The Israel Police have arrested 22 people suspected of distributing and installing smartphone bugging software. The police searched 11 bugging equipment businesses and private investigators. The gag order on the case was lifted today. The Police National Fraud Squad and Computer Crimes Division carried out the investigation.
The suspects allegedly distributed and installed the bugging equipment, and even advertised their product on the Internet. They are suspected of planting bugging software, bugging, and invasion of privacy.
The police say that the software was designed to be used in two ways on smartphones: controlling spyware, which sent information about all incoming and outgoing calls and SMS. On the basis of this information, the victims’ smartphones could be controlled to hear conversations in real time as well as turn them into remote listening devices to bug the surroundings. Another software sent this and other information, such as GPS data, to a special Gmail address set up for the listener.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news – www.globes-online.com – on September 19, 2011
NEW YORK (AP) – Brooklyn College faculty have passed a resolution condemning the New York Police Department’s effort to infiltrate Muslim student groups.
The college’s Faculty Council voted unanimously to condemn the practice, part of a broad intelligence-gathering operation that the NYPD has built in the last decade with the help of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The CIA is now investigating whether its agents broke the law by spying on Americans.
The Faculty Council passed the resolution on Sept. 13. College spokesman Jeremy Thompson confirmed the resolution’s passage Monday. He said that college president Karen Gould shared the professors’ concerns.
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – About 300,000 Internet users in Iran have been spied on last month by one or several hackers who stole security certificates from a Dutch IT firm, a report presented by the Dutch government said on Monday.
Read More
BANGKOK (AFP) – A Thai court on Tuesday jailed three men, a Cambodian, a Vietnamese and a local, for two years each for espionage, officials said.
The trio were arrested in June in Kantharalak District, near the disputed border with Cambodia, amid a bitter land dispute between Thailand and its neighbour.
Police said at the time that they were carrying maps with military facilities marked on them, and two of the men were using the illegal stimulant methamphetamine.
The Thai was jailed for two years and four months while the Cambodian was handed two years and three months and the Vietnamese received two years, Kantharalak District Court Director Thongchanai Kothajit said by telephone.
Sept. 6, 2011: Exterior view of the building housing Internet security firm DigiNotar in Beverwijk, north-western Netherlands. Dutch prosecutors say they are investigating DigiNotar for possible criminal negligence after it was slow to disclose a hacking incident that compromised dozens of websites and likely helped the Iranian government spy on dissidents for a month.
Read More
