More Reporters Bugging Out

Korea - Police said Friday they are currently investigating telephone calls made between a reporter and politician related to the alleged bugging of a Democratic Party meeting...

The potentially-explosive scandal was disclosed to the public on June 26 when the main opposition Democratic Party filed a complaint with the police, claiming a KBS reporter had bugged a meeting held to discuss strategies over the state-run broadcaster’s controversial plan to raise TV subscription fees. (more)

Recover a Stolen Laptop with Free Tracking Software

via Rick Broida, PCWorld...
In the last month, two family members and one friend have had laptops stolen right out of their homes. Sadly, none of the systems were equipped with remote-monitoring software, meaning the chances of recovery are just about zero.

To me this serves as a wake-up call; I'm in the process of evaluating various laptop-recovery services to see which one I should deploy on my own machines.

Short-term, I'm equipping my primary, can't-live-without-it laptop with LockItTight. Like similar services, it relies on a small, hidden client program that performs location tracking, Webcam captures, file recovery, and even keylogging. Unlike similar services, LockItTight is free--for one PC, anyway.

After you sign up for and activate your account, you download and run the LockItTight client (which is compatible with Windows XP and later). And that's pretty much the last you see of it; you won't find any evidence of it in the system tray or Programs menu. (Neither will tech-savvy thieves, which is exactly the point.)

To tweak LockItTight's settings and/or find out what your laptop's been up to, you sign into your account via a Web browser. By default, the client will simply report the laptop's position (usually via Wi-Fi, which in my tests was accurate to about 500 meters), but you can also enable screen capture, Webcam capture, key logs, clipboard logs, remote file retrieval, and remote file deletion. (more)

Need something like this for your Mac? Try Adeona, also FREE.

From the Land of Paladin, Have Antidote, Will Travel

Google's search engine is now fighting against a strain of malware that secretly intercepts Web browser activity on Windows PCs. FREE

Infected users will see a big yellow box at the top of search results, directing them to a Google Web page that explains how to remove the malware. That page urges users to download or update their antivirus software, and also provides manual instructions for removing the malware from Windows computers. (To see if you're infected, run any search on Google.com and look for the yellow box.) (more)

Click to enlarge.

How to Protect Your Home While Traveling

Fred Burton, former special agent and STRATFOR’s VP of Intelligence, discusses ways to protect your home before you travel. Basic tips. (video)

Spy Tools: The Evolution of Two Stage Weapons

(1963) Colonel Klebb is a high ranking member of the feared Russian counter-intelligence agency SMERSH, where she serves as the supervisor of Department II (operations and executions)... Klebb attempts to kick Bond with the poison-tipped shoe, but Bond blocks the attack with a chair. (more)

(1975) It wasn’t just Soviet bloc spies who used such techniques, though. In a 1975 US Senate hearing, CIA Director William Colby handed the committee’s chairman a gun developed by his researchers. Equipped with a telescopic sight, it could accurately fire a tiny dart – tipped with shellfish toxin or cobra venom – up to 250 feet. Colby claimed that this and other weapons had never been used, but couldn’t entirely rule out the possibility. (more) (video) BTW, the "dart" is believed to be an icicle. No 'pop gun' jokes, please.

(1978) The assassination of Georgi Markov in London in 1978 by a man with a poison-tipped umbrella was one of the most infamous incidents of the Cold War. The story reads like it is straight out of a super-spy novel. The forensic autopsy findings and results are as sensational as today's TV crime dramas. There is motive,a possible weapon, the known cause of death, and shadow government workings involved. Still there is no killer, and offically there may well never be. (more)

(2011) This weapon injects a freezing cold ball of compressed gas, approximately the size of a basketball, at 800psi nearly instantly. The effects of this injection will drop many of the world's largest land predators. The effects of the compressed gas not only cause over-inflation during ascent when used underwater, but also freezes all tissues and organs surrounding the point of injection on land or at sea. When used underwater, the injected gas carries the predator to the surface BEFORE blood is released into the water. Thus giving the diver added protection by diverting other potential predators to the surface. (more) (video) No, "Who cut the cheese?" jokes, please.

Project X: Murdock Phone Hacking Scandal Continues to Grow

"Argh, Miss Brooks"

The U.K. police investigation into alleged phone hacking took a dramatic turn on Sunday with the arrest of Rebekah Brooks, the former chief of News Corp.'s U.K. newspaper unit who resigned on Friday.

London's Metropolitan Police, known as Scotland Yard, said they arrested her around noon Sunday (7 a.m. EDT) when she appeared by appointment at a London police station. She remained in custody as of early afternoon Sunday and hadn't been charged.

It's the 10th arrest by police in a dual probe investigating allegations of voicemail interceptions and corrupt payments to police. The allegations focus on the News of the World, News Corp.'s Sunday tabloid that the company recently closed after 168 years amid an escalating scandal. (more)

"Our Miss Brooks"

Our Miss Brooks: Mr. Conklin's "Project X" is a sound system that allows him to eavesdrop on the entire school. (download MP3)

How to Write Like an Educated Spy

Writing a good spy report is not as easy as it looks. You need more than a copy of Strunk & White's manual, The Elements of Style. You need the National Security Agency (NSA) SIGINT Reporter's Style and Usage Manual!
 

Did you know...

• In nautical contexts in SIGINT reports, do not call a ship a boat. As a general guideline, a boat will go on a ship, but not vice versa. Lifeboats go on cruise ships. Submarines are boats. Most of the literate public, however, uses the term boat to refer to any floating contrivance of any size. Such use is standard in general contexts, but not appropriate in SIGINT reports.

• Do not use the terms A-bomb or H-bomb. Spell out the words. Do not capitalize atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb, etc.

• Never include obscenities in a report. If an obscenity is part of a quote, replace it with the phrase ((expletive deleted)).

• PDDG ... (Sorry, that's still classified.)

Military Intelligence: How to make unclassified information classified without classifying it!?!?

The Pentagon is proposing to keep under wraps all unclassified information shared between contractors and the Defense Department except that which is expressly released to the public.

That has sparked an outcry not only from open-government advocates but from contractors who argue they could be forced to pay millions of dollars to install systems to protect that information. Tens of thousands of companies would have to meet the new requirements, according to the Pentagon's own reckoning...

The proposed rule, published June 29 in the Federal Register, would impose new controls for unclassified Defense Department information that is not cleared for public release and that is either provided by DoD to a contractor or else developed by a contractor on the department's behalf. (more)

Military Intelligence: What happens to the real classified information?

The US Pentagon has admitted that a foreign intelligence service stole 24,000 files from a US defense contractor earlier this year.

US deputy defense secretary William J Lynn will not say which contractor was holding the data or which country stole it, but he says over the past few years, information about some of the Pentagon's most sensitive programs has been pilfered from military contractors. 

"Over the past decade terabytes of data have been extracted by foreign intruders from corporate networks of defense companies. Indeed in a single intrusion this past March, 24,000 files were taken," he said.

The admission came as the US defence department announced a new cyber warfare strategy, aimed at securing the military's secrets...

He says it is not the only attack... (more)

Ping! We know where you are, and people who will pay us to tell.

What is pinging?

Mobile phone networks have the ability to locate their customers' handsets (pinging). At a basic level, they can determine which cell the phone is using. In a city, that might narrow-down the location to a few hundred metres. In the countryside it could be several kilometres. It is also possible to triangulate the position of a phone more precisely using its relative position to several masts. Additionally, many modern phones contain GPS technology to help determine their exact longitude and latitude.

Mobile operators are reluctant to discuss exactly what level of detail they are able to provide to law enforcement, although there are examples of police tracking criminals, accident victims and missing persons by their mobile phones.

A former News of the World journalist's allegation the newspaper paid police to track mobile phones raises serious questions about the UK's eavesdropping laws, according to experts. Sean Hoare said it was possible to "ping" a handset's location for £300. (more) (DIY Ping) (How to)

50 Ways to Get in Ethical Trouble with Technology

Originally written for attorneys, but great advice applicable to many of us...

Technology makes everything easier and faster. In fact, it makes it possible to commit malpractice at warp speed. We can fail to represent diligently, lose our clients data, perform incompetently, and violate the rules regarding attorney advertising—all in sixty seconds or less.

There are so many ways to potentially commit malpractice with technology that it is impossible to list them all. Still, let us make a credible stab at some of the more common missteps. (more)

Jersey Girls Spy Hard - Court Approves Cell Phone Bill Request

New Jersey officials who use taxpayer funded cell phones cannot keep information on the destination of outgoing calls secret, a state appellate court ruled earlier this week.

In Livecchia v. Borough of Mount Arlington, the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, ruled on Wednesday that the public interest in information on the city and state of the location of cell phone calls outweighed the privacy interests of state officials. It also rejected an effort by the state to absolutely bar such information from becoming public.

The court said “there is no absolute bar to the release of the destination location of telephone calls placed by public employees using publicly funded cell phones and the same would not impinge upon individual privacy interests.”

The case began when resident Gayle Ann Livecchia submitted a public records request for two months’ worth of cell phone records documenting the use of publicly funded phones by all employees in the borough.

Livecchia wanted to use the records to see whether employees exceeded limits placed on the taxpayer-funded phones and also whether individuals were using the phones for personal reasons without reimbursing the borough, according to the court. (more) (ruling)

Your Old Smartphone's Data Can Come Back to Haunt You

Your smartphone probably contains data in places you might not think to look. People--and companies--that sell old phones often do a lousy job of erasing all that info, according to our research with 13 secondhand phones. 

Stands at the flea market were selling stolen phones. The owners had not been able to wipe the phones remotely. Your old cell phone data can reemerge from the past to haunt you. Whether it’s because sellers are lazy or naive, cast-off phones still contain troves of information about their former users. And as phones get smarter, they’re ever more likely to hold bank account passwords, personal email, or private photographs that anyone with the right kind of motivation could exploit. (more)

Tip: Always protect your cell phone with a passcode PIN. Some smartphones allow their passcodes to be longer than the usual four digits and will automatically erase your data if the wrong code is entered too many times. ~Kevin

Smartphone Hacking Becomes News of the World

It's never this obvious.

The “phone hacking” scandal unfolding in the UK has demonstrated how trivial it is to gain unauthorized access to voicemail and other information stored on smartphones. Ignoring basic security steps only makes it easier.

With the help of Kevin Mitnick, CNET reporter Elinor Mills demonstrated just how easy it can be to hack into someone’s voicemail. This was done in the wake of the “phone hacking” scandal that has erupted in the UK in which employees for News of the World hacked into a murdered girl’s phone and materially interfered with the then ongoing police investigation. It’s now grown much larger even than that one terrible incident, and this is, of course, an extreme example of the harm that can be done to people with unsecured mobile phones. (more)

If you own a smartphone you are a viable target,
and you really need to ask yourself, 
"Is my cell phone bugged."

Interesting Smartphone Hack & Spy Links

Thanks to our West Coast secret agent for compiling and sharing these interesting smartphone-related links...

http://www.cellspynow.com
Read text messages and view call logs

http://www.trackwary.com
For BlackBerries: GPS tracker

http://www.cellspynow.com
Read text messages, listen in, view call logs.

http://www.webwatchernow.com/mobile
Reviewed on ABC news.

http://www.spyoncellphone24.com
Monitory cellphones and SMS.

Phone apps let users outsmart the law.

Think there isn’t a danger? Look at Britain’s newspaper scandal. (and more)

And Groupon’s private policy change.