Hacked Off - Is Your Cell Phone Next?

If the cellphone hacking scandal that caused the downfall of Britain's best-selling tabloid, News of the World, made you wonder about your own vulnerability, consider these statistics.

Globally, telecommunications-fraud losses, which includes cases of mobile-phone fraud, were estimated to hit $72 billion to $80 billion in 2009, up 34 percent from 2005, according to a 2009 survey of security experts from the Roseland, N.J.,-based Communications Fraud Control Association. Hacking alone accounted for $3.2 billion in losses for the telecom industry, says CFCA. What's more, the problems have likely only expanded as smartphone use has escalated. (more)

Goodbye Cricket. Hello, Whack-A-Hack-A-Phone

UK - The news keeps getting worse for News Corp. The phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed the company has now spread to The Sunday Times, the British broadsheet that has long been one of Rupert Murdoch's “quality” newspapers.

News Corp.'s daily tabloid The Sun has also been implicated, according to the Guardian, which reported Monday that both newspapers targeted the former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. (more)

Not one to be one-upped by British hack(ing) journalists...

ZombiePhone

Korea - The police and public broadcaster KBS are in a bitter tug-of-war over a reporter’s suspected bugging of the opposition Democratic Party.

Last Friday, police officers searched the journalist’s home and seized his laptop, mobile phone and portable recorder. The broadcaster angrily responded, saying the act ``insulted” KBS and ``infringed on” press freedom.

In a duel between a powerful state organ and a media outlet, one tends to side with the latter. Not in this case. In all likelihood, the public broadcaster is hiding something.

Instead of flatly denying the suspicions of eavesdropping by its employee ― and proving it ― KBS said he did not bug the office of DP Chairman Sohn Hak-kyu in the way the DP and the police allege (by, for instance, using a wireless microphone). DP officials testified the KBS reporter retrieved his cell phone that he (deliberately) left in Sohn’s room. (more)

Business Espionage - Biting the Apple Can Get You Expelled

A technology executive charged with leaking sensitive information about Apple products to hedge fund traders pleaded guilty on Tuesday in Manhattan, the latest guilty plea in the government’s crackdown on insider trading facilitated by so-called expert networks...

Walter Shimoon, a former employee at electronic manufacturer Flextronics, is the 12th person to plead guilty in the government’s investigation of expert network firms...

In addition to sales figures, prosecutors said Mr. Shimoon also tipped a cooperating witness to Apple’s plans to develop a new iPhone. But later in the call, according to a transcript from prosecutors, Mr. Shimoon leaked word of an even more secret product in development, the iPad, which at the time was referred to as K48.

“So, you can get, at Apple you can get fired for saying K48…outside of a, you know, outside of a meeting that doesn’t have K48 people in it,” he told a cooperating witness, according to taped calls. “That’s how crazy they are about it.” (more)

Take a tip from Apple. Buy yourself a business counterespionage program. Shop here.

Phone Hacking Kills a Multi-Million Dollar Business

News Corp.’s News International unit announced that it will shut down its News of the World tabloid, and that this Sunday’s edition will be the last one, amid a deepening phone-hacking scandal... The News of the World is the U.K.'s best-selling Sunday paper, with an average circulation of 3.7 million people, according to analysis firm TGI. (more)

The alternative... Being sued out of business? FutureWatch - News of the Universe 

Why this is important to you... You are responsible for your employee's actions. Ethics, like security is a top-down corporate culture. A strong corporate counterespionage program sends two messages: spying is not tolerated (in either direction), and employees are obligated to pro-actively protect corporate intellectual assets. One visible reminder of this are the corporation's quarterly audits for electronic eavesdropping devices. (more)

Apple Cedes to Patch

Apple Inc. said Thursday it is working to resolve a security hole in its iPhone and other mobile products that German authorities warned could allow cyber criminals to access confidential information or intercept phone conversations.

Users are particularly vulnerable when they view Portable Document Format, or PDF, files, which give attackers an opportunity to infect the devices with malicious software, giving them administrative rights to the device, the German Federal Office for Information Security said Wednesday.

Once the device is infected, cyber criminals could read confident information such as passwords, online-banking data, calendars, e-mails and other information, as well as intercept telephone conversations and the location of the user. The security hole is present in several versions of Apple's iOS software on its iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch products, the agency added. (more)

It Was 1984 When 'Runaway' Predicted Our Robotic Future

This beer can-sized gadget is one of the most surprising military inventions ever. Launched from a cannon, it allows to infiltrate any pirate’s ship with ease. Jack Sparrow, beware! 

Recon-Bot by American manufacturer Recon Robotics is truly amazing. It’s durable enough to be fired from a cannon. 

When it gets to the ship it was aimed at (pirate, most likely) it sticks magnetically to the ship’s side and climbs it all the way up. Being so tiny, it’s perhaps hardly noticeable. Recon Robotics describes it “marsupial”, because there’s another bot, equipped with an infrared camera, nesting inside the bigger one.

When the smaller robot is deployed on the board, it wanders around looking for pirates, hostages, illegal cargo, etc. and sends the footage to the operator. The Recon-Bot is most likely launched from a remote controlled unmanned vessel, allowing very quiet operations. (more)

And, other uses...

Runaway

If You See Your Password Here - Your Account Was Hacked

via consumerist.com...

Stare agog as all the the passwords released in the Sony LulzSec breach race past your eyes in this video.

In it, the computer shows and reads aloud all the passwords, one password per frame. If you're actually able to make out a word or a series of numbers, then that means it's a string being used by more than one person as their password.

Watching some of it might make you want to revaluate your password creation system. Do you see your password in there? Here's advice on creating a strong password that's unique to every site you visit, yet you'll never have a problem remembering. (more)

MBD* News - Chinese Report Chinese Business Espionage

Hunan Sunward Intelligent Machinery may face a lawsuit following allegations of industrial espionage, reports the 21st Century Business Herald, citing an unnamed insider. Sunward was accused of sending industrial spies competitor Shenyang North Traffic Heavy Industry Group to gain access to proprietary technology. The spies have been arrested, the insider added...

An anonymous source at North Traffic said the incident was not the first time Sunward had stolen from competitors; North Traffic has already submitted the case to court. Sunward was established in August 1999 and manufactures construction machinery with a focus on rock-drilling equipment. (more)

SpyCam Story #614 - Recent SpyCam News

OH - A Catawba man was arrested and jailed Monday after investigators say he used a covert camera to record two girls in the shower at his home.

Jack Lee Maley, 45, of 350 N. Champaign St., was taken into custody and charged with three counts of illegal use of minor in nudity oriented material or performance, second degree felonies. One of the juveniles found the camera and reported it to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office. Further investigation revealed that a second juvenile female had also been captured on video as she showered. Neither juvenile was aware they were being recorded. (more)

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CA - A Southern California computer repairman suspected of installing spyware on laptops that enabled him to snap and download photographs of women showering and undressing in their homes was arrested Wednesday at his home, police said.

Police began investigating when a Fullerton resident complained about suspicious messages appearing on his daughter's computer last year...

The software sent fake error messages telling users to "fix their internal sensor soon," and "try putting your laptop near hot steam for several minutes to clean the sensor," Goodrich said. (video) (No blond jokes, please.)

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KS - Hiding in plain sight, a camera recording people without their knowledge or consent. Police are trying to figure out who put a hidden camera in the changing room of the north YMCA. It was hidden inside a clothing hook.

"Someone bumped into it and if fell off and discovered it was a camera," said Lt. Randy Reynolds of the Wichita Police Department. (more)
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CA - A man arrested by Glendora Police for placing a spycam in a Starbucks restroom in Glendora pleaded not guilty in a Pomona Superior Courthouse Tuesday morning.

William Zafra Velasco, 25, was arrested May 4 after he confessed to installing a hidden camera disguised as a plastic hook in a women’s Starbucks restroom in Glendora. (more)
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OH - A 59-year-old Tallmadge man was sentenced to seven years in prison Monday for using his cellphone to film a 13-year-old girl getting out of the shower.
Summit County Common Pleas Judge Paul Gallagher sentenced William Chesrown to prison after he was found guilty by a jury on May 16 of gross sexual imposition, two counts of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.

The prosecutor said in December the young girl noticed Chesrown's cellphone pointing at her with the record light on as she got out of the shower. She discovered five nude videos of herself saved on the phone. (more)

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FL - The manager at a Starbucks store in the Brandon Town Center mall called police after finding a device left behind in the cafe's public restroom.

It turns out it was a camera -- but the apparent spy was not as sly as he thought. Police say he left the camera rolling as he got in his car one day, giving them a glimpse of his license plate.

Eric Efaw was arrested and charged with voyeurism yesterday. Police say he admitted to putting the camera in the unisex bathroom, and that he's done it six to seven times in the last two months. (more)
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These stories are presented to raise awareness. The enclosures continue to become more clever. The picture resolution is now HD. Features include: still shots, movies, motion detection, automatic uploading, SD card memory, low-light vision, audio, wireless and more. And, they are inexpensive. Remember, the spycam stories that become news are just the failures. Each story could represent hundreds of successes. Take a moment to see what you are up against. (click here)

British Tabloid Hacked Missing Girl’s Voice Mail

The voice-mail account of a British schoolgirl who went missing in 2002 and whose murdered body was discovered six months later was repeatedly hacked by the News of the World tabloid at a time when no one knew what had happened to her, a lawyer for her family said Monday.

According to the lawyer, Mark Lewis, the newspaper not only intercepted messages left on the phone of the girl, Milly Dowler, 13, by her increasingly frantic family after her disappearance, but also deleted some of those messages when her voice mailbox became full — thus making room for new ones and listening to those in turn. This confused investigators and gave false hope to Milly’s relatives, who believed it showed she was still alive and deleting the messages herself, Mr. Lewis said. (more)

Why Businesses Conduct Checks for Bugging Devices - Reason #43

Reason #43 - Anyone can build or buy a bug with the help of the Internet.

Here are a few examples...

--- Free advice ---

Record Telephone Conversations By Building This "Bugging" Equipment - by Swagatam

 "The circuit of a simple FM transmitter described in the article, when integrated with a telephone line, very interestingly starts transmitting all the conversations made over it. Moreover it doesn’t require any external power for the purpose.

Introduction
At times many of you must have felt the need of spying on somebody’s conversation over the telephone and wondered how to bug a telephone.

Morally it won’t be correct to eavesdrop on an individual’s personal discussion, but through electronics you can always and every time find a way of fulfilling your wishes no matter whether the act is ethical or not.

Though I won’t recommend using the present circuit for listening to somebody’s private talks, it can rather be used as a fun gadget for broadcasting a telephone conversation over the FM radio." (more)

--- Books ---
Now Hear This - The bible of bugging schematics.

--- Low cost devices for sale ---

eBay

--- Antidote --- 

Business Counterespionage Strategy.

U.S. Wiretaps Rose 34 Percent Last Year

The sharp wit of Mark Parisi - offthemark.com

U.S. - The number of court-approved wiretaps rose 34 percent last year, though an unspecified amount of the increase was the result of changed reporting procedures.

According to a report by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, federal wiretaps rose 82 percent in 2010 from the previous year while state applications rose 16 percent. Combined, 3,194 wiretaps were authorized — 1,207 by federal judges, 1,987 by state judges. (more)

SpyCam Story #613 - Bored Making Water Soft

KS - A Garden City businessman and former vice president of the USD 457 Board of Education has been accused of placing and using a concealed camcorder to eavesdrop in the women's bathroom at his business.

John Scheopner, 56, was arrested at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday in Finney County on allegations he used a concealed camcorder to eavesdrop on a 53-year-old Garden City woman, a 28-year-old Lakin woman and a 32-year-old Garden City woman in the women's bathroom at Scheopner's Water Conditioning, 2203 East Fulton Plaza, according to Garden City Police Sgt. Michael Reagle. Scheopner allegedly eavesdropped on the 32-year-old woman twice, Reagle said. (more)

This Week in Spy News

Zimbabwe’s dreaded and notorious spy agency the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) was thrown into turmoil Thursday evening after a London based independent radio station published details of some 480 plus state security agents, many behind acts of torture, murder and abductions. (more)

MELBOURNE'S inner-city surveillance camera network is to expand amid revelations it captures one potential crime every 90 minutes. (more)

Suspected US spy Sarah Shourd, who was released by Iran on humanitarian grounds, has changed her tune about the treatment she received while in the Islamic Republic. (more)

A Russian colonel was convicted of treason for betraying a group of spies in the United States, including Anna Chapman, a court spokeswoman told CNN Monday. (more)

How did scientists build a better spy plane? A little bird told them. Engineers have developed a micro air vehicle (MAV) that mimics the flight abilities of the swift, a passerine bird renowned for its aerial acrobatics. Camera-mounted MAVs are frequently used in reconnaissance and rescue missions to scope out a dangerous situation before humans go in. (more) (video)

If you're the parent of a teen or young driver, listen up. NBC's PC Mike Wendland has found some apps that will let you spy on your kids driving, almost as if you're right there in the passenger seat. Warning: Your kids aren't going to like this. (more) (alternate video link)

Changing Times: Video Vigilantes see through Mob Anonymity

...Nathan Kotylak... When his beloved Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup ice hockey championship on June 15, Nathan...joined a gang of rioters in downtown Vancouver, who did what rioters everywhere always do: break shop windows, burn cars, and fight the power. Police managed to arrest a few of the worst (or slowest) offenders on the spot, but rioters have always been able to take advantage of the anonymity afforded by the mob.

Until now.

The upstanding citizenry of Vancouver, shocked and embarrassed that their city had become synonymous with hooliganism (which is not a Canadian virtue), called for something to be done about this outbreak of anarchy.

Within a few hours, one of those citizens had set up a blog, the Vancouver 2011 Riot Criminal List, where they solicited all of the imagery captured during the riots - photographs from newspaper reporters, video footage from television helicopters, even images snapped on mobiles, uploaded to the web.

Vancouverites set to work, digging up an enormous wealth of material...

We're coming into the 'Era of Omniscience'. Anything that depends on limited knowledge - or, as the strategists term it, 'informational asymmetry' - has begun to fall apart. Whether you're a rioter or a vigilante, a cop or a criminal, a resident or an alien... (more) (sing-a-long)

“I find your lack of faith disturbing.” (Darth, on covert cop apps.)

Smartphones are impressive devices, to say the least. A smartphone user can consume TV, music & movies; communicate via streaming video; check the weather; record audio; take professional quality video footage; snap high quality photos… The list just continues to grow and grow. With all of these incredible capabilities, why not add surveillance?

A recent article over at the Atlantic highlights a fascinating project by 23-year-old hacker Rich Jones. CopRecorder (iPhone) and OpenWatch (Android) are part of an experiment Jones describes as "a global participatory counter-surveillance project which uses cellular phones as a way of monitoring authority figures." In short, CopRecorder and Openwatch are apps that covertly record audio during encounters with authority figures, enabling the user to submit the audio anonymously to the OpenWatch site.

Here's a brief explanation of the project (plus instructions for installation): (more)

...and then they bought Skype. Your tax dollars at work?

 The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a Microsoft patent application that reaches back to December 2009 and describes “recording agents” to legally intercept VoIP phone calls.

The “Legal Intercept” patent application is one of Microsoft’s more elaborate and detailed patent papers, which is comprehensive enough to make you think twice about the use of VoIP audio and video communications. The document provides Microsoft’s idea about the nature, positioning and feature set of recording agents that silently record the communication between two or more parties.

The patent was filed well before Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype and there is no reason to believe that the patent was filed with Skype as a Microsoft property in mind. [Other than governments worldwide might pay a bundle to be able to eavesdrop on Skype calls.] However, the patent mentions Skype explicitly as an example application for this technology and Microsoft may now have to answer questions in which way this patent applies to its new Skype entity and if the technology will become part of Skype. (more)

Korean Broadcasting & Communications Committee Fears Bugging

Korea - Rep. Kim Jae-yoon (right), the main opposition Democratic Party’s chief secretary at the National Assembly’s Culture, Sports, Tourism Broadcasting and Communication Committee, and the party`s floor spokesman Hong Young-pyo submit Sunday documents to Yeongdeungpo Police Station. The party seeks a police probe into suspected eavesdropping into the party chief’s office in parliament. (more)

Thus making Fritz the butt of some "you sound a little tinny" jokes.

A German chemicals company said on Monday its managers have begun keeping their mobile phones in biscuit tins during meetings in order to guard against industrial espionage.

"Experts have told us that mobile phones are being eavesdropped on more and more, even when they are switched off," Alexandra Boy, spokeswoman for Essen-based specialty chemicals maker Evonik, told AFP.

"The measure applies mostly when sensitive issues are being discussed, for the most part in research and development," she said, confirming a report in business weekly Wirtschaftswoche.

Biscuit tins have a so-called Farraday cage effect, she said, blocking out electromagnetic radiation and therefore preventing people from hacking into mobile phones, not only for calls but also to get hold of emails. (more) (sing-a-long)

Actually, this is a fairly good MacGyver on their part. However, professional enclosures with padding and internal white noise generators are also available.

A Microsoft Wiretap Patent...

...what could possible go wrong?

Microsoft has been granted a patent for technology that acts as a wiretap of sorts for Internet communication, allowing governments or other law-enforcement authorities to record the data without detection.

Dubbed "Legal Intercept," using the technology means "data associated with a request to establish a communication is modified to cause the communication to be established via a path that includes a recording agent" that silently records the data, according to a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

In other words, the technology intercepts Internet communications data so it can be recorded for the purposes of reviewing it later by, presumably, government or law-enforcement officials.

"Sometimes, a government or one of its agencies may need to monitor communications between telephone users," Microsoft said in the filing, describing how a recording device can be placed at a central office to record communications over a traditional telephone network.

But with Voice over IP and other Internet-based communications, "the [conventional] model for recording communications does not work," according to Microsoft. (more)

China Opens Chain of Spy Schools

Last week, China opened its eighth National Intelligence College on the campus of Hunan University in the central city of Changsha. Since January, similar training schools have opened inside universities in Beijing, Shanghai, Xian, Qingdao and Harbin.

The move comes amid growing worries in the West at the scale and breadth of Chinese intelligence-gathering, with MI5 saying that the Chinese government "represents one of the most significant espionage threats to the UK"...

The new schools aim to transform and modernize the Chinese intelligence services, producing spies who are trained in the latest methods of data collection and analysis. Each school will recruit around 30 to 50 carefully-selected existing undergraduates each year...

The United States has a similar project, named the National Security Education Program (more)

Beef Board Admits CEO Eavesdropped on Conference Calls

The Cattleman's Beef Board has admitted its CEO eavesdropped on conference calls between the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and members of the Federation of State Beef Councils...

The response to NCBA states that Ramey admitted to repeatedly listening in unannounced to NCBA-organized conference calls with state beef council executives, and that he listened to a recording of one of those calls...

Ramey eavesdropped on conference calls during the time NCBA was working to restructure its board, which could have impacted the Federation of State Beef Councils and decisions on checkoff allocations, said Lynn Heinze, Beef Board vice president of communications. (more)

N.B. See this story. ~Kevin

When Board Members Phone It In - One Anti-Eavesdropping Solution

Click to enlarge.

Problem 1: Conference calls very often contain highly confidential and sensitive information – such as Board and Executive Management Team calls, Intellectual Property discussions, high value business deal talks, or crisis management calls. 
 
Problem 2: Traditional conference bridges make it difficult to control who is on a call. Long lived PINs are often distributed freely, making conference calls easy to access by unauthorized parties such as ex-employees.

Cellcrypt Secure Conference Service™ is a solution for extra-secure access and encrypted calling within a secure conference bridge, accessible from cell phones.
 
Cellcrypt secure conference calling uses strong cryptographic authentication in combination with pre-defined phone numbers to ensure that only authorized phones can join. The service has an easy-to use web-based management console for setting up any number of bridges with eligible participants defined using a white list policy.

An optional policy setting enables eligible participants to gain access to the bridge from a standard phone, if required, using a pre-defined phone number and PIN. This allows an administrator to mix unencrypted calls from selected phones over the public telephone network with secure calls from other locations where calling is a concern. (more)

An Invention Which Will Drive Bats Bats... Submarine Sonar too!

Scientists have shown off a "cloaking device" that makes objects invisible - to sound waves.

It uses simple plastic sheets with arrays of holes, and could be put to use in making ships invisible to sonar or in acoustic design of concert halls.

Much research has been undertaken toward creating Harry Potter-style "invisibility cloaks" since the feasibility of the idea was first put forward in 2006.

Those approaches are mostly based on so-called metamaterials, man-made materials with properties that do not occur in nature. The metamaterials are designed such that they force light waves to travel around an object; to an observer, it is as if the object were not there.

But researchers quickly found out that the mathematics behind bending these light waves, called transformation optics, could also be applied to sound waves. (more)

Note: This naturally occurs in humans between the ages of 2-20.

The Tapping Policeman

Prague - The policeman who gained access to wiretapping of influential people's mobile phones managed to circumvent "all control mechanisms" that are to prevent such situations, Czech Police President Petr Lessy said...

The policeman from Varnsdorf, north Bohemia, is suspected of having fraudulently monitored the recordings of wiretapped phone calls of influential judges, officials, journalists and lobbyists, including Klaus's chancellor Jiri Weigl and secretary Ladislav Jakl and Constitutional Court chairman Pavel Rychetsky. (more)

Update: Porta-Potty Peeper Pinched... Pewwwww!

CO - A man has been dubbed the "Porta-Potty Peeper" after he hid in the tank of a portable toilet.

"I was at the yoga festival, doing a little bit of yoga, and I’m just seeing all these goddesses," Luke Chrisco, who said he is a voyeur and not a rapist, told FOX31 Denver. "It seems crazy, but I just felt like I was being blessed by their energy, even though it was unintentional."

Chrisco, 30, added the idea of waiting in a tank of waste and urine to spy on women at the yoga festival in Boulder, Colorado, didn’t bother him.

"There’s bacteria in there, but to me it’s just normal ... we all have bodily fluids,” he said. “It seems terrible, but it didn’t actually smell that bad or anything. I still would have done it even if it smelled a little weird, because where there is muck, there is gold."

Police believe Chrisco has spied on at least 200 women in Boulder and hundreds more across the US and Europe. (more)

Spying on Employees Allowed - Fark: Duty Manager Gets Off

New Zealand - A law change has made it legal to install secret cameras to spy on workers, and companies are employing private detectives to do so.

Fark...
But Wellington International Airport has fallen foul of the Employment Relations Authority for using a private investigator to install cameras to spy on the sexual activities of a manager before the law was changed.

The airport recordings caught duty manager Dieter Ravnjak engaged in "sexual activity" with a woman in an emergency management room and he was dismissed for serious misconduct.

The cameras were installed by private investigator Cedric Hardiman, who also managed the airport's taxi and parking facilities.

At the time, the Private Investigators and Security Guards Act prohibited investigators from making recordings without the consent of the person recorded – in effect banning secret recordings. (more)

Keep Android Apps From Spying on You

A security researcher has released an Android app that allows users to control precisely what information they share with other programs installed on their smartphones.

The latest version of WhisperCore remedies a shortcoming of the Google mobile operating system that has vexed users since its release: a design that often forces them to share their precise location or unique phone identifier with app developers even when the sensitive information has nothing to do with the service being offered. (more)

Corporate Espionage is on the Rise in South Africa

Etienne Labuschagne, Director, SpyCatcher SA...

"Q"

"Devices that used to be the preserve of Q from the James Bond movies, are now easily available in the street for a few hundred rand," said Labuschagne, speaking at the ITWeb Security Summit yesterday.

"Surveillance and counter-surveillance are not only part of the shadowy worlds of politics and international relations."

"Surveillance is not what it used to be – mobile phones can be bugged very easily. You can be sent a simple SMS asking you to update a service, and as soon as you open the link, surveillance software can be installed on your phone without your knowledge.

“Such software can allow the person behind it to call your phone, without it ringing, and allow them to listen directly to you and your surroundings." (more)

Da da da da da da da da, Scatman!

Police Artist Sketch

Police said a suspected peeping tom is still on the loose after he was caught spying on women inside a portable bathroom. During a festival, a woman told police she went inside the port-a-potty and was shocked after lifting up the toilet seat.


A security official was called over and waited for the suspect to come out. Police are not sure how long the man was in there, but when he came out, he was covered in waste. He ran and nobody grabbed him. (more with video)

HD DVR Sunglasses for Cops - "I see you respect my authoritaah."

WA - The Snohomish Police are trying out some new personal video recorders Wednesday at the eye care center...

China has developed a pair of eyeglasses that can record HD video. The Chief was very tight lipped about what exactly they would be getting but did say the first group would be getting them tomorrow thanks to the new police guild who has helped raise money for this.

This may be close to what the police could be receiving as eyewear DVRs...

Micro Spycam - "12 MP pinhole cameras are capable of capturing photographs at professional level resolution. The camera device is incredibly tiny and perfect for spy application as well. Disguised as regular sunglasses you can record situations without anybody around you knowing or aware they are being recorded."

Video Quality: "High quality professional grade video recording HD 1280x720 (720P) video with Sound at 30fps (Frames Per Second) makes a very smooth recording." (more)

Ever wonder just how many types of HD video sunglasses are available? Check here.

India Home Minister Accused of Planting Bugging Devices

India - Janata Party leader Subramaniam Swamy has joined the bugging debate, accusing Home Minister P. Chidambaram of planting devices in Finance Minister Pranab Mukhejee's room at the behest of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Meanwhile, the BJP has also demanded a "complete probe" into the issue. (more)

Book review: Surveillance or Security?

Surveillance or Security?: The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies 

"Over the last 20 years or so, there have been intermittent moves by the EU and the UK government to implement various levels of online surveillance — first by requiring ISPs to install equipment to facilitate wiretapping, and second by storing the masses of communications data created by all of us.

But, argues Susan Landau, a former Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems, now a fellow at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, you can't build surveillance into networks without also poking some very serious security holes in them. Unlike the telephone network, which was built for control, the internet was built with very different goals in mind: information sharing, bandwidth sharing and robustness in the event of generalised attacks. Or, as Landau quotes former NSA director Brian Snow as saying, the internet was designed 'assuming random malice rather than targeted attacks'." (more)

This Week in World Spy News

Egypt - An Egyptian judicial official said yesterday that the prosecution does not plan to prosecute an American-Israeli man who was arrested in Cairo and accused of spying for Israel. (more)

USA - A Michigan professor called on Congress to investigate the government's alleged spying on him to discredit his blogging about the Iraq war. (more)

UK - While serving time under house arrest in an East Anglian home in the UK, those close to Julian Assange have claimed the British government are spying on him.

It follows the discovery of three CCTV cameras erected outside his temporary home at Ellingham Hall in the county of Norfolk. (more)

Thailand - Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has admitted that the suspected leader of three men arrested for alleged spying on the Thai-Cambodian border has managed to flee the country. (more)

Lebanon - Druze politician Wiam Wahhab denied Thursday that a man charged with spying for Israel was his personal bodyguard. (more)

Sweden - Over fifteen countries are systematically conducting intelligence operations against Sweden, in Sweden or against Swedish interests overseas, according to security service Säpo. (more)

Mexico - Admiral Sergio Javier Lara Montellano, commander of the VIII Naval Region based in Acapulco, said that city police cameras...were aimed at various points inside the military installation. He affirmed that information on movements of the military thus obtained was leaked to organized crime groups. “The information was disseminated to crime groups by taxi drivers who serve as informants and by corrupt police in both the traffic police and in crime prevention,” he said. (more)

Austria - An idyllic Austrian village has apparently impressed Chinese architects so much that they have decided to copy it in their own country. But the townspeople living in the UNESCO World Heritage site are unhappy about the plans. This isn't the first time this sort of copying has occurred. China has also replicated amongst other places, Thames Town. (more)

India - The report that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s conversations may have been tapped by sticking secret electronic devices in his chambers and that of his staff is a chilling reminder that Big Money now operates so close to the centres of power. ...the bugging devices were first discovered on September 4, 2010, when the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) swept Mukherjee’s office to check for eavesdropping gadgets, and found “plantable adhesive substances”. Translated, it means devices that can monitor conversations could have been stuck to these adhesives, including chewing gum-like stickies. (more)

Canada (Toronto International Airport) - An employee used surveillance equipment to spy on her ex-husband as he walked through the terminal with his girlfriend and kids. A man filed a complaint to the federal privacy commissioner after he discovered that his ex-wife, whose job it is to monitor the flow of traffic at Toronto Pearson International Airport using surveillance equipment, was using her special access to track him through the airport. (more)

How to Obtain a U.S. Government Security Clearance - Free Booklet

"Use our Security Clearance Handbook to boost your cyber career. Cyber security professionals can help secure the United States and secure their own futures with a security clearance. As reported in the Washington Post, the Federal Government and contractors face an accelerating demand for cleared cyber security professionals. To help you get cleared and stay cleared, the University of Fairfax is offering a complimentary Security Clearance Handbook.

Click here to get your free copy of the Security Clearance Handbook.

Business Phone Conversations Latest Target for Eavesdropping: News Report

Business executives may be the latest group to be targeted by eavesdropping of phone conversations, according to news reports.

Reuters said that business executives who have “sensitive information” could be the new group targeted for eavesdropping. Earlier it was politicians, actors and athletes.

Business executives may talk on cell phones to save time during their busy days, with sensitive information exchanged during the conversations.

“We are seeing a growing tension between organizational security requirements and personal convenience requirements with people often discussing sensitive issues on mobile phones to get their jobs done faster or because they have no other practical choice,” Cellcrypt CEO Richard Greco (News - Alert) told Reuters. (more)

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You can read the complete Tektronix, June 2011, Test and Measurement News here.