Business Espionage: HTC - Cell Phone Company Takes a Hit

Taiwan -- Investigators stormed into HTC yesterday to investigate some of the company's design staff, who are suspected of stealing trade secrets and defrauding HTC of nearly NT$10 million.

Ironic HTC homepage.

HTC accused three of its senior design professionals of fraud. The suspects were alleged to have set up new businesses on their own. Investigators started interrogating the suspects and searching their homes and offices yesterday afternoon.

The Bureau of Investigations said that it had received a complaint from HTC saying that three senior employees in the design development department were suspected of designing cellphone cases and lying about it being contract work. The suspects allegedly conspired with a manufacturer to issue fake invoices amounting to nearly NT$10 million for performing design work. Upon receiving the money from HTC, the manufacturer allegedly transferred it to the suspects. (more)

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The Newest Eavesdropping Gadget for PIs and Spies - Also a Security & Safety Tool

When people around you put on headphones or earbuds you begin to speak freely. Big mistake. You may have been lulled into a false sense of security by an eavesdropper using The Fuser. 
"The Fuser increases your awareness of the natural sounds around you using its built-in microphone to “mix” the music in your headphones with the outside world, allowing you to enjoy your music while still hearing yourself and others around you talk, laugh, work, play.*
 
Listen to music at work and still engage with co-workers. Take a road trip and not ignore others in the car. Relax at the beach with your music and still hear the waves crash… The possibilities are endless. (Oh, and by the way) *Fuser can also be used without a music device as a powerful hearing aid." (more)

P.S. This is also an excellent safety device for when you are walking, jogging, bicycling, or in any other situation where you need to be alert to your surroundings.

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Industrialists Hit by Cyber Espionage

India - Cyber espionage, the practice of spying to obtain secret information like proprietary or classified details, confidential sales data, turnover, clients' contacts, diplomatic reports and records of military or political nature, have hit city industrialists.

"Cyber espionage is the new trend of cyber crime that is threatening mid-scale and small-scale industries in Ludhiana. Here one could target his business competitors or simply steal other company's details to sell it further in the market. Ludhiana offers them a ready-made market as many start-ups and small scale companies are operational here," said Tanmay Sinha, a cyber expert and an entrepreneur based in Ludhiana.

"In most of the instances, cyber espionage attempts benefit the attacker as these attacks are not random but are well-planned and targeted towards one group. Moreover, these are done by the criminals after studying the history of the target," he added.

Ludhiana police cyber cell has received more than 10 complaints of cyber espionage in the last two months. (more)

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Smartphone Spy Lens

Why mention this?
Our PI friends need to know, and so you will know what you're up against.

"The Smartphone Spy Lens is a tiny gizmo you attach to your phone to take photos at a 90° angle. You can slyly hold your phone in texting position, while photoing straight ahead!

Periscope around a corner. Snap candid shots of your camera-shy kids. Take a photo of your dinner plate without having to climb up on the table.

Its high quality glass and mirrored interior ensures no photo quality is lost. Attach the included metal ring around your phone's lens and the Spy Lens magnetizes securely onto it.



Since it twists 360° you'll have all the advantages of a camera with a swivel screen. Hold it high and still see what you're shooting. Hold it low without dropping into an army crawl to set your focus.

With the Spy Lens in place you can lay your phone down and still shoot straight ahead. Turning any surface into an impromptu tripod for self ports, group pix and steady videoing." (more)

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Family doctor who used £60 spycam watch...

UK -  ...to film intimate examinations of hundreds of women is banned from profession...

When Bains was arrested at his surgery in Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, officers discovered 361 video clips filmed on the watch - some as long as 45 minutes.

Around 3,000 potential victims were contacted but the exact number is thought to be ‘close to 300’ - aged between 14 and 51.
A Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service banned Bains from practicing.

The tribunal in Manchester was told that his conviction earlier this year means that his fitness to practice is impaired, and he should be struck off.

In March, Bains appeared at Swindon Crown Court where he admitted 39 counts of sexual assault and voyeurism and asked for a further 65 offences to be taken into consideration.

He is serving a 12 year prison sentence and is not represented at the hearing. (more)

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The red phone that was NOT on the Hotline

Today, it's exactly 50 years ago that the famous Washington-Moscow Hotline became operational. Allthough this link has always been for written communications only, many people think there are red telephones on the Hotline, as this is often depicted in popular culture.

One wide-spread image is from the article about the Hotline on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. It shows a non-dial red telephone which is on display in the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum in Atlanta, Georgia:

(photo uploaded to Wikimedia by user Piotrus under CC-BY-SA)

Much of the confusion about the real purpose of this phone was due to the fact that in this picture, the text on the plate below the phone wasn't readable. But now, upon request of this weblog, the curator of the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum kindly provided the text, which reads as follows:

RED PHONE
During Jimmy Carter’s presidency, the “red phone” was a hotline to the Kremlin in Moscow. A U.S. president could pick up the phone and speak directly to Soviet leaders in times of crisis.
Reproduction

The text is about a red phone used for the Hotline, but more important is the fact that the telephone which is on display, is just a reproduction. This is also confirmed by the curator, who said that this phone is a prop that the exhibition designer wanted to use.


Now it's clear that the actual red phone in the picture was never used on the Hotline between Washington and Moscow, nor on any other secure telephone network (allthough red phone sets were regularly used for predecessors of the Defense Red Switch Network, which is the main secure voice network of the US military).

The picture on Wikipedia shows just an ordinary phone set, like the ones that are quite commonly used for emergency telephone lines of any kind which don't require a dialing capability. Probably because the designer of the exhibition at the Jimmy Carter Museum also thought there were red telephones on the Hotline, such a common phone set was used to represent this.

For people visiting the museum it must have looked like a confirmation of their idea of the red phone hotline. When someone uploaded a picture of this phone to Wikipedia in March 2011, it soon found its way to articles about the Washington-Moscow Hotline in eleven languages, most of them erroneously saying the Hotline also having a voice capability. It was only after research done for this weblog, which resulted in an extensive article about the Hotline last year, that some of the Wikipedia articles were corrected.

What the Washington-Moscow Hotline looks nowadays: the terminal room
at the Pentagon showing the secure computer link equipment
(photo: www.army.mil, 2013)

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Researchers Grow Human Brains in a Lab

A team at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences has succeeded in growing miniature human brains...
The team, led by Dr. Jürgen Knoblich, started by analyzing human stem cells – a cell type that has the capacity to change into any other type of cell found in the body. Specifically, the scientists were interested in discovering what growth conditions are required for such cells to differentiate into various types of brain tissue cells.

Once those conditions had been identified, stem cells were used to create neuroectoderm, a layer of cells which is the “starting material” from which all components of the nervous system (including the brain) are derived...

After spending 15 to 20 days in the reactor, the neuroectoderm fragments had formed into a piece of continuous brain tissue, known as a cerebral organoid. (more)

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