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Global articles on espionage, spying, bugs, and other interesting topics.

Keep abreast of the espionage threats facing your organisation.

SpyCam Story #588 – Teacher’s Pen Leaks

TX – A Springtown man has been accused by police of recording a video of an 18-year-old woman showering at his home while using a “spy pen” without her consent.

A second-grade teacher at a Fort Worth elementary school, Brian Paul Weaver, 38, turned himself in to authorities and is charged with improper visual recording without consent, according to a Springtown Police affidavit.

The “spy pen,” which functions as a pen with a camera attached, was taken by one of Weaver’s children to school, where it was discovered by another student and given to a teacher, Sgt. Shawn Owens of the Springtown Police Department said.

“One of the children in Brian Weaver’s home took the pen to school thinking it was just a pen, and that’s where at the school it was discovered as more than just a pen,” Owens said. (more)


Business WebCams Hacked

A computer hacker accessed highly personal data and controlled victims’ webcams as part of a sophisticated email scam carried out from his mother’s front room.

Matthew Anderson, 33, was a key member of an international gang, abusing his skills as a computer security expert to target businesses and individuals with spam containing hidden viruses, a court heard.

He controlled victims’ webcam devices remotely to see inside their homes, at one point boasting to a friend that he made a teenage girl cry by doing so.

Major national and international organisations, including Macmillan Publishers, the Toyota car company and the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, were also targeted in what prosecutor Hugh Davies described as a “fundamental breach of security”.  (more)


Turkey Toughens Laws on Illegal Taps

Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım has said the government plans to increase penalties for illegal wiretapping in order to dissuade people from bugging private phone conversations in violation of the law...

“With the passage of this draft legislation the punishment [for illegal wiretapping] will be increased three-fold. The punishments will not be suspended or commuted to monetary fine. People who are found guilty of illegal wiretapping will be sentenced to a jail term of two to five years. There is no other method to put a stop to the illegal wiretapping paranoia,” Yıldırım told Today’s Zaman. The wiretapping of telephone conversations is a highly controversial issue in Turkey. Many believe the police as well as the military and other security agencies frequently bug people’s phone lines to detect security threats. (more)


Thomas Cook Counters Espionage

After secret talks in a room designed to prevent bugging, British tour operator Thomas Cook has bought a majority stake in Intourist, the Russian travel agency founded under Joseph Stalin. (more)
Stalin founded a travel agency?!?!
(Shrugs shoulders, walks away with a head full of jokes that will never see the light of day.) Sortalike when you’re in a Siberian… (Slaps hand over mouth.)

Fed Taps Trim Hedge

A broad U.S. crackdown on insider trading accelerated as the government charged an employee at an expert-network firm with conspiring to leak confidential information. Prosecutors also won a legal victory against a founder of the Galleon Group hedge fund that cements their ability to use wiretaps against Wall Street investors. (more)