by Terrence O'Brien on March 22, 2011 at 01:05 PM

It used to be that spying on military aircraft required the sort of technology and training that only a government-backed espionage outfit could manage. Those days are long gone. Now, with a few hundred dollars' worth of radio gear and a little Web savvy, a private citizen can gather a surprising amount of information about supposedly secret government and military operations. Dutch radio ...
by Terrence O'Brien on January 20, 2011 at 07:00 AM

Security researcher Ralf-Philipp Weinmann has recently found a way to turn smartphones -- both Android- and iOS-based -- into remote listening devices. The hack is far from simple, and requires some serious hacking chops to pull off, but it's not so unrealistic that a dedicated, would-be spy couldn't turn any phone they desired into an eavesdropping device. The trick involves hacking a phone's ...
by Amar Toor on January 6, 2011 at 09:20 AM

The Middle East may be once again on the brink of ornithological warfare, now that Saudi Arabian officials have detained an Israeli bird suspected of espionage. The bird was first spotted in a rural area of the country, wearing a transmitter and a leg bracelet that read 'Tel Aviv University.' Officials promptly took the creature into custody, and accused it of being a Mossad spy.
Its tag would ...
by Terrence O'Brien on July 14, 2010 at 07:00 PM

Americans are understandably captivated by the Russian spy scandal that has rocked the already strained post Cold War relations between Washington and the Kremlin. The first ten spies have already been sent back to the motherland in a prisoner swap and the eleventh is still at large, having disappeared from the island nation of Cyprus. But a twelfth spy has been discovered working at the Redmond, ...
by Terrence O'Brien on July 4, 2010 at 11:00 AM

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/07/04/any-usb-peripheral-is-now-a-potential-threat/';
A group of Canadian hackers have identified and learned to exploit a flaw that allows them to turn any USB peripheral into a sort of hardware trojan horse. Plug-and-play USB devices follow a consistent rule, the device identifies itself to the PC. The computer, by rule, will believe that a UB device ...
by Ben Deitz on July 1, 2010 at 10:15 AM

The American Civil Liberties Union has recently launched 'Spy Files', a new website focused on illegal domestic surveillance. The site aims to make the extent of the government's spying on its own citizens public information. The information will include, "Freedom of Information Act requests, ACLU lawsuits and reports, and news accounts." The ACLU debuted the website along with a report showcasing ...
by Warren Riddle on July 1, 2010 at 06:30 AM

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/07/01/alleged-russian-spy-ring-mixes-old-tricks-with-new-tech/';
The exposure and detainment of an alleged Russian spy ring in New York state this past week has provoked a steady stream of disconcerting references, like "Cold War-era," "old-fashioned cold war thriller," "007-worthy" and "right out of a Cold War spy novel." Salivating scribes eagerly ...
by Caleb Johnson on May 14, 2010 at 12:35 PM

Share
On Monday, Boeing revealed its newest unmanned spy plane, a boomerang-shaped, drool-inducing object that looks straight out of a Michael Bay film. The sleek Phantom Ray is 36-feet long with a 50-foot wingspan, and takes off this December. This bad boy can hit 614 mph while hovering around 40,000 feet, but its purpose seems a bit obscure. Fast Company reports that, aside from being ...
by Terrence O'Brien on April 22, 2010 at 12:35 PM

Share
Security researchers Nick DePetrillo and Don Bailey have discovered a perfectly legal way to track people's location, index their incoming and outgoing phone calls, and access their voice mail by exploiting publicly available information (and weaknesses) in the global cellular system.
The hack involves a lot of convoluted steps, but nothing difficult enough to make it the exclusive ...
by Terrence O'Brien on March 29, 2010 at 05:50 PM

Share
According to a new study from the London School of Economics, the University of Oxford, and Nottingham Trent University, you're all a bunch of snoops. The three schools surveyed 1,000 married British couples and found that in one-third of the relationships, at least one partner admitted to having spied on their spouse's electronic activities. One fifth of respondents had read their ...
by Terrence O'Brien on February 24, 2010 at 06:30 AM

We'll bypass both the criticisms and the flag waving for now, and establish one simple fact about the Iraq war: we found and captured Saddam Hussein. It's a success that is often lost in the sea of critiques (deserved and otherwise) and overshadowed by our failure to do the same with Osama Bin Laden. What makes this success particularly interesting, however, is how the military utilized what were, ...
by Warren Riddle on February 3, 2010 at 03:15 PM

During World War II, British operatives constructed a massive computer designed to intercept and decipher incredibly complex, coded German messages. The machine, known as the Colossus, successfully interpreted strategic encryptions and was instrumental in the success of Allied forces. After the war, the heroic machine was destroyed so that enemies could not duplicate the amazing technological ...
by Caleb Johnson on November 12, 2009 at 07:31 AM

For the spy with a thing for dental hygiene, may we present the perfect gift: It's overpriced ($243), electric, and it'll record grainy video while polishing pearly whites. The Pinhole Spy Toothbrush Hidden Camera DVR proves that there's nothing that can't house a tiny camera and be sold to the masses. This gizmo can record about four hours of video at 640-by-480 pixels before needing a recharge, ...
by Caleb Johnson on October 24, 2009 at 05:10 PM

It might not be the smallest camera we've ever seen, but the Fake Car Key Spy Camera definitely would be a nice stocking stuffer for an Inspector Gadget in training. The camera is designed to look like a remote device that unlocks a car, shoots video at 29-frames-per-second, snaps photos at a resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels and records sound, too. There's also a slot for a MicroSD card so you ...
by Caleb Johnson on October 6, 2009 at 02:20 PM

In what he says is an effort to combat petty crime, a British businessman is asking wannabe spies to take part in a revolutionary Internet game. Next month, Tony Morgan will launch the crime-fighting service Internet Eyes, which will allow regular citizens to watch for criminal activity through closed-circuit television cameras (CCTVs) installed in businesses around town. According to The Daily ...