The Inquisitr » spying

“Date Check” and “Just Don’t Wife Her” digitize mistrust between sexes

Kim LaCapria — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:10:40 +0000

Website JustDontWifeHer.com and iPhone app “Date Check” are in the news this week, two technologies designed to let you know before you fall for a “player” or a “gold digger.”

The former is a site devoted to putting women on blast for liking a man more for his paycheck than his personality, as indicated in the mission statement on justdontwifeher.com:

Helping good guys by exposing Gold Diggers, Cheaters and Users One at a Time! Has a girl done you, or someone you know, wrong? Now you have a chance to tell others how you feel about it. Share your story and warn others about a “Don’t Wife Her”

The site ponders issues such as unreasonable divorce settlements, un-wifely behavior and men warn men of women (specific women) to avoid.

The latter, Date Check, is more focused on stereotypical female concerns, rating dates on with categories Sleaze Detector, Compatibility, Net Worth, Living Situation and Interests. And the app is comprehensive:

Unfortunately for those who live at home, the Living Situation view will pull data from social sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Flickr to determine if you live alone, have roommates, or bunk at your parents’ pad. Basically, if there’s a public record of any bad behavior, whether social or criminal, your potential dates will know within seconds of looking you up.

While both technologies may prove useful if you have a history of falling hard for the wrong person, I can’t help but wonder if a relationship wherein parties utilizing services like this are already doomed. If your date passes the “Date Check” test, will you still wonder if they might be married and just not on Facebook? Or if you’re inclined to see women as “gold diggers” or “wifey material”, will justdontwifeher.com merely confirm your suspicions about the motivations women have in general?

The EU looking to head down Orwellian black hole

Steven Hodson — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:24:53 +0000

Under the guise of Project Indect, a five year research program that includes: Police Service of Northern Ireland, computer scientists at York University, and fellow researchers in nine other European Union countries, The EU wants to develop “automatic detection of threats and abnormal behavior or violence”.

These programs are meant to act as “agents” to monitor and process information from web sites, discussion forums, file servers, peer-to-peer networks and individual computers. The project has already received £10 million in funding from the EU and is a part of its ever expanding role in crime fighting, terrorism and managing travel of people. Already this year the EU has increased its budget in these areas by 13.5% or nearly £900 million.’

This is all suppose to help develop what the European Commission is referring to as a “common culture” of law enforcement to be developed across the EU over the next five years.

According to the official website for Project Indect, which began this year, its main objectives include "to develop a platform for the registration and exchange of operational data, acquisition of multimedia content, intelligent processing of all information and automatic detection of threats and recognition of abnormal behaviour or violence".

It talks of the "construction of agents assigned to continuous and automatic monitoring of public resources such as: web sites, discussion forums, usenet groups, file servers, p2p [peer-to-peer] networks as well as individual computer systems, building an internet-based intelligence gathering system, both active and passive".

Source: Telegraph Online – EU funding ‘Orwellian’ artificial intelligence plan to monitor public for "abnormal behaviour"

The program isn’t without its detractors however. Among them is Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty a human rights group, and Stephen Booth, and analyst with European think tank Open Europe.

Chakrabarti considers the massive type of surveillance that Project Indect and Adabts – the acronym for Automatic Detection of Abnormal Behavior and Threats in crowed Spaces, a separately funded program by the EU to the tune of nearly £3 million so far – are sinister steps for any country to be taking. Chakrabarti added that this type of action is absolutely chilling consider the it is to include all European Union countries.

For Stephen Booth the scale is “Orwellian” to say the least.

According to the Open Europe think tank, the increased emphasis on co-operation and sharing intelligence means that European police forces are likely to gain access to sensitive information held by UK police, including the British DNA database. It also expects the number of UK citizens extradited under the controversial European Arrest Warrant to triple.

Stephen Booth, an Open Europe analyst who has helped compile a dossier on the European justice agenda, said these developments and projects such as Indect sounded "Orwellian" and raised serious questions about individual liberty.

"This is all pretty scary stuff in my book. These projects would involve a huge invasion of privacy and citizens need to ask themselves whether the EU should be spending their taxes on them," he said.

"The EU lacks sufficient checks and balances and there is no evidence that anyone has ever asked ‘is this actually in the best interests of our citizens?’"

Source: Telegraph Online – EU funding ‘Orwellian’ artificial intelligence plan to monitor public for "abnormal behaviour"

As well Open Europe believes that all this data collected by the likes of the Project Indect could be used by a little known EU agency called the EU Joint Situation Control (SitCen) which it believes is the beginnings of an EU secret service. It has been referred to by others as “Europe’s CIA”.

a big hat tip to papa

It’s a bird, it’s an insect – no it’s a nano air vehicle

Steven Hodson — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:47:21 +0000

If there is a holy grail for the military it is probably a remote controlled flying spy the size of an insect or small bird. The problem up until today has been that when you get down to that size these flying robots have not been able to carry their own batteries and have had to be guided by wires that let them move in a limited fashion.

This may have changed if the reports about the smallest free-flying aircraft that is able to hover and climb with flapping wings is true. The nano air vehicle as it is being called was developed by Aeronvironment of Monrovia, California and the success to date has prompted the Pentagon to extend the program that began in 2007 with additional funding. The Pentagon is looking for a more rugged version that is capable of coping with wind and other outdoor flying hazards.

Aeronvironment has released video that shows its "nano air vehicle" (NAV), which is the size of a small bird or large insect, hovering indoors without such crutches and under radio control. "It is capable of climbing and descending vertically, flying sideways left and right, as well as forward and backward, under remote control," says the company.

Source: New Scientist :: Hover no bother for flapping ‘nano’ aircraft

No related posts.

GhostNet spying operation linked to China

Steven Hodson — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 01:22:06 +0000

There are times that I am really proud of my country especially when a bunch of Canadian geeks expose one of the largest cyber spying operations currently running in the world. It was a bunch of researchers based at the Munk Center for International Studies, at the University of Toronto, who in their just released report exposed that the operation had infected at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries – and still going.

The researchers, all of who are well acknowledged experts at detecting computer espionage, say they believe that this ‘GhostNet’ has been targeting not only the Dali Lama but also the governments of South Asian and Southeast Asian countries.Not only that but the operation is still going strong as it continues to invade and monitor more than a dozen new computers a week.

The malware is remarkable both for its sweep — in computer jargon, it has not been merely “phishing” for random consumers’ information, but “whaling” for particular important targets — and for its Big Brother-style capacities. It can, for example, turn on the camera and audio-recording functions of an infected computer, enabling monitors to see and hear what goes on in a room. The investigators say they do not know if this facet has been employed.

The researchers were able to monitor the commands given to infected computers and to see the names of documents retrieved by the spies, but in most cases the contents of the stolen files have not been determined. Working with the Tibetans, however, the researchers found that specific correspondence had been stolen and that the intruders had gained control of the electronic mail server computers of the Dalai Lama’s organization.

Source: New York Times

While the Canadian team of researchers agree that most of the computers behind the spying operation are operating out of China they wouldn’t say that it was tied definitely to the Chinese government. However another team, in England, who have also been tracking down this GhostNet do suggest that the Chinese government is involved.

The U.K. wants your Twitter chatter under surveillance

Steven Hodson — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:06:25 +0000

Not happy with pushing the EU Data Retention Directive which would make ISPs store communication data for 12 months Vernon Coaker, the U.K. Home Office security minister, now wants all social networking sites and IM messaging service monitored as well. The Interception Monderisation Programme (IMP) is the government proposal for legislation to use mass monitoring of traffic data as an antiterrorism tool.

The IMP has two objectives; that the government use deep packet inspection to monitor the Web communications of all U.K. citizens; and that all of the traffic data relating to those communications are stored in a centralized government database. The problem is that social networking sites aren’t covered by the directive

"Social-networking sites such as MySpace or Bebo are not covered by the directive," said Coaker, speaking at a meeting of the House of Commons Fourth Delegated Legislation Committee. "That is one reason why the government (is) looking at what we should do about the Intercept(ion) Modernisation Programme, because there are certain aspects of communications which are not covered by the directive."

Source: Security – CNET News

There is some opposition to this move but given the country’s predilection to treating everyone as a subject of surveillance it is hard to see this not happening.

Screw the telcos help – government can find your cell phone by itself

Steven Hodson — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:54:34 +0000

Technology is a wonderful thing but it is also the way that our rights can be infringed upon without us sometimes even knowing. For many years the U.S. government agency; the FBI has had a technology called triggerfish. With this technology and in the beginning the help of telecommunication companies the FBI has been able to track cell phones. It was this technology which helped them catch Kevin Mitnick in the 1990’s but an importance change has happened between then and now.

According to documents gained from the Department of Justice by the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act it appears that the triggerfish technology has advanced to the point that the FBI can track cell phone all by their themselves – no help from the telcos needed. As posted to Daily Kos by Rachel Myers of the ACLU

An earlier EFF FOIA lawsuit turned up documents detailing how a little-known FBI telephone intercept unit had developed triggerfish technology that agents use to monitor the physical movements of surveillance targets. Back then it seemed the process required assistance from the provider. But the new documents plainly say that triggerfish surveillance can be done without provider assistance, as at the top of page 18 in this document (PDF): “This can be done without the user knowing about it, and without involving the cell phone provider.”

The way this works is also outlined in the post

The FBI now has what is called “triggerfish” technology — a cell site simulator that forces cell phones in the area to register its phone number, serial number and location — allowing it to track cell phones on its own.

That might be the light version but if the comments on Bruce Shneier’s post about the story are any indication much of the detailed information of how this technology works is easily found with a little bit of searching. One commenter even called it all old news.

Well it might be old news but it still stinks to high heaven.

Soldier’s Pillow Talk Getting NSA Hot

Steven Hodson — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:18:38 +0000

Even though I might not be an American and my point of view just a tad bias I have never believed that the Patriot Act would do anything to really make the country – or its people – any safer. The ability to basically do anything you wanted to people’s freedoms; and supposed constitutional rights, under the guise of protecting them from terrorists only ends up putting too much power in the hands of people who will abuse it.

One of the areas where this is easily abused is in the ability of government agencies to spy on our daily lives and our communication with others. Whether it be making deals with telecommunication companies like AT&T or place people with opposing political beliefs on watch lists we will find abuses. One such case has come to light and as usual it involves a government agency operating outside of its mandate.

According to a report coming out of ABC the NSA has been routinely listening in on Americans’ phone calls in Iraq as they call back to the US. The people being targeted include government officials, journalists, aid workers and the soldiers who are putting their lives on the line every day to supposedly keep their country safe. The problem with this is twofold with the first being that the NSA isn’t suppose to listen in on any American in any fashion unless they get clearance from high ranking officials. The second problem is that Congress has continually been reassured that the NSA was not spying on Americans when the opposite seems to be the rule of thumb.

As bad as this is what is even more disgusting is that according the ABC it is a regular thing for NSA monitors to share the more private moments between the Americans they are spying on

Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of “cuts” that were available on each operator’s computer.

“Hey, check this out,” Faulk says he would be told, “there’s good phone sex or there’s some pillow talk, pull up this call, it’s really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, ‘Wow, this was crazy’,” Faulk told ABC News.

I find this kind of thing totally repugnant and as Ryan Singel from the Threat Level blog says in a post about this

If the allegations are true, they show that when the government secretly tossed aside the decades-old credo that the NSA doesn’t spy on Americans, it did not simply make one or two exceptions — it shredded the it.

Yup that good ol’ Patriot Act has done a lot good eh.

Federal Charges Filed In Webcam Spying Probe

JR — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 23:37:42 +0000

A college student accused of using webcams to watch women naked is now facing federal charges.

Craig Feigin, a 23-year-old from Gainesville, Florida, has been formally charged with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Wired reports. Investigators say Feigin would set up spyware on women’s computers that would cause their webcams to sporadically activate, thus transmitting images of them when they thought they were alone. One woman claims she’d given her laptop to him so he could fix it, and she noticed the webcam switching itself on soon after.

Witnesses say the remote access utility Log Me In was doing the deed, along with another program called Web Cam Spy Hacker. Police say Feigin admitted to using the combination on as many as nine other women.