Old — but recently released —
document discussing the bugging of the Russian embassy in 1940. The document also mentions bugging the embassies of France, Germany, Italy, and Japan.
Also…
A long list of declassified NSA documents. These items are not online; they’re at the National Archives and Records Administration in College Park, MD. You can either ask for copies by mail under FOIA (at a 75 cents per page) or come in person. There, you can read and scan them for free, or photocopy them for about 20 cents a page.
I give spy coins to my clients.It is a reminder that information loss is mostly a people problem, not an electronic problem. Filing cabinets of information can walk out the door in pocket change!
Careless people often blab information, forget to secure it, toss it in the garbage can, or otherwise lose it—hundreds of laptops are lost every day. People also steal it when they become greedy, spiteful, conned, blackmailed, or caught up in a “cause.”
Investigating an information loss, however, begins with an electronic surveillance detection audit.
Here’s why…
• Serious espionage will include electronic surveillance.
• The possibility must be resolved before accusing people.
• Bugging is the easiest spy technique to discover.
• Electronic surveillance evidence helps prove your case.
Best advice… Conduct audits on a regular basis. Uncover signs of espionage during the intelligence collection stage, before your information can be abused. (more)
A client reports back…
“I think of all of the trinket type things we’ve accumulated over the years, the spy coin is *by far* the coolest, and is made even cooler with the background story provided on the chip!!
I took mine with me to the FBI building today and had the guards there X-ray it along-side of a normal quarter to see if its secret contents could be seen on an “airport quality” X ray machine. They printed out a copy of the scan image, I’ve attached it to this email for your amusement as well.
Several agents commented on how well it was made, and how hard it would be to detect such a thing.“
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say they’ve discovered a way to circumvent the networking technology used by law enforcement to tap phone lines in the U.S.
The flaws they’ve found “represent a serious threat to the accuracy and completeness of wiretap records used for both criminal investigation and as evidence in trial,” the researchers say in their paper, set to be presented Thursday at a computer security conference in Chicago.
Following up on earlier work on evading analog wiretap devices called loop extenders, the Penn researchers took a deep look at the newer technical standards used to enable wiretapping on telecommunication switches. They found that while these newer devices probably don’t suffer from many of the bugs they’d found in the loop extender world, they do introduce new flaws. In fact, wiretaps could probably be rendered useless if the connection between the switches and law enforcement are overwhelmed with useless data, something known as a denial of service (DOS) attack. (more)
An Akamai Technologies Inc. employee was arrested and charged Wednesday with allegedly providing confidential business information over an 18-month period to a person he believed to be an agent of a foreign government.
Elliot Doxer, 42 years old, was charged in a complaint with one count of wire fraud, according to the Justice Department. The complaint alleges that on June 22, 2006, Mr. Doxer, of Brookline, Mass., sent an email to a foreign country’s consulate in Boston stating that he was willing to provide any information that he had access to that might help the country.
It is alleged that in later communications, Mr. Doxer said his chief desire “was to help our homeland and our war against our enemies.” He also allegedly asked for $3,000 in light of the risks he was taking.
The unnamed foreign government cooperated with the U.S. in the investigation. A Justice Department spokeswoman wasn’t immediately available to comment. (more)
