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Posts with tag spy

US Government May Be Tracking You With Your Cell Phone

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jul 2nd 2008 at 10:48AMBreaking News



It was disturbing enough when the government was just listening in. Now privacy advocates are afraid the government may be tracking our every move through our cell phones. In November of 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to find out how widespread such tracking is. The DOJ didn't hand over the data, so now the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are taking the DOJ to court to force it to comply with the request.

The ACLU was spurred into action following a blog post in The New York Times in which some courts expressed discomfort with the government's use of cell phone tracking data without probable cause.

How often, and in what situations, the government has utilized this tool is not yet known, but following revelations that the domestic wiretapping was much more widespread than the Bush administration claimed, we simply can't take any chances. [Source: NY Times]
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Britain's Surveillance Cameras Get Ears and Brains

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jun 29th 2008 at 5:15PM

Britain's Surveillance Cameras Get Ears and BrainsIt was less than a year ago that closed circuit television (CCTV) security cameras in the UK were given the ability to hear. Now, in some places, those cameras are getting a major upgrade in the form of an artificial intelligence program that law enforcement officials hope will eventually be able to identify and locate specific sounds. The current generation of software is sophisticated enough for complex image recognition -- it can even identify if a car antenna is up or not.

The next step for the software is to learn to identify the waveforms of sounds, such as a car window being broken. The hope is that the camera will then be able to locate the sound, pivot to spot its origin, and alert the camera's operator. As the software "hears" more it will learn to identify more sounds.

Big Brother isn't just watching anymore, he's listening and learning. [Source: BBC]
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U.S. Army Developing Tiny, Flying Spy-Bat

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Mar 20th 2008 at 5:10PM

Army Developing Tiny Spy-Bat
Sure, Batman is cool, but can he scavenge his environment for energy? Can he recharge his batteries with wind, sunlight, or even vibrations? Didn't think so. Can Batman fly silently through the air for an almost indefinite period of time? Of course not -- he can't even fly.

Okay, so when it comes to tasks like taking out bad guys, Batman still has the edge on "The Bat," a new flying contraption being developed at the Center for Objective Microelectronics and Biomimetic Advanced Technology (COM-BAT) at the University of Michigan (U-M). Still, this six-inch spy-plane has plenty of tricks up its sleeve. The Bat, in addition to scavenging for power, will also come equipped with a bevy of sensors. Stereoscopic cameras and microphones will allow for detailed reconnaissance, while other sensors will detect radiation and airborne poisons.

Currently, the Bat is just a concept, but the U.S. Army has awarded a five year $10 million grant to the College of Engineering at U-M to bring this vision to life. This highly portable and persistent surveillance vehicle will extend soldiers senses and provide a tactical advantage to those in urban environments, where traditional spy-planes are ineffective.

From Engadget

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Unmanned Spy Plane To Stay Aloft for Five Years

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Mar 6th 2008 at 2:25PM

Unmanned Spy Plane To Stay Aloft for Five Years
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will award contracts to design and build an unmanned spy plane they've dreamed up that will stay aloft for for an amazing five years. The pseudo satellite will circle the globe for years at between 60,000 and 90,000 feet, gathering photos, communications, and generally watching everything you do.

The craft will have to answer a number of design challenges, not the least of which is how to keep this thing powered for such a long period of time. The sub-orbital satellite will also have to carry a 1000-pound payload in extremely high winds (and become airborne in the first place).

DARPA would like to have the craft built ASAP, but you know how these things work, the government will be lucky to have non-functional scale model by the year 2020.

From Gizmo Watch

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Spy Satellites to be Pointed at U.S. Citizens

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Feb 14th 2008 at 6:14PM

The domestic wiretapping program run by the NSA was disturbing enough to privacy advocates, but a new program moving forward that would allow law enforcement and security agencies to use spy satellite imagery may give the members of the ACLU a collective embolism.

Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee have held up the the program while trying to figure out some of the more pressing legal and privacy issues, but it seems that the program is moving forward now and a legal framework has been put in place. The program will not be used to intercept voice or data communications, but to obtain satellite imagery. All law enforcement requests must be accompanied by a warrant, and a third party panel that includes Justice Department officials will thoroughly vet all requests to ensure civil liberties are not violated.

From Associate Press

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National Intelligence Director Wants Access to All Internet Communications

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jan 18th 2008 at 10:09AM

Director of National Intelligence Wants to Access to EVERYTHING on the NetIn this week's issue of the New Yorker, there is a profile of the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell (pictured), that reveals some interesting information about his desires to "listen in" on Internet communications in order to protect America's cyberspace. According to McConnell, in order to properly protect the United State's electronic interests the government needs to be able to read all information crossing the Internet.

The measures will be hard sell to both the Congress and the American people. Following the controversy surrounding the questionably legal NSA wiretaps, citizens and legislators have become far more aware of the government's ability to pry and abuse domestic intelligence gathering, which has also made us more protective of our privacy.

Will McConnell get the broad reaching powers he wants to scan through your E-mails to Aunt Dolly asking for pictures of the new twins? Probably not, but the fact that he would even openly pursue such powers is a somewhat frightening prospect.

From Ars Technica

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Surveillance Cams Don't Reduce Crime, Study Finds

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Sep 21st 2007 at 1:30PM

Surveillance Cameras Not Effective at Solving CrimesStatistics obtained by the British Liberal Democrats Party through the Freedom of Information Act (yes, they have one, too) show that even with over 10,000 cameras in various London boroughs, 80 percent of all crimes still go unsolved. In fact, when broken down by borough, there is no correlation between the number of cameras and the percent of crimes solved.

  • There are now 10,524 CCTV cameras in 32 London boroughs funded with Home Office grants totaling about £200million.
  • Hackney has the most cameras -- 1,484 -- and has a better-than-average "clear up rate" of 22.2 per cent.
  • Wandsworth has 993 cameras, Tower Hamlets, 824, Greenwich, 747 and Lewisham 730, but police in all four boroughs fail to reach the average 21 percent clear-up rate.
  • By contrast, boroughs such as Kensington and Chelsea, Sutton and Waltham Forest have fewer than 100 cameras each, yet they still have clear-up rates of around 20 per cent.
  • Police in Sutton have one of the highest clear-ups with 25 per cent.
  • Brent police have the highest clear-up rate, with 25.9 per cent of crimes solved in 2006-07, even though the borough has only 164 cameras.

After 10 years and £200 million of tax payer money, groups like the criminal justice charity Narco are questioning whether the money would have been better spent on more street lights, which can cut crime by up to 20 percent.

Even the scariest of stories about government and police surveillance usually end with the good guys catching the bad guys, which makes the "Big Brother" theories a little less ominous. We don't mean to burst your bubble or anything, but as this story shows, that doesn't always happen.

From thisislondon

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Caught On Tape: UPS Guy Hurls Package

by Tom Conlon, posted Aug 17th 2007 at 12:06PM


When this video's owner set up surveillance video cameras up around his house, he probably thought he'd catch a couple of kids cutting through his yard, someone stealing his paper or maybe the neighbor's dog using his lawn as a urinal. Instead, he struck gold with tape of a lazy UPS guy hurling a package at the front door from a neighboring yard. Hello, Customer Service complaint! Remember that the next time you send anything that isn't made by NERF.

And for your Friday viewing enjoyment, here are some more videos of employees behaving badly.

Office Drone Freaks Out on Computer (oldie buy a goodie)

Janitor Caught Slacking on the Job

Wendy's Manager Caught Making Out With Employee

RadioShack Employee's Lewd Behavior

Cleaning Dude Steals From Worker's Purse

From Consumerist

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Hackers Turn Tables on 'Dateline' Operative

by Tom Conlon, posted Aug 6th 2007 at 1:01PM


After years spent undercover busting pedophiles, con men, and, most recently, iPod thieves, NBC's 'Dateline' would presumably have perfected its whole cloak and dagger routine by now. And, for the average dimwitted criminal, that may be true. But, against the world's most ingenious computer hackers, NBC's spy game is amateur hour.

This became awkwardly clear recently when 'Dateline' spook Michelle Madigan went undercover with a hidden camera to the yearly Defcon conference in Las Vegas, billed as the world's largest gathering of hackers, programmers and security experts. Big mistake. Madigan, way out of her league, was spotted almost immediately. After denying she was a member of the press, she was publicly ousted during a presentation and chased away to her car...broken, busted and humiliated.

The video is equal parts funny, sad and brutal. It definitely had us squirming in our seats. It also made us wonder if even the smug Chris Hanson of 'To Catch a Predator' infamy would have been able to keep his cool under these circumstances.

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