August - Spies Dropping Like Flys - RIP

A Soviet spy codenamed "Zephyr" who worked undercover with his wife in Europe and the United States for more than a quarter of a century has died aged 101, Russia's foreign intelligence agency (SVR) said... The agency issued a glowing tribute to spy Mikhail Mukasei... (more)

Former Israeli spy chief Binyamin Gibli dies... A former Israeli intelligence chief who tried to stop Britain abandoning its military presence on the Suez canal by staging bomb attacks there has died aged 89. (more)

Wolfgang Vogel, East German spy swapper, dies at 82 (more)

Soviet dissident author Alexander Solzhenitsyn dies at 89 - a former prisoner of war caught by the Germans during World War II, then returned home only to face charges of being a spy... (more)

Grayston L. Lynch, a hero of the anti-Castro movement for his leadership in the Bay of Pigs invasion, where fired the first shot of the battle, died at 85... (more)

Television and stage actor Terence Rigby has died at his home aged 71 - featured in shows including Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. (more)

Come gather 'round people, Wherever you roam

Mobile phones, BlackBerrys, emails, social networking... Never before has it been so easy to cheat on a partner.
And admit that the waters, Around you have grown

But has technology made it simply too difficult for philanderers to cover their tracks?
And accept it that soon, You'll be drenched to the bone.

Day-to-day actions, such as taking the bus to work and buying a magazine on the way, used to be ephemeral. But today, every journey, every communication, every penny spent, is logged and stored.
If your time to you, Is worth savin'

As we move through life, we leave millions of specks of electronic evidence. Stored on hard drives and mainframes, this data acts like specks of DNA sprayed across the bedsheet of cyberspace. It's all there waiting to incriminate us.
Then you better start swimmin', Or you'll sink like a stone

As science drags us forward, it's a safe prediction that within the next decade, traditional affairs – the ones with longevity, the ones that take planning, scheming and logistics – will have vanished altogether. (more)
For the times they are a-changin'.

Cooking up Espionage, with Julia Child

Before she mastered the secrets of French cooking, Julia Child was enrolled in the school of espionage.

The famous chef let slip the story of her war-era spying in a 2002 autobiography, but the release of thousands of documents from the U.S. national archives on Thursday confirms her participation in a secret organization formed by President Franklin Roosevelt during the Second World War.

Hidden among the 750,000 classified pages released Thursday is a picture of the vast spy network of military and civilian operatives called the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). (more) (more) (audio) (OSS Society)

Trivia...
She helped develop shark repellent, critical in protecting explosives used to sink German U-boats during World War II. It kept sharks out of the way of the torpedoes. Later, she put people in the way of Tournedos and other epicurean delights.

"What could possibly go wrong, Herr HAL?"

German electronics company Siemens has gone a step further, developing a complete “surveillance in a box” system called the Intelligence Platform, designed for security services in Europe and Asia.

It has already sold the system to 60 countries.

The system integrates tasks typically done by separate surveillance teams or machines, pooling data from sources such as telephone calls, email and Internet activity, bank transactions and insurance records. It then sorts through this mountain of information using software that Siemens dubs “intelligence modules”. (more) (more)

Quote of the Day - Cindy Sounds Bugged

Cindy Sheehan, American activist, running for Congress.

"So I walked into my room and bigger than life, there was a man standing by my desk holding the room phone with a screwdriver in his hand!

I immediately said; "What the hell are you doing? Are you putting a bug on my phone?" He looked like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and stammered out: "N--no, we are having problems with the phone." I told him to get out of my room because my phone was fine and I called the front desk and the person at the front desk stammered something out about "problems" with some of the phones." (more)

Obviously, this was not handled well. No follow through, no credibility. Next time, get to the bottom of it. Call hotel security. Demand proof of identity. Not satisfied? Think a crime is being committed? Call the police. Press charges.

If you think you have found a bug, wiretap, spycam or other form of electronic surveillance, follow this advice.

Wi-Fi Eavesdropping Breakthrough

The growth of shared Wi-Fi and other wireless computer networks has increased the risk of eavesdropping on Internet communications, but researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science and College of Engineering have devised a low-cost system that can thwart these "Man-in-the-Middle" (MitM) attacks.

The system, called Perspectives, also can protect against attacks related to a recently disclosed software flaw in the Domain Name System (DNS), the Internet phone book used to route messages between computers. (more)

When was your last Wi-Fi Security Audit conducted?
Did it include a Compliance Report?
Did you know which laws require you to be Wi-Fi compliant?
Find out... here.

In the meantime...
Download a FREE copy of Perspectives for Foxfire v3.

GSM Bug Roundup

15 new GSM bugs - eavesdropping devices which can be listened to from anywhere in the world by simply dialing their cell phone number - are featured here, and on ebay here.

Why do we mention it?
So you know your vulnerabilities.

P.S. Murray Associates developed a unique inspection method to find them.

Quote of the Day - A New Yorker Ponders... Surveillance

"Oh, there’s also a poster in a window across the street that reads: If you can see this, you’re spying on me. It makes me think about how many people could be spying on me right now, what with my blinds open and desk light on, while I awkwardly blow my nose and type this entry. Then again, I’m sure I’d be watching my neighbors if I were staring out my window and someone’s light happened to be on. Voyeurism: every New Yorker’s favorite pastime - it’s like live reality TV!" ~ Nina Yiamsamatha (August 24, 2008)

NSA Wiretap Rooms Cartoons

Cartoon - what went on in the NSA's wiretapping room at AT&T
Frontier Foundation designer Hugh D'Andrade sez, "I did a 'live-painting' last Friday at a gallery -- a mural-sized cartoon depicting the goings-on inside the "secret room" at AT&T's Folsom Street facility. My EFF co-workers created a time-lapse video with an awesome ska soundtrack!"
If you like this, you'll LOVE this... >NSA<

Steganography - Look at secrets, but not see them.

Altered with the proper steganography algorithm, this innocuous picture of a cat could be a carrier for corporate espionage.

Earlier this year, someone at the United States Department of Justice smuggled sensitive financial data out of the agency by embedding the data in several image files. Defeating this exfiltration method, called steganography, has proved particularly tricky, but one engineering student has come up with a way to make espionage work against itself.

Keith Bertolino, founder of digital forensics start-up E.R. Forensics, based in West Nyack, N.Y., developed a new way of disrupting steganography last year while finishing his electrical engineering degree at Northeastern University, in Boston.

FutureWatch...
Steganography is a moving target. Now exfiltrators are beginning to make use of streaming data technologies like voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Disrupting or even detecting hidden transmissions inside real-time phone calls is the next hurdle for digital forensics companies, and Hosmer says it poses a significantly more challenging problem.
(more)

Anatomy of a Sports Spy

Tom Keegan writes...
"I know a guy who knows a guy who got his start in the college football coaching business as a spy. This is how the spy didn’t do his job: He didn’t wear a big red “S” on his forehead. He didn’t wear a Groucho Marx nose, glasses and mustache set. He didn’t carry a briefcase.

This is how the spy did his job: He peeled back a few bills from the huge wad of cash one of the coaches paid him, purchased a round-trip airline ticket, and arrived in town mid-week, late enough that if he were spotted, the enemy couldn’t redo its entire game plan. He immediately stopped at the bookstore to load up on gear, so that he could wear it around campus and blend in...

Spies don’t announce their arrivals and departures." (more)

SpyCam Story #461 - Fly Boy

NY - An airport employee, Jeremy Martin, apparently put a hidden camera in the women's bathroom. His female co-workers at Mattituck Airport are upset, not just about the camera, but how the company reacted when it was discovered.

Police say the airport employee confessed to setting up a camera in the bathroom, and he says he realizes he has issues to deal with...

Police say Martin hid the camera from July to mid August in a potted plant in the bathroom of the facility. They say anyone who used the bathroom could have been caught on camera.

Authorities discovered the bathroom spying when one of 32 employees at the airport saw a device sticking out of a plant. (more)

Watch Spy Watch You Watch Two

Spy Micro Camera Watch
Product Code: GGSPY004100
US$236.00
Features:
Built-in Camera, Rechargeable Battery and 2GB Memory
Resolutions: 352 x 288 pixels
Video Format: AVI
Battery Capacity: 270mhA
Charging Interface: USB cable with adaptor

The lens is in the two.

Girls Gone Lazy - The Surveillance Video

...and Men Gone Lazy, too!
A growing number of employers are hiring private investigators to spy on employees suspected of taking leave dishonestly under the Family Medical Leave Act.

Management-side attorneys claim that FMLA abuses have gotten out of hand, and employers need a tool -- in this case surveillance -- to catch malingerers using FMLA improperly. And it's been pretty successful, they said, noting that private investigators in recent years have helped catch employees bowling, doing yard work or holding second jobs when they're supposed to be out on sick leave.

Employee-rights attorneys, meanwhile, view surveillance as harassment, intimidation and an interference with a worker's right to take FMLA leave. It also has a chilling effect on other employees who may not take the leave for fear of being spied on.

Both sides, however, note that the courts appear to be siding with employers. (more)

SpyCam Story #460 - Proudly Viewed

New Zealand - A 25-year-old man has been charged with covertly filming unsuspecting Starbucks' customers with their pants down.

Two weeks ago a staff member of Rotorua's Starbucks cafe discovered an elaborate hidden camera operation in a toilet brush holder in a unisex toilet.

Detective Warwick Webber of Rotorua police said a 25-year-old Rotorua man had been arrested on Friday. He was facing five charges of making inappropriate visual recordings.

Police also seized the man's computer and storage devices during a search of his home on Friday. They did not believe any other toilets were involved.

Webber emphasised Starbucks was the victim and hoped people would not boycott the cafe franchise giant. (more)

UPDATE - 10/9/08 - Fei Yu Zhou, 25, has been sentenced to 200 hours community service and nine months supervision at the Rotorua District Court. (more)