to have a conversation.

Designed to withstand eavesdropping, phone tapping and computer hacking, Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities - also known as SCIFs - are protected areas where classified conversations can be held...

A photo released by the White House showed the president and advisers gathered around a video phone, inside what looked like a standard blue tent, erected on the hotel's floral carpets. (more)

SMS-CB - A Cell Phone Feature that Could Save Your Life

The Brilliant Cell Phone Security Feature That We Still Don't Have.

via TechnologyReview.Com...

"Cell broadcast" technology is a largely dormant part of many cell-phone network standards.

Japanese who carry phones serviced by NTT Docomo, Japan's dominant cell phone carrier, can opt to have alerts about earthquakes pushed directly to their phones. The technology that makes this possible, the Area Mail Disaster Information Service, is designed to deliver detailed alerts as quickly as possible.

This service is uniquely enabled by a little-known technology known as Cell Broadcast, or SMS-CB. It's totally unlike traditional, point-to-point SMS, in that it can be broadcast directly from cell towers to every phone in range and does not use more bandwidth when sent to more users. In this way it's just like a over-the-air television or radio, where bandwidth requirements do not increase as more users receive a signal.

This is extremely important in the event of a disaster: According to Israeli SMS-CB company eViglio, cell broadcast has the potential to reach millions of users in seconds in an inherently geo-targeted fashion, whereas trying to reach the same number of users via traditional SMS would swamp the network, slowing the delivery of messages to a crawl.

Tsunami Alerts Not Yet Implemented

It appears that Japan's Area Mail Disaster Information Service has not yet been equipped to warn of tsunamis. The abstract of an eerily prescient paper from 2009, "A Proposal of Tsunami Warning System Using Area Mail Disaster Information Service on Mobile Phones" opens with the line:

The earthquake with the seismic center around the coast of Miyagi prefecture and the oceanic trench of southern Sanriku is expected to occur with high probability. [...] Consequently, a system is required that prefectures, cities, towns and villages collect swiftly and accurately the tsunami monitoring information that is necessary for evacuation behavior, relief and recovery activities, and deliver and share to the local residents.

Sendai, the city most profoundly devastated by last week's tsunami, is in Miyagi prefecture -- the same one mentioned in the abstract... (more)

So why don't we have it in the United States yet?

Tom Fahey of a company called CellCast Technologies... tells us that the United States is moving toward this capability with the system scheduled to go live in April of next year. This is after President Bush approved the plan in 2006. Fahey says that it has taken that long for wireless carriers to agree upon and implement a set of standards to make this happen. (more) (FCC Fact Sheet)

All right, who muttered "negligence".

SpyCam Story #605 - Attention K-Mart Shopper!

Police in Georgia said they arrested a man who allegedly followed a woman around a Kmart store while filming her backside.

Cobb County police said Alejandro Paniagua Pretega, 28, followed the woman around the Mableton Kmart for several minutes just after 1:30 p.m. EDT Tuesday while filming her rear...  A witness said Pretega attempted the film up the woman's skirt without her knowledge.

Pretega was arrested on a felony eavesdropping count and ordered held in the Cobb County jail without bond due to an immigration hold. (more)

Hacker Wins on Technicality

The Netherlands - Breaking in to an encrypted router and using the WiFi connection is not an criminal offence, a Dutch court ruled. WiFi hackers can not be prosecuted for breaching router security.

A court in The Hague ruled earlier this month that it is legal to break WiFi security to use the internet connection. The court also decided that piggybacking on open WiFi networks in bars and hotels can not be prosecuted. In many countries both actions are illegal and often can be fined.

The ruling is linked to a case of a student who threatened to shoot down everyone at the Maerlant College in The Hague, a high school. He posted a threat on the internet message board 4chan.org using a WiFi connection that he broke into. The student was convicted for posting the message and sentenced to 20 hours of community service, but he was acquitted of the WiFi hacking charges.

The Judge reasoned that the student didn't gain access to the computer connected to the router, but only used the routers internet connection. Under Dutch law breaking in to a computer is forbidden. (more)

Spooks' secret TEMPEST-busting tech reinvented by US student

A mysterious secret technology, apparently in use by the British intelligence services in an undisclosed role, has been reinvented by a graduate student in America. Full details of the working principles are now available.

...If you had the through-metal technology now reinvented by Lawry, however, your intruder – inside mole or cleaner or pizza delivery, whatever – could stick an unobtrusive device to a suitable bit of structure inside the Faraday cage of shielding where it would be unlikely to be found. A surveillance team outside the cage could stick the other half of the kit to the same piece of metal (perhaps a structural I-beam, for instance, or the hull of a ship) and they would then have an electronic ear inside the opposition's unbreachable Faraday citadel, one which would need no battery changes and could potentially stay in operation for years.

Spooks might use such techniques even where there was no Faraday cage, simply to avoid the need for battery changes and detectable/jammable radio transmissions in ordinary audio or video bugs.

Naturally, if you knew how such equipment worked you might be able to detect or block it – hence the understandable plea from the British spooks to BAE to keep the details under wraps.

Unfortunately for the spooks, Lawry has now blown the gaff: his equipment works using ultrasound. His piezo-electric transducers send data at no less than 12 megabytes a second, plus 50 watts of power, through 2.5 inches of steel – and Lawry is confident that this could easily be improved upon. It seems certain that performance could be traded for range, to deal with the circumstances faced by surveillance operatives rather than submarine designers. (more) (video 1) (video 2)

Alert - APT Strikes EMC

The RSA Security division of the EMC Corporation said Thursday that it had suffered a sophisticated data breach, potentially compromising computer security products widely used by corporations and governments...

RSA, which is based in Bedford, Mass., posted an urgent message on its Web site on Thursday referring to an open letter from its chairman, Art Coviello. The letter acknowledged that the company had suffered from an intrusion Mr. Coviello described as an “advanced persistent threat.” (more)

The breach is serious, but more interesting is use of the term “advanced persistent threat.” Sounds like a genetically altered mosquito. Good analogy.

infoworld.com gives us their definition... 

"Intruders engaging in APT-style attacks represent well-organized, well-funded groups -- often located in a "safe harbor" country -- and they're out to steal a company's intellectual property. They aren't out for quick financial gain like cyber criminals; they're in it for the long haul. Their dream assignment is to essentially duplicate their victim's best ideas and products in their own homeland, or to sell the information they've purloined to the highest bidder."

In other words, foreign governments.

Computer hacking is only one technique in their bag of spy tricks. If you spot this type of hacker probing your defenses, better give us a call.

Security Director Alert - E-data Disposal

Stories like this one pop up with unusual regularity, but this one hits close to home...

There was a story today in the New York Times about New Jersey State Comptroller Matthew Boxer's discovery during an audit of surplus state computers slated for auction that 79% of them still had readily accessible information on their hard drives.

Information was found on 46 of the 58 computers scheduled to be sold, and on 32 of those 46, the information found was highly personal in nature that should have never been made public.

For instance, one computer - a laptop - had been used by a judge, and "contained confidential memos the judge had written about possible misconduct by two lawyers, and the emotional problems of a third," the Times article stated. Personal financial information about the judge, including tax returns, were also found on the laptop. (more) (video about photocopier drives)

Questions to ask...
What happens to my company's old hard drives? (sold, auctioned, recycled, returner to lessor, donated)

Do I even know where all of them are? (desktops, laptops, photocopy print centers, tablets)

What about other old media? (old floppies, CDs, DVDs, smart cell phones, x-rays, videotapes, product samples, prototypes, old promotional materials)

Tip: This is not the IT department's job. It's a security issue. It's security's job. "Erasing" "degaussing" and even "smashing" is not good enough to protect the most sensitive information. Keep your hard drives. Give the leasing company the money for a new one. Then crosscut shred your e-media. (Hey, you do it for your sensitive waste paper.)

I was talking to Kevin Kane and Jason Moorhouse, two sharp guys from the Shredit company, yesterday and learned that they operate globally and have shredders that can even handle old refrigerators! 

In case you need an additional reason to shred e-media, I also learned that non-compliance with HIPPA regulations, for example, can bring heavy fines and even jail time. So, gather your junkers and clunkers and find someone (I don't care who) to shred it. ~Kevin