Canberra is seen as the soft underbelly of the Western intelligence club. Photo: Louise Kennerley
CYBER espionage is being used against Australia on a ”massive scale” and some foreign spies are using Australian government networks to penetrate the cyber defences of allies such as the US, ASIO chief David Irvine has told business leaders.
By on 02/08/2011
Next court appearance date set in eavesdropping case
Published 7/29/2011 in Local News
By The Telegram
Another case management court appearance has been set for a Garden City businessman and former vice president of the USD 457 Board of Education who is accused of using a concealed camcorder to eavesdrop in the women’s bathroom at his business.
John Scheopner, 56, is charged with four counts of use of a concealed camcorder to eavesdrop and two counts of intimidation of a witness. A case management hearing was held Thursday afternoon, and another is set for 1:30 p.m. Aug. 11 at the Law Enforcement Center.
Scheopner was arrested June 22 on allegations that on April 30 he used the camcorder to eavesdrop on a 53-year-old Garden City woman, a 28-year-old Lakin woman and a 32-year-old Garden City woman in the women’s bathroom at Scheopner’s Water Conditioning, 2203 East Fulton Plaza.
The two counts of intimidation of a witness or victim stem from Scheopner allegedly attempting to deter the 53-year-old woman and 28-year-old woman from testifying.
Scheopner’s resignation from the school board was accepted May 23 after 14 years on the board.
By on 01/08/2011
How serendipitous. Weeks after Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion, Microsoft is seeking a patent for technology that lets it eavesdrop on VoIP calls.
Microsoft applied for the patent back in 2009, so it’s unlikely it was already preparing for a Skype acquisition two years later, but perhaps it had in mind similar voice messaging software such as Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications.
By on 27/07/2011
SEOUL – Police said Friday they are currently investigating telephone calls made between a reporter and politician related to the alleged bugging of a Democratic Party meeting.
“We are currently looking into telephone calls made by the reporter, politician and his aides to verify whether they shared information over the alleged bugging,” an officer at the Yeongdeungpo Police Station in Seoul said Friday.
Police are also considering the option of banning the suspected reporter and politician from leaving the country should they make deliberate attempts to avoid the probe, the official said, asking not to be named as investigations continue.
The potentially-explosive scandal was disclosed to the public on June 26 when the main opposition Democratic Party filed a complaint with the police, claiming a KBS reporter had bugged a meeting held to discuss strategies over the state-run broadcaster’s controversial plan to raise TV subscription fees.
By on 27/07/2011
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News television channel had a “black ops” department that may have illegally hacked private telephone records, a former executive for the station has alleged.
Dan Cooper, who helped launch Fox News as managing editor in 1996, said that a so-called “brain room” carried out “counter intelligence” on the channel’s enemies from its New York headquarters, and that he was threatened after it found out he spoke to a reporter.
Another former senior executive told The Telegraph that the channel ran a Soviet-style spying network on staff, reading their emails and making them “feel they were being watched”.
‘Fair and balanced’ … Controversial Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. A former executive claims hacking may have occurred at the network. Photo: YouTube
The channel, which has come under pressure amid allegations that outlets owned by Mr Murdoch may have attempted to hack the voicemail messages of 9/11 victims, firmly denies all the allegations.
Mr Cooper, who left Fox News soon after its launch, provided a quote for a 1997 article about Roger Ailes, Fox News’s president, by journalist David Brock in New York magazine.
The quote was not going to be attributed to him, but he alleges that, before the article was published, Mr Cooper’s agent received a telephone call from Mr Ailes threatening to withdraw Fox’s business from all his clients.
“There are only two possible ways Ailes found out,” Mr Cooper said.
“Either Brock told him or they got hold of Brock’s phone records and saw I spoke to him.”
He first alleged that the records were obtained by researchers in the “brain room” in 2005 in an article on his website about the launch of the channel.
“Most people thought it was simply the research department of Fox News,” he wrote.
“I knew it also housed a counter intelligence and black ops office. So accessing phone records was easy pie.”
Mr Cooper yesterday said he helped to design the high-security unit. “It was staffed by 15 researchers and had a guard at the door. No one working there would engage in conversation.”
Mr Cooper said he was “willing to consider the possibility” that Mr Brock named him, but added: “I assume he operates under journalistic ethics and protected a confidential source. Brock told me at the time that Ailes told him he would never work again if he wrote the article.”
Mr Brock now runs Media Matters, a Left-leaning American media watchdog. A spokesman for the group said: “He declines to comment.”
Another former Fox News senior executive, who did not wish to be named, said staff were forced to operate under conditions reminiscent of “Russia at the height of the Soviet era”.
“There is a paranoid atmosphere and they feel they are being watched,” the former executive said.
“I have no doubt they are spying on emails to ensure no one is leaking to outside media.
“There is a unit of spies that reports up to the boss about who was talking to whom. A lot of people are scared that they’re going to get sidelined or even that they’re going to get killed.”
A Fox News spokesman said: “Each of these allegations is completely false. Dan Cooper was terminated six weeks after the launch of the Fox News Channel in 1996 and has peddled these lies for the past 15 years.”
The FBI is investigating allegations that journalists on a British newspaper may have tried to have 9/11 victims’ phones hacked.
Both former Fox News executives said they thought Mr Ailes would never have let his reporters do likewise.
The Telegraph, London
By on 25/07/2011