Security Scrapbook - Espionage News Thu, 21 Dec 2000
To: Clients, colleagues and friends
Subject: Espionage News
SPECIAL SECTION -- Russian news... Spies sing! (really) SPECIAL SECTION -- Pop Quiz...
The 'Good,' The 'Bad,' and The 'Ugly.'
Match the title to the story.
=====================================
SPECIAL SECTION -- Russian news... Spies sing! (really)
"Can't Touch That" -- Sickle N. Hammer
Russia's top spies made a rare move from the shadows to mark Secret
Police Day on Wednesday, giving interviews, revealing the songs they
sing and recalling the old days of their cloak and dagger world. http://www.russiatoday.com:80/news.php3?id=232253
So... what do Boris and Natasha sing? (Vouldn't you like to know.)
Perhaps anticipating that gifts and well-wishes might be in short supply
as Russia's secret police celebrate their 80th anniversary today, the
Foreign Intelligence Service has come up with a very special present to
give itself.
"Their Uneasy Job Is Called Spying,'' a compilation of 22 songs near and
dear to the hearts of Russia's spies, has a little bit of everything:
nostalgia, patriotism and love. The songs, with titles like "Hope,''
"Completing a Task'' and "Here Goes Your Friend Off on a Mission,'' were
chosen -- and occasionally written and performed -- by intelligence
service officials, and will be distributed on CD and audiocassette to
intelligence veterans in honor of the 80-year jubilee. http://www0.mercurycenter.com:80/premium/world/docs/
And yet another 15 minutes of fame... The head of Russia's foreign intelligence service said in remarks to be
published on Wednesday that British spy George Blake was still working
"for the good of Russia". http://www.russiatoday.com:80/news.php3?id=232072
We fold...
MINSK -- President Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday that Belarus was
holding three foreigners and one Belarussian for alleged spying. http://www.russiatoday.com:80/news.php3?id=232031
Attention Austin Powers...
MOSCOW -- Russia's spy chiefs have said the case of U.S. businessman
Edmond Pope has vindicated their operations and would act as a warning
to other foreign agents. http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/12/19/russia.spies/
==================================
SPECIAL SECTION -- Pop Quiz... The 'Good,' The 'Bad,' and The 'Ugly.' Match the title to the story.
Who would know better...
what's cricket, and what's not... (or, Say it ain't so, Jo-ey.)
Australian cricket officials have rejected suggestions players'
telephone calls should be monitored and undercover agents employed in a
bid to stamp out match-fixing. http://www.smh.com.au:80/news/0012/16/text/sport4.html
Security Scrapbook - CCTV solves year long crime spree... Mon, 18 Dec 2000
Subject: CCTV solves year long crime spree...
Blue light special... ...He eluded police for about a year, but was arrested in April, roughly
a week after his last attack at a local Kmart in which he squirted a
girl in the face after she refused his request to open her mouth. ...
After squirting the girl, he took her photograph, but, unbeknownst to
Nichols, his picture also was being taken by a store surveillance
camera. (photo of pistol packing perp) http://www.apbnews.com:80/newscenter/breakingnews/
I know its gross, but hey, somebody had to let you know.
To: Clients, colleagues and friends.
Subject: Espionage News
SPECIAL SECTION -- Corporate "Intelligence Gathering"
SPECIAL SECTION -- Privacy -- Corporate & Personal
SPECIAL SECTION -- Can't get enough spystuff?
"Q" Toyz for Xmas... "So then the waiter sez to me... 'Talk all ya want.'"
At first sight it looks like a regular cell phone - same size, same
shape, same overall appearance. But beneath the digital face lies a
.22-caliber pistol - a phone gun capable of firing four rounds in quick
succession with a touch of the otherwise standard keypad.
Security Scrapbook - NEW gadget alert!
Wed, 13 Dec 2000
============================
Special Edition for my gadget freak friends! (Digital camera)
============================
Hey, check this out.... What a camera!
Not available in the US yet. (next spring)
I expect to have a pre-release model here at the end of January, and will write a review for the LE and security market.
It will take you a few minutes to review the URLs below and get a feel for what this can do. I am already trying to figure out how I can hack it into being a pocket, wireless video teleconferencing device (my "killer app").
Anyway, I saw this and thought you might like to hurt yourself too.
Murray Associates
Counterespionage Consultants
to Business & Government
Eavesdropping Detection Specialists www.spybusters.com
Security Scrapbook - Espionage news
Sat, 09 Dec 2000
To: Clients, colleagues and friends
Subject: Espionage news
-- SPECIAL SECTION - Espionage Humor
"And now, the Number One reason to have a good counterespionage consultant."...
New York's Silicon Alley was in a tizzy last week after the New Yorker
ran a hilarious piece called "My Fake Job," in which former Letterman
writer Rodney Rothman recounted his days of masquerading as an employee
at an unnamed Manhattan dot-com... http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151
"And now, the Number One 'Stupid Security Consultant Trick' of 2000." ...
... CRN West Coast Bureau Chief Marcia Savage is reporting on new
marketing tactics to sell security services. Break into a company's
network and then try to sell security services to that same company. Do
alarm companies break into a house and then call and try to sell the
homeowner a security system? Does Lo Jack steal your car, return it in
10 minutes and then attempt to sell you the service? http://www.crn.com/Components/Search/Article.asp?
"And now, the Number One excuse when caught in the grass, under a blanket, at the company picnic... when its not YOUR company's picnic." ... As employees of a Canadian grain company held their annual union picnic
last summer, they noticed some unusual activity in the long prairie
grass. On investigation, they found a man with a video camera under a
camping blanket. He told them he was filming the squirrels. ... (a.k.a.
The old Secret Squirrel defense.)... the man ... was actually a private
investigator. ... The tape recorder was found on a serving cart. ... http://news.excite.com/news/r/001206/10/odd-spies-dc
-- And now, the news.
A tale of corporate espionage... Given the nature of the competitive office supply business, Aubrey James
Fisher figured he had information that Office Depot's rivals would be
willing to pay for.... http://www.herald.com/content/today/business/digdocs/008082.htm
Supreme Court Enters Taped-Call Case... A secretly recorded telephone conversation had a union negotiator
seeming to threaten a bombing attack on school board members. Two local
radio stations played the tape over the air. On Tuesday, the Supreme
Court entered the case. http://news.excite.com/news/ap/001205/18/scotus-taped-call
Soundless videotaping not a "recording" under wiretap statute... A state appeals court overturned a conviction by emphasizing the
wiretapping statute prohibits recording the contents of audible or
symbol-based communications. The still, soundless images taken by a
hidden video camera did not constitute recording of a confidential
communication, a California appellate court unanimously ruled...
...Craig Boyd Drennan, the superintendent of the Modoc Unified School
District, was convicted of violating the state eavesdropping statute
when he instructed a maintenance worker to have a video camera installed
in a smoke detector in the office of a high school principal. http://www.rcfp.org/news/2000/1128drenna.html
A long cautionary tale... The cold glow of the monitor pierced the darkness of the office. He sat
alone in his cube, a single soul in a wasteland of artificial walls. The
drives on his PC hummed ominously; the files he had been copying were
almost onto the external FTP site ... just a few more minutes to go. For
a fleeting moment, he contemplated the probability of his activity being
discovered: slim to none.
Whether you obtain your security statistics from Web defacement mirrors,
such as attrition.org, or the FBI / CSI report, one thing is irrefutable: The problem is getting worse.
Without proactive security measures investigated and supported by
business drivers, information security practices will continue to be
reactionary and only minimally successful. If organizations want to
effectively address the threat of financial losses a security breach can
bring, they must first make a strong commitment to deploying a proactive
security model. http://www.networkcomputing.com:80/1123/1123f1.html
Mexico to Cut Illegal Wiretaps... MEXICO CITY President Vicente Fox's newly appointed national security
chief says he will try to unravel a rat's nest of illegal government
wiretaps that politicians and the police have used "not to fight crime,
but to fight criticism." http://www.iht.com/articles/3609.htm http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/06/world/06MEXI.html
Introducing The Privacy Pragmatist Time was, privacy was sacred. These days, even the most hard-core advocates are beginning to accept that businesses can get their hands on personal information. http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20001207S0002
Security Scrapbook - Special New York Times Issue
Wed, 06 Dec 2000
To: Clients, colleagues and friends
Subjects: Corporate Espionage, Privacy, Watergate 18 minute gap, SpookSpeak, Secrets Poll.
(Note: These articles will be available - without charge - at the listed
URLs for a limited time. Now would be a good time to download and print
any that interest you.)
CORPORATE SPIES Almost every Fortune 500 company these days has a "competitive
intelligence" unit... or farms out its spy activities. : The Pizza
Plot... http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/
What Secrets Tell... Once, it was believed that a wholesale revelation of secrets would not
occur until the Day of Judgment, when graves would be opened and the
tongues of the dead at last loosened. Nowadays you might almost get the
impression that the time had arrived... ... At this rate, the last
living American with a hidden vice will surrender to Jerry Springer in
about eight years. http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/
Eavesdropping On History... New technology perfected by Stephen St. Croix is recovering long-lost
sounds. It might even bring back Watergate's famous 18 1/2-minute gap. http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/
Learn the Lingo of Spying... Netspionage and ... "I met her in a deer park. Invited her to my skiff.
Safe from elint, my humint instincts spun a surreptitious web. As she
began to clam up, sickthink overcame me." http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/
To: Clients, colleagues and friends
Subject: Espionage related news
-- GENERAL ESPIONAGE NEWS
-- SPECIAL SECTION - WORLD ESPIONAGE NEWS
-- SPECIAL SECTION - WOMEN IN ESPIONAGE
-- SPECIAL SECTION - EMAIL SNOOPING NEWS HEAT UP... IN THE US & UK
-- SPECIAL SECTION - EMAIL SNOOPING COUNTERMEASURES
GENERAL ESPIONAGE NEWS
Forget passwords, what about pictures?
We're drowning in passwords, and our brains are rebelling. Most of us have one of two strategies for remembering all these new strings of letters and numbers: use the exact same password across the board, or keep written reminders of the various secret phrases. Either way, the entire purpose of passwords -- security -- is undermined. Two researchers in the U.S. are suggesting a third way: scrap the character heavy password altogether. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2657540,00.html
Pop Quiz...
Who's the biggest? CIA, NSA, FBI, NRO Hint: "... concluded that the XXX -- arguably the largest intelligence
agency in the United States in budget terms -- should outsource more of
its satellite intelligence from commercial companies." (Next plane
flight, bring your camera.) http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20001128S0003
Battle Bots
The Paranoid Privacy Advocates v. The Computer Forensic Analysts
"Did you know... that your computer is spying on you? Did you know for
example that every click you make on Windows 98 Start Menu is logged and
stored permanently on a hidden encrypted database within your own
computer? Deleting "internet cache and history", will not protect you...
your PC is keeping frightening records of both your online and off-line
activity." (Let the games begin.) http://www.evidence-eliminator.com/
SPECIAL SECTION - WORLD ESPIONAGE NEWS
Israeli spy planes for India News reports indicated the planes, which are equipped with cameras,
would be stationed in Kashmir. IAI officials declined to comment. http://www.indiaserver.com:80/thehindu/2000/11/27/
The Case of Agent Gorbachev (Abstract only) During the Cold War, much scientific and technical information passed
from West to East (and vice versa) through the hands of scientists and
engineers induced to act as spies. Macrakis, a historian of science, ...
concludes that the strategy of developing technology by stealing it,
rather than investing in research and development, turned out to be
short-sighted. http://www.sigmaxi.org:80/amsci/articles/00articles/
SPECIAL SECTION - WOMEN IN ESPIONAGE
Oh, The Wonders Down Under... Woman to plead guilty to spy charges
Sherryl Ellen Dowling and Simon Lappas, a former analyst with the
Defence Intelligence Organisation, appeared before the court today.
Dowling and Lappas, both aged 25, were arrested in July and charged over
the removal of classified documents from the Canberra-based defence agency. http://www.abc.net.au:80/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-27
Oh, those Jersey Girls... China Tries U.S. Resident As Spy - She aided Falun Gong
A U.S. resident arrested in China on spying charges after she helped
publicize the government's crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual
movement was tried yesterday under a veil of secrecy. Teng joined Falun
Gong last year in New Jersey, and her acupuncture clinic in New York
became an informal clubhouse for the group... http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/
SPECIAL SECTION - EMAIL SNOOPING NEWS HEAT UP... IN THE USA & IN THE UK
(UK) The British Chamber of Commerce has warned that: employers may ban
workers from sending personal emails to avoid legal liability, in light
of a draft code of practice from the Data Protection Commission. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/47/ns-19354.html
(UK) Despite heavy criticism by the government and CBI, Elizabeth France
is standing by her proposed code of practice for monitoring employee
email and phone conversations... http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/15039.html
(UK) Bosses gain email snooping rights
... companies will be permitted "routine access" to any business emails
and phone calls to see if they are business-related... Trade unions are
up in arms... http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/13722.html
(UK) Bosses join email snooping scrum
...the government told employers they were entitled to read their
staff's emails and listen in to their phone conversations... http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/14045.html
(US) Hi-Tech Parents Play I Spy
It's a teenager's worst nightmare - their moms and dads knowing what
they are up to, even when their backs are turned. But a new boom in
high-tech surveillance equipment soon could make a Big Brother world
reality for errant teens... http://www.nypost.com:80/11292000/news/16915.htm
(UK) Employees need to be cautious as more are sacked for sending emails
Another six employees have lost their jobs for alleged "misuse" of email
as Cable & Wireless confirmed Tuesday it has dismissed six people from
its Birmingham office. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/47/ns-19364.html
SPECIAL SECTION - EMAIL SNOOPING COUNTERMEASURES
We rely so heavily on e-mail that it's a bit of a shock to realize how
insecure today's messaging systems are. Few users have ever digitally
signed or encrypted an e-mail, and few have received such messages. How
can we be sure the messages we send aren't being read or modified in
transit by unauthorized parties? http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/2000/1127kobielus.html
Self-Destructing E-Mail Offers Additional Security
That would Mr. Phelps, the leader of the Mission: Impossible team from
the 1960's TV series, need to guarantee that his secrets are safe today?
How about self-destructing e-mail? With SafeMessage from AbsoluteFuture,
the sender chooses how long an e-mail will hang around before it is
automatically deleted from the sender's and recipient's computers - that
period could be Mission: Impossible's 5-second standard or as long as 14
days. The e-mail is completely erased from the hard drives, which are
overwritten.
(NY Times article, free registration required) http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/30/technology/30GEE3.html
"Security Scrapbook" is a service of Murray Associates -
Counterespionage consultants to business & government.
To learn more about how to protect your business and yourself against
illegal electronic eavesdropping, wiretapping and other forms of
espionage, please visit us at http://www.spybusters.com
Eavesdropping Detection Services
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