2013 at the International Spy Museum

What's up at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC next month... New Special Exhibit Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of Bond VillainsMeet Bond’s villains, uncover their evil schemes, and explore their exotic lairs and weapons in this special exhibit. Now open through 2014.Exquisitely Evil Family NightFriday, January 11You are invited for a secret after-hours infiltration of the Museum’s newest exhibition, Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of Bond...

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Predicting Personal Aerial Surveillance – Drone On

Mark Pesce takes a look at drones and tries to predict the future...At the end of March, a new service announced itself to San Franciscans. 'One-click taco delivery' sounded quite reasonable. The perfect lunch food, ordered via smartphone, and couriered to your door while still steaming hot.All perfectly normal - until you got a peek at the delivery vehicle: a 'quadcopter'.A quadcopter looks a bit like a helicopter, but rather than the customary...

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Are They Tracking You? - Government Cell Phone Surveillance

From an article in "For the Defense" Winter 2012 • Volume XVI, Issue 4, New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, by Bill Elliott, Criminal Defense Investigative Specialist — Contact the author for a pdf copy of the full article.With the recent ruling in USA v. Jones mandating that law enforcement will now need probable cause and a warrant prior to attaching a GPS (Global Positioning System) tracking device to someone’s vehicle, most people...

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Turkish PM: Five Electronic Surveillance Devices Found

Turkey - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan revealed that four unauthorized wiretapping devices had been detected in his parliamentary office and government car.A subsequent report from the Office of the Prime Minister on December 25 said that one more device had been found in Mr. Erdoğan’s home-office at this residence in Turkish capital Ankara. (mo...

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See Two App Store Icons on Your Phone? Beware.

New spyware Trojan – Android.DDoS.1.origin – silently takes over your phone. via Dr. Web...Android.DDoS.1.origin creates an application icon, similar to that of Google Play. If the user decides to use the fake icon to access Google Play, (Google Play) will be launched, which significantly reduces the risk of any suspicion.When launched, the Trojan tries to connect to a remote server and, if successful, it transmits the phone number of the...

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Putting Spyware on Daughter's Phone Nets Restraining Order

OH - A university student who accused her mother and father of stalking her after they installed monitoring software on her phone and computer has won a restraining order against them.A US judge ordered David and Julie Ireland to stay at least 150m away from their daughter Aubrey Ireland and have no contact with her at a court hearing in Ohio on December 10. (mo...

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Remember the spy who was found dead in a duffle bag?...

UK - Scotland Yard has concluded that MI6 Codebreaker Gareth Williams probably locked himself inside the duffel bag he was found dead in, sources close to the inquiry tell the Telegraph. Click to enlargePolice re-opened the case after the coroner ruled that a third party had likely been involved—possibly even one of Williams' security service colleagues—but after taking DNA samples and re-interviewing MI6 employees, the detectives "have been...

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Wiretapping Sweeps Over China

Now wiretapping is very popular in China's officialdom, from senior level to the grass-roots, spying equipment is being utilized widely.Officials wiretap each other to find their opponent's secrets, then use it as a bargaining chip to achieve a promotion. In many situations, people can see that the officials embrace each other. In fact, it's an action to check whether the other has a wiretapping device or not.Commentators thought the spy equipment...

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Repeat after me, class, "Emails are postcards."

The Senate has sent legislation to President Obama that strips out an amendment that would have forced law enforcement to obtain warrants before reading the emails of U.S. citizens stored in the cloud. The new measure is a tweak to the Video Privacy Protection Act, which outlaws the disclosure of video-rental information unless given consent by customers. The act was adopted in 1988 after failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's rental history...

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Christmas, and another phone company Pontius Pilate's spyware

Vietnam - Mobile phone subscribers have become worried stiff when hearing that their phone conversations would be tapped at any time, as the software pieces and devices allowing to bug phone calls have been selling everywhere.There are a lot of bug device suppliers. Especially, the ad pieces on supplying tapping software pieces and devices can be found on websites as well. The advertisers affirm that all the latest generation software pieces like...

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KGB: We Bugged Royals (We're shocked.)

Soviet secret agents bugged Princess Margaret’s telephone and ­listened in on the conversations of other senior royals. Listening devices were planted in the Princess’s bedroom during an official trip to Copenhagen in 1964. Until last week the Russians had always denied the ­covert operation... Colonel Vadim Goncharov, the KGB chief in charge of snooping operations on key western targets, installed listening devices in Princess Margaret’s lighter,...

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Three Years of Privacy Stories - Wall Street Journal

Watched: A Wall Street Journal Privacy ReportAs surveillance technologies decline in cost and grow in sophistication, tracking of many aspects of our daily activities, even the seemingly mundane, has become the default rather than the exception. The Wall Street Journal's Watched project—the latest in a years-long series on privacy—explores the impact of ubiquitous surveillance on citizens and society. (more)The End of PrivacyThe age of computing...

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Android Virus Uses Your Phone to Spread Spam

Android smartphone users alert...Spammed text messages have begun circulating that can infect your handset, causing it to continually send virulent text messages to thousands of live phone numbers each day.That discovery comes as hackers continue to probe the Android platform, in particular, for security holes with no slowdown expected in 2013...Messaging security firm Cloudmark Research recently discovered a virulent spam campaign that is sending...

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SpyCam Story #664 - This Month In SpyCam News

SpyCam stories have become commonplace and the techniques used, repetitive. We continue to keep lose track of the subject for statistical purposes, but won't bore you with too many details. Links supplied. "What's up Doc?"VA - Foot doctor hides restroom spycam in box of latex gloves. Employee fingers it.LA - Gynecologist documents work too well. 186 counts of video voyeurism.NY - Urologist arrested for upskirting. CA - Plastic surgeon for celebrities with spycam in dressing room.The Usual Suspects...ID - Nature lover films women...

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Florida Man Convicted in Wiretapping Scheme Targeting Celebrities

A Florida man who hacked into the personal e-mail accounts of more than 50 people associated with the entertainment industry—including actors Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis, and Renee Olstead—was sentenced this afternoon to 120 months in federal prison. Christopher Chaney, 36, of Jacksonville, Florida, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero, who also ordered the defendant to pay $66,179 in restitution. At today’s hearing, Judge Otero said Chaney’s conduct demonstrated a “callous disregard to the victims”—particularly, two non-celebrity...

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Android Malware Among Top Threats for 2013

Security company Trend Micro has prophesied that the number of malicious and insecure Android apps will triple from 350,000 by the end of this year to more than a million.Also among the company's predictions in its "Security Threats to Business, the Digital Lifestyle, and the Cloud" report: Cyber criminals will heavily abuse legitimate cloud services; hacktivist attacks will become more destructive; and the increase in computing platforms and devices...

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FutureWatch: New TSCM Tool on the Far Horizon

A secret agent is racing against time. He knows a bomb is nearby. He rounds a corner, spots a pile of suspicious boxes in the alleyway, and pulls out his cell phone. As he scans it over the packages, their contents appear onscreen. In the nick of time, his handy smartphone application reveals an explosive device, and the agent saves the day.Already in use, but not yet cheap and portable.Sound far-fetched? In fact it is a real possibility, thanks...

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The Bugging Report Too Dangerous to be Released

Australia - The secret police report into the widespread phone-tapping and bugging of over 110 serving and former officers was too "dangerous" to be released, the Inspector of the Police Integrity Commission, David Levine, said yesterday. The reputations of the NSW Police Force and individual officers could be trashed if the report and recommendations by strike force Emblems were made public, the former Supreme Court judge said. (mo...

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" I heard that law enforcement has some sort of scanner that...

...tells them if a car has a large amount of money and then proceed to pull the car over where they eventually confiscate the cash. Is there really a "money scanner" like that?"I get a lot of strange questions. This one was particularly intriguing.AnswerFor now, this appears to be an urban legend. However, developing a technique to do this is on their radar screen..."As U.S. financial institutions continue to improve legislation that reduces...

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Dockworkers Union Alleges Eavesdropping - West Coast Port Strike

APM Terminals has been accused by a California dockworkers union of eavesdropping on workers to gain an edge in contract negotiations. The complaint, filed with the National Labor Relations Board by International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63, said APM "conducted secret surveillance, eavesdropping and snooping and listening in on confidential communications between and among union representatives, shop stewards and members concerning...

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Top 5 Wireless Tips for IT Pros

via Altius IT Information Security...Listed below are the top 5 tips IT professionals should take to enhance wireless network security. 1. Encryption. There are many different types of encryption methods used to secure wireless networks. Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is the oldest and least preferred. Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) is newer and offers better protection. WPA2 is the newest and should be used if possible. Configure Virtual Private...

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UPDATE: From our "Persistence is Futile" file...

A Canadian history buff seems to have cracked a coded World War II message that was found strapped to the leg of a dead carrier pigeon.Click to enlarge.Last month, Englishman David Martin found the bird's bones in his chimney when he was renovating his fireplace in the town of Surrey. Inside a red capsule strapped to the leg of the bird was a message from Sergeant William Stott, who had been deployed behind German lines to observe the enemy's activities....

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Google Funds Spy Technology - Surveillance to the Rescue!

Carter Roberts, president of the The World Wildlife Fund, says on his organization’s site, “We face an unprecedented poaching crisis. The killings are way up. We need solutions that are as sophisticated as the threats we face.”This week, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) announced its receipt of a $5 million grant, courtesy of Google’s Global Impact Awards to test advanced technology in the fight against animal crime. If it works, the new system...

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UPDATE: $50 Hacking Device Opens Millions of Hotel Room Locks

The locks on more than 1 million guestroom doors are in various stages of being repaired, following the revelation this summer that they may be vulnerable to hackers. The New York Marriott Marquis, the biggest hotel in Manhattan, for instance, just completed updating all of its nearly 2,000 door locks. The hotel is one of thousands of properties with guestroom locks manufactured by Onity, a division of United Technologies. An Onity website also shows...

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NCTC Scope "Breathtaking" - "Pre-Cogs" - fiction to fact in 10 years

via The Wall Street Journal...Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime...   The rules now allow the little-known National Counterterrorism Center to examine the government files of U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect them. That is a departure from past practice, which barred the agency...

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2012 - Targeting U.S. Technologies Report Out

Targeting U.S. Technologies: A Trend Analysis of Reporting from Defense Industry", presents DSS' analysis of industry reports submitted in 2011. Although the report is geared for Facility Security Officers at Cleared Defense Contractors (CDC), it is a valuable reference for law enforcement, public and private sector executives and security officials responsible for protecting intellectual property, trade secrets and sensitive corporate information...

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Security Flaw – Samsung Handsets & Tablets

A suspected fault in Samsung's implementation of the Android kernel could result in malicious apps gaining control over user devices... "You should be very afraid of this exploit -- any app can use it to gain root without asking and without any permissions on a vulnerable device," the forum use wrote. "Let's hope for some fixes ASAP."...affected devices include the Samsung Galaxy S2, Samsung Galaxy Note 2, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and...

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

The following provides advice specifically meant for: Private Investigators, Security Directors, Security Consultants and TSCM professionals.What you can do to keep your current business clients espionage-freeTechnical 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...

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Feeb to Fed Xmas Files Secret Flash Sale

On Dec. 20, for the first time in its history, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will open its New York store at 26 Federal Plaza to federal employees for a limited time.Selling a full line of FBI-branded clothing and merchandise—hats, t-shirts, sweatshirts, jackets, patches, pens and coins—the store will only be open a brief four hours, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Some items are priced as low as $2, boasted an email sent earlier this week to federal...

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How to secure your Android phone - 14 Tips

via Gary Sims, Spybusters and SpyWarn...Tip #1 – Never leave your phone laying around where uninvited guests can access it.Tip #2 – Use a lock screen.Tip #3 – Set a PIN to protect purchases on Google Play.Tip #4 – Install a phone location app / security app with an anti-theft component.Tip #5 – Don’t install apps from dodgy third party sites.Tip #6 – Always read the reviews of apps before installing them.Tip #7 – Check the permissions. Does the "game"...

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Bus-ted... Public Buses Quietly Adding Microphones to Record Passenger Conversations

Transit authorities in cities across the country are quietly installing microphone-enabled surveillance systems on public buses that would give them the ability to record and store private conversations, according to documents obtained by a news outlet.The systems are being installed in San Francisco, Baltimore, and other cities with funding from the Department of Homeland Security in some cases, according to the Daily, which obtained copies of contracts,...

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"Get me Bond. I'm ticked at the watchmakers."

Authorities in Switzerland are investigating the theft of sensitive information from the country's Federal Intelligence Service (NDB) that was allegedly carried out by a senior IT technician at the agency. Officials believe that the suspect was upset because his advice on operating the spy agency's data systems was not being taken seriously, and that he decided to retaliate by stealing classified information from the agency's servers. That information...

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Pictures at the NSA's 60th anniversary

Last month, on November 4, 2012, the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States celebrated it's 60th anniversary. The NSA is one of the world's largest intelligence agencies, responsible for gathering foreign signals intelligence and protecting domestic communications.For this diamond anniversary, NSA published a full color illustrated publication (available here in PDF) with an interesting overview of its history. In this booklet there...

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