Football Team Launches Retaliation Drone

As football rivalries go, the one between Chile and Argentina is up there among the fiercest. So it should come as no surprise that when Chile's national team saw a drone hovering above a training session, it suspected its rival of spying ahead of Thursday's World Cup qualifier.

The team sent up its own drone which swiftly brought down the "spy-cam".

But rather than being a devious Argentine device, the drone turned out to be from a Chilean energy company. more

FBI Investigates Drone Crash Outside NJ Refinery

Industrial espionage, terrorists, or innocent hobbyist? You decide.

The FBI and local police are investigating after a drone fell out of the sky and crashed into a truck in New Jersey on Wednesday morning.

As CBS2’s Christine Sloan reported, of particular concern to authorities is that the incident happened on a road just outside a Phillips 66 refinery in Linden.

The driver of the truck apparently got out and had words with the operator of the drone, who took off, investigators said.
John Victor Jacobson, head of New Jersey-based Drone Service Systems, said he cannot think of a good reason to fly one of these air crafts in such a sensitive area. more

This location is also very close to Newark Airport, to the South of its runway flight path. 

Drones: For Criminals and Corporate Spies, the Sky’s the Limit

Switzerland - A rogue drone found on Credit Suisse HQ’s roof; fears of acid drops into data centres: drones are the latest security threat for businesses...

Besides carrying missiles or capturing images on powerful cameras, drones are now known to carry sophisticated computers too. These can be used to hack into mobile devices – and wi-fi networks...
Up in Zurich, alarms were raised at Credit Suisse’s HQ because of a rogue drone that was found lying on the office’s rooftop 12 months ago, a source tells Spear’s. The episode was presented as a potential security breach in a confidential conference at the bank, when the drone’s hacking abilities were revealed to some of its employees worldwide. The Swiss multinational declined to comment.


As well as stealing data potentially worth millions, these drones can drop acid into data centres to achieve a complete system shutdown... more

War-Flying Drone - WiFi Hacking video

A Drone Was Caught 'Spying' on Team France at the World Cup

French national team coach Didier Deschamps is reportedly calling for an investigation into a quadcoptor drone that was spotted spying over his team’s closed training session on Tuesday...

The culprit? A hobbyist and fan, flying his unlicensed drone in Brazilian airspace, according to BFMTV. 

Local police are investigating and are promising a quick resolution. (more)

Hobby Drones Under Fire

On Dec. 26, a grand jury handed down several indictments against the owners of the Columbia Packing Company for dumping pig blood into a creek. They now face hefty fines and even prison time stemming from the water pollution, and the plant has since been shuttered. 

Neighbors had complained about noxious fumes and other issues for a while, according to the local news. But investigators didn’t get involved until this drone pilot took his pictures.

Under a new law proposed in the Texas legislature, sponsored by a lawmaker from the Dallas suburbs, this type of activity could soon be criminal. Not the pollution--the drone. (more)

And from down under...

One Tasmanian man is using a drone to help take video in tricky places and some of the video has gone viral. (video)

Business Espionage Cautionary Tale - Bugs, Taps and Now... Drones

Australia - An international drug syndicate used drones to conduct counter-surveillance on police...

"During the investigation phase, this syndicate has used aerial drones to conduct counter-surveillance on police activity," Commander Beveridge said.

"The syndicate was using a drone when they were holding their meetings, to conduct counter-surveillance, to see if anyone, like law enforcement, was watching...

"It did cause the surveillance staff to initiate procedures and methodologies to defeat it. "These syndicates are getting a lot more sophisticated, and so are we. We've just got to be awake to it." more

Murray Associates Industrial Espionage Takeaway Points:
• Even with an upper floor office you are no longer immune to optical surveillance.
• If you have window blinds, use them.
• Make sure computer screens and whiteboards don't face windows.
• Institute a clear desk policy.
• If you see a drone, don't assume it's some hobbyist playing. Take a photo or movie for evidence.
• Be alert. A drone in your parking lot can grab all license plate numbers in a minute. (One of the first warning signs of an espionage attack.)

Protester Launches Drone to Spy on Police! (AMAZING video)

During protests in Warsaw last weekend, one crafty activist deployed a flying drone to spy on riot police.

YouTube user latajacakamera — or “flying camera” in Polish — uploaded the amazing video that the drone effortlessly captured as it hovered over teargas-filled streets.

In another video, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) floats in front of a formation of police in riot gear as they rush towards demonstrators. None of them appear to notice. (more)

Bin there... dunned that.

Pakistan recovers 'US spy drone'
A military spokesman told the BBC that the drone was recovered on Tuesday in the South Waziristan tribal area and the wreckage was being examined. (more)

"Me, too"
Georgia today said it had shot down a Russian drone over territory close to the breakaway province of South Ossetia, which is due to be patrolled by EU observers. (more)

Spying With a Drone May Become a Criminal Offense in CO

Colorado lawmakers want to criminalize the use of drones when they’re used to monitor someone without their consent.

The proposal up for a House committee vote Tuesday would make it a crime of first-degree trespassing to take images of someone when they have an expectation of privacy. Drone users could also be charged with harassment if they use the technology to monitor someone’s movements.

“As technology moves forward, our privacy is becoming more dear to us,” said the bill sponsor, Rep. Polly Lawrence, R-Littleton.

Lawrence’s bill is not just about drones, but “any type of electronic surveillance when a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy.”
more 

Get your (novelty) drone hunting license here. I have one.

Ring's New Drone Camera - George Saw This Coming

Amazon’s Ring surveillance platform announced a new line of products, including a drone with a camera designed to fly around your home, that would expand its surveillance network beyond the Ring doorbell camera...

The Always Home Cam and a new line of Ring security cameras for cars are set to launch next year: the Car Cam, Car Alarm, and Car Connect platform... 

The biggest concern, however, is about where surveillance footage will end up...

Ring claims the surveillance drone will be autonomous but that users can direct paths for it, have it occupy specific parts of your home, and have it respond to alerts from the Ring surveillance network...

Last year, hackers broke into multiple Ring cameras thanks to a particularly porous security system.  more

Weekend Project - OTS Some Spy Gear for $50. or less

DARPA-Funded Hacker's Tiny $50 Spy Computer Hides In Offices, Drops From Drones

Security researcher Brendan O’Connor is trying a different approach to spy hardware: building a sensor-equipped surveillance-capable computer that’s so cheap it can be sacrificed after one use, with off-the-shelf parts that anyone can buy and assemble for less than fifty dollars.

...the F-BOMB is designed to be a platform for all sorts of applications on its Linux operating system. Outfit it with temperature or humidity sensors, for instance, and it can be used for meteorological research or other innocent data-collecting. But install some Wifi-cracking software or add a $15 GPS module, and it can snoop on data networks or track a target’s location, O’Connor adds.

One version attaches to the Parrot Drone, an iPhone-controllable quadcopter, sucking power off the drone’s rechargeable battery and allowing the user to hover over a target, land it on a roof, or drop the F-BOMB from a hook attachment on the drone. Another version fits inside a carbon monoxide detector, and can be plugged into a wall socket to hide in plain sight inside a target’s building. (more)

PI High Flyers are not Keeping a Low Profile - What could possibly go wrong?

(Private) Investigators are taking drones to new heights — using the remote-controlled aircraft to catch New Yorkers cheating on spouses, lying about disabilities and endangering their kids.

“People want you to believe there’s all this negativity associated with drones . . . but they could be a very helpful tool,” said Olwyn Triggs, a gumshoe for 23 years and president of Professional Investigators Network Inc. in Glen Cove, LI.

Triggs recently used a drone to find an upstate man suspected of insurance fraud. Signs on his rural property warned that trespassers would be shot, so she sent in her 2-pound, foot-long Phantom 2 Vision quadcopter, which costs about $1,000...

"And if they're not disabled..."

Matthew Seifer recently pretended to test-fly a drone in Central Park. He was actually recording a husband fooling around with a female coworker from 100 feet away.

“Sometimes the best thing is to be right there in plain sight,” said Seifer, president of Long Island-based Executive Investigations...

“We raised the drone above the restaurant, [and] he was engaged in a sexual act in the front seat of his car,” the investigator said. “[Drones] get us those types of money shots.” (more)

...an FAA crackdown, loss of PI license, lawsuit defense expenses, etc.

New High Seas Spybot - Submaran S10

Part sailboat - part submarine, a new remarkable drone can patrol the oceans for months without stopping, powered by only the wind and the sun.

Developed by Ocean Aero, the Submaran S10 is autonomous, able to conduct missions on its own. This drone can sail on the surface of the ocean and then transform to dive beneath the surface traveling, similar to a submarine.

The hybrid drone can dive to depths of about 660 feet, which makes it useful not only for avoiding detection, but to discreetly conduct its own surveillance as well.

Along with protecting the US coastlines, technology like this could be used to quietly monitor, surveil and collect information for defense and intelligence.  more

British Army Unveils New Mini Spy Drone

The British army has demonstrated a new tiny spy drone as the latest weapon against Taliban militants in Afghanistan.

Soldiers from the Brigade Reconnaissance Force at Camp Bastion demonstrated the eight-inch long plastic moulded drone, which has three cameras hidden inside its nose and weighs just 15 grams.

Codenamed the Black Hornet, the tiny aircraft is being used by British troops against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The small flying machine, which has a smooth grey body and twin black rotors, can either be controlled directly or programmed to fly to a given set of co-ordinates and then return to base after carrying out its spy missions. (more)

Fly Spy Sly - Hacks WiFi and Eavesdrops Cell Phones - Cry or Sigh?

How do one ex-Air Force official and one former airplane hobby shop owner, both of whom happen to have decades of experience as network security contractors for the military, spend their weekends? Building a flying, unmanned, automated password-cracking, Wi-Fi-sniffing, cell-phone eavesdropping spy drone, of course.

At the Black Hat and Defcon security conferences in Las Vegas next week, Mike Tassey and Richard Perkins plan to show the crowd of hackers a year’s worth of progress on their Wireless Aerial Surveillace Platform, or WASP, the second year Tassey and Perkins have displayed the 14-pound, six-foot long, six-foot wingspan unmanned aerial vehicle. The WASP, built from a retired Army target drone converted from a gasoline engine to electric batteries, is equipped with an HD camera, a cigarette-pack sized on-board Linux computer packed with network-hacking tools including the BackTrack testing toolset and a custom-built 340 million word dictionary for brute-force guessing of passwords, and eleven antennae.

“This is like Black Hat’s greatest hits,” Tassey says. “And it flies.”

On top of cracking wifi networks, the upgraded WASP now also performs a new trick: impersonating the GSM cell phone towers used by AT&T and T-Mobile to trick phones into connecting to the plane’s antenna rather than their carrier, allowing the drone to record conversations and text messages on a32 gigabytes of storage. A 4G T-mobile card routes the communications through voice-over-Internet or traditional phone connections to avoid dropping the call. “Ideally, the target won’t even know he’s being spied on,” says Tassey. (more) (specs) (sing-a-long)

Hummingbirds Drone... and Spy

A pocket-size drone dubbed the Nano Hummingbird for the way it flaps its tiny robotic wings has been developed for the Pentagon by a Monrovia company as a mini-spy plane capable of maneuvering on the battlefield and in urban areas...

Equipped with a camera, the drone can fly at speeds of up to 11 miles per hour, AeroVironment said. It can hover and fly sideways, backward and forward, as well as go clockwise and counterclockwise, by remote control for about eight minutes.

The quick flight meets the goals set forth by the government to build a flying "hummingbird-like" aircraft. It also demonstrates the promise of fielding mini-spy planes. Industry insiders see the technology eventually being capable of flying through open windows or sitting on power lines, capturing audio and video while enemies would be none the wiser. (more)

Centerfold's Drowning Prompts Police to Probe Possible Spying Mission

A Playboy model from Russia drowned during a photo shoot in proximity of a major European NATO base prompting police to investigate whether it was a cover for a secret spying mission, according to reports.

The naked body of Galina Fedorova, 35, was discovered by coast guards after she and her photographer swam in the Mediterranean Sea off Sardinia, officials told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Police then interrogated Yev Taranovs, a 42-year-old British photographer.

His cameras and a drone used during their shoot were confiscated, according to the UK newspaper The Sun.

“There is interest in the drone footage as this happened very close to a NATO firing range,” a police source told the paper of one of Italy’s largest military bases on the Teulada coastline. “We have to make sure the assignment was not a cover for a spying mission.” more

Could the "spying mission" explanation be a cover for examining the drone footage?

Let the Drone Wars Begin

A remote-controlled aircraft owned by an animal rights group was reportedly shot down near Broxton Bridge Plantation Sunday near Ehrhardt, S.C.

Steve Hindi, president of SHARK (SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness), said his group was preparing to launch its Mikrokopter drone to video what he called a live pigeon shoot on Sunday when law enforcement officers and an attorney claiming to represent the privately-owned plantation near Ehrhardt tried to stop the aircraft from flying.

"It didn't work; what SHARK was doing was perfectly legal," Hindi said in a news release. "Once they knew nothing was going to stop us, the shooting stopped and the cars lined up to leave."

He said the animal rights group decided to send the drone up anyway.

"Seconds after it hit the air, numerous shots rang out," Hindi said in the release. "As an act of revenge for us shutting down the pigeon slaughter, they had shot down our copter." (more)

German Football Club Caught Spying with a Drone

‘We didn‘t do anything illegal!‘
Spy games: German club admit to spying on rivals using drones

German football was stunned at the news that Werder Bremen one of the biggest clubs in the Bundesliga spied on training sessions of rivals Hoffenheim by using drones piloted by club officials...

And remarkably, Werder Bremen has issued a statement taking responsibility for the incident, admitting it was they who arranged for the drone to conduct surveillance of Hoffenheim‘s training session.

An official statement was released, explaining that the drone was piloted by a member of club staff, while the club‘s general manager Frank Bauman made a formal apology and took full responsibility for the incident. more

Need an "I'm not here" outfit to go with the Mysterian glasses?

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or "drones") are fast becoming an ever-present eye in the sky, potentially granting governments greater strike and surveillance capabilities than even Orwell’s fictional Big Brother could hope to wield. In response, NYC artist Adam Harvey has created a series of garments which claim to reduce the effectiveness of UAVs.

Harvey’s garments include an anti-drone hoodie and scarf, which are designed to block the thermal imaging cameras used by many airborne drones. The designer also created a burqa which appears to function in much the same way.
 

Click to enlarge

Harvey is currently selling the designs, and would-be shoppers can pick up an anti-drone hoodie for £315 (or around US$500).
 
The Stealth Wear collection is on display in the UK at Primitive London until January 31. (more)