The Smartphone Turns 20

The First SmartphoneClick to enlarge.IBM debuted a prototype device, code named "Angler," on November, 23, 1992 at the COMDEX computer and technology trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States... BellSouth executives gave the finished product its final name, "Simon Personal Communicator", before its public debut at the Wireless World Conference in November, 1993... In addition to its ability to make and receive cellular phone calls, Simon was...

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Security Alert: Patch Your Samsung Printers

Samsung printers contain a hardcoded backdoor account that could allow remote network access exploitation and device control via SNMP. (Yes, your print job may be stolen before the paper hits the tray.) Details of the exploit have been published... Samsung has stated that models released after October 31, 2012 are not affected by this vulnerability. Samsung has also indicated that they will be releasing a patch tool later this year to address vulnerable devices. (mo...

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Everything You Need to Know About Shredding Sensitive Waste Paper

Scraps of seemingly useless information tossed in the trash may be synergistically related. Analysis can reveal the big picture to outsiders. Reducing the availability of these puzzle parts is an important counterespionage responsibility. Stealing trash is believed to be the number one business espionage trick. Shredding Checklist Encourage the destruction of all waste paper as soon as it becomes waste. Make a deskside crosscut shredder your...

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Police Strip Cut Shreds Used as Parade Confetti

Ethan Finkelstein, was at the NYC Thanksgiving Day Parade and noticed something weird about the confetti... "and it says 'SSN' and it's written like a social security number, and we're like, 'That's really bizarre.'"There are phone numbers, addresses, more social security numbers, license plate numbers and then we find all these incident reports from police."One confetti strip indicates that it's from an arrest record, and other strips offer...

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TSCM Bug Sweeps: When, and When Not To - Part I

The following provides advice specifically meant for: Private Investigators, Security Directors, Security Consultants and TSCM professionals.Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM), or bug sweep, is an analysis of an area to detect illegal covert electronic surveillance. In addition to listening devices, sweeps also take into account optical, data, and GPS tracking devices.  A typical case involving a private individual......

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Spying Accusations Stoke America's Cup Rivalries

Spying is set to spark new battle lines in the America’s Cup as tempers fray on Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf. At odds are the €90m Italian team Luna Rossa, backed by the Prada luxury goods house, and the San Francisco-based, Lord knows how many millions Oracle team, holders of the cup and backed by computer software billionaire Larry Ellison.Spying has been going on forever as rival teams assess the performance of their competitors – if Oracle is...

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Is Your Cell Phone Protected by the 4th Amendment?

Judges and lawmakers across the country are wrangling over whether and when law enforcement authorities can peer into suspects’ cellphones, and the cornucopia of evidence they provide.A Rhode Island judge threw out cellphone evidence that led to a man being charged with the murder of a 6-year-old boy, saying the police needed a search warrant. A court in Washington compared text messages to voice mail messages that can be overheard by anyone in a...

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Mannequin Spies - Will Dummy Shoppers Revolt?

An Italian firm selling mannequins that secretly monitor the age, race and gender of customers using facial recognition software has come under fire from privacy groups. The information logged by the dummies is then used to implement more effective marketing strategies by stores in the US and Europe.And the manufacturer now plans to add audio recording to the dummies' capabilities, listening in on customers' discussions about their clients' products.Click...

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Bilateral Hotlines Worldwide

(Updated: June 14, 2013)In a previous article we discussed the Washington-Moscow Hotline, being the most famous bilateral hotline. It was soon followed by direct communication links between a number of other countries with nuclear capabilities. In general these hotlines started as teletype connection, being upgraded with facsimile units in the eighties and were eventually turned into dedicated secure computer networks. An exception is the hotline...

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Patent Wars - VoIP Wiretaps

After Microsoft acquired Skype, we looked at a Microsoft patent called "Legal Intercept" meant for monitoring and recording VoIP communications. At that time, there were questions about if Microsoft would ruin Skype by making a backdoor for easy spy and pry government and law enforcement access. But a California-based company called VoIP-Pal already had such a surveillance patent that is meant to "allow government agencies to 'silently record' VoIP communications." The Microsoft patent was filed in December 2009, but a company called Digifonica...

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Spy College... for your 21st Century careers

At the University of Tulsa school, students learn to write computer viruses, hack digital networks and mine data from broken cellphones. Many graduates head to the CIA or NSA.Stalking is part of the curriculum in the Cyber Corps, an unusual two-year program at the University of Tulsa that teaches students how to spy in cyberspace, the latest frontier in espionage.Students learn not only how to rifle through trash, sneak a tracking device on cars...

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From our "Persistence is Futile" file...

Top code-breakers at one of Britain's intelligence agencies, the GCHQ, say they have failed to decipher a message found attached to the leg of a dead Second World War pigeon. (more)Can YOU crack the code?RE HHAT VM RIYNZ LXJT MJRBTXANGive up? Crack it here. Your code number is 19...

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Student Balks at Stalk (Psst. Just make the tags more stylish.)

A court challenge has delayed plans to expel a Texan student for refusing to wear a radio tag that tracked her movements.Style is everything in high school.*Religious reasons led Andrea Hernandez to stop wearing the tag that revealed where she was on her school campus. The tags were introduced to track students and help tighten control of school funding. A Texan court has granted a restraining order filed by a civil rights group pending a hearing...

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Holiday Shopping Safety Infographic

Click to enlarge.Click to enlar...

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Defending Privacy at the U.S. Border: A Guide for Travelers Carrying Digital Devices

Thanks to protections enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, the government generally can’t snoop through your laptop for no reason. But those privacy protections don’t safeguard travelers at the U.S. border, where the U.S. government can take an electronic device, search through all the files, and keep it for a while for further scrutiny – without any suspicion of wrongdoing whatsoever. (more) (pdf gui...

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The Wall Street Wiretap Sword Of Damocles

Mark Pomerantz, a former federal prosecutor, says the government wants everybody on Wall Street to believe all their conversations are being taped.Pomerantz tells MarketWatch that the perception of wiretaps being employed in a widespread way is great for deterrence. However, he said he didn’t think they were being employed extensively by federal prosecutors. (mo...

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Researchers Find iOS is Rich Target for Spying Software

Takeaway: The popularity of Apple devices makes them a prime target for spying programs, malware, and simple thievery.According to a report in TechWeek Europe, researchers have found that spying programs like SpyEra, SpyBubble and StealthGenie are used by attackers much more heavily on devices running iOS. In two samplings of infected devices, Israeli mobile security company Lacoon found that significantly more iOS devices were being targeted over...

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Cyber Espionage Infographic

Click or download to enlarge.Infographic courtesy F-Sec...

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Commander Petraeus' phones

Last week, David Petraeus resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), after admitting he had an extramarital affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell. This led to many news reports and also many pictures on the internet.Some of them give a nice look at the telecommunications equipment which general Petraeus used when, from July 2010 to July 2011, he was commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul,...

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City Hall Fingered for Eavesdropping - Claims 'Inadvertance'

Chicago City Hall officials violated Illinois' strict eavesdropping law when they ‘inadvertently’ recorded conversations with Chicago Tribune reporters without their consent.The Tribune sent the city a letter Friday demanding that officials stop secretly recording conversations with reporters. The newspaper also requested copies of the recorded conversations. “This failure was due to inadvertence – not some practice or plan to record interviews without...

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What the Well Dressed Spy Wants for Christmas

Upon first glance, it appears to be a standard pair of cuff links.However, a covert, hidden handcuff key has been engineered in to the design. This concealed hand cuff key will to open almost all Standard Hand cuffs. It’s also designed to hold your French Cuffs closed. A must have for any international SPY or the average citizen looking for some styling carbon fiber inlaid cuff links that happen to open hand cuffs. *WARNING: The use of this product...

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Scientific Breakthrough Gives Paranoids Another Thing to Worry About

Click to enlarge.A tiny ear-powered device extracts energy from an ear and transmits information wirelessly to a nearby radio. (mo...

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2012 China Report Released... no surprises.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission was created by Congress to report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China. "This Report conveys our findings from the past year, along with providing recommendations to Congress about how best to respond to some of the problems we have identified." 2012 REPORT TO CONGRESS Excerpts:"Travelers...

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This Week in Spy News

The chairman of Stow College in Glasgow has resigned after a row over a recorded conversation on a device branded a "spy-pen". (more) Outdated laws have created loopholes that allow government and law enforcement agencies to request information and conduct electronic surveillance without warrants. The piece of legislation at the heart of the issue is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, passed in 1986. (more) Ex-British spy, turning...

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Email Security - The Petraeus Case

...via Zack WhittakerThere's no such thing as a truly 'anonymous' email account, and no matter how much you try to encrypt the contents of the email you are sending, little fragments of data are attached by email servers and messaging companies. It's how email works and it's entirely unavoidable...which first led the FBI on a path that led up to the very door of Petraeus' office door in Langley, Virginia.Ultimately, only Google had access to the...

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Watergate's Next Watergate

A history professor hopes that a federal court's recent order to release long-sealed Watergate documents will shed light on the motivations behind the infamous 1972 scandal and help set an example for how to unseal court records.Federal District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, D.C., on Friday ordered the National Archives and Records Administration to review and release some of the documents within a month. The order came in response to Texas...

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Get Alerts from your Local Police & 5,000 other Public Safety Agencies

One thing Hurricane Sandy taught us was truth beats rumors. Sign up for the truth... "This service, NIXLE, delivers trustworthy and important neighborhood level public safety and community event notifications instantly sent to you by cell phone text message, email and web. There is NO spam or advertising and the service is available at no cost. Register at www.nixle.com. This service is simple to use, reliable and trusted. Stay connected...

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More iPhone Security Tips

Important Points• iPhone / iPad / iPod muggings are common.• Reduce risk...-- Minimize usage while in very public places.-- Use iOS's security features...---- for tracking a stolen device and remote wiping of data.---- for preventing thieves from: turning off tracking, accessing data and accounts.• If theft occurs, go to the police first, not the phone company. -- Police will try to track. -- Carrier will shut off service.• Seal the SIM...

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Government Strength Mobile Spyware

In the secretive world of surveillance technology, he goes just by his initials: MJM. His mystique is such that other security professionals avoid using wireless Internet near him...MJM -- Martin J. Muench -- is the developer of Andover, U.K.-based Gamma Group’s FinFisher intrusion software, which he sells to police and spy agencies around the world for monitoring computers and smartphones to intercept Skype calls, peer through Web cameras and record...

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Meet the Superheroes Fighting for Your Right to Mobile Privacy

Five years into the smartphone era, the threats to user privacy have never been higher.  The complex and mostly unregulated privacy concerns of the mobile ecosystem have driven many users to take their privacy into their own hands, whether that means deleting apps that ask for too much information or turning off location services. However, the fight over mobile privacy is just really starting to take shape. We wanted to get a beat on where that...

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A Salute to Our Native American Code Talkers

George Smith, one of the Navajo code talkers who helped the U.S. military outfox the Japanese during World War II by sending messages in their obscure language, has died, the president of the Navajo Nation said. "This news has saddened me," Ben Shelly, the Navajo president, said in a post Wednesday on his Facebook page. "Our Navajo code talkers have been real life heroes to generations of Navajo people." Smith died Tuesday, Shelly said, and the Navajo...

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Security Quote of the Day

"Protecting classified information depends, today more than ever, on the security awareness of employees. They can literally make or break your security program." NSI, Security NewsWa...

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How to Surf the Web in Secret

via Brad Chacos...They say no one can hear you scream in space, but if you so much as whisper on the Web, you can be tracked by a dozen different organizations and recorded for posterity. Simply visiting a website can allow its operators to figure out your general physical location, identify details about your device information, and install advertising cookies that can track your movements around the web. (Don't believe me?...

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