Quote of the Week - Made-in-China Warning

From the Congressional study: Supply Chain Vulnerabilities from China in U.S. Federal Information and Communications Technology - APRIL 2018

"The supply chain threat to U.S. national security stems from products produced, manufactured, or assembled by entities that are owned, directed, or subsidized by national governments or entities known to pose a potential supply chain or intelligence threat to the United States, including China. These products could be modified to (1) perform below expectations or fail, (2) facilitate state or corporate espionage, or (3) otherwise compromise the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of a federal information technology system." more

Detective Science: Fingerprinting Text to Discover Data Leakers

Fingerprinting text; the ability to encode hidden data within a string of characters opens up a large number of opportunities.

Spybuster Tip: For example, someone within your team is leaking confidential information but you don’t know who. Simply send each team member some classified text with their name encoded in it. Wait for it to be leaked, then extract the name from the text — the classic canary trap.

Here’s a method that hides data in text using zero-width characters. Unlike various other ways of text fingerprinting, zero width characters are not removed if the formatting is stripped, making them nearly impossible to get rid of without re-typing the text or using a special tool. In fact you’ll have a hard time detecting them at all – even terminals and code editors won’t display them. more

Denny Hatch is Pissed at 451 Privacy Sucking Companies... under one roof!

Denny Hatch* warns... Verizon's OATH is a consortium of 451 "marketing partners" engaged in massive snoop operations to steal every scintilla of data about you, your family, your children, friends, business associates, enemies, even your pets.

Click to enlarge.

Up for grabs: your most intimate secrets, correspondence, searches, downloads, purchases, trysts, travels, travails and browsing.

Any and all Internet intercourse by and about you is captured and spread...

For 27,679 words describing the details of Oath, click here.
Be sure to click on all permutations. more

* Denny's Note to Readers: May I send you an alert when each new blog is being published? If so, kindly give me the okay by sending your First Name, Last Name and e-mail to me. I guarantee your personal information will not be shared with anyone at any time for any reason. I look forward to being in touch! Cheers!

Butt Dialing Causes a Stink

Former state employee James Stephens, from Cedartown, Georgia, accidentally butt-dialed his boss and now he has a new job and is suing his ex-boss...

"His boss called my client's private cell phone from his own private cell phone," Guldenschuh said. "They were both at home when the conversation took place, which tangentially was work related. When the conversation ended, my client walked into the kitchen and, after a time, touched his phone and pocket-dialed his boss.

"The boss determined my client was not talking to him but listened for about 12 and a half minutes," Guldenschuh said. "James and his wife spoke about the phone call he just had with his boss. Mrs. Stevens made some unflattering comments about his boss which the boss took negatively. So the boss ended up firing my client."...

It was shortly after that that Stephens decided to sue his ex-boss for eavesdropping and invading his privacy. more

School Super Suspended over Eavesdropping on Testimony Against Him

MI - The superintendent of Hale Area Schools (HAS) is facing one felony count of eavesdropping, which is punishable by up to two years of incarceration and/or fines of $2,000...

...the HAS Board of Education placed Vannest on paid administrative leave, following allegations that he had recorded a closed session meeting of the board in a manner contrary to Michigan law.

...a formal complaint had been filed against Vannest by the parent of a student.

...the recording begins as the meeting is called into a closed session. None of the recording takes place during the “open” portion of the meeting.

Vannest’s phone was allegedly left in the room, recording the testimony of witnesses and board members’ questions to those witnesses.

The statement in support reads that it is believed that Vannest intentionally left the device in the room to record/eavesdrop on the conversation and testimony of the witnesses and teachers who were called in for the complaint filed against him.

When police interviewed Vannest, he allegedly stated that he felt the recording was gathered by himself in error. more

Senators Demand More Information About DC Mobile Snooping Devices

A bipartisan group of four Senate privacy hawks are demanding the Department of Homeland Security publish more information about the evidence of mobile snooping devices in Washington and surrounding areas.

"The American people have a legitimate interest in understanding the extent to which US telephone networks are vulnerable to surveillance and are being actively exploited by hostile actors," Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, and Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, wrote in a letter Wednesday to Christopher Krebs, the top infrastructure and cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security...

"These things have the capability of tracking. So, if you want to pick a person and say, let's see where they go and who they talk to during the day, that might give you just enough intelligence to make some decisions without even doing the eavesdropping," Kevin D. Murray, a counter espionage expert, told CNN in an interview. more

"Did." "Did not."

U.S. and U.K. intelligence agencies said Russian cyberattackers are targeting critical internet infrastructure to spy on Western companies and governments, the latest salvo in a diplomatic crisis that has brought relations between Moscow and the West to their lowest level in decades.

In a rare joint alert, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre said Russian state-sponsored hackers had penetrated devices and software programs world-wide, ranging from routers to switches to firewalls, in order to steal corporate secrets and conduct espionage. more

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NZ - There are signs New Zealand organisations have been directly threatened by Russian state-sponsored hacking, GCSB director-general Andrew Hampton says.

"Attributing cyber incidents to particular countries is something that is carefully considered and is a step not taken lightly," he added. more

Russia denied accusations from the United States and Britain that its agents have planted malware on key components of the internet to spy on rivals, steal trade and potentially launch cyberattacks.

A Kremlin spokesman on Tuesday called the claim unfounded and "feeble." more

A Snitch on the Foreign Spy Website ...what could possibly go wrong?

China has launched a new website that allows citizens to report people they suspect of being foreign spies or separatists.

The Ministry of State Security reporting platform even offers rewards to citizens who report those who are trying to “overthrow the socialist system,” the South China Morning Post reported.

Accessible in both English and Mandarin, the website (www.12339.gov.cn) was launched on April 15 as part of China's National Security Education Day.

The new website details an exhaustive list of offenses that can be reported, including collusion with foreign countries, plotting to “dismember the state” and “fomenting subversion of state power” through “rumor, libel or other ways.” more

USS Pueblo & Crew Remembered 50 Years Later

1968
USS Pueblo (AGER-2) is a Banner-class environmental research ship, attached to Navy intelligence as a spy ship, which was attacked and captured by North Korean forces on 23 January 1968, in what is known today as the "Pueblo incident" or alternatively, as the "Pueblo crisis".

The seizure of the U.S. Navy ship and her 83 crew members, one of whom was killed in the attack, came less than a week after President Lyndon B. Johnson's State of the Union address... The taking of Pueblo and the abuse and torture of her crew during the subsequent 11-month prisoner drama became a major Cold War incident...

Pueblo, still held by North Korea today, officially remains a commissioned vessel of the United States Navy. Since early 2013, the ship has been moored along the Potong River in Pyongyang, and used there as a museum ship at the Pyongyang Victorious War Museum. Pueblo is the only ship of the U.S. Navy still on the commissioned roster currently being held captive. more

2018
PA - Fifty years ago, Frank Ginther of Bethlehem was one of scores of American sailors held captive for nearly a year after their ship, the USS Pueblo, was attacked and seized by North Korea. 

Ginther and 81 shipmates — one other in the crew of 83 died in the attack — survived months of interrogations and beatings. They were finally released after the U.S. agreed to sign a false statement saying the ship had illegally entered North Korean waters...

Today, Ginther, 74, is struggling to recover from brain surgery he underwent shortly before Thanksgiving. He is unable to speak, is being fed through a tube and requires around-the-clock care, according to a friend who is trying to raise money to help Ginther’s wife with expenses. more 

A Law to Allow Parents to Eavesdrop on their Kids

"Next bill on the floor, MI-342, The School Days Hickory Switch Act."

MI - In a 105-3 vote, lawmakers passed the bill that adds parental exemptions to Michigan’s eavesdropping prohibition. Eavesdropping is defined as overhearing, recording, amplifying or transmitting conversations intended to be private.

Under current Michigan law, snooping on a child’s phone could lead to a felony sentencing of up to two years of imprisonment.

Supporters say parents should be allowed to monitor their children’s conversations until they turn 18 to best protect them. The bill would not allow parents to monitor such conversations with the child’s attorney, a custody investigator or, if there’s a reasonable fear of danger, the other parent.

The bill now heads to the Senate. more

Business Espionage: RadRAT Hid Behind Windows... for 3 years!

Bucharest-headquartered cybersecurity company Bitdefender has flushed out "RadRAT", a powerful all-in-one toolkit for complex espionage ops that was apparently unnoticed since 2015.

This advanced remote access tool -- which offers full control over seized computers was operating since at least 2015, the company said in a statement.

The tool has been used in targeted attacks aimed at exfiltrating information, or monitoring victims in enterprises or large businesses running Windows. more

Listening In: Cybersecurity in an Insecure Age (book)

A compelling case for the need to secure our data, explaining how we must maintain cybersecurity in an insecure age.

Tufts University professor Susan Landau has a long and distinguished background in computer security and policy that includes several books on wiretapping and surveillance...

In Listening In: Cybersecurity in an Insecure Age, Landau considers the changing world in which law enforcement must operate with exceptional clarity. She begins with a brief history of cybersecurity. The first known cyberattack was in 1986, when Clifford Stoll began trying to understand a 75-cent discrepancy in computer time; he told the story in detail in his book The Cuckoo's Egg.

The next, and the first proper internet attack -- although it wasn't really intended as such -- was the 1988 Internet Worm. Despite these early warnings, Landau writes, quoting from a US government report, "security lost to convenience in the 1980s. And then it kept on losing". It wasn't until 2008 that cyber-threats began to be taken seriously. more

The Latest Office Surveillance Devices ...with 2-digit price tags

Three good reasons 
for periodic professional 
bug sweeps of your offices.

This spy recorder boasts one of the highest bit rates on the market today; crystal clear CD quality recording.

VOICE ACTIVATED - Set the device where you want it, and then forget it. It'll turn on the next time it hears sound thanks to it's voice-activation feature. When the sound stops, the covert audio recorder goes into a sleep mode to save battery life and disk space - A Complete Audio Listening / Recording Device.

PROFESSIONAL GRADE FEATURES - Date and Time Stamp | 94 Hours Recording Capacity | Long Lasting Listening "Bugging" Device / "Spy Bug" | 15 Hour Battery | Capable of recording while plugged in for charging provides unlimited covert recording of rooms offices etc.


Spy Mini USB Cable Digital Voice Recorder looks just like a USB Cable.

Also works as a regular USB Charge Cable for Android or Apple.

The spy voice recorder offers a long play recording mode.

Memory: Support Up to 32GB (Micro SD Card not Included)

Recording time:
4GB Recording up to 48 hours
8GB Recording up to 96 hours
16GB Recording up to 192 hours
32GB Recording up to 384 hours


Micro hidden camera records video in exceptional 1920X1080P HD at 30 frames per second!

✔ [SUPER MINI METAL COMPACT SMALL CAMERA] - The portable hidden nanny cam is (only) 25*25*20mm／1.0*1.0*0.8in, Finger size! It's great for recording sneaky pictures and videos without attracting attention.

✔ [EASY TO USE - Just insert the T-Flash card] (free 8GB Sandisk Included) and start recording. Use at the office, home surveillance, store, trolley, baby monitor, your pocket or on your collar with the clip provided.

✔ [MOTION DETECTION SPY CAMERA] - When motion detector mode is activated, it will record any moving objects within 3 meters of its sight. Enhanced night vision with 4pcs IR led lights for crisp display in low light conditions.

more

A Tale of Corporate Espionage in Silicon Valley

...The computer that was funneling information, therefore, didn’t register on the roster of machines controlled and owned by the I.T. department. This left the security team with one definitively old-school option: they literally followed the wire that ran from the server to the rogue computer.

One by one, they plucked up the tiles in the server room, followed the Cat-5 cable as it swam alongside hundreds of other cables, inside the walls, past yellow and white power wires, and through the labyrinthine office, until they found themselves at the end of the cord, which terminated inside a small closet. There, seated behind a laptop, was a young Chinese woman.

The security specialists searched her personal computer and immediately discovered more than 30 pieces of malware that were funneling information out of the servers and back to dozens of computers in China....

Spies and corporate espionage are a fixture of Silicon Valley. Employees at companies from Twitter to SpaceX have privately told me they suspect spooks work within their walls, stealing corporate secrets, plans for new technologies, or entire servers full of code to replicate back home...

The C.E.O. of one of the big tech companies in Silicon Valley once confided in me that not only was there “no question” that Russian and Chinese agents worked at the company, but that it was impossible to know who they were or prove that they were indeed foreign agents. more

Thumbs Down, or How to Delete Your Facebook Account Permanently

Presented as a service to our privacy conscious readers and clients...

If you are looking for how to delete your Facebook account permanently or deleting anything from your Facebook account here is a 2018 guide.

Facebook has remained the primary and most commonly used social networking platform for users across the world. At the same time, the social network giant has been in the news lately amid Cambridge Analytica scandal and for archiving personal data of users including call and text logs of its Android app users.

But, the fact is that unauthorized use of user content like posts, messages, pictures, and videos by Facebook is nothing new. However, it is a relatively new revelation that even the content that we believe is removed is actually not permanently deleted. So, what can be done in this situation? more