Advances in Video Enhancement

There is nothing worse* than having to watch a crummy video recording, especially if you are sitting in a jury box.

Too dark, too light, out of focus, unstable are some of the many complaints that pop up whenever the important footage is brought forth as evidence. 

Fortunately, the situation is getting better. High definition cameras and better recording compression schemes are helping, but when it comes to pulling a rabbit out of the junk video hat, it's video processing to the rescue.

Take a look at this...

This is an example of enhancing clarity. Examples of focus, stability and darkness can be seen afterward, or here.

It is even possible to enhance and construct a composite photograph from several frames of video...

While most of this magic is used in legal proceedings and investigations, think of what it could do for your precious home movies!

Special thanks to Doug Carner, CPP/CHS-III of Forensic Protection, Van Nuys, CA for the loan of his video enhancements. Got a problem video? Give Doug a call. Evaluations are FREE.

* except being dragged to another Harry Potter flick. 

Why Your Business Needs a Counterespionage Strategy

If it can happen to a government, it can happen to you.

Murray Associates can help. (more)

Fiber Optics Easier to "Wiretap" than Wire

Optical fibre is a lot easier to tap than most people imagine. There is no need to break or splice the fibre now -- a relatively shallow bend can be enough.

The technique works because the light in the cable propagates by bouncing off the insides of the fibre. Unsheath the cable, and a detector can pick up the tiny amount of light that escapes through the fibre's coating, explained Thomas Meier, the CEO of Swiss company Infoguard.

He demonstrated the technique on a fibre carrying a VOIP phone call over Gigabit Ethernet...

He added that the risk is not imaginary or theoretical -- optical taps have been found on police networks in the Netherlands and Germany, and the FBI investigated one discovered on Verizon's network in the U.S. Networks used by U.K. and French pharmaceutical companies have also been attacked, probably for industrial espionage, he said. (more) (more)

SpyCam Story #588 - Teacher's Pen Leaks

TX - A Springtown man has been accused by police of recording a video of an 18-year-old woman showering at his home while using a “spy pen” without her consent.

A 38-year old, second-grade teacher at a Fort Worth elementary school, turned himself in to authorities and is charged with improper visual recording without consent, according to a Springtown Police affidavit.

The “spy pen,” which functions as a pen with a camera attached, was taken by one of his children to school, where it was discovered by another student and given to a teacher, Sgt. Shawn Owens of the Springtown Police Department said.

“One of the children in his home took the pen to school thinking it was just a pen, and that’s where at the school it was discovered as more than just a pen,” Owens said. (more)

Business WebCams Hacked

A computer hacker accessed highly personal data and controlled victims' webcams as part of a sophisticated email scam carried out from his mother's front room.

Matthew Anderson, 33, was a key member of an international gang, abusing his skills as a computer security expert to target businesses and individuals with spam containing hidden viruses, a court heard.

He controlled victims' webcam devices remotely to see inside their homes, at one point boasting to a friend that he made a teenage girl cry by doing so.

Major national and international organisations, including Macmillan Publishers, the Toyota car company and the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, were also targeted in what prosecutor Hugh Davies described as a "fundamental breach of security".  (more)

Turkey Toughens Laws on Illegal Taps

Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım has said the government plans to increase penalties for illegal wiretapping in order to dissuade people from bugging private phone conversations in violation of the law...

“With the passage of this draft legislation the punishment [for illegal wiretapping] will be increased three-fold. The punishments will not be suspended or commuted to monetary fine. People who are found guilty of illegal wiretapping will be sentenced to a jail term of two to five years. There is no other method to put a stop to the illegal wiretapping paranoia,” Yıldırım told Today’s Zaman. The wiretapping of telephone conversations is a highly controversial issue in Turkey. Many believe the police as well as the military and other security agencies frequently bug people’s phone lines to detect security threats. (more)

Thomas Cook Counters Espionage

After secret talks in a room designed to prevent bugging, British tour operator Thomas Cook has bought a majority stake in Intourist, the Russian travel agency founded under Joseph Stalin. (more)

Stalin founded a travel agency?!?!

(Shrugs shoulders, walks away with a head full of jokes that will never see the light of day.) Sortalike when you're in a Siberian... (Slaps hand over mouth.)

Fed Taps Trim Hedge

A broad U.S. crackdown on insider trading accelerated as the government charged an employee at an expert-network firm with conspiring to leak confidential information. Prosecutors also won a legal victory against a founder of the Galleon Group hedge fund that cements their ability to use wiretaps against Wall Street investors. (more)

Micro SD Card Crypts Cell Calls and SMS

Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) and Secusmart have released a new generation of the SecuVOICE solution for wiretap-proof cell phone calls. 

This new and improved version of the encryption solution will allow the German federal authorities to make phone calls - and also send SMS messages - without any risk of interception. 

The core component of this integrated solution is the new Secusmart Security Card, which encrypts calls and SMS messages end-to-end and provides secure authentication. The microSD card used in the cell phone was specially developed for Secusmart by Giesecke & Devrient Secure Flash Solutions (G&D SFS), a joint venture of G&D and Phison Electronics Corporation. The German federal authorities will soon be deploying the first crypto cards to offer this combined functionality. (more)

Patriots suspected of spying?!?! (Shocking.)

(US football story) For the second straight weekend, the three-year-old notion of the Patriots engaging in tactics not recognized by the rule book hovers over one of the team’s biggest out-of-division rivalries. 

In his look-ahead to the coming weekend, Peter King of SI.com points out that Colts quarterback Peyton Manning fears the presence of enemy ears in the visitors’ locker room at Gillette Stadium... None of it means that bugs have been planted in the locker room, but there’s nothing wrong with being cautious. Even if the caution becomes paranoia. (more) (history)

Solution... Electronic surveillance detection inspections.

Thus leaving no time to collect on the sex part.

Charging IAS officer Ravi Inder Singh with corporate espionage for sexual and monetary favours, the Delhi Police Special Cell told a court on Wednesday that Singh spoke with ‘middleman’ Vineet Kumar at least 10,000 times in the last two months and helped clear the file of telecom company Telcordia in the first week of November “abusing his official position”. (more)

Ellison publicly charged Apotheker with overseeing an "industrial espionage scheme" to steal Oracle software...

...and wins "one of the 10 or 20 largest jury verdicts in U.S. legal history."

SAP AG must pay Oracle Corp $1.3 billion for software theft in a jury verdict that could be the largest-ever for copyright infringement. (more)

"The weed of crime bears bitter fruit."

You know it's time to call in the PR folks when...

via the sharp eyes at newlaunches.com...

For those of you unfamiliar with the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment is in place to guard citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. Not that it really stops the government from doing so or anything but they try and it is for our own safety… most of the time. But Airport security and those scans can be quite a problem, what with all the radiation and all from the scanners etc. so aside from lead underwear and radiation blocking fig leaves on your delicates, another company has come up with Forth Amendment T-shirts with the prints in metallic dye that will show up on scans. (more)

SpyCam Story #587 - Year's Weirdest Story

A New York University professor has an eye in the back of his head after undergoing a surgical procedure to install a camera in his skull, part of an art exhibition commissioned by a new museum in Qatar.

“I am going about my daily life as I did before the procedure, but I ask for a period of rest before I am going to give any interviews,” Professor Wafaa Bilal said in a statement issued Tuesday through a spokeswoman, Mahdis Keshavarz.

The surgery was performed in the U.S., according to Keshavarz. She declined to specify the hospital or doctor, saying Bilal preferred not to disclose that information until after he has healed. She also declined to specify the precise date of Bilal’s surgery, though as recently as Friday evening she said the procedure had not yet been performed.

The thumbnail-size camera implanted in his head will automatically snap one photograph per minute for an entire year, as The Wall Street Journal reported last week. Bilal, an assistant professor in the photography and imaging department of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, intends to activate the camera on Dec. 15.

The project, titled “The 3rd I,” was commissioned by Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. Bilal plans to broadcast a live stream of images from the camera to monitors at the exhibit in Qatar, scheduled to open Dec. 30.

Last week Bilal launched a website connected to the project. Whether a live feed of pictures from his head-camera will also appear on his website remains unclear. (more)

...and most every other country in the developed world.

A number of suspicious women in the Gulf state of Qatar are spying on their husbands by using readily available hi-tech devices.

The women are trapping their husbands by handing spy devices, like miniature cameras fitted in pens and cigarette lighters, as gifts, The Peninsula newspaper reported.

Some wives who are not able to make their husbands accept such gifts slyly place the devices in their cars, the report said.

The paper said that it interviewed "a number of women who said their friends or colleagues admitted to spying or having spied on their husbands as they suspected they were cheating on them." (more) (eBay Spy Central) (sing-a-long)