Korea - Prosecutors cleared the chief of Sidus HQ, a major entertainment agency, of replicating a cell phone of top actress Jeon Ji-hyun, 27, to track her phone calls and text messages.
Sidus was investigated for alleged hiring an expert to access phone records and messages of the actress in late November 2007, shortly before her contract with the company was to expire.
Sidus CEO Chung Hoon-tak and two other executives were under investigation for eavesdropping on Jeon, who signed with Sidus while still in high school more than 10 years ago.
The outside expert, who was hired to help copy and rig Jeon's handset, was given a one-year jail sentence last month. (more) (background)
via Ben Popken...
Three different ATM skimmers were found this week and reported on blogs, raising the question of what the heck is going on considering these are supposed to be a rarity. First, our reader Dan found a skimmer on a WaMu/Chase ATM in LA. Gizmodo picked up the story and subsequently their reader Sean Seibel found a skimmer on a Chase ATM in Manhattan's East Village. Then this kid Nick McGlynn found a setup similar to the one Sean did, also on a Chase ATM. Now, when our reader Dan took the credit-card snagging device skimmer to the police he said they, "got a big kick out of the skimmer, saying they'd never seen one in person." (more) (background)
Security Alert - Be careful at ATMs and gas stations.
• If the card slot 'looks weird' (too big, cheesy, off-color, etc.), skip it.
• Cover your fingers when entering your PIN – to block overhead cameras or telescope voyeurs.
• Think you've been had? Call the branch manager or the cops, quickly.
Thinking about all the modern spy drones and insect-like flying surveillance bugs makes minds boggle.
Remember the good old days when spies floated?
The first decisive use of a balloon for aerial observation was performed by the aérostat l’Entreprenant ("The enterprising one") at the Battle of Fleurus in 1794. The following year, during the Siege of Mainz an observation ballon was employed again. However, the French military use of the balloon did not continue un-interrupted as in 1799, Napoleon disbanded the French balloon corps.
The Intrepid was a hydrogen gas balloon or aerostat built for use by the Union Army Balloon Corps for aerial reconnaissance purposes during the American Civil War. It was one of seven balloons constructed for the Balloon Corps and was one of the four larger balloons designed to make ascensions to higher elevations with a larger lift capacity for telegraph equipment and an operator. It was the balloon of choice for Chief Aeronaut Thaddeus Lowe overlooking the Battle of Fair Oaks.The fateful flight over the Battle of Fair Oaks was instrumental in saving the fragmented army of Union Army General Samuel P. Heintzelman from what would have been sure defeat at the hands of the Confederates. via Wikipedia.com
Robot/People art by Kacie Kinzer...
In New York, we are very occupied with getting from one place to another. I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself? To answer these questions, I built robots.Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.
Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. (more with video)
New Yorkers are too cool. Our spies tell us more Flying Dutchman Bots will be appearing on the streets. Updates to follow!
Spy Tie comes with a pocket remote control so you can snap the looks on peoples faces when they see your incredibly ugly new cravat.
Also good for business espionage and private investigator work. You can find Spy Tie here, right next to the ad for the digital microscope. You know, the one that says お肌・頭皮のチェックに！(Check the skin on the scalp!)
We now have spycams watching the people who watch spycams.
"Why???" you may ask......because the people watching CCTV images back in the control rooms often have too many screens to monitor at once, and so may miss the criminal or antisocial activities they are there to spot.To the rescue of Big Brother's limited attention capabilities come Ulas Vural and Yusuf Akgul of the Gebze Institute of Technology in Turkey, who have developed a gaze-tracking camera system that watches the eyeballs of CCTV operators as they work. It then automatically produces a summary of the CCTV video sequences they have missed during their shift. (more)
Hackers have crossed into new frontiers by devising sophisticated ways to steal large amounts of personal identification numbers, or PINs, protecting credit and debit cards, says an investigator. The attacks involve both unencrypted PINs and encrypted PINs that attackers have found a way to crack, according to the investigator behind a new report looking at the data breaches. (more)
NJ - Yan Zhu, also known as “Westerly Zhu”, age 31, a Chinese citizen in the U.S. on a work visa, was arrested this morning by FBI agents at his residence, 9 Victor Street, Apt 26, Lodi, New Jersey, on charges of theft of trade secrets, conspiracy, wire fraud, and theft of honest services fraud announced Weysan Dun, Special Agent In Charge. The investigation, code named “Westerly Winds”, began in November of 2008 based on a complaint from the victim company. (more)
UK - Three German journalists breached the tight security cordon around the April 2 Group of 20 summit in London and managed to eavesdrop on the three-hour discussion between heads of governments...Despite wearing the wrong identification badges Marc Hujer, Wolfgang Reuter and Christoph Schwennicke walked unchallenged into the G20 “listening room”, where government officials were listening in on talks between government heads such as Barack Obama, the US president, and Nicolas Sarkozy, his French counterpart, said one person present during the incident. “It’s not that they sneaked in, they just walked in.”The reporters went on to write a detailed account of the discussions, which appeared in Spiegel, the weekly magazine, on April 6, detailing the debate that led to the drafting of the final summit communiqué and repeatedly using verbatim quotes from the discussions. (more)We see similar tactics attempted at corporate off-site meetings we protect. Everything from "blenders" (people who meld with the herd) to pre and post meeting "paper-hunter-gatherers." Make sure you have a knowledgeable counterespionage specialist watching over your meetings. They will do more than just catch bugs.
via The Wall Street Journal...
The whole country is now worried about the specter of cyber attacks that will bring down the electricity grid. Big Oil is worried about another kind of cybersecurity: eavesdropping.
Exxon spent $222,985 last year on security for chairman and chief executive Rex Tillerson. The bulk of that went for standard-issue stuff: a car and driver, and residential security. But just over $9,000 apparently went... “for mobile phones and other communications equipment for conducting business in a secure manner.”...
...corporate chieftains—especially globe-trotting oil execs–can’t live in a communications-free bubble, which would explain Exxon’s expenditure on Mr. Tillerson’s secure mobile phones.“If you’re a high-profile person, you’re going to be a target. Especially for big oil companies, when so many countries want to know what they are thinking, what their strategy is, it makes sense,” says James Andrew Lewis, senior fellow for technology and public policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies...
Michael Klare, author of “Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy,” says electronic surveillance could touch executives anywhere from Moscow to their home office in suburban Dallas. “It might not only be state competitors that would be using this technology, it could be corporate competitors that would want to listen in on conversations,” he says.Espionage in the oil business dates back to the industry’s earliest days and hasn’t remitted. Two hard drives belonging to Brazilian oil company Petrobras and containing vital data on giant offshore oil deposits were stolen last year. Brazilian authorities called it “industrial espionage.”
Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers declined to comment on the specifics of Mr. Tillerson’s phone. All he would say is: “Security of information is a vital part of our business controls and we take it very seriously.” (more)
Phones are just the tip of their information security iceberg.
Want Exxon-smart protection?
Click here.
Rob Havelt, practice manager for penetration testing at Trustwave's SpiderLabs unit, will demonstrate how easy it is to attack legacy 802.11 FHSS networks, which are often seen as inherently secure because so few off-the-shelf tools are available for remote eavesdropping.The 802.11 FHSS technology has been outmoded in most wireless applications, but it is still commonly used in warehousing facilities because it works so well with inventory management equipment, such as handheld bar-code scanners and printers.
Often, no controls are in place between these networks and corporate LAN environments, leaving a large hole for hackers to penetrate, according to the company. (more)
ND - Skylar Holte and Heather Sondrol, claim Wahpeton resident Anthony Siemieniweski, their landlord, had placed a camera with a microphone in a heating vent in their bedroom. Siemieniweski, who lives next door, allegedly ran wires from the camera to his house, which when plugged in, would allow him to view and hear anyone in the bedroom of the rental home. The charges, sworn by Wahpeton Police Officer April Jose, state Siemieniewski set up the camera approximately two years ago. Siemieniewski is now scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing at 1 p.m. Thursday, May 7. (more)
AZ - Slow economy pushes sales of spycams at home, workAs the economy teeters and people look for new ways to protect themselves and their property, the hidden surveillance market is booming says Rick Rogers, owner of Extreme Surveillance.Rogers said his Scottsdale business has seen a 20 percent increase since the economic downturn began."If you're doing your job and you're doing what you should be doing, then you shouldn't have any issues with being watched," said Rogers. (more with video)
"By that pseudo line of logic you could dispose of the whole Bill of Rights." James Lawrence Fly - U.S. Senate, Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, Wiretapping for National Security: Hearings on S. 832, S. 2753, S. 3229, H.R. 8649, 83rd Cong., 2d sess., 1954, 230, 250, 15, 118; U.S. House, Subcommittee no. 3, Committee on the Judiciary, Wiretapping for National Security: Hearings on H.R. 408, H.R. 477, H.R. 3552, H.R. 5149, 83rd Cong., 1st sess., 1953, 4, 86. (more)
Korea - Prosecutors cleared the chief of Sidus HQ, a major entertainment agency, of replicating a cell phone of top actress Jeon Ji-hyun, 27, to track her phone calls and text messages. 
