...and not a penny to, "Be sure to wipe and flush."

NY gets $11M to promote seat belt use
New York will receive more than $11 million in federal funding to encourage and enforce seat belt use. ... The DOT granted more than $109 million to 17 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and four territories. (more)

An outrageous waste of money - to promote the obvious to a few idiots. Announced late on a Friday prior to a holiday weekend. Just coincidence?

This Week's Bad Boys of Eavesdropping (government version)

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Gonzales also told Congress there was little dissent within the Bush administration about the legality of a warrantless electronic surveillance program launched by the NSA after the Sept. 11 attacks. But that appeared to be contradicted in testimony by a former deputy attorney general, who said several top Justice officials at one point threatened to resign over a disagreement with the White House. (more)


Former Philippine Air Force Sergeant Vidal Doble
...who admitted to having wiretapped former elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo at the height of the 2004 elections. (more)


Polish Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński
Accused of... "Wiretapping colleagues, using these wiretaps for political goals, in my opinion trying to arrange the detention or arrest of government colleagues - this is not the kind of activity which can be included in the canon of any code of conduct, aside from the gangsters' code," Giertych, leader of the right-wing League of Polish Families (LPR) opposition party, told reporters in Warsaw this week. (more)


Cyprus Competition Commissioner Giorgos Christofides
Police charged him in connection with allegations he was spying on his staff, press reports said yesterday. Since July, Christofides has been caught in the maelstrom’s eye after employees at the Commission for the Protection of Competition complained he used the CCTV system to watch their every move, that he listened in on their phone conversations and even scrutinized their emails. It’s also been alleged that Christofides set up a live web-link from the offices to his laptop so he could keep an eye on his staff while he was out. (more)

Your Employee's Bad Computer Security Habits

- Borrowing Wi-Fi
About one in three corporate employees who work from a laptop sometimes piggyback on a stranger's wi-fi connection they spot with their wireless Internet card, according to InsightExpress' study. While that allows for easy telecommuting without a broadband bill, moving confidential data across an insecure wireless connection can be risky.

- Using USB Drives
Those little USB key chains make for easy file transfers, but when they store sensitive information, they also pose a security risk. Not only are they frequently lost, but they're also built to run certain programs automatically when plugged in. One security researcher, Steve Stasiukonis, planted 20 USB drives in the parking lot of a bank, each with a piece of software that steals passwords and log-ins from employees' computers and sends them to a third party. Fifteen were picked up by employees and plugged in, ferreting off sensitive information and demonstrating the devices' potential for exploitation.

- Forwarding to Third-party Webmail
Services like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail are free, universally accessible and often easier to use than clunky corporate e-mail, tempting workers to forward their work messages to a Webmail account. But when confidential data is copied from your business's e-mail servers and ends up on Google's or Yahoo!'s, it's no longer completely in your control.

- Opening E-mail Attachments
Opening attached files on e-mail from strangers is one risky behavior that seems to have finally become unfashionable. Ninety-three percent of workers now know better than to expose themselves to malware or viruses by opening files from anonymous or unfamiliar messages. But some not so brilliant users actually infect themselves purposefully out of curiosity, says David Perry, director of education at Trend Micro.

- Clicking Hyperlinks in E-mails
Just as employees have started wising up to attachment threats, cyber-criminals have moved on. More common now is malware that installs itself when the user visits a Web page linked in a spam e-mail. Those links can be masked to read as legitimate sites like eBay.com or Amazon.com while sending users somewhere far less desirable.

- Surfing Shady Sites
Allowing employees to visit porn or gambling sites at work is a bad idea for several apparent reasons. But one of the less obvious is the threat of Web-based malware, which often lurks on disreputable sites.

- Not Securing Wireless Devices
As smart phones proliferate, the definition of the word "computer" is blurring at the edges, and so is the security perimeter of a business with wireless employees. Many wireless devices don't come with security software or encryption of data pre-installed. (more)

Colorado Parents Can Now Spy On Teen Drivers

An insurance company is providing parents with another tool to track how their teenagers are driving. American Family Insurance began offering a program to put cameras in cars in August.

...the camera only records 10 seconds before and after an out-of-the-ordinary driving event like a swerve, speeding, not coming to a full stop or a collision.

"Nobody can view the video except for the parents, with a password that's proprietary to them," said Tom Walker, an agent with American Family Insurance. (more)

Do It Yourself Sky Spies - The Draganflyer

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) like the military's MQ-1 Predator and local government's SkySeer are meant to protect us. They cost a lot of money.


The flip side of the coin... Industrial Espionage on the cheap!

UAVs are easy to make. Many hobbyists are already doing so - and showing off their aerial surveillance videos on YouTube! Many of these videos were shot using a Draganflyer - a hobbyist helicopter outfitted with a wireless video camera.

From Draganflyer's advertising... "Whether you need high quality aerial video for a sporting event, advertising, or any other purpose you will get it done efficiently and professionally with the Draganflyer SAVS."

While we don't believe they were thinking about industrial espionage 'other purposes', just imagine one flying over your sensitive production facilities, new construction site, or a personally private area. (more video)

Key Eavesdropping Cracks Car Locks

A group of computer security researchers in Israel and Belgium say they've discovered the electronic equivalent of a Slim Jim -- a way to pop the electronic door locks on most cars without ever touching them.

By listening in on the wireless “conversation” between a car and its key, the researchers found they could crack the code that keeps the communication secret. Then they were able to emulate the electronic key and trick the car into unlocking itself.

The research paper, called “How to Steal Cars, (PDF)” was presented at the Crypto 2007 conference at the University of California, Santa Barbara, last week. (more)

Electronic Surveillance - "There’s money to be made..."

...And so a new industry was born, known in the trade as ‘Intelligence Support Systems’, complete with its own annual conference. If you’re in Dubai next February, drop by. Since there’s money to be made, panels cover such areas as ‘Electronic Surveillance Cost Recovery Solutions’ and – for the benefit of those who prefer to carry out the intercepts in-house before passing the data on ready-analysed to the relevant government agencies – the key topic of ‘how to transform packet intercept into intelligence’ (more)

Eavesdropping on VoIP Calls—Part 2

In Part 1 of this opus, I (hopefully) painted a scary picture of how easy it is to eavesdrop on VoIP traffic. So what can you to protect your own VoIP traffic? Let's take a look at some of your options.

-- Use Skype
Skype is famous for its excellent call quality and reliability. Its call security is pretty good, and is used on all Skype services—VoIP calls, text chat, and video and file transfers. Skype uses a digital certificate authority and signed certificates, peer authentication, and strong encryption.

-- ZRTP encrypts all VoIP
PGP is the most widely used e-mail encryption software. It now exists in two main forms: a commercial implementation maintained by the PGP Corp., and the free software version, GNU Privacy Guard (GPG). (more)

Goodby, Talking Clock

It's the end of time, at least as far as AT&T is concerned. The brief note in customers' bills hardly does justice to the momentousness of the decision. "Service withdrawal," it blandly declares. "Effective September 2007, Time of Day information service will be discontinued."

In the 1930s, an Atlanta company called Audichron devised a system for the time to be provided automatically. Audichron leased its technology to phone companies nationwide, often with sponsorship from local businesses.

Time ladies -- and a few gentlemen -- came and went over the years. Then, in the 1950s, a woman named Mary Moore emerged as the nation's leading time-teller. Her reading of hours, minutes and seconds was delivered in a distinctive if somewhat prissy tone. Moore's odd pronunciation of the numbers 5 ("fiyev") and 9 ("niyun") influenced a generation of operators, much as flying ace Chuck Yeager's West Virginia drawl is said to have been adopted by innumerable airline pilots.

By far the most prominent time lady was Jane Barbe, who succeeded Moore at Audichron in the 1960s. A former big band singer, Barbe (pronounced "Barbie") went on to become the voice of recorded telephone messages in the 1970s and '80s in the United States and elsewhere.

Joanne Daniels started recording the time and other messages for Weatherchron about 25 years ago, and ultimately became the voice Californians hear when they call the service. “I was told at one time that my voice would last until well into the 21st century,” the 65-year-old said. “Now it looks like I’m about to be laid to rest.” (more)

Poland's Eavesdropping Scandal Shuts Down Parliament

The testimony by Poland's Former Minister of Interior about Polish Government use of special services organizations to spy on political opponents has stopped proceedings of the Polish Parliament. And the stoppage may end up being long term. Parliamentary Speaker Ludwig Dorn said if the opposition continues to demand breaks the current session could "go on for months".

Yesterday, during the reading of the secret testimony of Former Minister of Interior Janusz Kaczmarek, Former Minister of Education Roman Giertych exploded when he learned that conversations between him and Former Deputy Prime Minister Andrzej Lepper were recorded and transcripts of their conversations given to Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Making accusations of a "Polish Watergate", Giertych demanded a delay in Parliamentary proceedings until next Tuesday.

The delay stops all work of the Parliament. (more)

SpyCam Story #374 - Porno Prof

'Hidden camera' teacher faces more charges
Australia - Police have laid more charges against Cromer High School teacher, Robert Ian Drummond - accused of secretly filming up the skirt of a teenage girl on Sydney's Northern Beaches. Manly Local Court today heard Drummond faces two new charges of producing and possessing child pornography, which relate to the recording made of the girl. (more)

Point, Click, TAP! - How the FBI does it...

The FBI has quietly built a sophisticated, point-and-click surveillance system that performs instant wiretaps on almost any communications device, according to nearly a thousand pages of restricted documents newly released under the Freedom of Information Act.

The surveillance system, called DCSNet, for Digital Collection System Network, connects FBI wiretapping rooms to switches controlled by traditional land-line operators, internet-telephony providers and cellular companies. It is far more intricately woven into the nation's telecom infrastructure than observers suspected.

...the surveillance systems let FBI agents play back recordings even as they are being captured (like TiVo), create master wiretap files, send digital recordings to translators, track the rough location of targets in real time using cell-tower information, and even stream intercepts outward to mobile surveillance vans. (more)

Listen to VoIP Phones - Even When On the Hook

Recently disclosed information suggests that it is a relatively simple matter to remotely eavesdrop on a broad range of SIP-enabled devices. For readers who aren't aware of what SIP-enabled devices are, SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is a protocol that is used by a lot of VoIP software and associated telephone handsets to establish, modify, and control a VoIP connection between two parties.

The research that was published indicates that, for at least one vendor, it is possible to automatically call a SIP device from that vendor and have it silently accept the call, even if it is still on the hook - instantly turning it into a classic bugged phone. Whereas historic telephony bugs needed physical targeting of the line running to a property or place of business, the presence of VoIP in the equation allows bugging from anywhere in the world with equal ability.

Now anyone can do from their armchair what only spies and law enforcement used to be able to do from inside the telephone switch / pit / distribution board, though it's still illegal to do so. (more)

Pew! What's that smell? A progressive spying technique?

The head of one of the leading insurers in non-standard, high-risk personal auto insurance apologized on Thursday for some substandard behavior - spying in church on people who had the sued the company.

Progressive Corp Chief Executive Glenn Renwick apologized for the use of private detectives, who went undercover to join an Atlanta church group in order to discredit a couple suing the insurer. (more)

Which one is the bug?

Photo #1 is one of these.






Photo #2 is one of these.


Plug Bugs Are Heard Around the World
• GSM SIM card inside enables dial in from anywhere in the world
• Listen to conversations from a distance
• Looks like a standard 3-way adaptor plug

"Using the GSM network we can convert any normal 3-way plug into a sophisticated listening device. The plug can be used in your own home or office to gather audio intelligence from across the globe.

Cleverly constructed inside is a GSM SIM card combined with a powerful Knowles microphone which will silently open the connection when you dial in from anywhere in the world, thus allowing you to listen to the surrounding sounds and conversations.

The plug is NOT a working model and can be used to monitor a particular area for periods of audio surveillance.

Note: This unit can be used legally within the EU."

Don't let the foreign look of this bug fool you. It can be built into any type of electrical connector, power strip, radio, TV, lamp, clock, computer, coffee pot or anything which has a source of power.

Video spying tells tale:

Pets let loose when owners are out!

Ever wonder what your pets do when they are home alone?

Jamie Skeate did more than just wonder. The 27-year-old from St. Cloud, Minn., and her husband videotaped her dogs, Bosco, a Great Dane, and Lily, a greyhound.

"Sometimes we would come home and their toys would be all over the house, and my husband and I would joke that it looked like they had had a party," she says. (more)

Life Imitates Art... Linkletter

...from an Arizonia college newspaper...
"If you like Overheard on Campus, do your part to keep this space filled by submitting the products of your eavesdropping today!

The Arizona Daily Wildcat is proud to feature "Overheard on Campus," where private conversations become public hilarity.

Got a good one? E-mail it to campus@wildcat.arizona.edu. Be sure to include your name, year and major with your submission." (more)

*** Security Alert *** Video Phone Eavesdropping and Denial of Service Vulnerability

A vulnerability has been reported in the Grandstream GXV3000 IP Video Phone, which can be exploited by malicious people to cause a DoS (Denial of Service) and eavesdrop with vulnerable devices.

The vulnerability is caused due to an unspecified error in the SIP stack and can be exploited to set the phone to an inconsistent state by sending an "INVITE" and a "183 Session Progress" message sequence. This allows an attacker to eavesdrop with the device and also disables it to hang up.

The vulnerability is reported in firmware version 1.0.1.7. Other versions may also be affected.

Solution: Reportedly fixed in version 1.0.1.12. Contact the vendor for more information.

NYC Sightseeing (in reverse)

Surveillance Camera Outdoor Walking Tour: The Lower East Side New York City - A fascinating look at how often you are being taped during your daily jaunt through the city. Taking this guided stroll throug the Lower East Side you'll marvel at the electronic observation of your path. (more) (more)

Chinese spying on German government computers

Numerous computers of the German government are infected by Chinese espionage programs, the weekly Der Spiegel news magazine said in a report to hit the newsstands on Sunday.

Chinese cyber spies snooped reportedly on computers in the chancellery, the foreign and economic ministry as well as the research ministry. According to the Verfassungschutz, the Chinese hackers are believed to be linked to China's People's Army.

Reacting to the report, the Chinese embassy in Berlin dismissed it as "irresponsible speculation without any basis of proof".

Chancellor Angela Merkel was due to embark on Sunday on a one-week visit to China and Japan.

The German media has repeatedly reported on extensive Chinese economic espionage inside Germany. (more)

SpyCam Story #373 - Video Gossip

UK - A Tesco boss was caught on CCTV in a steamy clinch with a 16-year-old shelf stacker... in his supermarket cash office. Store manager Harish Bhatoya, 25, faces the sack and the teenage girl has already quit over the scandal.

One Tesco worker recorded four minutes of the 6pm incident from the CCTV monitors on a mobile phone. The footage circulated among staff and eventually bosses at the supermarket giant's head office found out. ... Two senior members of staff came down to the store on the Monday and took the CCTV tapes. (more)

"...and we also send the feed to Santa."

UK - Motorists using mobile phones are being caught by a police spotter plane.

The £300,000 "eye in the sky" flies at around 10,000 ft - and uses a powerful camera which can zoom in on a driver with amazing precision.

If someone is spotted using a phone, the police alert colleagues on the ground to stop them.

The aircraft is being used by Cheshire Police on its way to and from other jobs. A police spokesman said: "The camera is of a military spec and can magnify to almost any degree required." (more)

Obviously, there is no need to spend about $600,000.00 (not to mention the fuel bill), or fly at an altitude of 10,000 feet to catch people driving while using mobile phones. Heck, the fine alone would have to be in the thousands to make this cost-effective. However, the "other jobs" might make this worthwhile, and releasing a nutty story like this to a sensational-hungry press and gullible public; free frosting on the enforcement cake!

Want to ...be a Private Investigator?

...read the magazine they read, just for fun?
...ask a PI a question on-line?
...play with real PI gear?
...find a PI to help you?

Then, you need to bookmark this web site.

Pin the Tail on the Dopey... or, PI Spies Bug Sports Guys

Australia - There is a new gig in town for private eyes: spying on athletes caught up in doping allegations.

Tender documents show the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority is hiring a panel of private investigators to monitor athletes, coaches and officials who are already under suspicion.

An authority spokesman, Simon Tidy, said private investigators using video and audio surveillance equipment was new for the authority.

"We have our own investigators … but in terms of video and audio, we don't do that at the moment," he said.

The tender, which closed last week, called for companies with the resources to conduct "covert and overt" investigations in Australia and overseas.

Investigators who won contracts, expected to be for three years, would have to hold a current investigator's licence, and have undergone an Australian Federal Police character assessment in the past two years.

They will report day-to-day accounts of surveillance operations, and provide comprehensive video and audio records, including a "compilation tape" with many hours of footage. (more)

SpyCam Story #372 - Surfer's Paradise

Australia - A Gold Coast man has been charged with stalking after allegedly installing security cameras in his share house to spy on his three female flatmates.

Police said the 36-year-old man from Surfers Paradise lived with three females aged 24, 34 and 37.

He has been charged with wilful damage, observations or recordings in breach of privacy, and possession of tainted property and will appear in Southport Magistrates Court today. (more)

Teacher Charged With Wiretapping

WV - A vocational teacher is accused of illegally recording a fellow instructor in an apparent attempt to catch her 'ranting and raving' at students.

Hancock County sheriff's officials say 52-year-old Joyce Wells of New Cumberland admitted she recorded Marcie Stewart by placing a tape recorder outside her classroom on May 2.

It is illegal in West Virginia for anyone to audiotape a conversation to which he or she is not a party. (more)

Judge upholds charge in videotaping case

IL - Rejecting claims of prosecutorial misconduct, a McHenry County judge Friday upheld the indictment of a Cary teen accused with two friends of videotaping a sexual encounter one of them had with an unknowing female classmate.

The decision moves 17-year-old Stefen Mueller a step closer to trial on the felony eavesdropping charge stemming from the Jan. 6 incident. ...

The eavesdropping charges against Mueller and his co-defendants allege they set up a hidden video camera in one of the teen's bedrooms to capture a later encounter between one of them and a 17-year-old girl. (more)

Wiretap Law History - Chapter 1

Whispering Wires: The Tragic Tale of an American Bootlegger
ISBN: 9781592992522
by Philip Metcalfe

In Whispering Wires, Metcalfe tells the story of Roy Olmstead, one of the principal bootleggers in Prohibition-era Seattle, and the first major federal court case concerning the use of wiretaps.

He writes, "Set into motion then was a constellation of conditions that no one could have foretold. Prohibition had produced a shadow universe governed by an aberrant moral algebra." This historical narrative follows the city officials, Prohibition agents, and rumrunners who chased, evaded, and double-crossed each other during one of Seattle's most thrilling eras. (more)

Vintage - "Just Coincidence?"

Cold War jet trains. (more)

Are bloggers part of the news media?

The U.S. government — led by two of its most secretive agencies — is increasingly saying, "Yes, they are."

Despite the rap that bloggers simply "bloviate" and "don't try to find things out," as conservative newspaper columnist Robert Novak once sniffed, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) have altered policies to indicate they're taking blogs seriously, and a growing number of public offices are actively reaching out to the blogosphere.

The CIA recently updated its policies on Freedom of Information Act requests to allow bloggers to qualify for special treatment once reserved for old-school reporters. And last August, the NSA issued a directive to its employees to report leaks of classified information to the media — "including blogs," the order said. (more)

The Old 'Cell Phone Eavesdropping' Trick

IL - A Carpentersville man was accused of giving the old telephone slogan “reach out and touch someone” a high-tech twist when he bugged a car with a cell phone, police said Wednesday.

A 27-year-old woman called police at 8 p.m. Tuesday, saying she found a cell phone lying under the seat of her car with an open line.

When police called the number of the last incoming call, a man answered and said he was the woman’s husband, police said. But they said they are unsure of the relationship between the victim and the man.

Howard Fabriccio, 30, of 130 Austin Ave., Carpentersville, was charged with eavesdropping and possession of an eavesdropping device, police said.

Police said the phone was set to ring silently and automatically answer. The person on the other end could listen to what was happening in the woman’s car after the cell phone number was dialed.

When the phone was discovered, police said there was a timer on the phone that had been active for more than an hour. (more)

Biting with Bluetooth

The carwhisperer project...

Once the connection has been successfully established, the carwhisperer binary starts sending audio to, and recording audio from the headset. This allows attackers to inject audio data into the car. This could be fake traffic announcements or nice words. Attackers are also able to eavesdrop conversations among people sitting in the car.

Ideally, the carwhisperer is used with a toooned dongle and a directional antenna that enhances the range of a Bluetooth radio quite a bit. (more)

Bluetooth Sound Bites

When you talk over a hands-free Bluetooth device while driving your car, it is possible that some unwanted persons are listening to your conversation without your knowledge. Jim Stickley, ID theft expert and CTO of TraceSecurity, proved that the devices are vulnerable to eavesdropping.

Appearing on NBC’s TODAY show, Stickley demonstrated how vulnerable the hands-free car devices are even to the most simple of attacks.

During the testing, Stickly followed a car that was equipped with a hands-free Bluetooth device and listened the conversation without the knowledge of the occupants. (more)

10 things you can do to make sure your data doesn’t walk out the door

This is important. People will sneak into your offices, open your computers and steal your hard drives. How do I know? My client has a CCTV recording of it happening to their top Administrative Assistant's computer just this past weekend.

Debra Littlejohn Shinde says, "Let’s look at what you should be doing to keep your data from walking out the door...
#1: Practice the principle of least privilege
#2: Put policies in writing
#3: Set restrictive permissions and audit access
#4: Use encryption
#5: Implement rights management
#6: Restrict use of removable media
#7: Keep laptops under control
#8: Set up outbound content rules
#9: Control wireless communications
#10: Beware creative data theft methods formats

Remember that your data can walk out in many different formats. A user can print out a document and carry it out in paper form or a thief can steal printed documents from trash cans if the paper hasn’t been shredded. Even if you’ve implemented a technology such as rights management to prevent copying or printing documents, a person could take a digital or film photograph of the content onscreen or even sit and copy the information by hand. Be aware of all the ways your data can leave the premises and take steps to protect against them." (more)

SpyCam Story #371 - "Mr. Simpson, I presume."

Tracking down the guy who hid a video camera in a Seattle ladies’ room was made a little easier when the suspect allegedly recorded himself setting it up. (doh!)

The suspect was booked on suspicion of voyeurism after the manager of the downtown movie theater where the camera was found identified the suspect as one of his employees. (more)

Cutting Edge Spies