Security Scrapbook - Espionage & Privacy News of the Week.
Sun, 28 Oct 2001
To: Clients, colleagues and friends.
Subject: Espionage & Privacy News of the Week.
======================================================
Kevin's Security Scrapbook® is published on an irregular
basis for a select audience. HTML versions are archived at http://www.spybusters.com/Security_Scrapbook.html
====================================================== SPECIAL SECTION -- Security Director News
SPECIAL SECTION -- The Big News from Washington
SPECIAL SECTION -- World Spy News
SPECIAL SECTION -- The Usual Nonsense ======================================================
SPECIAL SECTION -- Security Director News
Apple's Mysterious Announcement... and what it means to you!
Background... MONDAY - The Mysterious Announcement - Depending on whom you ask, it's
either a wireless tablet computer, a portable musical hard drive, or a
digital multimedia hub. One theory depicts an integrated keyboard with a
removable PDA. ... a tantalizingly brief announcement, invited Wall
Street and the press to see the "breakthrough digital device" when it's
unveiled on Tuesday. Just as intriguing is the unusually high level of
security. Although Apple typically keeps its prototypes undisclosed, the
secrecy surrounding the IAppliance has been described as
"unprecedented." http://www.macdirectory.com/4u/wire.fm$retrieve?
TUESDAY - The Unveiling - Apple introduced the iPod. It is the size of a
deck of cards (6.5 oz.), holds 1,000 songs / 100 CDs or 5 gigabytes of
data, and can download an entire CD in 10 seconds! Oh yeah... jacks into
computers using FireWire, and has a rechargeable lithium 10-hour
battery! (PC & Mac compatible. $399) http://www.macdirectory.com/4u/wire.fm$RETRIEVE? http://www.apple.com/ipod/
Ponder #1:
Apple is the poster child for corporate information security (rivaled
only by M&M/Mars). They swear everyone to secrecy... and enforce it.
Employees, suppliers, outside consultants. All obey Steve "Draco" Jobs.
The benefit... They beat the competition to market, and created valuable
product excitement that advertising can't buy. This security makes money
for a company! Think different. $$$
Now... talk to the boss about information security.
Ponder #2:
Apple says, "Who knows, you might also find yourself storing documents,
files and applications on your iPod in FireWire disk mode." Move over
Minox, this baby will suck the oxide right off the hard drive.
Remember... it eats 100 CDs... one every 10 seconds.
Ok, who said "spy tool?" http://www.apple.com/ipod/ (Be sure you know what 'lectric leach looks like.)
You Have Mail! HEY, IT'S EMERGENCY MAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Get notified of an emergency by email from your
local, regional and national government sources. (free) http://www.emergencye.com/
Guess who doesn't receive the Security Scrapbook,
or... Whackers, start your laptops. General Motors plans to spend tens of millions of dollars over the next
12 months to install wireless LANs throughout its plants and offices.
... To date, most enterprises haven't taken the technology seriously,
deeming it too expensive and full of security holes. ... GM is
standardizing on Cisco's Aironet wireless LAN products; the products,
based on the 802.11(b) standard. http://www.internetweek.com/newslead01/lead102501.htm
Sometimes the espionage trophy is... a trophy. A 30-minute phone call between yachting legend Chris Dickson and fellow
New Zealander Sean Reeves is the crucial focus of an America's Cup
espionage scandal. The Herald can reveal the man accused of trying to
sell secret design and technical plans worth $6 million is Reeves, a
40-year-old former lawyer who left Team New Zealand last year and lured
others with him to the Seattle-based One World syndicate. He also is
accused of trying to pass information about Team NZ... http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?
High court rejects privacy rights for corporations... Unlike individuals, corporations aren't entitled to sue for invasion of
privacy, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled on Oct. 1. With its 5-0 ruling,
the court joined other states -- including Massachusetts, New Jersey,
Connecticut and California -- that specifically deny privacy rights to
corporations. The Indiana court also noted that no state has recognized
a claim for invasion of privacy by a corporation. http://www.rcfp.org/news/2001/1025felshe.html
Information Warfare By David H. Freedman - November 2001
Breaking into networks is more than a joyride.
It's the coming mission of criminals, industrial spies and terrorists.
Can new security techniques stop them? http://www.technologyreview.com/magazine/nov01/freedman.asp
SPECIAL SECTION -- The Big News from Washington
Anti-Terror Bill Becomes Law - USA Patriot Act of 2001 Bush Signs Sweeping Expansion of Law Enforcement Powers...
Wiretaps: Law enforcement can now apply for roving wiretaps on terrorism
suspects, letting them monitor any phone the person uses. Currently,
officials must obtain permission for each individual phone line they
monitor.
E-mail: Law enforcement can subpoena e-mail addresses of e-mails sent
and received by suspects.
Interesting...
Section 225. Immunity for compliance with FISA wiretap. http://abcnews.go.com:80/sections/politics/DailyNews/ http://abcnews.go.com/sections/pdf/patriot_act.pdf
Anti-Terror Bill Terrifies Fourth Amendment Scholars and Groups... The anti-terrorism package enacted in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks
contains a provision expanding the authority of federal law enforcement
officers to conduct covert searches. Unlike other provisions broadening
law enforcement power, this one does not have a "sunset" or time limit
attached. And the sneak-and-peek language is not restricted to
terrorism investigations. "On the face of things, the connection between
this provision and terrorism generally is tenuous," says criminal
procedure scholar Tracey Maclin of Boston University School of Law.
"It's not tied to cases in which national security or threats from
foreign agents appear to be the focus of investigation. It can apply to
any intrusion. It allows the government to go in, conduct a search and
then not tell anybody that they've been in one's home." http://www.law.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?
First, we kill all the data... Analysts at the super-secret National Security Agency, acting on advice
from the organization's lawyers, have been destroying data collected on
Americans or US companies since the Sept. 11 attacks - angering other
intelligence agencies seeking leads in the anti-terrorist probe,
according to two people with close intelligence ties. http://www.boston.com:80/dailyglobe2/300/nation/
To us... they're all foreign links. Americans are tickled pink that Canada's snooping organization will be
listening in on Canadian conversations, says its boss. Keith Coulter,
chief of the defense department's Communications Security Establishment,
said Canada's spies are well respected by the U.S., but the new justice
omnibus bill will enhance their status even more. The CSE is Canada's
ear on the world, using computers to track foreign conversations and
electronic transmissions. The law has so far prevented the spy agency
from listening in on any transmissions that involve Canadians. But the
sweeping legislation tabled by Justice Minister Anne McLellan last week
will make it legal for the CSE to turn its computers onto Canadian
conversations, faxes and e-mails if there's a foreign link. http://www.canoe.ca/TorontoNews/ts.ts-10-24-0002.html
China Fuming... China still wants compensation from the US over the collision of an
American spy plane and a Chinese jet fighter. The Chinese have asked for
$1 million for plane-related expenses for the 24-member crew of the US
Navy EP-3E. They have rejected a US offer of $34,000 which American
officials viewed as fair and reasonable. http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_433074.html
Fong Fuming... An American electrical engineer accused by China of obtaining secrets
and giving bribes has gone on trial in Beijing. Fong Fuming, of West
Orange, New Jersey, is one of a series of US citizens and residents
detained and tried this year in China on security charges.
(Jersey boys are tough.) http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_429700.html
SPECIAL SECTION -- The Usual Nonsense
"Damn, I think the 'off' switch is stuck. ...
... Hey look, they are all doing the Macarena." Tests of a controversial weapon that is designed to heat people's skin
with a microwave beam have shown that it can disperse crowds. But
critics are not convinced the system is safe. [gross understatement]
Last week, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in New Mexico
finished testing the system on human volunteers. The Air Force now wants
to use this Active Denial Technology (ADT), which it says is non-lethal,
for peacekeeping or riot control at "relatively long range" - possibly
from low-flying aircraft. AFRL says that the 3-millimetre wavelength
radiation penetrates only 0.3 millimetres into the skin, rapidly heating
the surface above the 45 °C pain threshold. At 50 °C, they say the pain
reflex makes people pull away automatically in less than a second -
it's said to feel like fleetingly touching a hot light bulb. Someone
would have to stay in the beam for 250 seconds before it burnt the skin,
the lab says, giving "ample margin between intolerable pain and causing
a burn". But critics question the AFRL's claims that the weapon's
undisclosed exposure levels are safe. Air Force scientists helped set
the present skin safety threshold of 10 milliwatts per square centimetre
in the early 1990s, when little data was available, says Louis Slesin,
editor of Microwave News. That limit covers exposure to steady fields
for several minutes to an hour - but heating a layer of skin 0.3 mm
thick to 50 °C in just one second requires much higher power and may
pose risks to the cornea, which is more sensitive than skin. A study
published last year in the journal Health Physics showed that exposure
to 2 watts per square centimetre for three seconds could damage the
corneas of rhesus monkeys. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991470 http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html [Forget the Cipro, get a Foil Deflector Beanie.]
Dairy State Video Voyeur Bill Moves to Governor... High-tech peeping Toms who specialize in video voyeurism are targeted in
a measure approved Tuesday in the state Assembly and sent on to Gov.
Scott McCallum. The bill toughens video voyeurism sanctions incorporated
in the state budget and criminalizes the distribution of such photos
over the Internet. http://www.jsonline.com:80/news/state/oct01/assem24102301a.asp
History's Espionage Mysteries - Two more for the books..
What ever happened to... Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of
Jews from Nazi death camps? He had contacts with Soviet spies, and that
may have played a role in his arrest and death, claimed Lev Bezymensky,
a prominent World War II historian, on Thursday. A former KGB chief,
Vladimir Kryuchkov, had told him so in a private conversation. "We shot
him," Yakovlev quoted Kryuchkov as saying, according to the book.
"Wallenberg was a double agent, working for both us and the Americans.
He got confused in his links. Someone reported on that, and he was liquidated." http://www.bergen.com:80/morenews/wallen26200110268.htm
Who protected the US astronauts from Soviet spies? ...thus forcing the spies to sit in smelly fishing trawlers.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- America's earliest astronauts blasted off into
space from a launch pad that one man ruled with such an iron fist, no
terrorist or Soviet spy would dare cross his path. German born, with a
rich accent that remains to this day, Guenter Wendt was relentless in
his pursuit of safety and security at NASA's Mercury, Gemini and Apollo
launch sites. Such was his reputation that the astronauts respectfully
called him "Pad Fuhrer." http://www.space.com:80/missionlaunches/guenter_wendt_011026.html
Alan Funt's alter ego... For a decade as Peru's spy chief, Vladimiro L. Montesinos bugged the
presidential palace, videotaped the goings-on in bordellos and
restaurant bathrooms to blackmail the nation's power brokers and
controlled everything from drug trafficking to the army and, some said,
even the president himself. Four months after his capture and
imprisonment, Mr. Montesinos continues to exert influence over Peru even
from his jail cell, using the same network of collaborators in the
security forces, news media and justice system that he built up through
the 1990's, senior government officials say. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/27/international/americas/
75 years and counting, Harry. ... (Hmmm, two thousand sixty two tickets...) If there's a way to cheat death, Harry Houdini vowed he'd send a message
from the Great Beyond. This Halloween, loyal followers of the famed
magician will try once again to summon his spirit. ... at the Official
Houdini Séance. It's even trademarked. "I think the chances to make a
connection this time are excellent," says Rev. Raymond Fraser, 56, of
Canton, Mich. "I have spoken to many spirits. I have a 70 percent
success rate."
Houdini was a famous debunker of table-levitating spiritualists and
often exposed them as flimflam artists who used simple parlor tricks to
exploit the gullible.
Fraser, who was ordained through a correspondence course by the National
Association of Spiritual Churches, says Houdini's low opinion of
clairvoyants like himself doesn't matter. [Unless he comes back, Rev!]
... (at $12.50 per sucker. Why that's...) http://abcnews.go.com:80/sections/us/WolfFiles/wolffiles.html
Security Scrapbook - Espionage & Privacy News of the Week.
Sat, 20 Oct 2001
To: Clients, colleagues and friends.
Subject: Espionage & Privacy News of the Week.
====================================================
Kevin's Security Scrapbook® is published on an irregular
basis for a select audience. HTML versions are archived at http://www.spybusters.com/Security_Scrapbook.html
==================================================== SPECIAL SECTION -- Security Director News
SPECIAL SECTION -- World Spy News
SPECIAL SECTION -- U.S. Spy News
SPECIAL SECTION -- Weird TechnoPrivacy News ====================================================
SpyCam Culture - The Big Picture
Revisit an excellent USA Today Tech Report on spycams in our society.
The ramifications for 'the expectation of privacy' are interesting.
Imagine a stop-action movie of the Grand Canyon being made. http://www.usatoday.com:80/life/cyber/tech/cti856.htm
Yet another wireless security pronouncement...
Cigital, Inc. announced ... attackers can penetrate, monitor, and
manipulate data on traditional wired networks by accessing the system
through its wireless sub-network. The attacks can be carried out using
off-the-shelf roaming wireless devices such as a wireless laptop
computer against standard wireless installations. This vulnerability is
the latest in a series of serious wireless security problems... http://www.cigital.com/news/wireless-sec.html (Corporate Press Release)
Be careful over there... The Chinese authorities have indicted an American engineer on charges of
stealing Chinese state secrets and bribery, the United States said on
Friday. Fong Fuming, who is in his 60s, has been in detention in China
for 19 months... http://news.excite.com/news/r/011012/17/news-rights-china-dc
Add this to the corporate travel warnings... (seriously)
"Dare to wear an underwire through security, and you're likely to get a
pat-down more intimate than anything you experienced on prom night. And
without a corsage or dinner first. Try to find out what policy supports
that groping, and you'll encounter a bigger bunch of boobs than those
that raised the alarms in the first place..." http://www.westword.com/issues/2001-10-11/calhoun.html
Quote of the week... ''You should fight terrorism in a way that would not create new terrorism.''
Retired Lieutenant General Ruslan Aushev http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/285/nation/
Night of the Living Dictator... Idi Amin, the brutal Ugandan dictator who led his country into financial
ruin and international isolation, is planning to return home 22 years
after he fled for his life. Members of his vast family - the 79-year-old
has 48 children - have begun trickling back into Uganda from all corners
of the world. (for those who don't remember...) ...for victims of Idi
Amin, the man who once claimed to eat human flesh, the idea of the obese
former president spending his dying days in the rural tranquillity of
northern Uganda elicits a venomous response. "The man was a monster who
had an appetite for bestiality," said one man whose father was killed by Amin. http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/13/
...from what?
Cuba responded angrily on Wednesday to Russia's decision to pull out of
a spy base on the Communist-run Caribbean island, saying no agreement
had been reached and Moscow was ceding to U.S. pressure. An official
communiqué said closure of the Lourdes station would be "a grave risk"
to Cuban security... http://sg.news.yahoo.com/011018/3/1ko2r.html
On the society page... Carlos the Jackal (Illich Ramirez Sanchez), once the world's most wanted
man, plans to marry his French lawyer. Ramirez is being held in solitary
confinement... currently serving a life sentence for a triple murder in 1975. http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/10/12/jackal.wedding/
In the meantime... Carlos and Ms. Countant-Peyre are both currently going through divorce
proceedings with their current spouses. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid
(photo the future Ms. Jackal)
Love makes you say the dumbest things... Aging guerrilla leader Carlos the Jackal called from his French jail
cell on Wednesday for worldwide attacks on Israel and the United States
in support of the Palestinian uprising. http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=8&id=64524
SPECIAL SECTION -- U.S. Spy News
Ruuudy, Ruudy, Rudy... There's no vacancy yet, but one name is being talked about as a
successor to CIA Director George J. Tenet: New York Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani. If anyone is held accountable for the intelligence failure
that permitted the September 11 terrorist attacks, Tenet is a likely
fall guy. The White House's choice of the hard-charging Giuliani, a
former prosecutor whose term ends in January, would send a clear
message: America is determined to nail the culprits behind the attacks. http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/oct2001/
FBI To Require ISPs To Reconfigure E-mail Systems PHOENIX -- The FBI is in the process of finalizing technical guidelines
that would require all Internet service providers (ISPs) to reconfigure
their e-mail systems so they could be more easily accessible to law
enforcers. The move, to be completed over the next two months, would
cause ISPs to act as phone companies do to comply with a 1994
digital-wiretapping law. "They are in the process of developing a very
detailed set of standards for how to make packet data" available to the
FBI, said Stewart Baker, an attorney at Steptoe & Johnson who was
formerly the chief counsel to the National Security Agency (NSA). http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=1525
Life on the high wire... Balance is everything.
As Congress responds to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington
with more antiterrorism legislation, Big Brother will probably grow
bigger. Both the House and the Senate approved bills last week making it
easier for intelligence agents to snoop on techno-savvy terrorists. With
just a single warrant, agents will be able to tap all of the telephones
or Internet accounts a suspected terrorist uses and get lists of every
e-mail address he contacts. ... But civil libertarians fear these new
measures will decrease oversight by judges and tread on citizens'
privacy, without necessarily preventing future terrorist attacks... http://www.nandotimes.com/politics/story/129871p-1358600c.html
Do ya think?
Handwriting analysts have determined that the person who addressed the
envelopes containing the anthrax to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle
and NBC anchor Tom Brokaw is dangerously depressed and determined. http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=9946
... but this could be the start of something big! A Swiss thief has sent his victim a text message telling her where to
find her stolen bag. The woman was in a shopping centre in Bern when she
suddenly realized that her bag was gone. She sent an SMS from a friend's
phone to her own mobile, appealing for the thief to give her bag back.
He replied telling her where he had thrown her bag. http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_419027.html?
On the other hand... Oh, dial it yourself. A man is recovering after having his left hand cut off by thieves who
took it and his mobile phone. The Kenyan was attacked by two people in a
suburb of Nairobi as he walked home alone. Witnesses said the victim
tried to stop the pair from taking his phone. One attackers pulled a
knife, cut off his left hand at the wrist and escaped with both the
phone and the hand. The hand has not been found despite a search of the area. http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_420917.html?
So, uh... what color is your parachute?
...a parachute for jumping off tall buildings during emergencies...
The Executivechute ($795.) thus becomes the latest craze as anxious
Americans shop for hedges against fear. Experts caution that a lot of
their money will be wasted. http://www.freep.com/news/nw/terror2001/chute19_20011019.htm
Tough love... Malaysian police say a couple who'd just got married threw acid on a
teenage peeping Tom. The couple apparently caught the 17-year-old
fishmonger spying on them at their Bachok home. http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_426318.html?
Security Scrapbook - Espionage & Privacy News of the Week.
Fri, 12 Oct 2001
To: Clients, colleagues and friends.
Subject: Espionage & Privacy News of the Week.
=====================================================
Kevin's Security Scrapbook® is published on an irregular
basis for a select audience. HTML versions are archived at http://www.spybusters.com/Security_Scrapbook.html
===================================================== SPECIAL SECTION -- Security Director News
SPECIAL SECTION -- Telecommunications Security
SPECIAL SECTION -- General Spy News
SPECIAL SECTION -- Topical Spy Art Exhibit ======================================================
SPECIAL SECTION -- Security Director News
Item #1 - Security Director Question of the Week - Anthrax
"What do I tell the mailroom and other employees about suspicious mail?"
Item #2 - SnitchBots - Your own Carnivore... and your competitors'?
One example... a company called NARUS. "It's all about collecting
information from all parts of the network and filtering out the 'good'
stuff, so you can get at the 0.0001% that is criminal..." -- NARUS
Founder and Chairman, Ori Cohen. http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel
Important. Read this NARUS quote twice! "...benchmarked at 100% tracking of over 100 million simultaneous VoIP
calls over a 34 hour period..."
"VoIP" = a phone call sent via the Internet. "Tracking" = automatic
sifting and reporting of all data packets (caller ID - both ends,
time/date, voice intercept, etc.).
Think ahead... voice recognition, word recognition, "ear filters."
Tap every call, distill, and drink nectar. http://www.narus.com/about/faqs.html
Keep thinking ahead.
Will SnitchBots be used against you?
What's your Corporate Technical Countermeasures plan?
Please, call me. 908-832-7900 -- Kevin
Item #3 - The Extreme Covert Catalog
Whack this new, phonebook-sized tome down on anybody's desk when they
ask, "Why do we need to sweep for eavesdropping devices?" You won't have
to say a word! They will be impressed. You will have free rein to do
the prudent thing - schedule your next inspection. ($49.95 - Just buy
it.) Insider news... a portion of the information in TECC was NEVER
meant to be made public by the government suppliers of eavesdropping goodies. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1880231204/
(BTW, I received a publisher's complimentary copy of TECC, and Amazon
sends me a small commission for providing book links. If you buy
anything using my link, let me know. I will gladly send the commission
to you. If the book was not worth it, I wouldn't have mentioned it.)
Item #4 - Errant Fax Blows Cover on Airline Dealings A U.S.-based investment firm has found out the hard way that the
difference between making a discreet inquiry about a big deal and
informing the media of its intentions may come down to a single number
-- a fax number. http://news.excite.com/news/r/011011/08/odd-fax-dc http://www.spybusters.com/pdf/FaxGuidelines.pdf (Fax Security Guidelines)
Other helpful Security Director info...
Laptop Theft Countermeasure This year, both the U.S. FBI and the British Defense Ministry revealed
that their officers had lost, in total, hundreds of laptop computers,
many with sensitive data on them. Yet most laptop thefts are inside
jobs, says the FBI (presumably not the division that made the theft
numbers public). http://www.redherring.com/story_redirect.asp?layout
One innovative and worthy solution - zTrace software - PC only. No Mac :-(P http://www.ztrace.com/
Employer Surveillance Of Employees Employers sometimes hire private investigators or use other means to
check up on employees. For example, if you claim you are collecting
workers' compensation benefits due to an injury at work, your employer
might hire a private investigator to follow you and verify that... http://www.mycounsel.com/content/employment
Suing A Harasser For Invasion Of Privacy Some of the earliest invasion of privacy cases involved the attempts of
overzealous private detectives trying to get evidence against wayward
spouses in divorce cases. In sexual harassment cases, invasion of
privacy often arises when a supervisor asks intrusive and... http://www.mycounsel.com/content/employment/sexualharassment/
Office Policies: Monitoring And Searching Employees E-mail Now that e-mail has become such a popular form of communication, whether
employers can monitor employee e-mails is being debated. In general,
employers have the right to access employee e-mails. Congress enacted
the Electronic Communications... http://www.mycounsel.com/content/smbusiness/employmentlaw/
History's Mysteries -- How an undertaker's wiretap killed "Hello, Central."
One of the first recorded cases of telephone line eavesdropping occurred
in 1888, when Almon B. Strowger, Kansas City undertaker, realized he was
losing business because of eavesdropping. His competitor's wife, who was
the operator at the local (manual) exchange, was eavesdropping on
Strowger's calls and sending business to her husband. So, to avoid such
eavesdropping, Strowger built the first automatic exchange. In the 113
years since then, eavesdropping and wiretapping have become more
prevalent, even as telephony technology has continually sought to solve
the problem.
Foreign Spy Agencies Helping U.S. It's the kind of communication between nations that takes place beneath
the public pronouncements of diplomats and politicians, but in many ways
it's far more important. Especially now. Since Sept. 11, the back
channels between the United States and both its allies and adversaries
have been lighting up, filled with a crush of intelligence from some 100
countries related to the investigation into the attacks and the
worldwide effort to prevent more. http://news.excite.com/news/ap/011006/01/attacks-sharing-secrets
TOPWRAP 9-US spy satellite to track Afghans from space. (4" resolution)
Osama bin Laden can run, but he may not be able to hide after the U.S.
carried its war on terrorism to the heavens on Friday with the launch of
what is believed to be a finely focused spy satellite to hover over
Afghanistan. Outside experts have said the satellite was likely equipped
with a digital camera able to show objects as small as 4 inches diameter
on the ground. http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2001/10/05/rtr381518.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-1219774,00.html
Bird arrested in Burundi on suspicion of spying. A bird carrying a satellite tracking device has been arrested on
suspicion of spying. The South African stork called Saturn was detained
after crash landing in Burundi. http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_419101.html
After hearing a real bird disguise doesn't work... A French journalist disguised as a woman was arrested in
Afghanistan, and will reportedly be charged with espionage. http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_419404.html
SPECIAL SECTION -- Topical Spy Art Exhibit
The Security Scrapbook's Art Museum is open.
Come on in...
Security Scrapbook - Espionage & Privacy News of the Week.
Sat, 06 Oct 2001
To: Clients, colleagues and friends.
Subject: Espionage & Privacy News of the Week.
=====================================================
Kevin's Security Scrapbook® is published on an irregular
basis for a select audience. HTML versions are archived at http://www.spybusters.com/Security_Scrapbook.html
===================================================== SPECIAL SECTION -- Security Director News
SPECIAL SECTION -- World Spy News
SPECIAL SECTION -- SpyCam News
SPECIAL SECTION -- Doctors & Lawyers
SPECIAL SECTION -- Our Spy Culture - Quotes & Reviews
SPECIAL SECTION -- ***CONTEST***
SPECIAL SECTION -- Mental Development =====================================================
SPECIAL SECTION -- Security Director News
Wireless Damage Control Wireless technology offers users convenience, but security problems
still proliferate. Here's a quick list of precautions that can limit
potential damage... http://www.internetweek.com/indepth01/indepth071601.htm
You know you won't see this guy on ¡Qué Locos! "As one of my favorite neurotic comedians used to say, if you're feeling
paranoid, it's only 'cause you're paying attention. But take heart.
Electronics and high-tech accessories manufacturers are now introducing
a host of new products designed to help tame the darkness, give us a
sense of safety (or at least control) in these insecure times..." http://dailynews.philly.com:80/content/daily_news/2001/09/28/
Question of the week... A corporate client called to ask "if there was any way to detect phone tapping."
The question has several answers...
1. Due to the variety of eavesdropping technologies available it may not
be a wiretap which is causing the information losses. Keep an open mind
and take a holistic approach to solving the problem.
2. If you suspect the eavesdropping/wiretapping is internal to the
building, the success rate of determining "what happened" is very high.
With a corporate phone system (fiber and T-1 lines to the phone company
central office, etc.), it is very unlikely that that the loss occurred
outside of the building.
3. Consider the other party to the call as well. Where were they? What
type of phone equipment were they using? Is it practical to inspect at
their end as well?
4. For an instant education... Visit spybusters.com for lots
of FAQs, free recommendations, and insights into electronic
eavesdropping problems.
Spyware Alert - Check your Macs for FoneSpy...
This application lets you hear the conversation on your phone line
without anyone noticing that you are spying the phone line. Now you can
record your conversations with FoneSpy 2.0. (reworded site text) http://bugsbug.accesscard.org/eng/fs.html
SOFIA, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Bulgarian police have uncovered an extensive
industrial espionage operation involving the illegal phone-tapping of
companies and private individuals, the Interior Ministry said on
Thursday. "Counter-intelligence services discovered surveillance
equipment in one of Sofia's telephone exchanges. At the moment of
discovery the equipment was recording," the ministry said in a
statement. "Similar devices were found in almost all exchanges in
Sofia," it said. Interior Ministry investigators had found those
responsible for installing the phone-taps and those who ordered the
illegal operation, which ran from 1994 to 2001, it said. "The tapping is
related mainly to economic interests," Interior Minister Georgi Petkanov
told reporters. "No politicians and magistrates have been tapped." No
state agencies had been involved in the surveillance operation, Petkanov
stressed. A scandal erupted in Bulgaria a year ago after bugging devices
were found in the chief prosecutor's flat. (unverified)
How do they find out? AT&T Wireless Services Inc. last week confirmed that it can meet the
Federal Communications Commission's Enhanced 911 automatic location
identification requirements. http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=558169
How did they find out?
AT&T Corp. has begun secret talks to merge with regional service
provider BellSouth Corp., BusinessWeek magazine reported. http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=560932
(What do you think? ...Ma Belle?)
SPECIAL SECTION -- World Spy News
Forget the Sky Marshalls. Send in the Nerds... Silicon Valley's plan to stop skyjackings--all of them... "(Install)
'safe mode' panic buttons that put the plane on forced autopilot that
cannot be overridden, except in special circumstances, ... have them
mounted in the cockpit, one for each side, with additional optional
buttons in crew areas on each side of the plane in both the forward and
aft cabins. Once a plane is in safe mode it would randomly select one of
the 10 nearest airports capable of accommodating that plane type, and
automatically land the aircraft there. http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/
Heck, just tune in CSPAN if you want to know what they're up to... A law giving federal investigators broader authority to track the phone
and Internet activities of suspected terrorists took a big step toward
congressional approval Wednesday when the powerful House Judiciary
Committee unanimously approved a compromise version of the controversial
bill. Following a marathon markup session that ended after 8 p.m., the
Judiciary Committee voted 36-0 to approve the Provide Appropriate Tools
Required To Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (PATRIOT) Act of 2001.
"I don't think that the electronic surveillance stuff is adequately fixed,"
(said) Laura Murphy, the director of the ACLU's Washington Office. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170807.html
I believe it's called the Mush Room... Meeting in a windowless, bug-proof chamber deep inside the Justice
Department, a secretive U.S. court wields extraordinary power to approve
government requests to listen in on citizens' phone calls or to break
into their homes to seize evidence. The court's seven judges just can't
seem to say no... http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com
Lay off. Who in government can say 'no' these days? ...the seven-member court has been busy approving classified requests by
agents from the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency to conduct
surveillance of people suspected of being spies or members of terrorist
groups operating in this country. The intense use of such secret
warrants, which are reserved for cases dealing with national security issues... http://cgi.usatoday.com/usatonline/20011004/3508205s.htm
Androcles, meet Damocles...
Robert Hanssen, the senior FBI agent who has admitted spying for Russia,
gave away the identity of America's top spy in Moscow eight years before
the man was executed. The confession has worried the US and British
intelligence agencies, who have been re-examining all the material
provided by the spy, Dmitri Polyakov, during those eight years, on the
basis that it might be false or misleading. http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=30 http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0156.html#jacobs (Androcles) http://www.wiu.edu/users/musgf1/soddef.htm (Damocles)
Ah, nyah nyah nyah NYAH nyah, so...
Two years after humiliatingly failing to capture suspected North Korean
spy boats violating Japan's territorial waters, the government submitted
a bill Friday to the Diet that would give the Japan Coast Guard new
powers to fire on suspicious vessels. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5
Junior Birdmen to the rescue... America's desperate need for intelligence in Afghanistan will be hugely
boosted by Global Hawk, a new high-altitude, unmanned reconnaissance
plane. Global Hawk, a drone that can stay airborne for up to 36 hours,
will be used alongside RC-135 and U-2 spy planes to gather intelligence
from the air. They can eavesdrop on transmissions from the ground and
record activities without risking pilots' lives. http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/ http://www.iht.com/articles/34308.htm http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/l
SPECIAL SECTION -- Doctors & Lawyers
No Pinky, don't rub ink on your face... Dr. Lawrence A. Farwell has invented, developed, proven, and patented
the technique of Farwell Brain Fingerprinting, a new computer-based
technology to identify the perpetrator of a crime accurately and
scientifically by measuring brain-wave responses to crime-relevant words
or pictures presented on a computer screen. Farwell Brain Fingerprinting
has proven 100% accurate in over 100 tests, including tests on FBI
agents and tests for a US intelligence agency and for the US Navy. Dr.
Farwell recently presented Brain Fingerprinting in court in defence of a
man falsely convicted of murder. (company press releases) http://www.brainwavescience.com/OnePageSummary004.htm http://brainwavescience.com/PressReleaseAdmissibility102.htm
The Case of:
The Persecuted Prosecutor,
Eaves Dropped!,
or...
California Sour Grapes" SAN BERNARDINO, CA -- Assistant District Attorney Dan Lough has filed a
$1.6-million lawsuit against the county, alleging the Sheriff's
Department unlawfully made him a target of political spying. The suit
filed Monday claims the department "has for many years engaged in
political espionage." At the request of a corruption task force, former
Rialto Councilman Ed Scott secretly recorded dozens of conversations
with Lough, District Attorney Dennis Stout and a county investigator.
The taping occurred during Scott's campaign last year to unseat
Supervisor Jerry Eaves. Prosecutors were investigating Eaves at the time
and court transcripts indicate Stout and Lough discussed the Eaves probe
and advised Scott in his campaign. Scott narrowly lost the election. http://www.sacbee.com/news/calreport/data/
Defense Analyst buys Espionage Defense Lawyers... for life! Ana Belen Montes, the Defense Intelligence Agency analyst accused of
acting as a spy for Cuba, appeared in U.S. District Court with a new
legal team. Montes, 44, of Northwest Washington, has hired veteran
lawyers Plato Cacheris and Preston Burton to represent her in a case
that could carry the death penalty. Cacheris and Burton have extensive
experience in espionage cases. They represented FBI counterintelligence
agent Robert P. Hanssen, who pleaded guilty in July to 15 counts of
spying for Moscow, and CIA officer Aldrich H. Ames, who pleaded guilty
in 1994 to selling secrets to the Russians. Hanssen and Ames both
received life prison sentences. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/
SPECIAL SECTION -- SpyCam News
Here come the laws... Madison, WI - On its first day of the fall session, the state Senate on
Thursday went after high-tech peeping Toms who secretly film people in
the nude and distribute the images on the Internet. The Senate passed a
bill to toughen a new law enacted only two months ago as part of the
state budget to make "video voyeurism" a felony. http://www.jsonline.com:80/news/state/oct01/
SPECIAL SECTION -- Our Spy Culture - Quotes & Reviews
Information Security - Quotes of the Week?
Fighting Words! “We have no interest in stopping people from making a living but when
something which has taken us two or three years to develop is suddenly
being marketed by someone else within three months, we have to put a
stop to it.”
Prism CEO, Alvin Els
Speaking about a law suit Prism filed to stop corporate espionage. http://196.37.50.65/sections/business/2001/0110021206.asp
Old high school credo... "If you don't open your mouth, you're OK,'' said Kevin D. Murray,
president of Murray Associates in Oldwick, N.J., a consulting company
that specializes in electronic eavesdropping audits for businesses
and governments. (A 1/2 hour interview, and this is what ya get.) http://www0.mercurycenter.com:80/premium/scitech/docs/hide02.htm
Book Reviews...
How we got the way we are. "Snitch Culture: How Citizens are Turned into the Eyes and Ears of the State"
Investigative journalist Jim Redden examines how snooping has become so
much a part of American culture that it is practically a family value,
encouraged on billboards, television, and even in classrooms. From
employees hired to spy on their coworkers to doctors forced to disclose
medical information, the U.S. has developed a chilling network for
monitoring its citizens. (Well researched, good historical background,
POV bias is manageable, an awareness raiser, builds steam with each chapter.) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0922915636/
"Cold Zero: Inside the FBI Hostage Rescue Team"
Christopher Whitcomb
This close-up look at the FBI's most elite unit by a 15-year veteran
including firsthand accounts of actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge is
alternately funny, exciting and disturbing. No longer the gray-suited
flatfoots of yore on endless wiretap stakeouts, the G-men of today run
the gamut from industrial counterespionage and online sex crime stings
to international investigations of terrorist attacks on sovereign U.S.
territory to forensic investigations of war atrocities on foreign soil. http://www.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/books/10/03/ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316601039/
TV Reviews...
Alias / 24 "The only problem with the debut episode of Alias -- which, along with
the upcoming 24 on Fox, is the best premiere of the fall TV season -- is
it begs the question: Can they keep this up? Sure hope so." http://detnews.com:80/2001/entertainment/0110/03/
A cute perky grad student who's also a spy? "Yes, folks -- it's Run, Felicity, Run. Awful-sounding premise, true.
But Alias, the latest entry in the action-babe sweepstakes, is executed
to near-perfection." http://www.canoe.ca/TelevisionShowsA/alias.html
SPECIAL SECTION -- ***CONTEST*** (completed)
Attention Sofa Studs... As we go into the fall/winter sports season here is some trivia you are
obligated to know. The first practical wireless TV remote control...
- was invented in 1956,
- did not use batteries,
- had a mechanical striker hitting aluminum tubes,
- created ultrasonic tones that the TV recognized,
- and handled on/off, volume, and channel changing duties.
The inventor changed our society. He is still alive, and deserves your
respect and admiration. Let's start by remembering his name.
Who is the inventor of the wireless TV remote control?
What's wrong with this picture?
"While the resolution of some surveillance satellites is so high that
intelligence agents can read a license plate from a mile away, ..." http://www0.mercurycenter.com:80/premium/scitech/docs/
Answers... 1. The intelligence agents should really pull their chairs closer to their desks.
2. Its a bird, its a plane, no its a satellite flying quite low.
3. [You're snappy answer here.]
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