Cheaters became an instant hit the moment it debuted on national television and now the creators of that show have announced the Cheaters Spy Shop, a real life spy store where buyers can purchase the goods needed to possibly catch their spouses in random acts of debauchery.

Series creator Bobby Goldstein announced the new spy shope as the show headed into it’s 12th season on the air.

As the name suggests the Cheaters Spy Shop sells an assortment of surveillance gear including recovery sticks that can pull up anything that has been accessed on an iPhone (including deleted information) along with software that can send a persons texts and pictures to the spying party as they are being sent.

The Cheaters Spy Store also features motion-activated cameras that record in high-resolution along with “audio recorders that look like pens” and plenty of other “spy related” goods that range from “night vision” and “hidden spy cameras” to “audio surveillance” and “bug detectors.”

The store only opened three months ago but is getting great response from shoppers looking to capitalize on the products offered.

As Allen Walton at the Cheaters Spy Shop pointed out:

“Most people using these products are trying to catch a cheating girlfriend/boyfriend or keep an eye on their kids… we do hear a lot of cool ways our stuff is being used, though. Some customers are using hidden cameras to catch abuse in nursing homes, and recently some students have been using this equipment to catch teachers abusing special needs kids. Some of our products have even been used to catch celebrities cheating as well, which seems to be the ‘bread and butter’ of celebrity gossip.”

Check it out today: Cheaters Spy Shop. Be sure to let us know if they help you catch anyone in the act.

In the meantime here’s a “Best Of Cheaters” clip for you to enjoy:

Cheaters TV Show Spy Shop Opens, Cuts Out The Middle Man is a post from: The Inquisitr

One of the touchiest subjects when it comes to technology has to be facial recognition and its use, both good and bad. We have all heard about how all the major tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have been wrestling with the ethics of implementing facial recognition within their various projects but governments around the world have no compunctions against using it for  protecting their citizens.

Now researchers have discovered a way to search images on cellphones and based on the results from that search they can then target phones around the successful search result.

To be fair now being able to do this requires an app to be installed on the phones and permission must be granted by the cellphone owner for the phones image directories to be able to be searched; but really given how easy it is to get people to install apps without really understanding the consequences how long before a version that doesn’t need permission gets installed?

The software, which was created by researchers at Rice University, and goes by the innocently sounding name: Theia, and even though the researchers believe that they have built in good enough safeguards the fact is it probably wouldn’t take much to circumvent these safeguards and turn your phone into part of a network that could be used to spy on our fellow citizens.

I don’t know about you but I don’t need a tinfoil hat to be worried about how this technology could end up being used in ways it wasn’t intended to be used.

via Geekosystem

The real-time scanning of cell phones pictures would never be misused would it. is a post from: The Inquisitr

It is getting harder and harder to think of things that are truly from the world of science fiction and not have someone be able to create those things today with even run of the mill technology.

Such is the case with the WASP; or as Richard Perkins and Mike Tassey call it the Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform. Where once something like WASP might have been relegated to fanciful futuristic spy movies these two gentlemen plan on showing a working model at this year’s Black Hat and Defcon conferences.

Building off of an old Air Force drone they packed the miniature aircraft with a  tiny Linux powered computer, hacking software, a 4G T-Mobile card, an HD camera, and 32 GB onboard storage.

Just what does WASP do with those gigabytes? Originally, it was designed for Wi-Fi penetration — cracking network passwords while loitering above a target area. But the newly upgraded WASP can now trick GSM phones into connecting with its 4G card as if it were a standard cellphone tower. Once connected, the WASP quietly records any phone conversations or text messages while connecting the call via VOIP, thus giving the mark the impression that the call went through normally.

Keep in mind that nothing on the WASP is particularly new. The password cracking techniques have been around for quite some time, and the phone-spoof is based off a trick shown off at Defcon last year. But by placing them on a flying platform, Perkins and Tassey have shown that consumer technology and hacking techniques have progressed to the point where once untouchable targets are now vulnerable.

via Geekosystem

And we use to think stuff like this was only found in the movies.

WASP: the WiFi and 4G flying snooper that anyone could make is a post from: The Inquisitr

I can honestly say that I I have never snooped in my wife’s email inbox but it helps that she doesn’t have one I guess, or that I learned at a very early age that you venture into a woman’s private domain at your own peril. Heck I don’t even go in her purse or wallet however it seems that this isn’t a feeling shared by everyone these days.

According to a new study from the folks at Retrevo you guys and gals out there sure do want to know what your spouses are writing or talking to.

• 30% of all men in the study check the email or call history of their spouse
• 35% of women do the same thing

Married couples are even worse

• 32% of men do the snooping
• 41% of women do the snooping

When it comes to their kids it seems that 37% of parents have no problem snooping in on their kid’s online life.

As for tracking spouses and family members by using their phones GPS feature, most people say they would never sink this low (68%), but a good number of respondents (20%) did say they would use this feature if they became suspicious of their spouses or partners. When it comes to their kids, though, most parents have very little issues with tracking them, though. Just under 60% of parents would happily use GPS technology to track their offspring.

via SiliconFilter

Isn’t this such a trusting world we live in.

images courtesy of SiliconFilter

Wow, there sure a lot of snoopy spouses out there, at least when it comes to email is a post from: The Inquisitr

Malware has become a common everyday occurrence that we all have to deal with but compared to the problem facing the government and its security agencies our problems are a walk in the park.

In a recent appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee the acting deputy undersecretary of the DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate Greg Schaffer informed Rep. Jason Chaffetz that both the White House and DHS were very aware of imported electronics being sold in the US that came preloaded with spyware, malware, and other security-compromising parts by foreign parties.

The American supply chain, especially for electronics, has changed drastically during our technological revolution. Where we once could be sure of where the components came from and exactly who made them now it is a case sub-contracting to sub-contracts half a world away and by people who have no allegiance to the US.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) also specifically asked witnesses about the risk of electronics being sold stateside being purposely-designed for cyberattacks. In his words, “software infrastructure, hardware, [and] other things are built overseas that come to the United States with items that are embedded already in them by the time they get here to the United States.”

Buried in the White House’s Cyberspace Policy Review is a small acknowledgment that the Executive Branch knows something weird is happening in imported tech:

The emergence of new centers for manufacturing, design, and research across the globe raises concerns about the potential for easier subversion of computers and networks through subtle hardware or software manipulations. Counterfeit products have created the most visible supply problems, but few documented examples exist of unambiguous, deliberate subversions.

A broad, holistic approach to risk management is required rather than a wholesale condemnation of foreign products and services. The challenge with supply chain attacks is that a sophisticated adversary might narrowly focus on particular systems and make manipulation virtually impossible to discover. Foreign manufacturing does present easier opportunities for nation-state adversaries to subvert products; however, the same goals could be achieved through the recruitment of key insiders or other espionage activities.

(Emphasis added)

The Cyberspace Policy Review was written several months ago. Apparently, Homeland Security has found documented examples in the meantime.

via Fast Company

This really should come as no surprise to anyone. In our desire to have the newest and best at the cheapest possible price we have given up any control of components that go into making our cool gadgets and this is a perfect opening for all kinds of misuse.

Supply chain security – DHS finds imported software and hardware contain attack tools is a post from: The Inquisitr

Renting to own a piece of electronic equipment is a pretty bad idea for a number of reasons, although the practice is not entirely uncommon because lots of people feel they can’t afford the items in question outright.

However, there’s another frightening possible downside you can add to the lengthy list of reasons not to engage in the practice. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution describes information from a lawsuit filed in US District Court in Erie, Pennsylvania, on behalf of a couple who allege unauthorized photographs of them were taken by a laptop they rented from the rent-to-own chain Aaron’s. The couple say the laptop’s capability to spy on them only came to light during a mistaken repossession:

The suit contends an alleged cyber-snooping component called PC Rental Agent was soldered or otherwise installed inside a Dell laptop that Brad and Crystal Byrd of Casper, Wyo., leased last year. The device came to light only after the manager of an Aaron’s outlet in Casper came to the couple’s home last December to repossess the laptop.

The manager, who mistakenly believed the Byrds hadn’t paid off the computer, showed the couple a photo taken by the machine’s webcam of the husband using the computer at home, according to the suit that was filed in U.S. District Court in Erie, Pa.

Even more worryingly, the suit hints, Aaron’s may have deliberately tried to conceal the spying from customers:

The manager of the store later told the Byrds, according to the suit, that “he was not supposed to disclose that Aaron’s had the photograph.”

The difficult part of the lawsuit is determining which laws, if any, were broken in the alleged use of spying programs. This is yet another incident that highlights the need to aggressively protect consumer privacy as technology to monitor and track individuals in their protected, private spaces is developed, as well as an opportunity to better define the protection individuals deserve from entities like schools and creditors.

Do you think companies should be legally allowed to encroach on privacy to a degree when a supposed debt is involved? (Of note: the Byrds ultimately paid $1200 for a Dell Inspiron that retails for about $400.)

Scary: Rent-to-own outfit accused of spying on customers via laptop cams is a post from: The Inquisitr

George Orwell. Grave. Roll over.

According to NBC Chicago school administrators in the city are going to start GPS tagging students who travel to school by bus. Using a GPS technology developed by Zonar Systems the district will be outfitting students backpacks with luggage tag-size unit that logs when the student steps on and off the bus.

“A little piece of mind helps you get through the day,” says Ann O’Brien, a mother of four children in Palos Heights School District 128. “They can locate kid and bus in seconds.”

O’Brien says as she watched her children board and exit school busses today, with the new ZPass cards attached to their backpacks.

Palos School Superintendent Kathleen Casey says the system helps alleviate parents’ concerns.

“We can track the bus with the GPS, alleviate a parent’s fear if they got on or off bus, look up their ID number and find out what bus and what time boarded or if still on or exited,” she said.

I bet the kids are going to just love this. Anyone taking bets on how long it will take before those same kids hack the system.

George Orwell goes to school with your kids is a post from: The Inquisitr

Back in February, a story broke about the administration in a Pennsylvania school district possibly spying on students via school issued MacBooks with webcams.

The FBI quickly got involved, and many people still feel the school grossly violated federal wiretapping laws. (The case came to light when a student was wrongly accused of illicit drug use for eating candy, and confronting with images unwittingly snapped through the webcam while the student was in his home outside of school hours- scary, huh?)  A lawyer for the family of Blake Robbins, the student who was initially accused of activities caught on tape in his home, is requesting authorities inspect the computer of Carol Cafiero, information systems coordinator for Lower Merion schools.

Evidence in the case suggests that Cafiero was not only complicit in the alleged spying, she was enthusiastic about it:

Watching the high school students at home via their computers’ cameras was like “a little [Lower Merion School District] soap opera,” a staffer said in an e-mail to Cafiero obtained by Robbins’ lawyer during discovery.

“I know, I love it!” Cafiero said in a reply, the motion asserted.

In a recent deposition, Cafiero refused to answer questions about what kind of information and how much she had downloaded to her personal computer while it was possibly to track students remotely via their school issued laptops:

The motion noted that Cafiero cited her right under the Fifth Amendment to not answer questions during a recent deposition, which she had earlier contested. “Unlike any of the witnesses asked to testify, [Cafiero] invokes the Fifth Amendment to every question asked of her, including a question asked as to whether she had ever downloading [sic] pictures to her personal computer, including pictures of students who were naked while in their home.”

It seems a bit hypocritical, if it is the case, that Cafiero feels so entitled not to incriminate herself while demonstrably having taken such joy in egregiously violating the privacy of the students of Lower Merion schools. In a statement on April 16th, Lower Merion school board president David Eddy said the district is “committed to disclosing fully what happened, correcting our mistakes, and making sure that they do not happen again.”  It would seem that the first steps to full disclosure would be explaining the extent to which students were unlawfully monitored in their homes.

[Computerworld]

School admin in webcam spying case invokes 5th amendment is a post from: The Inquisitr

While roughly half of humans will tell you they were already born with a porn detection stick, a company is marketing a device that purports to offer a “robust illicit image detection device designed to protect your family, business or organization.”

If finding out that someone besides yourself is looking at porn on a computer is the kind of thing you do in lieu of hobbies or other constructive things, for a mere $100 you too can own Paraben’s “Porn Detection Stick.” Employing “different algorithms that look at things such as flesh tones, shapes, facial recognition, and more,” the anti-porn stick compiles these instances and marks them “suspect” or “highly suspect.” However, I think this aspect of the copy is highly telling about the whole exercise of covertly rooting out porn viewing:

Images that are determined to be suspect can easily be a false positive hit. This means there are elements in the image that triggered enough suspicion for it to be categorized as suspicious. You’ll notice many of these pictures are of people who have a larger amount of skin showing (pictures of babies often get marked as suspicious) or contain a lot of flesh tones (a picture of a cardboard box may be marked as a false positive) or even have round or elongated shapes. Sometimes it’s not obvious why an image is marked as a false positive.

A lot of people look at straight up porn. But some people come across it incidentally on the internet. And a lot of what people look at online to get their rocks off won’t read as “porn” to lots of other people. (Foot fetishes, pregnancy fetishes, leather or latex kinks, for instance.) On the surface, I can only think of two instances in which this kind of technology would be used- suspect employees and suspect significant others. However, output is much more indicative of an employee’s worth than what they look at during their downtime and it’s not really anyone’s place to tell their spouse or partner not to look at dirty pictures on the interwebs. Basically, if you buy this thing, you’re a paranoid jerk. (And very likely to harass someone for an errant Evony banner ad.)

Besides, for just $50 I will accurately tell you that every male you know is looking at computer porn. I take PayPal or cash, no personal checks.

[ProofPronto via ChipChick]

Busted: Porn detection stick does what it says on the tin is a post from: The Inquisitr

A school in a Philly suburb has attracted international attention after a lawsuit was filed accusing school administrators of using webcams on school-issued laptops to spy on students after hours.

The school’s surveillance oversteps came to light when a student was disciplined for “improper behavior in his home.” The school’s evidence? Images that came from the laptop’s webcam, allegedly captured without the family’s consent or knowledge. A class action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of all students whose privacy may have been violated by the district’s actions, but students say that suspicions have been long-standing that the school used the laptops in a shady way to illegally spy on kids at home:

Frequently, the green lights next to our iSight webcams will turn on. The school district claims that this is just a glitch. We are all doubting this now.

I questioned the IT guy about why it was happening he said that it was because people logged out when an application using the camera was on, he also stated that they could in fact go and look through your webcam it would just violate the fifth ammendment and that’s why they didn’t.

While the school says the webcams are only remotely activated when a laptop is reported lost or stolen, would you put the cost of a laptop ahead of your child’s privacy and integrity? CBS News spoke to parents in the district:

Karen Gotlieb, a parent of a student who attends the school, said, “I just received an e-mail from my daughter, who is very upset, saying, ‘Mom, I have my laptop open in my room all the time, even when I’m changing.”

While it hasn’t been confirmed that the Lower Merion school district had a policy of using the laptops to illegally spy on families at home, if the allegations bear out, this type of behavior should be quashed vociferously. Everyone who might be implicit in such an initiative should be called to answer for what seems to be felonious behavior, lest any other schools get inspired to follow their lead.

Did a Pennsylvania school spy on families via district-issued webcams? is a post from: The Inquisitr

The news is all over the web today about Google teaming with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) in order to figure out how Google was hacked and who was really responsible for the recent dust-up between Google and China.

The back story here is that Google was hacked in December and while the company didn’t come right out and say it in their initial statement the impression they gave was they were blaming China for being behind the attack.

Now we have Google and the NSA joining forces to find out for sure but that has more than a few people concerned about the implication of this little get together. As Noah Shachtman at the Danger Room blog puts in a post

The National Security Agency is widely understood to have the government’s biggest and smartest collection of geeks — the guys that are more skilled at network warfare than just about anyone on the planet. So, in a sense, it’s only natural that Google would turn to the NSA after the company was hit by an ultra-sophisticated hack attack. After all, the military has basically done the same thing, putting the NSA in charge of its new “Cyber Command.” The Department of Homeland Security is leaning heavily on the NSA to secure .gov networks.

But there’s a problem. The NSA and its predecessors also have a long history of spying on huge numbers of people, both at home and abroad. During the Cold War, the agency worked with companies like Western Union to intercept and read millions of telegrams. The during war on terror years, the NSA teamed up with the telecommunications companies to eavesdrop on customers’ phone calls and Internet traffic right from the telcos’ switching stations. And even after the agency pledged to clean up its act — and was given wide new latitude to spy on whom they liked – the NSA was still caught “overcollecting” on U.S. citizens. According to the New York Times, the agency even “tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant.”

I’m sorry but the idea of a company with more data on individuals from around the world getting in bed with an agency known for spying on people and countries as they see fit scared the beejezus out of me.

Doesn’t this idea bother anyone else?

Google & the NSA – Who thinks this is a good idea? is a post from: The Inquisitr

It appears that the police in Houston Texas are more than a little interested in using unmanned drones in the city to keep an eye on things. While I won’t go as far as some have the idea though that all the testing is being done under a veil of secrecy is a little bothersome.

Houston Police secretly testing unmanned drones [VIDEO] is a post from: The Inquisitr

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?

“Date Check” and “Just Don’t Wife Her” digitize mistrust between sexes is a post from: The Inquisitr

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

The EU looking to head down Orwellian black hole is a post from: The Inquisitr

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

It’s a bird, it’s an insect – no it’s a nano air vehicle is a post from: The Inquisitr

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.

GhostNet spying operation linked to China is a post from: The Inquisitr

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.

The U.K. wants your Twitter chatter under surveillance is a post from: The Inquisitr

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.

Screw the telcos help – government can find your cell phone by itself is a post from: The Inquisitr

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.

Soldier’s Pillow Talk Getting NSA Hot is a post from: The Inquisitr

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.

Federal Charges Filed In Webcam Spying Probe is a post from: The Inquisitr