Sneaky USB Flash Drives

Sneaking spyware in to plant on your computers?
Sneaking company secrets out from their computers?
Recording your private meetings?
Whatever the goal, drive-by spy devices are becoming harder to catch; especially USB drives.

Here is a quick update so you will know it when you see it.

from the seller's website...
Surveillance style pen containing a micro sized video camcorder with 4 GB of memory. Get the mission completed with this awesome secret agent DV pen, often called a "spy pen" in the trade.

Sitting in your shirt pocket, standing in the pen cup or lying on the desk, no-one will ever notice as you secretly capture their every move. The built in flash stores the video until it is ready to be downloaded to a computer via USB, and with 4GB's of memory you can record hours of surveillance or interviews in between trips back to the office. (more with video)

All metal cross shaped necklace containing an 8 GB USB flash drive.

These days a USB flash drive is as necessary as your house keys. Whether you are taking large work files back and forth from the office or are sharing pictures and music with friends, nothing beats the convenience of a USB thumb drive. Well, why not make sure yours fits the person you are? This is a elegant all-metal cross that has a built in 8GB's of memory so you should have space to keep in its heart. (more)

All metal heart shaped necklace containing an 8 GB USB flash drive.

These days a USB flash drive is as necessary as your house keys. Whether you are taking large work files back and forth from the office or are sharing pictures and music with friends, nothing beats the convenience of a USB storage drive. Well, why not make sure the one you get fits the person who is going to carry it? This is an elegant all-metal and jeweled heart necklace that has a built in 8GB's of memory so you or your loved one will have enough space to keep those treasured memories close at heart. (more)

Realistic looking watermelon containing 8GB of USB flash memory. If you want more than to just plug your old fashioned USB stock in, this novelty USB memory stick that is right up your alley. Just remove the tip to reveal the USB connection, and watch people gape at your one of a kind computer accessory. (more)

Does someone near you always seem to know who's calling you?

Perhaps they have one of these... linked to your cell phone.

Bluetooth bracelet with vibration function and caller ID display.

Spybusters Tip # 429 - Keep Bluetooth turned off when not in use. (more)

Business Espionage - Spanish Spies, Fruit Flies

Throughout the world, Israel is considered a superpower when it comes to the development of new citrus fruit species, but now, Israeli farmers are accusing their Spanish counterparts of stealing a new species, and have recently filed a lawsuit against them. Commercial spying attempts have lead the developers of the new species to grow their fruits in hidden fields , "but afterwards the species grew in an open orchard," said Chai Benyamini, secretary-general of Israel's Citrus Growers’ Association.

"The Spanish send people who enter the orchard for a minute, cut off a citrus branch from the new species, and send it to Spain, and this is how we lose some NIS 200,000 ($48,900) a year," he explained.

The main species in question is a new breed of tangerine, called Or, that was developed in Israel and has been patented. (more)

Moral: Every business is an espionage target. It's the money. Doesn't matter if your selling Testarossa's or tangerines — you are a target.

Make counterespionage part of your business security program. We can help.

Italy police warn of Skype threat

Criminals in Italy are increasingly making phone calls over the internet in order to avoid getting caught through mobile phone intercepts, police say... The police say Skype's encryption system is a secret which the company refuses to share with the authorities. (more)

Psssst! Wanna make a few billion dollars?

London - An industry source disclosed that America's supersecret National Security Agency (NSA) is offering "billions" to any firm which can offer reliable eavesdropping on Skype IM and voice traffic.

The spybiz exec, who preferred to remain anonymous, confirmed that Skype continues to be a major problem for government listening agencies, spooks and police. This was already thought to be the case, following requests from German authorities for special intercept/bugging powers to help them deal with Skype-loving malefactors. Britain's GCHQ has also stated that it has severe problems intercepting VoIP and internet communication in general. (more)

Silvio Strikes Back

Italy - Investigators have become increasingly reliant on wiretaps in recent years... Use of wiretaps by prosecutors in Italy has grown exponentially in recent years.

Investigators say intercepts of telephone calls have become an essential tool of the police, who spend millions of dollars each year tracking down crime through wiretaps of landlines and mobile phones.

But the law may be about to change.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing government has drawn up a bill which would restrict police wiretaps to only the most serious crimes.

Much crime reporting in the Italian media is based on leaks of wiretaps and leading politicians, including Mr Berlusconi himself, have found to their embarrassment that details of their private telephone conversations have sometimes been leaked to newspapers.

Under the new law reporting of details of criminal investigations obtained through wiretaps would become illegal until a final verdict has been delivered.

Given the extreme slowness of Italian justice, this would mean that details of cases now before the courts might be reported by the press only in 15 years time. (more) (background)

FutureWatch - GPS trackers & Cellular Forensics

Civil liberties groups are watching a New York court case that should decide whether a police officer, acting on his own, can attach a global positioning system to a vehicle to track someone's movements. The case will be argued next month in the New York Court of Appeals.

Last week, for example, area school administrators (Pennsylvania) were wrestling with the question of how far they can go under the wiretapping law in examining cell phones they confiscate from students. (more)

How low will they go in The Land of Limbo?

Trinidad and Tobago - Claims and counter claims of phone tapping and even spying by a government agency.

In the parliament yesterday during debate on the date protection bill, Prime Minister Patrick Manning and Chief Whip Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj threw allegations at each other, saying that people’s privacy has been and are being infringed.

Mr. Maharaj claimed he had solid information that the government was spying on people.

The Prime Minister would later fire another salvo, saying under the United National Congress Government (UNC) there was an agency set up to tap people’s phones and spy on them. (more)

Spy Planes Grounded. No Pilots.

UK - A new billion-pound fleet of spy planes able to spot the roadside bombs that kill troops in Afghanistan will be out of action... because the RAF has failed to train enough crew...

Each aircraft is operated by a five-man team of two pilots, a mission commander and two imagery analysts. The planes, converted Bombardier passenger jets, have been built by the American firm Raytheon at sites in Texas and near Chester...

An air force spokesman said: “You’ve got to have all five aircraft and all 10 crews ready before you have full operating capability. It could be 2011 but everybody is busting a gut to bring that date forward.” (more)

Where is Paul Garrett when we need him?

TN - Davidson County Dist. Atty. Gen. Victor S. "Torry" Johnson decided against prosecuting state Rep. Jim Cobb for hiding a voice-activated tape recorder under the desk of his legislative assistant last September. Johnson says Cobb apparently did break wiretapping and surveillance statutes, but he won't be prosecuted because he did such a lousy job of it. (more) (background)

PS - In the original report, Cobb described his actions as "just a prank." Now, it is reported, "Cobb claims he did it because he suspected his aide was treating constituents rudely, and he wanted to catch him in the act."

"In other news from the desk of Torry Johnson, it's also OK for a state representative to send a text message to try to extort a committee chairmanship out of the House speaker."
(sing-a-long) (Paul Garrett)

Securing VoIP... "Give up?"

There are too many sources of vulnerability for VoIP to ever be completely secure, says Patrick Park, author of VoIP Security. Here he describes the VoIP threat landscape and offers best practices for making VoIP reasonably secure... (more)

SpyCam Story #518 - Student vs Teacher

via The Smoking Gun...
"Meet Curtis Pickard. The Georgia student was arrested this week after he allegedly used his cell phone to take "upskirt" photos of Greenbrier High School teacher Ellen Hotchkiss, which he then showed to fellow high schoolers... Pickard was charged with unlawful eavesdropping or surveillance and booked into the Columbia County Detention Center..." (more) (Teacher vs Student)

UPDATE - Curtis Jamar Pickard, 17, of the 4200 block of Waterston Courtyard in Evans, was charged with unlawful eavesdropping or surveillance. He was released from the Columbia County Detention Center later that day after posting a $2,600 bond, according to jail records. (more)

"And then, we'll outlaw Uummarmiutun."

Canada - The Conservative government is preparing sweeping new eavesdropping legislation that will force Internet service providers to let police tap exchanges on their systems - but will likely reignite fear that Big Brother will be monitoring the private conversations of Canadians.

The goal of the move, which would require police to obtain court approval, is to close what has been described as digital "safe havens" for criminals, pedophiles and terrorists because current eavesdropping laws were written in a time before text messages, Facebook and voice-over-Internet phone lines. (more)

"The village called. They want their idiot back."

Taliban and al Qaeda fighters are now so aware every phone conversation may be monitored that they actually get on the line to taunt NSA interpreters who sit in relay centers to translate and distribute transcripts as quickly as possible. "They love to get on our bands and taunt us and especially our interpreters," said the intelligence source. (more)

"So, uh, what happened to the ones you did use?"

Tanzania - Police in Dar es Salaam has distanced itself from recording devices found in two hotel rooms rented out to two parliamentarians in Dodoma.

The Director of Criminal Investigations, Mr Robert Manumba, told reporters in Dar es Salaam yesterday that Government intelligence unit, no longer uses such devices because they are of obsolete technology...

Dodoma police commander Omar Mganga, said in a statement on Saturday that preliminary investigation by experts on information technology identified the devices as EDIC-Mini Tiny, with a capacity to record for 10 hours. (more)

So, let's have a peek at this "obsolete technology."
EDIC-Mini Tiny - Miniature Edic-Mini Tiny digital voice recorder (DVR) is intended for professional recording voice messages into flash memory. The DVR features an extremely small size and weight, long record time (varying with the model – from 18 to 300 hours at the sample rate of 8 kHz, and 2 bit ADPCM compression), very low power consumption, wide frequency range (100- 10000Hz), wide dynamic range and a highly sensitive built-in microphone. A built-in real time clock and a calendar are provided, as well as the mode of start-up by timer. Due to the absence of moving parts, the DVR functions in a wide temperature range, under vibration and dusty conditions.

The model records high quality stereo audio signal from two external microphones on built-in flash memory. It is powered by the rechargeable battery (with 120 mAh capacity), which can be charged from USB port of a PC.

The DVR has a Voice Activating System (VAS) which effectively compresses pauses in messages, therefore increasing the actual record time. Using this system saves memory during pauses, but the time intervals remain. When downloading records to PC, the pause length can be either restored (as silence) or passed depending on the settings made.

One might think, being "obsolete technology," one would have a difficult time finding one for sale. (click here)