Book - The Secret World: A History of Intelligence

via By Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker
The history of espionage is a lesson in paradox: the better your intelligence, the dumber your conduct; the more you know, the less you anticipate.

Is intelligence intelligent? This is the question that runs or, rather, leaps through the mind of the reader struggling with Christopher Andrew’s encyclopedic work “The Secret World: A History of Intelligence” (Yale).

Andrew, who is a longtime history don at Cambridge, begins his book...with one of the most appealing opening lines in recent nonfiction: “The first major figure in world literature to emphasize the importance of good intelligence was God.”

The Israelites’ reconnaissance mission to the promised land of Canaan is the first stop in Andrew’s tour of four thousand years of spying; the last is the American failure to anticipate 9/11.

For anyone with a taste for wide-ranging and shrewdly gossipy history—or, for that matter, for anyone with a taste for spy stories—Andrew’s is one of the most entertaining books of the past few years. more

'Complete Control' Hack Allows Audio / Video Spying and More

All Windows users should update immediately as ‘Complete Control’ hack is confirmed.

In case you were underestimating the tool, it can allow a hacker to remoting shutdown or reboot the system, remotely browse files, access and control the Task Manager, Registry Editor, and even the mouse.

Not only that, but the attacker can also open web pages, disable the webcam activity light to spy on the victim unnoticed and capture audio and video.

Since the attacker has full access to the computer, they can also recover passwords and obtain login credentials using a keylogger as well as lock the computer with custom encryption that can act like ransomware. more

Whistle-Blower Charged with Industrial Espionage, or No Good Deed Goes...

A whistle-blower responsible for uncovering one of the biggest cases of tax avoidance in Germany is now prosecuted by Swiss authorities for industrial espionage...

Echart Seith is a lawyer that contributed to uncovering a Swiss bank mechanism that deprived German taxpayer of €12bn...

The 61-year old Seith has now been charged with industrial espionage and his case goes to trial on March 26. If found guilty, he is facing three-and-a-half years in prison. His testimony closed the tax loophole exploited by the Swiss banking industry in 2011...

The question at hand is how Seith got internal bank documents that allowed him to make the case against the Swiss banking system. more

How Music Has Made Auditory Surveillance Possible

An interesting article on the history of electronic eavesdropping...
For as long as we’ve been able to transmit sound through the ether, it seems, someone has been listening in... more

FutureWatch: Eavesdropping on REALLY Tiny Sounds

Researchers have developed a microphone so sensitive it’s capable of picking up individual particles of sound.

OK, we knew light has particles, and gravity has particles. Now even sound has particles? Well, not quite. A phonon is what’s called a quasiparticle — basically, an emergent phenomenon that occurs when a microscopically complicated system behaves as if it were a particle...

 The quantum microphone consists of a series of supercooled nanomechanical resonators, so small that they are visible only through an electron microscope.

The resonators are connected to a superconducting circuit which contains electron pairs that move around without resistance. The circuit forms a qubit — a system that can exist in two states at once and has a natural frequency, which can be read electronically. more

Spycam Man Gets Life +150 Years — Skips on Castration

A workman accused of hiding cameras in several homes to spy on young girls was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison plus nearly 150 years by a judge who said she would have him castrated if the law allowed.

"We're here because of the choices that you and you alone made," Oklahoma County District Judge Amy Palumbo told Ryan Aaron Alden. "The devastation that you caused these families may never be known."

Alden, 39, of The Village, pleaded guilty in June to 28 felonies that included aggravated possession of obscene material involving minors, manufacturing child pornography and using video equipment in a clandestine manner.

Prosecutors alleged that Alden placed hidden cameras in the ceiling vents of four homes in Edmond, Nichols Hills and Oklahoma City. He reportedly placed the cameras in the bedrooms, bathrooms and closets of the homes while performing electrical work.

Alden was also accused of taking clandestine photos of girls in numerous public places, including gyms, schools, stores, mall changing rooms and a high school football game. more

Fighting Corporate Espionage — by a Counterintelligence Agent

Corporate executives must bear the responsibility... No longer is “Security” to the facility and personnel all that is required. Many foreign countries and interests take short cuts to becoming competitive through the theft of trade secrets, products and overt and covert espionage of all sorts...

Many of the tactics utilized in private sector counterintelligence have much in common with the secrets and information the government does its best to safeguard from theft... 

 There are open and legal methods of collection open that are harmful and a good counterintelligence program should target this as well as illegal activities such as electronic eavesdropping, hacking, etc.

Passive counterintelligence tries to curtail what a collector may do through countermeasures, and awareness training. Active counterintelligence will prove beneficial to identify and detect a threat, and will conduct operations including eliminating threats or ongoing targeting... The leaders in the private sector need to be proactive and realize that it is no longer only local threats they face. The threats can be global and may not only be an economic threat but also a threat to national security. more

The O.MG Cable™ — The Smartphone Electro-Leach

via Blue Blaze irregular C.G.

The O.MG Cable™ is the result of months of work that has resulted in a highly covert malicious USB cable. As soon as the cable is plugged in, it can be controlled through the wireless network interface that lives inside the cable.

 

The O.MG Cable allows new payloads to be created, saved, and transmitted entirely remotely. 

 

The cable is built with Red Teams in mind with features like additional boot payloads, no USB enumeration until payload execution, and the ability to forensically erase the firmware, which causes the cable to fall entirely back to an innocuous state. And these are just the features that have been revealed so far. more 

 

Their other "interesting" products of which you should be aware.

Wiretap Found at Office of Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine

Nazar Kholodnytsky

The Head of the SAPO* claimed a “device similar to a tapping device has been found”, adding that he did not know whom it belonged to...

Ukrainska Pravda wrote that the “bugs” had been planted on the acquiarium (sic) in Kholodnytsky’s office and reminded of rumors regarding the possible voluntary resignation “due to health reasons”.

Ukrainski Novyny, citing sources in the Prosecutor General’s Office, said that Kholodnytsky may be detained and arrested as the result of “the wiretapping case”.

Reacting to the resignation rumors, the SAPO head encouraged “not to count on it.” more

Extra Credit: Ukraine's Security Service denies allegations of wiretapping presidential candidates. more

*Ukraine's Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office

How to Drive Artificial Intelligence Surveillance Cameras Nuts

In order to deceive surveillance cameras, a fashion designer and hacker has developed a new clothing line that allows people camouflage themselves as a car in the recordings.

The garments are also covered with license plate images that trigger automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, to inject junk data into systems used to monitor and track civilians. more

Phone Phreaking - The Next Frontier - Elevator Eavesdropping

Next time you’re in an elevator, be advised that someone – besides building security and fellow elevator riders – might be listening.

 

A recent Wired article exposed the hidden world of elevator phreaking. By calling an unsecured elevator phone, a third party can expose a person, and potentially an enterprise, to a major security and privacy risk. 

 

Since elevator phones don’t require anyone to pick up the phone to open the circuit, a third party can make a call and be connected – allowing them to eavesdrop on conversations happening inside the elevator. 

 

Given the competitive nature of industries like banking and technology, it isn’t completely unthinkable for a hacker to eavesdrop this way. more

I know of a hotel in Miami which has bugged elevator—the one nearest the Boardroom; located on the Conference Floor level.

But, if bugged elevators aren't freaky enough, eavesdrop on elevators that talk! ~Kevin

Eye Spy

Spectacles are a camera that you wear on your face. Tap a record button near the temple, and they capture video in intervals of 10 seconds, which automatically uploads to the Snapchat app. The first two generations of the sunglasses, released in 2016 and 2018 respectively, were bulky, plastic, and multicolored—almost toylike.

Spectacles 3, to be released later this fall, are a much more appealing species. Sleeker, slimmer, and made in lightweight stainless steel, they signal the company’s move into elevated design. The style—exaggerated round lenses with a brow bar across the top—comes in just two minimal hues: matte black (the Carbon) and rose gold (the Mineral). more

The Peregrination of a Childhood Promise

Finally, another childhood fantasy becomes reality. Hard on the heals of wall screen TVs; Dick Tracy's wrist radio.

• The now iconic 2-way wrist radio premiered in 1946 and was replaced with a 2-way wrist TV in 1964.
• 1952 prototype wrist radio.
• 1960's wrist radio.
• Apple watch Walkie-Talkie.
• FutureWatch: A "Real" Dick Tracy wrist radio watch. (Bluetooth)
• Wrist radios on ebay.
• Wrist radios on Amazon.
• In June of 1954, the radio was upgraded to increase the range from 500 miles to 1,000 miles, then again in 1956 to 2,500 miles. 

Chester Gould’s idea of Tracy wearing something like this on his wrist in the comic strip was actually turned down by his employer because it was thought to be too much of a cheat, so-to-speak, an easy way out for the detective who had been written into a scene where he was held captive with no possible way of escaping from the criminals.

It was then that Gould decided to call an inventor he had met, Al Gross (pictured above).

Al Gross was a man way ahead of his time with inventions such as the walkie-talkie. When Gross was just 16 years old, he already had an amateur radio operator's license and had built a ham radio going on to invent the first telephone pager in 1949.

When Gould stopped by, Al Gross had just recently invented a two-way radio that people could wear on their wrists, just like a watch. Gould asked Gross if he could use his idea and that’s where Dick Tracy’s wrist watch radio came into being. Gould was so appreciative that as a Thank You, he gave Gross the first four panels of the cartoon where Tracy is seen wearing and using the soon-to-be infamous gadget. The device proved to be the exact answer for Dick Tracy to rescue himself from the seemingly impossible situation.

Still on my list...
  UPDATE - 8/27/19
Apple reportedly kills project to turn iPhone into 'walkie talkie'
Damn!

Ultrasound Talk Gives a Whole New Meaning to Defcon

Researchers have long known that commercial speakers are also physically able to emit frequencies outside of audible range for humans. At the Defcon security conference in Las Vegas on Sunday, one researcher is warning that this capability has the potential to be weaponized...

Matt Wixey, cybersecurity research lead at the technology consulting firm PWC UK, says that it’s surprisingly easy to write custom malware that can induce all sorts of embedded speakers to emit inaudible frequencies at high intensity, or blast out audible sounds at high volume.

Those aural barrages can potentially harm human hearing, cause tinnitus, or even possibly have psychological effects.

And while it is still unclear whether acoustic weapons played a role in the attack on United States diplomats in Cuba, there are certainly other devices that intentionally use loud or intense acoustic emanations as a deterrent weapon... more

Tesla Mod Creates a Mobile Surveillance Station - Possible Bad News for PIs on Surveillance

At the Defcon hacker conference today, security researcher Truman Kain debuted what he calls the Surveillance Detection Scout. The DIY computer fits into the middle console of a Tesla Model S or Model 3, plugs into its dashboard USB port, and turns the car's built-in cameras—the same dash and rearview cameras providing a 360-degree view used for Tesla's Autopilot and Sentry features—into a system that spots, tracks, and stores license plates and faces over time.

The tool uses open source image recognition software to automatically put an alert on the Tesla's display and the user's phone if it repeatedly sees the same license plate. When the car is parked, it can track nearby faces to see which ones repeatedly appear.

Kain says the intent is to offer a warning that someone might be preparing to steal the car, tamper with it, or break into the driver's nearby home. more