A new study sponsored by the Dell computer company estimates that more than 12,000 laptop computers are lost or stolen each week at U.S. airports, and only 33% of those that turn up in "lost and found" are reclaimed.
The other 67% remain in the airport awhile before being disposed of, meaning there are "potentially millions of files containing sensitive or confidential data that may be accessible to a large number of airport employees and contractors," the study reports.
More than 53% of business travelers say their laptops contain confidential or sensitive information, but 65% of these people admit they don't take steps to protect it. Yet the average business cost when confidential personal information is lost or stolen is $197 per record, according to another Ponemon study. (more)
A full copy of the report can be found here. (pdf)What do you think happens to laptops left at the airport?
Could they fall into the hands of professional snoops?"The TSA turns it over to state surplus property agencies, which tend to sell it online or at retail stores."Let's dig further. We'll pick Texas, a big state with several major airports (7 to be exact). They have several method of disposal...• Online auctions at www.lonestarauctioneers.com and www.bandiauctions.com
• 3 live on-line auctions a year.• eBay under seller name texasstatesurplus.• At their walk-in stores.(Texas Surplus Brochure)It would not be difficult for business spies to track property disposal auctions from every airport. Solutions... Crypt your disk. Install theft reporting software. Engrave "Reward if found and returned..." on the bottom.
NY - Mikhail Mallayev, who was convicted in March of murdering an orthodontist whose wife wanted him killed during a bitter custody battle, stayed off his cellphone the morning of the shooting in Queens. But afterward, he chatted away, unaware that his phone was acting like a tracking device and would disprove his alibi — that he was not in New York the day of the killing.
Darryl Littlejohn, a nightclub bouncer, made call after call on his cellphone as he drove from his home in Queens to a desolate Brooklyn street to dump the body of Imette St. Guillen, the graduate student he was convicted this month of murdering.
The pivotal role that cellphone records played in these two prominent New York murder trials this year highlights the surge in law enforcement’s use of increasingly sophisticated cellular tracking techniques to keep tabs on suspects before they are arrested and build criminal cases against them by mapping their past movements. (more)
Georgia - The discovery of bugging equipment in opposition party offices indicates that the country is under a repressive regime, Georgian Public Defender Sozar Subari said on Tuesday. His statement followed claims by the Conservative Party and the Way of Georgia leaders that they found bugging equipment in their offices on Monday. ...the bugging equipment was discovered by one of the opposition leader’s security guards by using special equipment. Later on Monday Conservative Party leaders also claimed they had found bugging devices in their office.On Tuesday it also became known that similar devices had been found in the Alliance for Georgia’s office in Isani. One of the members of the Alliance, New Rights activist Mamuka Katsitadze, said that the New Rights is now checking its own offices. “I am also planning to examine my house...The Interior Ministry has denied any links with the bugging devices found in opposition party offices. Spokesperson Grigol Beselia said that the Ministry’s special agencies do not use these devices any more. “A criminal case has been launched concerning the bugging equipment found in the Conservative Party and Way of Georgia offices. No special license is needed to buy these kind of devices. Anyone can buy them... (more)
Psst: The super-secretive National Security Agency is about to build a huge, $1.9 billion data center at Camp Williams, Utah, to help spy on communications worldwide. (more)
OH - Why did that police cruiser camera start recording?That’s an unanswered question in the wake of the tape that showed Police Chief Tim Escola kissing and caressing a part-time officer under his command.
An attorney for the former chief suggested the cruiser camera may have been rigged, a claim township officials dispute.
POSSIBLE ANSWERSLaw Director Charles Hall said Escola or officer Janine England accidentally may have switched the camera system into a “covert mode,” which recorded their behavior June 2 as they drove a burglary suspect back from the Cincinnati area.
Those familiar with the equipment in Perry Township didn’t know the feature existed until Thursday after a review of the owner’s manual, Hall said. The system is less than a year old. “If you go to turn the device off and hold the power button, the camera goes into covert mode,” Hall said. In covert mode, the camera continues to record but the display screen and all lighting turns dark, he said.Escola abruptly retired Tuesday night. England remains on the force and faces no discipline. (more with interesting comments) (video)
The wife of the new head of Britain's spy agency has posted pictures of her husband, family and friends on Internet networking site Facebook, details which could compromise security, a newspaper said on Sunday.
Sir John Sawers is due to take over as head of the Secret Intelligence Service in November. The SIS, popularly known as MI6, is Britain's global intelligence-gathering organisation.In what the Mail on Sunday called an "extraordinary lapse", the new spy chief's wife, Lady Shelley Sawers, posted family pictures and exposed details of where the couple live and take their holidays and who their friends and relatives are. (more) (sing-along)
Tong Jian S11
China’s first "self-designed" hybrid sports car...Part Prius
Part Audi R8
Part Ferrari F430via China Car Times...The S11 was first unveiled at the Shanghai Auto show earlier this year to an impressed crowd. The car was designed by Shanghai based TJ Innova, the S11 looks fantastic, with Audi and Ferrari design tones slipped into its sleak body, under the platform there is an AWD drivechain pushing power to each corner of the car. (more)
Just coincidence?
You decide.
For more than 200 years, buried deep within Thomas Jefferson's correspondence and papers, there lay a mysterious cipher -- a coded message that appears to have remained unsolved. Until now.
The cryptic message was sent to President Jefferson in December 1801 by his friend and frequent correspondent, Robert Patterson, a mathematics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. President Jefferson and Mr. Patterson were both officials at the American Philosophical Society -- a group that promoted scholarly research in the sciences and humanities -- and were enthusiasts of ciphers and other codes, regularly exchanging letters about them. (more)
The latest revelation in the curious case of accused Cuban spies: They kept a copy of The Spy's Bedside Book
in their apartment.A peek inside the apartment of husband-and-wife spy suspects reveals a shortwave radio, a sailing guide to Cuban waters -- and now a copy of The Spy's Bedside Book, according to new court documents in the case. (more)
MA - A blind teenager was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Friday for hacking into the Verizon telephone network and using fake 911 calls to harass an investigator who was building a case against him...
Matthew Weigman, 19, from Revere, Mass., was part of a group of sophisticated and notorious telephone hackers who engaged in “swatting” calls. (Calls prompting police SWAT team dispatch.)
Swatters use spoofing technology to mask their real location when placing fake 911 calls. This makes it seem as though the call is legitimate, and coming from a potential victim’s home. Police are sometimes dispatched to the homes of these “victims,” allowing swatters to effectively harass their targets from a distance.
Weigman, known as “Little Hacker,” has been involved in telephone hacking since the age of 14. (more)
During Sweden’s EU Presidency (started July 1), Swedish government authorities and the defense forces will use Sectra’s Tiger XS personal voice encryptor for eavesdrop-secure communications. Sweden is the fifth country in Europe to use Tiger XS to protect telephone conversations from eavesdropping during its EU Presidency. (more)
from the web site...
One encryption device for all
Tiger XS is a personal encryptor that protects mobile and fixed communications. Use one encryption device to secure your voice, data, fax and SMS communications. Tiger XS is connected to your mobile phone via Bluetooth®. This enables a high level of security on communications networks such as GSM, PSTN, ISDN, IP networks as well as satellite systems. With Tiger XS you are safe to exchange classified information over GSM networks or ordinary telephone lines – from your office desk, at home or on the road. (more)
According to a July 2 broadcast on National Public Radio, the famed Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC is likely to face foreclosure because the owners have defaulted on a $69.9 million loan on the property.
Watergate is well-known to many Americans because of the events of June, 17, 1972, when DC police arrested five men trying to break in and wiretap the offices of the Democratic Party located in the building. Along with two others, they were tried and convicted in January 1973.
All seven were connected with President Richard M. Nixon's reelection committee, suggesting that what appeared to be a simple burglary/wiretap might involve high-level government officials. (more)
FutureWatch - Watergate is purchased (bailed out) by the National Park Service. Tours daily. Most popular stop... The Frank Wills Memorial Door, with tape over the lock.
If you own an iPhone, security researcher Charlie Miller can take control of it, and short of turning off the device, it appears there isn't much you can do to stop him. Not until Apple fixes the flaw, anyway.Exploiting a bug in the way iPhones parse SMS messages, the principal analyst at Independent Security Evaluators has demonstrated how to send malicious commands to monitor the phone's location, turn on its microphone, or cause it to join a DDoS, or distributed denial of service attack, according to this report from IDG News.The vulnerability is significant because there are few measures iPhone users can take to prevent an attack... (more)
CA - Police have arrested a man who allegedly admitted to stealing the identities of more than 500 people by going through the trash of local banks and businesses.
The criminal complaint filed against 30-year-old suspect Jonah Nelson claims that he made more than 1,000 fake ID cards that he used to rip off people, stores and banks. Nelson also allegedly admitted to stealing the identities of more than 500 people all across Northern California, ranging from the Bay Area to the Central Valley.
Federal agents say Nelson said it was easy to find new victims: All he needed to do was visit a local bank and search their dumpsters. (more)My amazing bank shredder story...
I received a package cushioned with strips of shredded paper filler...
made from bank records!
Names, addresses, deposit amounts, account numbers, phone numbers, Social Security numbers. It was all there. Easily reconstructed.
This was worth looking into.
My secretary wrote to the company who sent us the box...
“Your packing material was most interesting (the recycled paper). Is there a company that supplies it? Is there a charge for it? If you have a company name I would appreciate your sharing it with me. Thanks!”
Their reply...“Check with any local bank - they shred 6-10 bags per week - you can get it for free for the asking!”
Fortunately, this was an honest person. They could just as easily have been and investigator or spy... and, the bank could have been any business or government agency.
Were their hearts in the right place for recycling?
Probably.
Is this a good practice.
No.
Buy and use a good crosscut shredder. ~Kevin 
Hey gang, it's almost Independence Day here in America. Yup, July 4th is just around the corner.
Fireworks are in America's bloodstream... but, did you know your on-line curiosity could get you in trouble with the terrorist chasers? Your fireworks search engine enquires might start popping red flags...
"Ludlow Kissel and the Dago Bomb That Struck Back"
"What is a Dago Bomb?"
"How can I build a Dago Bomb?"
"Dago Bomb ingredients"
"What was blown up by the Dago Bomb?"
(Knock, Knock)
"We're from Homeland Security..."
"
Excelsior, you fathead!" Next time, don't use a search engine that captures your IP address. Search privately. Go to https://www.ixquick.com
ixquick is the only search engine which gives you anonymity.
Oh, and Ludlow... he had his 15 minutes of fame... about 2:17 into this Great American Fourth of July video. ~Kevin
UPDATE - NEW URL. Startpage.com
The other 67% remain in the airport awhile before being disposed of, meaning there are "potentially millions of files containing sensitive or confidential data that may be accessible to a large number of airport employees and contractors," the study reports.
