News copied from other online sources.
Nanny cam catches guilty musician…
Neighbors had been complaining about noise, so the owner set up a nanny cam and their pup was caught in the act.
Spy: The Secret World of Espionage – exhibit opens at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley
The exhibition is on display at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. It was put together through a collaboration between the CIA, FBI, the National Reconnaissance Office and the Foreign Excellent Trenchcoat Society, a Florida-based non-profit operated by author and collector Keith Melton. www.reaganfoundation.org
Article By Gregory J. Wilcox, Los Angeles Daily News
The current flap about the NSA spying on U.S. allies and enemies alike shouldn’t be a big surprise to those familiar with the history of spycraft.
Governments have secretly been listening to and watching each other for decades and now an exhibit opening Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley exposes the tricks of the spy trade.
Visitors to “SPY: The Secret World of Espionage,” will get a look at many devices and documents that had been kept secret for years. It’s the West Coast premiere of the traveling show so there […]
British phone-hacking trial for ex-Rupert Murdoch employees starts
Former News International Chief Executive Rebekah Brooks is one of eight defendants on trial.
Jury selection got under way at London’s Central Criminal Court on Monday in the first trial of the phone-hacking scandal that brought down Rupert Murdoch’s 168-year-old News of the World newspaper and rocked Britain’s political establishment.
Former News International Chief Executive Rebekah Brooks and former News of the World Editor and one-time communications chief for British Prime Minister David Cameron, Andy Coulson, are among the eight defendants in the dock.
The accused – all of whom are former Murdoch employees except for Brooks’ husband, Charles — have denied the charges against them, which range from illegally hacking the cell phone voicemails of celebrities, bribing public officials and covering up evidence.
A second trial involving journalists from The Sun newspaper, which is also owned by Murdoch, is scheduled for next year.
Tussle Over High-Tech Corporate Espionage
By KEVIN KOENINGER, Tues. Oct 22, 2013
Courthouse News Service
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (CN) – A satellite TV software developer claims in court that a competitor used high-tech skullduggery to steal its products and customers and commit “digital crime.” 
Pixsys Technologies sued Agemni LLC in Federal Court, claiming Agemni used a customer’s log-in credentials to access its software hundreds of times in the past year.
Pixsys claims in the lawsuit to be a leading developer of installation and repair software for DISH satellite systems.
The complaint involves a software suite called Dish Operations, which handles “work order management, inventory, payables and receivables, employee recruitment and retention, basic human resources, and business and employee performance and productivity.”
Pixsys claims the configuration of its software is a closely guarded secret, and that access is available only through valid username and password credentials, which are given to […]
Trade Secret requirement: reasonable measures must be taken to protect the secrecy of information
After an eavesdropping incident or any kind of information theft has taken place, it’s not enough just to claim then that proprietary information or trade secrets were lost.You must be able to establish in court not only that the information was considered a secret but also that reasonable measures had been taken to protect the information prior to the incident. Performing regular sweeps or communications security audits will help establish that fact if your case ever needs to go to court. It is the shareholders that require this element of protection. The articles below help point out some of the significance of trade secret protection.
Article from blogs.ParkerPoe.com
TRADE SECRETS CLAIM DISMISSED FOR FAILURE TO PLEAD “REASONABLE MEASURES” ELEMENT
Posted by Eric Welsh on Friday, October 4th
Recently, many of the battles in trade secret litigation in North Carolina have been fought […]
Confronting the Insider Threat
This article from this month’s Security Management magazine (ASIS publication) provides a lot of insight into understanding how people inside your organization could be motivated to betray you. The writer delves into areas such as personality traits, background checks, risk assessment and dealing with terminations.
Confronting the Insider Threat
By Laura Spadanuta
Edward Snowden, who has leaked classified information about intelligence collection activities of the National Security Agency (NSA), reportedly told the South China Morning Post that he sought a job as a contractor at government consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton with a goal: to collect proof about the NSA’s domestic surveillance programs and alert the public to the programs. However, Snowden is not the typical insider threat. Most insiders who later betray their employer’s trust don’t start out with that intent. The change from benign employee to malicious insider can be spurred by anything from home-life stress […]
North Korea’s Overseas Restaurants Used for Espionage and Gaining Hard Currency
Travelling on business? Be careful not only of what you eat, but better be wary where you eat as well. “Another mission of the restaurants is to spy on …travelers who frequent the restaurants. Defectors say waitresses at the eateries are trained in intelligence gathering with an emphasis on prying corporate secrets from business travelers.”
BY: Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon
North Korea’s global network of state-run restaurants, most in China, are dens of espionage and sites of operations involving tens of thousands of overseas North Koreans who send the regime in Pyongyang more than $100 million in hard currency annually, according to U.S. and western intelligence officials.
In Asia alone, the U.S. government has identified 60 restaurants ranging from Nepal to Cambodia to Dandong, China – located along the Yalu River separating China from North Korea.
North Korean […]
Hidden cameras keep on rolling
Discovery of hidden cameras continue to make the news. Here are a few of the latest. While the news media reports on the more sleazy discoveries, they are also popular devices for corporate spies. Most covert video cameras will also record audio making them even more dangerous as eavesdropping devices. Corporate discoveries rarely make the news as they are often dealt with in-house to avoid bad public relations.
1. Police investigating hidden camera at Waukesha swim school
TMJ4 report by Michele Fiore Oct. 4, 2013 – UPDATED: Oct. 4, 2013
WAUKESHA – A part-time swim instructor is accused of setting up a hidden camera and capturing images of his teenage coworkers in a changing room.
34-year-old Michael Coyle appeared in Waukesha County Intake Court Friday in an orange jail jumpsuit. His mother looked on, taking notes, as the attorneys in the room spoke. Coyle did not […]
Bugging in history: Ten years ago, a bugging at the mayor’s office shook Philadelphia
This article looks into the bugging of the office of Philadelphia Mayor John Street, discovered on October 7, 2003, after Street had his own sweep team inspect his office. On the eve of the 2003 mayoral election, an FBI bug was discovered in Mayor John F. Street’s office, unmasking a federal pay-to-play corruption probe of City Hall. The investigation resulted in two dozen convictions, including that of former City Treasurer Corey Kemp, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The article goes into a fair amount of detail including the efforts made by the FBI to get their listening devices installed.
Craig R. McCoy and Mark Fazlollah, Inquirer Staff Writers
Posted: Sunday, October 6, 2013, 2:01 AM
Before it all blew up, the FBI’s bugging of Mayor John F. Street’s City Hall office went off without a hitch.
In a choreographed intrusion, dozens of agents protected the perimeter while the […]
New audio technology could be an interesting way to pass secret messages…
Dr. Ivan Poupyrev is a Principle Research Scientist for Disney Research in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Among other creative projects, he has developed a method for transferring audio through the human body by modulating an electric charge in the body. The audio cannot be heard unless the charged up person touches someone’s ear (or other amplification device). His creation is called Ishin-Denshin, which is a Japanese expression for communicating through an unspoken medium.
Here is a description of Ishin-denshin from Dr. Poupyrev’s web site
Ishin-Den-Shin: Transmitting Sound via Touch
This project explores the use of human body as an analogue sound transmission medium. Called “Ishin-Den-Shin,” a Japanese expression for communicating through an unspoken mutual understanding, i.e. non-verbal communication, the technology turns an audio message into an inaudible signal that is relayed by the human body. When the communicator’s finger slightly rubs an object, this physical interaction creates an ad hoc […]
Eavesdropping, tax evasion snare divorce attorney
SFGate.com by Bob Egelko, Sept 27, 2013
San Francisco. An East Bay divorce lawyer pleaded guilty Friday to planting a secret listening device in the car of a client’s ex-husband, using a private investigator who has admitted setting up drunken driving arrests of men involved in divorce cases.
Mary Nolan‘s admission to five federal felony charges wound up a series of criminal prosecutions stemming from disclosures of private sting operations in Contra Costa County that have been nicknamed “dirty DUIs.”
Investigator Christopher Butler said he designed the scheme to tarnish men facing divorce proceedings by hiring women to approach them, have drinks at a bar and then ask the men to follow them in their cars. Butler would then call police or 911 to report a suspected drunken driver.
Butler is serving an eight-year prison sentence. Officers from four Bay Area police agencies have also been convicted.
The charges against Nolan, 61, were not connected to the […]
Canadian DND now says no listening devices were found at Nortel building
No bugs found in former Nortel building, Defence officials now say
Ottawa Citizen, October 1, 2013 by David Pugliese
OTTAWA — The Conservative government says Defence officials have assured it that no listening devices have been found at the former Nortel campus, contradicting previous security concerns raised by both former Nortel and government intelligence employees.
Former Nortel employees have contacted the Citizen to say that the listening devices were found when Department of National Defence officials did their initial security sweeps of the facility, purchased for DND’s new home.
DND documents also indicate that concerns about the security surrounding the former Nortel campus were raised last year within the department. A briefing document for then-Defence minister Peter MacKay warned that the public announcement that the DND was moving into the complex before it could be properly secured created a major problem.
“This not only raises the level of difficulty of verifying appropriate security […]
Canadian Department of National Defense finds listening devices prior to moving in to former Nortel offices.
Former Nortel offices had listening devices discovered as the Department of National Defense was preparing to move in.
Ottawa Citizen, BY DAVID PUGLIESE, September 30, 2013
OTTAWA — Workers preparing the former Nortel complex as the new home for the Department of National Defence have discovered electronic eavesdropping devices, prompting new fears about the security of the facility.
It’s not clear whether the devices were recently planted or left over from an industrial espionage operation when Nortel occupied the complex.
Asked for details about the listening devices and whether they were still functioning, the DND responded with a statement to the Citizen that it takes security at its installations seriously.
“The Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces cannot provide any information regarding specific measures and tests undertaken to secure a location or facility for reasons of national security,” noted an email from DND spokeswoman Carole Brown. “The DND/CAF must maintain a safe […]
Ultimo bra tycoon Michelle Mone’s firm accused of bugging potted plant.
Once again, we find surveillance threats coming from within a company’s perimeters. Potted plants need to be checked carefully during any office sweep. They make an easy hiding place for eavesdropping devices. In this case, from Scotland, it was the chairman who actually approved the bugging.
Ultimo bra tycoon Michelle Mone’s firm accused of bugging pot plant in office of former director
By Sally Hind, DailyRecord.co.uk 9/24/2013
THE 35-year-old operations director claims he found a recording device in a plant pot containing artificial flowers at the headquarters in East Kilbride.
A FORMER director of Michelle Mone’s bra firm yesterday told how he was horrified to discover his plant pot had been bugged after a row with the tycoon. Scott Kilday described how he found a “covert recording device” wrapped around an artificial flower as he debated resigning from Michelle’s lingerie firm in the wake of her bitter […]
New Research Reveals Top Tactics Behind Today’s Cyber Attacks: Beware of Trust
IBM Security Intelligence Blog
Announcing the IBM X-Force 2013 Mid-Year Trend and Risk Report
For over 15 years, IBM X-Force has been tracking trends and emerging threats. Today we released the2013 mid-year trend and risk report which highlights some of our key findings.
While vulnerability statistics, attack trends, and data breaches are all covered in detail, one of the more interesting points of discussion is a look at the psychology and social engineering around how these attacks are implemented. We explore how attackers have learned to capitalize and take advantage of the human factor in trust relationships.
Attackers are optimizing tactics
Attackers are optimizing their operations around many key initiatives which include a path of least resistance to reach the largest number of potential targets for the minimal amount of exploit effort.
For example, attackers are optimizing:
- The exploitation of trust via social media.
- Coordinated operations leaking user data as well as exploiting weak entry points […]
Espionage history: Stasi museum in Berlin, fascinating photos
The Stasi was an Eastern Germany version of the KGB, established by the Soviets in 1952. Just like the KGB, the Stasi was mostly busy looking for enemies of the people, employing round-the-clock surveillance, and eavesdropping on German citizens. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, people assaulted the Stasi headquarters, dissolved the organization, opened its archives to the public, and created a museum in the main building.
Stasi Museum
On the evening of January 15th in 1990 demonstrators took possession of the headquarters of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) in Berlin-Lichtenberg. The Berliner Bürgerkomitee (Berlin Committee of Citizens) started here the closure and disorganisation of the MfS. One week later the Zentrale Runde Tisch (The Central Round Table) decided that a memorial place and research centre should be established in the former House No. 1 in the Stasi-Headquarters.
The new government of the GDR, formed after the elections on March 18th in […]
Germany: Government and business team up against espionage
from DW.DE Aug. 28, 2013
Faced with increasing rates of espionage attempts directed at companies, German government and business leaders have agreed on hammering out a joint protection strategy. Raising awareness is the first objective.
The German government and business organizations agreed on Wednesday that domestic companies needed stronger protection from espionage and cyber crime. They signed a declaration on hammering out a joint defense strategy and pooling resources for the most efficient infrastructure to ward off risks.
German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said it was of pivotal importance to raise awareness for the threats particularly among small and medium-sized companies across the nation which tended to ignore or underestimate the scope of the problem.
“Spying attacks on companies can potentially lead to a painful drop in competitiveness and market distortions,” Friedrich said in a statement. “And it is bound to result in the loss of jobs, so we have to […]
Times are changing- this ain’t your father’s spy world.
Spy Kids: A sci-fi visionary on why the children of tomorrow are the NSA’s biggest nightmare.
The following article by Charles Stross, a Hugo Award-winning science-fiction writer, is an interesting read. We all know that technology is changing faster than we can digest it. What does this mean for our children? And more pointedly, what does it mean for the future world of espionage, privacy, and information security. While I may not entirely share the author’s view of the future, it is clear that many old and current rules will not apply. It is worth paying attention, especially when considering new threats and new adversaries as they come of age. The author focuses on the challenge spy agencies will face in dealing with new recruits, but it is worth considering as well, the challenges to information security that new technology and the users of […]