You Know You've Made It When...

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is reported to have been cast as an action figure in a video game that has him reenacting the NSA spying scandal, while avoiding government capture. 
 
A 12-inch action figure of the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor is being marketed by Thatsmyface.com for 99 dollars.

Proceeds from the action figure's sale will be donated to the Freedom of the Press Foundation. (more)

P.S. They can make one of you, too.

A Self-Licking TSCM Ice Cream Cone?

(Note: Garda = Police)

Ireland - The British consultancy firm which carried out a security sweep of the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission's headquarters offered to sell gardai equipment similar to one of the devices at the centre of the 'bugging' saga.

Officials from the Verrimus firm met garda technical experts while they were in Dublin for the sweep.

They brought with them the "international mobile subscriber identifier (IMSI) catcher" device which, in an ironic twist, was similar to one that created the third and most "credible threat" to the security of the Ombudsman's offices. (more)

High-Stakes Espionage in the Corn Field

(Long but interesting. Proves no business is immune to business espionage.)

Stealing trade secrets has been a part of the business and international scene for a long time. I suspect such activity has made some people very rich when they don’t get caught and some lawyers very rich when they do...

Military secrets, medical research, computer technology, certain oatmeal raisin cookie recipes... it’s understandable why some people, companies or countries might be tempted by any of these. The payday would be huge.

Agriculture has not been immune to incidents of unethical business activity... (more)

Security Director Alert - Toss Away Bugs - Now $21.97 on eBay

Want to know if eavesdropping has occurred in your organization? 
These days, your chances of knowing has skyrocketed. Here's why...

Electronic eavesdropping devices have become:
• so inexpensive, 
• so easily available, 
that they are now throw-away objects. 

Eavesdroppers don't have to risk discovery by replacing batteries or retrieving them. Just toss one behind the bookcase, or into a lighting cove once a week.

Bonus For You - Since many of today's eavesdropping devices are not being serviced or retrieved, the evidence is left there waiting for you (or me) to find it! Knowing you are having your pockets picked is valuable knowledge, and the first step in putting an end to it.

Example of a bug being sold on eBay today... ($21.97 - FREE shipping)

TINY SPY BUG
"With 2 FREE batteries!!  

Each battery should give you around 40 hours of use!
 
This IS the smallest bug on ebay measuring just 22mm diameter (plus a little extra for the protruding microphone and rear) x only 11mm thick and THIS IS WITH A BATTERY INSTALLED!!! This tiny transmitter runs off a small coin cell and the measurements given above include the cell holder!
 
The quality small electret microphone will pick up the smallest of sounds and transmit them to your radio with crystal clear reproduction. Only quality surface mount components have been used on a professionally designed circuit board. The copper of the board has been coated to prevent corrosion - this is NOT a cheap homemade item like others are offering!" (more)

P.S. We have the technology to find these bugs even after the battery is depleted.

FutureWatch: When Light Bulbs Become Eyeballs

Visitors to Terminal B at Newark Liberty International Airport may notice the bright, clean lighting that now blankets the cavernous interior, courtesy of 171 recently installed LED fixtures. But they probably will not realize that the light fixtures are the backbone of a system that is watching them. 

Using an array of sensors and eight video cameras around the terminal, the light fixtures are part of a new wireless network that collects and feeds data into software that can spot long lines, recognize license plates and even identify suspicious activity, sending alerts to the appropriate staff...

Fred H. Cate, director of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research at Indiana University, described the potential for misuse as “terrifying.” ...

The light fixtures are outfitted with special chips and connect to sensors, cameras and one another over a wireless network. Data that is collected — say, a particular car pulling up to the terminal — can then be mined and analyzed for a broad range of applications...

“No one really wanted the smartphone 20 years ago because they didn’t know they could have it,” said Fred Maxik, founder and chief technology officer of Lighting Science Group, which manufactures LEDs. “And I think the same is true of lighting today: No one knows what lighting is going to be capable of.” (more)

Crowdpilot - Eavesdropping in a Back Seat Driver Sort of Way

Late last week–just in time for Valentine’s Day–artist and software developer Lauren McCarthy launched Crowdpilot, an iOS app designed to let anyone invite friends and strangers to listen in on a live audio stream of a private conversation and offer text-based advice and encouragement. 

“Crowdpilot lets you crowdsource your conversations by inviting a group of people to listen in and give you suggestions in real time,” says McCarthy. “I see the possibility of having this networked hivemind that weighs in on your decisions, like having a ‘wingman’ in a bar.”

Just launch the app, choose from an array of conversation types including “date,” “argument,” “meeting,” or “family gathering,” and choose who you want to listen in. ... 

McCarthy strongly suggests that anyone using the app warn all participants in a conversation Crowdpilot’s crowd will be listening in. (Sure, Lauren.)

Although it’s possible to run Crowdpilot on your iPhone with the screen turned off, it can’t run in the background, reducing the app’s potential as a stealth spy tool. (Screen turned off should suffice for most spies.) (more)

FutureWatch: Covert remote coaching during business negotiations?

Off Topic Moment of Zen

No cat has two tails.
Every cat has one tail more than no cat.
Therefore every cat has three tails.
(more)

Maryland Bill Would Shut Down NSA Spy Center

MD - A group of legislators in Maryland has introduced legislation that would deny state support to federal agencies engaged in warrantless electronic surveillance in a move aimed at curtailing the National Security Agency's power to monitor and track citizens.

Eight Republicans in the Maryland House of Delegates last week introduced the "Fourth Amendment Protection Act," which would deny the NSA "material support, participation or assistance in any form” from the state, its political subdivisions or companies with state contracts, US News reported.

The bill would deprive NSA's headquarters in Ft. Meade, Md., water and electricity carried over public utilities, prohibit the use of evidence gathered by the agency in state courts and prevent state universities from partnering with the NSA on research, according to the report. (more)

Tennessee proposed the same thing last month. (more)

Ol' McDonnell Had a Drone

IL - In January a UPS truck pulled up to the farm of Bill McDonnell north of Ottawa.

McDonnell’s order had come through. It was a brand new Phantom 2 drone, a four-rotor, remote-controlled quad-copter with a camera.

“It’s something I’ve been researching for the past year to see how we can integrate this into our farming operation,” McDonnell said.

Like many cutting-edge technologies in the United States, drones have crossed over from military to domestic use. Military drones appear like airplanes and are used to explore and survey landscapes or deliver missiles and bombs. Domestic drones look more like hobby helicopters and carry small cameras...

This coming season McDonnell plans to survey his corn and soybeans with his Phantom. (more)

The Littlest Eavesdropper

A new computer chip invented by researchers from Columbia University allows scientists to "listen in" on bacteria, as they exchange information between individual cells. Integrated circuit (IC) technology allows biologists to record images from the bacteria, as well as "listen in" to what they are saying. (more)

...and, on the other end of the spectrum...

Scientists can now spy on whales from space.
There are two ways of looking at this story. One is as a triumph of new technology: Using high-resolution satellites, scientists can identify and track whales without disturbing them in any way. The other is as a tale of space voyeurism: Scientists are spying on whales from the sky. And not just spying on whales — spying on whales while there was a good chance the whales were doing it. (more)

DIY Surveillance - Home Brew Vehicle Tracker (Cheap)

• Grab an old cell phone (make sure it has GPS).
• Turn on its Internet access.
• Tweak the settings. Presumably, you're only going to use this for vehicle tracking. Set the ringer volume to 0 and mute the keypad.
• Next step is choosing a tracking/mapping service. InstaMapper (free) or AccuTracking (about $6/month)
• The final step is the trickiest. For real 24/7 tracking, you'll need to hardwire the phone to your car's battery. (more)

Covert Animal Cruelty Videos Induced Gags - Result... Ag Gag Bill No Gag

ID - Milk producers convinced state senators Tuesday to back a bill aiming to halt spying on their operations, a measure prompted by animal activists who captured cruelty at a southern Idaho dairy on film in July 2012.

The Agricultural Affairs Committee voted to back what proponents called an "agricultural security measure" — and what foes branded a heavy-handed and punitive response to groups seeking to expose horrendous abuses.

The industry-backed bill now goes to the full Senate for a vote. A Democrat, Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking of Boise, opposed the measure.

The legislation would put people who surreptitiously enter and record agricultural operations in jail for up to a year and slap them with a $5,000 fine. It would criminalize obtaining records from dairies or other agricultural operations by force or misrepresentation, as well as lying on a farm's employment application. (more)

Muckracking used to prompt decent laws...
Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968), was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle (1906). It exposed conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.[1] (more)

Dutch Minister Admits Lying on Eavesdropping

Netherlands - A Dutch cabinet minister faced calls to quit on Tuesday after admitting he wrongly told parliament that 1.8 million telecommunications intercepts had been collected by the US National Security Agency, rather than the Dutch spy service.

The departure of Internal Affairs Minister Ronald Plasterk would come at a bad time for Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s coalition government. It is polling near its lowest level since taking power in November 2012...

Plasterk wrote on Monday in a letter to parliament that it was the Dutch intelligence service, not the NSA, that had collected the so-called metadata. (more)

But we already knew this seven years ago. (more) 
And again last year. (more)

UPDATE:
The Dutch branch of British telecom company Vodafone has taken a stand on privacy by asking various Dutch ministries for permission to disclose the number of demands it receives for wiretapping, the telecom company announced in a statement Wednesday.

"We want to invest in a healthy ICT future by providing information to our costumers about what we do with data," Vodafone wrote in the statement. 

"But if you really want to boost consumer confidence, the government should be more transparent," Vodafone added.

Wiretap Conviction Overturned for Founder of CopBlock.org

NH - The state's highest court has reversed the wiretapping convictions of the founder of a police watchdog group who secretly recorded conversations with Manchester police and school officials. (more)

Business Eavesdropping: Bugged Bra Company Employee Going for Bust

Scotland - A former employee of Ultimo bra tycoon Michelle Mone's company is suing for constructive dismissal after claiming the resignation of a director left him with an increased workload and some of his conversations were bugged.

Hugh McGinley is demanding compensation at a Glasgow employment tribunal for loss of earnings after he resigned from MJM International in March last year.

Mr Kilday's bugging has been accepted by MJM, which is now known as Ultimo Brands International, but lawyers claim they were recording his conversations with operations director Scott Kilday because they feared he was betraying company secrets. (more)

2007 and Still Smokin'

Researchers have uncovered a sophisticated cyber spying operation that has been alive since at least 2007 and uses techniques and code that surpass any nation-state spyware previously spotted in the wild.

The attack, dubbed “The Mask” by the researchers at Kaspersky Lab in Russia who discovered it, targeted government agencies and diplomatic offices and embassies, before it was dismantled last month. It also targeted companies in the oil, gas and energy industries as well as research organizations and activists. Kaspersky uncovered at least 380 victims in more than two dozen countries, with the majority of the targets in Morocco and Brazil.

The attack — possibly from a Spanish-speaking country — used sophisticated malware, rootkit methods and a bootkit to hide and maintain persistence on infected machines. The attackers sought not only to steal documents, but to steal encryption keys, data about a target’s VPN configurations, and Adobe signing keys, which would give the attackers the ability to sign .PDF documents as if they were the owner of the key. (more)

TSCM Find - Police Ombudsman Headquarters' Conference Room & Wi-Fi Bugged

Ireland - The headquarters of the Garda Ombudsman Commission has reportedly been targeted by a secret bugging operation. 

According to a report in today's Sunday Times, the watchdog's phone and internet were compromised in a highly sophisticated hacking incident...

The spying operation was uncovered when the Ombudsman hired security consultants to investigate whether its office had been bugged.
The investigation found that a phone in a meeting room had been rigged to eavesdrop on confidential conversations.

The room was used to hold case conferences related to investigations being carried out by the commission.

The Wi-Fi network at the Garda Ombudsman office had also been hacked - allowing emails and confidential material to be intercepted. (more)

UPDATE:
Mr Shatter has asked the Commission for a report on its decision to hire a British Security company last year to investigate if it had been placed under electronic surveillance.

A source within GSOC has confirmed to RTÉ that the company told it that it had found evidence of electronic surveillance in one of its meeting rooms and that its wi-fi system may have been compromised. (more)

Today's Chinese Espionage Revenge Had Roots in Tea (among other rip-offs)

Darjeeling tea, the Champaigne among teas, owes its genesis to an industrial espionage of epic proportions. Planned by the East India Co and executed by a daring Scot, the early 19th century operation gave the world the thin-bodied, light-colored infusion with a floral aroma that is revered by tea connoisseurs the world over. 

British tea expert Malcolm Ferris-Lay said...

"For nearly 200 years, the East India Co sold opium (derived from Papaver Soniferum) to China and bought tea with the proceeds... in May 1848, Robert Fortune (born in Eldrom village in Berwickshire, Scotland) was approached by East India Co to collect valuable information on tea industry in China.

"Fortune learned Mandarin, shaved his head, adopted a pigtail as worn by Manchus, dressed in local clothes and disguised himself as a Chinese from a distant province. He sneaked into remote areas of Fujian and Jiangsu province, forbidden parts of China. Fortune managed to collect 20,000 plants and seedlings and had then transported it to Kolkata in Wardian cases, small greenhouses which kept the plants healthy due to condensation within the case," Ferris-Lay explained.

These seedlings were planted in Darjeeling and grew into bushes that over the time produced the unique tea. "Many of the teas that Fortune brought back perished. But the knowledge that he brought back from China together with plants were instrumental in what is today a huge flourishing tea industry in India," he said. (more)

Swiss Swatch on Swish Laws in Russia. Neutral. And by the way U.S...

The eccentric chief executive officer of Swatch Group (Nick Hayek), one of the world's top watchmakers, was so incensed by recent allegations of mass U.S. spying that he chastised a top New York official over the matter in a letter late last year... 

Hayek's comments were released this week, along with those from five other companies that responded... (They were asked to take a stance against Russia's recent clampdown on gays ahead of the winter games in Sochi.)

Please make me one, Nick.

"As you claim you are an investor with Swatch Group you should be equally preoccupied about what has been publicized lately: the massive collection of data of the NSA worldwide including Switzerland," fumed Hayek, whose first language is not English, in a letter dated December 13.

"Swatch Group is an innovative industrial leader; at the heart of our success are very innovative products," Hayek continued. "The integrity of our confidential information is key to develop successful products. The practices that apparently have become a habit from organizations like the NSA can create huge damage to our company and our shareholders."
 
"As an investor you should have all interest to speak up loud about such potentially damaging practices coming from the USA," Hayek said. (more) (sing-a-long)

Surreptitous Workplace Recording: 2-Party Law Drops Cop

MD - A Baltimore City police officer has agreed to resign his post so charges against him in an illegal phone recording case will be dropped. 

Sgt. Carlos Vila was indicted in August 2012 under the state's wiretapping law after he was accused of illegally recording Baltimore Judge Joan Gordon, who sits in the city's Eastside District Court. Officials said in April 2012, Vila used his cellphone to record an argument he had with Gordon about a warrant.

Aside from the wiretapping charge, Vila was also charged with playing the recordings for his colleagues. Both charges are felonies. (more)

Maryland law requires all parties consent to being recorded. Federal law, which is followed by most states, only requires one party to consent. 

Had this happened in a workplace, in a one-party consent state, the outcome would have been much different.

Corporate Security Directors: If you still don't have a written Covert Recording in the Workplace Policy, call me. You need one. I will help you get started. No charge. No obligation. Not having one leaves you open to a multitude of problems.

State Dept. caught on tape saying ‘F*** the E.U.’; Russian bugging suspected

Two senior American diplomats, thinking their conversation about the Ukraine was secure and private, were caught disparaging the European Union in a phone call that was apparently bugged, and U.S. officials say they strongly suspect Russia of leaking the conversation.

The suspicions were aired Thursday after audio of the call was posted to the Internet...

The White House and State Department stopped just short of directly accusing Russia of surreptitiously recording the call between the top US diplomat for Europe, Victoria Nuland, and the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. But both took pains to point out that a Russian government official was the first or among the first to call attention to the audio of the conversation that was posted on YouTube. (more)

...in other not so surprising news...

A Russian government aide who was among the first to post a video online containing a bugged phone call between two U.S. diplomats denied Friday that he or the government played a role in leaking the recording.

Dmitry Loskutov said he was surfing a social networking website on Thursday when he came across the video, in which the top U.S. diplomat for Europe, Victoria Nuland, disparages the European Union. (more)

UPDATE: Ukraine's state security service on Saturday said it was not investigating the bugging of a phone call between U.S. diplomats... (no more)

So ya think your nanny cam is spying on you, ma'am? Here's what ya do...

WA - A Lake City couple believes a burglar hacked into their cloud-based nanny cam and has been using it to monitor when they are and aren't home and possibly record their "private bedroom activities," according to the Seattle Police Department.
For the past two months, the victims have been arriving home to find items disturbed and missing in their apartment...

The victims told officers the system is easily hacked, and they believe someone has been monitoring their camera and knows when they leave the apartment...
 
Officers encouraged the couple to stop using the nanny cam and to contact building management with their concerns. (more)

Olympic Sized Gaffe - We have surveillance video of hotel showers...

Responding to the western campaign of "deliberate sabotage" in the media, Paul Sonne of WSJ reports, Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Kozak said, "We have surveillance video from the hotels that shows people turn on the shower, direct the nozzle at the wall and then leave the room for the whole day."

(Say What?!?!?!) 

Then an aide whisked Kozak away before he could answer any follow-up questions...

...former NSA operative John Schindler has some counter-surveillance advice for Sochi's shower users...  Shut door and run shower hot for 10 minutes. Clear spot on mirror is the cam. (more)

Click to enlarge.

Totally Invasive Video Surveillance Can Be Good For You

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has now approved a device for use after an incomplete procedure (colonoscopy) that is minimally invasive and can achieve similar imaging results to a colonoscopy. PillCam Colon is a pill-sized camera that is swallowed and passes through a patient's gastrointestinal tract.

The device itself is a pill-sized video camera measuring 12 x 33 mm (0.47 x 1.3 in) that captures color video from both of its ends at 4 or 35 frames per second. An LED provides the necessary illumination for image capture and, once swallowed by the patient, it wirelessly relays footage to a recording device worn by the patient for approximately 10 hours. (more)

Quote of the Day - On retaining privacy...

"It is amazing how lame people are. In today’s world, it is easy to hide. Just unplug." ~MW

The K5 Security Robot - aka Robopanopticop, or R-2 D-brief

Knightscope officials envision its K5 system playing a role in community policing...

“Knightscope’s autonomous technology platform is a fusion of robotics, predictive analytics and collaborative social engagement utilized to predict and prevent crime,” the company states on its website. That means that in addition to sophisticated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, the K5 is equipped with analytics enabling it to detect threats to people or property and summon police.

• Able to scan an area in 270-degree sweeps to photographically map it. 
• Four mid-mounted cameras can scan up to 1,500 license plates per minute
• 5-foot high, 300-lb.
• Equipped with optical character recognition, omnidirectional imaging, thermal imaging, microphones, air quality sensors, ultrasonic and infrared sensors, radar for determining the range, altitude, direction or speed of objects and lidar technology for measuring distance to an object. (more)

Athletes, Beware the Sochi Spy Games

The telecommunications, e-mail and social network presence of athletes and others attending the Olympics will be under intense scrutiny before, during and after the events. These communications will be exploited for competitive advantage, political-economic intelligence, hints of sedition, identity theft and manufacturing future access...

Obfuscation idea.

Athletes can expect to have been profiled from the moment they are named to a team... There may be attempts to entrap or break into a circle of trusted friends or groups. Athlete and their electronics will have already been exposed... Simply visiting Sochi-related websites may be enough to infect a computer with spyware.
During the Games, it is reasonable to assume that all phone calls, e-mail, texts, web browsing, online banking and access to voice mail will be intercepted and exploited. Athletes who hope to take home medals may be taking home something else on their laptop instead...

Strategy discussed in team dressing rooms or over the airwaves will be subject to eavesdropping, whereas team radio communications are also vulnerable to electronic warfare tactics: deception, spoofing, interference or jamming at critical moments during play...

Consider that Russian security services share a cozy relationship with organized crime, who stand to benefit from information collected from the state espionage infrastructure. Consequently, banking and identification information are at also at risk. (more)

Data Spying: Feb. 11 To Become “The Day We Fight Back”

The ACLU, Greenpeace, Reddit, Mozilla and a number of other organizations have banded together to fight back against data spying.

Data spying has become a hot topic in the U.S., ever since Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the National Security Agency’s data mining programs... Now a group of organizations and businesses are uniting in an effort to raise awareness about data spying. 

The ACLU, Greenpeace and other organizations have put together the website TheDayWeFightBack.org, letting everyone know that they’re planning to make a big statement on Feb. 11. That’s the date when we will see a bunch of Internet ads protesting the U.S. government’s data spying programs...

According to the site, U.S. Internet users will see banners which urge them to call or email Congress about the data spying issue. (more)

Bugging Lawyer Sentenced to Two Years

A former California divorce lawyer who admitted bugging a car was sentenced on Monday to two years in prison for illegal eavesdropping and tax evasion.

Mary Nolan, 62, of Oakland pleaded guilty to charges of evading more than $400,000 in federal taxes and causing her staff to plant a listening device in the vehicle of “N.F.,” identified as a client’s estranged spouse... Nolan gave up her law license and agreed to repay $469,000 in back taxes, according to an FBI press release.

Nolan was among the defendants caught up in the so-called “dirty DUI” scandal in which a private investigator hired alluring women to drink with the husbands of divorce clients at bars. The women would then invite the men to follow them in their cars, and police would be called to investigate a DUI. (more)

Spy History: Business Espionage in the 18th Century

UK - Derby and Derbyshire have been known for cutting-edge technology since the early 18th century.

ESPIONAGE was the murky business that kick-started Britain's industrial revolution and made Derby the world's first industrial town.

In the 17th and the first couple of decades of the 18th century, silk woven in Derby could not compete with Italian rivals.

John Lombe traveled to Piedmont (Italy) to find out how the fine-quality silk there was spun.
He made drawings of Italian machinery and smuggled them back to the UK to patent kit that would wind, spin and twist silk.

On his return to England, he arranged for engineer George Sorocold to construct a five-story factory to be powered by water from the Derwent.

Lombe's Mill, viewed across the River Derwent, 18th century.

It was the first operation of its kind in the country and has a strong claim to be the world's first successful use of the factory system. (more)

...and then...

Samuel Slater, an early English-American industrialist known as the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution", the "Father of the American Factory System" and "Slater the Traitor" (in the UK) ...because he brought British textile technology to America with a few modifications fit for America. 

He learned textile machinery as an apprentice to a pioneer in the British industry.

He brought the knowledge to America where he designed the first textile mills, went into business for himself and grew wealthy.

By the end of Slater's life he owned thirteen spinning mills and had established tenant farms and towns around his textile mills such as Slatersville, Rhode Island.
 
Guess where Sam was born...

Derbyshire, England June 9, 1768. (more)

Bergen University Admits Spying on Students

Norway - Every student has their own access card to make use of everything from the schools library to the toilets. When the students swipe their card, person, time and place gets registered and saved for 90 days...

With this system, the University can track all of the students´ movements... 

Law student Peter Haraldsen believes that this type of spying is illegal. He demands the University to stop logging their students´ movements... 

The Norwegian Data Protection Authority says that Bergen University might have crossed an illegal path, because the cards registers movements without asking the student to verify it with a pin code. (more)

Fox News Report on High-tech ‘Peeping Toms’

If there is one place in the world you expect to have privacy, it’s the bathroom. But a FOX 6 Investigation finds more and more women are finding their sense of security shattered by hidden cameras in the most private places.

Local prosecutors say the problem is getting worse as technology makes the cameras smaller and more affordable for the average consumer. In other words, you don’t have to be a secret agent or private investigators to own a hidden camera anymore. You can buy a high resolution video camera and self-contained recorder disguised as a ball point pen for less than it costs to fill your car up with gas.

In fact, hidden cameras are easy to find for sale on websites like Amazon, eBay, Craiglist and a host of websites that cater to private investigators and law enforcement, and specialize in sales of covert video gear. (more)

Spying Landlord Hit with $1M Verdict

MD - A Montgomery County Circuit Court jury has found a Chevy Chase man liable for more than $1 million in damages for using a hidden camera to spy on a former tenant and her then-boyfriend. (more)

When and Where Do Security Breach Laws Apply?

via Robert Ellis Smith...
"Each state law on security-breach notification is significantly different. What are those differences? Go here and find out. ...Of course subscribers to PRIVACY JOURNAL knew this nine months ago."

Sad: Ex-Spy Sells Special-Edition Watch on eBay

An unemployed former British spy is so hard-up he is selling his special-edition MI5 watch on eBay.

The ex-spook put his Breitling diver’s watch on the auction site in a bid to raise money because he lost his job with MI5 three years ago.

He is selling the specially commissioned time piece even though there are only a few hundred in circulation and they have never been displayed in public.

“This watch is a limited edition which could only be purchased by serving officers of MI5 British Security Service during their centenary.

“The watch was commissioned to celebrate their 100th anniversary.“So far I have had good offers and considerable interest on eBay and I must admit, I will be very sorry to be losing the watch as I have little to remind me of my time with the service.”

When he first bought the watch he paid more than £1,000 for it and the bids had reached more than £3,500 so far. (more)

Scientists Create Artifical Blowhard

The device, called an acoustic circulator, runs counter to the principle that sound waves, and other types of waves, are a two-way street.

The findings, published in Friday's issue of the journal Science, could lead to the sound equivalent of a one-way mirror. With such a device, people can hear someone talking, but they themselves cannot be heard.

There are some obviously stealthy ways to use the method, such as in spying devices. 

"I can listen to you, but you cannot detect me back, you cannot hear my presence," Alù told LiveScience.

...the principle could also potentially be used to create one-way light waves. (Ghosts?!?!) (more)

Spy Regulations Too Secret for Words

South Africa - Clean, smart spooks only, please. And be sure you can read between the lines to guess the missing employment regulations.

Lengthy new regulations for the State Security Agency (SSA) were issued this week by State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele, aimed at professionalizing the service. It emphasizes the need for ethics, fairness and a commitment to the constitution.

Parts of the regulations are so secret, they weren’t gazetted. Although the regulations are 73 pages long, 21 of the 27 sections are missing. (more)

"And then, we mandate implants to remotely stop people."

The European Union is secretly developing a "remote stopping" device to be fitted to all cars that would allow the police to disable vehicles at the flick of a switch from a control room.

Confidential documents from a committee of senior EU police officers, who hold their meetings in secret, have set out a plan entitled "remote stopping vehicles" as part of wider law enforcement surveillance and tracking measures.

"The project will work on a technological solution that can be a 'build in standard' for all cars that enter the European market," said a restricted document.

The devices, which could be in all new cars by the end of the decade, would be activated by a police officer working from a computer screen in a central headquarters. (more)

"Calling all hackers. Calling all hackers..."

New SpyCam App for Android Phones and Tablets

via droidforums.net...
The new spycam app by "dooblou", SECuRET SpyCam, makes you an instant gum shoe! 

There are maybe some not so ethical uses for this, but then again this app would make it easy to see who is stealing your juice out of the office cooler, or what exactly the babysitter is doing with your kid. 

The app turns any Android phone or tablet camera as well as a remote camera into your very own motion triggered spycam. With this app your device will capture stills or video when activated by any motion within its field of view and then either save or email the photo or video. 


 
This app has apparently already caught several criminals in the act of stealing cars, and breaking into homes. 

You don't have to use your phone you can use this app to control a laptops webcam or another device camera with the use of livestream. 

The app includes disguise mode and touch screen locking so your phone won't be detected, advanced settings to tweak performance and timings, ability to choose between the front and back cameras, choice of video and photo resolutions including resolutions photos and high def videos, quick start mode and more. 

Pro version is $4.49, and there is a Demo version so you can see how it works before buying. (more) 

Why do I mention it?
So you will know what you're up against.

Not to be left out, tiny Malta has its own spy scandal...

Malta  ...Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia was “caught eavesdropping” on an opposition meeting.

Reliable sources told this paper that Dr Mallia was last week caught “with his ears to the Opposition Parliament office” as a meeting was going on inside. At the time a meeting of the Opposition’s Committee for the South was being held. Chairman Stephen Spiteri and MPs Carm Mifsud Bonnici, Mario Galea, Jason Azzopardi and Anthony Bezzina were present.

The sources said that Dr Mallia was seen eavesdropping by another person, who is not a politician. (more)

Proof Spying is Mainstream - The Walmart of India has a Spy Section

India - Naaptol with its “shop right, shop more” slogan has just announced its own list of the top 10 spy gadgets of 2014. And it’s just the start of the year! 

They come in all shapes and sizes. Spy gadgets camouflaged as pens (Rs 2999 for 4 GB); sim card phone device ear bugs; and even cloth hooks spy cameras. 

If that’s not enough, check out the video recording button camera. No one might suspect that it’s not part of your suit! You have an option of hidden cameras that fit in a car key-chain, the world’s smallest digital mini camera that is slightly bigger than your eye, motion sensor padlocks, anti-theft whistle key-chains, wall clocks that hide a CCTV camera, mini USB-shaped reader digital camera flash drive. (more) (store)

Spy ‘Numbers Stations’ Still Baffle, Enthrall

In the early 1990s, at the end of the Cold War, before the onset of the Internet Age, 

Courtesy, SpyArtStudios

you could tune across the shortwave bands and hear the monotonous drone of an automated woman’s voice calling out long strings of numbers in Spanish. “Siete — Quatro — Cinqo — Cinqo — Cinqo,” the voice would say, pause, and then switch to a new set of numbers. The Spanish-language female voice station became known as “Attenćion,” due to its repeated use of that phrase at the beginning of each transmission.

These transmissions, which had started at the end of the Second World War, weren’t always in Spanish, nor were they always female. Other languages were used to broadcast entire strings of numbers, which many believed made up a coded message that could be heard by anyone with a shortwave radio. The consensus view at the time was they were meant for secret agents operating in foreign countries...

Today, with the Internet Age fully mature and the Cold War buried under 20 years of modern history, the numbers are still being transmitted. (more)

Surreptitous Workplace Recording - IT Guy Receives Sentence

PA - The Easton Area School District's former technology director has entered a first-time offenders program after being accused of illegally recording a private meeting.

That's according to the Morning Call, which says Thomas Drago's record will be expunged following a year on probation and a psychiatric evaluation.

Drago, 54, of Bushkill Township, resigned from his post in late 2012, just before the district began investigating whether he had been spying on his colleagues.

Police say investigators eventually learned Drago had used his iPhone to audio tape an "Act 93" meeting in March 2012. He was charged in August of last year with one count of felony wiretapping. (more)

Security Directors: FREE Security White Paper - "Surreptitious Workplace Recording ...and what you can do about it."   

How to Stop Websites from Eavesdropping Via Google Chrome

...review the sites you've allowed to access your microphone and camera in Chrome.

1. Open Chrome, and type chrome://settings/contentExceptions#media-stream into the Omnibar.
 
2. You'll see the Media Exceptions screen, where you can see which host names have permissions to your microphone and camera, and which of those two each site has access to.
 
3. Highlight any site you want to remove, and click the "x" on the right side of the line.
 
4. Save your changed by clicking Done.

PCWorld also notes that if you prefer, you can just go to: chrome://settings/content Scroll down to Media, and instead of "Ask me when a site wants to use a plug-in to access my camera and microphone" (which is the default setting), select "Do not allow any sites to access my camera and microphone," which is kind of the nuclear option. 

Doing this will also disable features like Google's Conversational Search, which can be pretty useful, likely break any voice integration with Google Now (which will arrive in Chrome any day now), and disable any other voice-activated features in Chrome or elsewhere on the web. (more) (background)

800+ Detained in China for Illegal Surveillance

Chinese police have arrested over 800 people suspected of producing, selling and using illegal wiretapping and photography equipment to conduct surveillance.

Through joint efforts by police from 14 provincial regions, 13 production facilities have been destroyed and 67 groups associated with illegal wiretapping equipment have been uncovered in the action, the Ministry of Public Security said. 

The police have uncovered over 1,550 criminal cases involving the use of wiretapping equipment in blackmail, kidnapping, illegal detention and other crimes. Over 15,000 sets of equipment for covert tracking, positioning, photographing and recording have been confiscated, state-run Xinhua news agency reported today. (more) (sing-a-long)

Cell Phone Snitch Stories

Butt Dialing Law Suit Busted
KY - A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Kenton County Airport Board Chairman Jim Huff and his wife after an airport secretary that Huff called accidentally overheard their private conversation... Huff accidentally dialed secretary Carol Spaw while on a business trip. Spaw overheard Huff discussing ways to demote the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport's chief executive officer or get her to resign... Spaw took notes on the conversation and recorded a portion of it... (The judge) ruled that even though the cell phone call was accidental, Spaw was under no obligation to hang up. (more)

Butt Photos Proved It
A suspicious Kuwait man thought it was his chance to verify whether his wife is loyal to him when she went out and left her mobile phone at home. As he surfed through the phone’s files, he got the shock of his life when he saw obscene pictures of her with another man... “The man rushed to the police station and showed them what he found on his wife’s mobile. “He accused her of adultery and police decided to summon the wife to face her with the charges,” the Kuwaiti daily Al Shahid said. (more)

Tennessee Bill Would Shut Down NSA Spy Center

Legislators in Tennessee have introduced a bill that would ban the state from providing water and electricity to an NSA data center which is currently involved in building supercomputers designed to crack encrypted data.

The Fourth Amendment Protection Act, which mirrors legislation introduced in other states, would prohibit local and state agencies from “providing material support to…any federal agency claiming the power to authorize the collection of electronic data or metadata of any person pursuant to any action not based on a warrant.”

The bill also disincentivizes local companies from doing business with the NSA. (more)

Interestingly, Tennessee is the home of the most patriotic city in the U.S., Knoxville, and the largest manufacturer of counterspy gear in the U.S., REI. Tennessee's slogan, "America at its best."

Two New Android Spyware Issues

Hop, Skip and a Bank Bug...
Malware capable of infecting Android handsets using Windows PCs and laptops has been uncovered targeting developers.

Security response manager at Symantec Alan Neville told V3 the malware is atypical as it uses a two-stage attack process to jump from Windows PCs to Android handsets.

"It starts with a Trojan that when executed creates a new service on a Windows machine," he said. "It then targets Android devices that connect on USB. It uses the Android debugging bridge to deliver the Fakebank Trojan." Fakebank is a notorious Trojan designed to take victims' financial data. (more)

Fake Security App Intercepts Calls and Texts...
Researchers have discovered a new Android malware family that disguises itself as a security app, and intercepts the incoming texts and calls of victims.

According to Hitesh Dharmdasani, a malware researcher... six variants of the Android malware, dubbed “HeHe,” have been detected by the firm.

On Wednesday, Dharmdasani told SCMagazine.com that the free app is most likely infecting users via third party app marketplaces or through SMS spam. (more)

War On Drones Drones On War

Palindrone Palindrome of the Day...
NH - Rep. Neal M. Kurk (R) has introduced a bill that would limit the use of drones in the Granite State.  

HB1620 is similar to a bill introduced earlier in the session by Rep. Joe Duarte, but takes things a step further by applying the prohibition to drone use by the federal government and including penalties for violating its provisions.

Kurk’s proposed legislation regulates the use of drones by governments, as well as individuals. It requires search warrants, levies fines, and does not allow for the lethal or nonlethal arming of drones in the state. (more)

Hope they include some reasonable exemptions, like flying model aircraft and FedEx hospital to hospital deliveries of transplant organs.

Conflicting Reports About the Turkish President's Bug

Turkey - The Supreme Court of Appeals denied a report saying that an apparatus used to reflect signals from a bugging device found in Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's office in Ankara in 2012 was found that same year on the roof of the top court's headquarters.

The Milliyet daily reported that the signal from a bugging device found in Erdoğan's office was found to be reflected by an apparatus installed on the roof of the Supreme Court of Appeals' headquarters, which is very close to the former Prime Ministry Office in Ankara, during technical inspections of the court's headquarters soon after the bugging devices were found. (more)
  
Coincidentally... 

Turkish gov't to increase penalties for illegal wiretapping
The penalties for illegal wiretapping are to be strengthened in a government-led draft law which has stirred reactions from the opposition for increasing the justice minister’s power on the judiciary.

The draft law, on which the government is currently working, will increase the penalties for illegal wiretapping as well as limiting the wiretapping done by the permission of Turkey’s Directorate of Telecommunication (TİB), which is the sole authority over all of the wiretapping and surveillance activities of security units.

The penalties for those who leaked the wiretappings will be increased. The penalties for the officials, who used their authority to wiretap illegally, will also be regulated with the draft law. The use of wiretapping and audio surveillance as part of the investigations will be limited. (more)