Feed The Children president Larry Jones fired
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The board did not disclose in its statement why Jones was fired. His attorney said Jones was dismissed over his decision last April to place hidden microphones in three executives’ offices.
Jones has denied wrongdoing, insisting he only intended to record his own conversations with executives who had twisted his statements before. The owner of the company that installed the microphones told police the recorder never worked and the microphones were later removed.
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Aydınlık raid reveals Ergenekon wiretapped several people
Sound recordings of the phone conversations of a number of prominent figures from various circles — including the prime minister, Cabinet members, journalists and mayors — have been found on CDs seized in a recent police raid at the offices of the Aydınlık newsweekly, as part of the investigation into Ergenekon, a clandestine organization charged with plotting to overthrow the government.
Police raided the offices of Ulusal Kanal TV station and the Aydınlık newsweekly — a publication put out by the Workers’ Party (İP), whose leader, Doğu Perinçek, is an Ergenekon suspect — over alleged links to the criminal network on Monday. The police reportedly acted on the Aydınlık’s latest cover story, which included a 2004 phone conversation between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) President Mehmet Ali Talat, on the suspicion that Ergenekon had wiretapped Erdoğan. Police found recordings of phone conversations Erdoğan had between 1999 and 2004 on a CD seized during the raid.
There were also recordings of İstanbul Mayor Kadir Topbaş; Ankara Mayor Melih Gökçek; ministers Ali Babacan, Hilmi Güler, Egemen Bağış and Cemil Çiçek; businessman Remzi Gür; former UN Special Envoy to Cyprus Alvaro De Soto; aide to Prime Minister Erdoğan Cüneyd Zapsu; and journalists Murat Yetkin and Hakan Aygün.
Additionally, documents seized in a police raid in March at the home of Mustafa Özbek, the jailed chairman of workers’ union Türk Metal, revealed that the Ergenekon terrorist organization established two main centers in the KKTC and Ankara to wiretap conversations, including those of politicians and businessmen. Özbek was arrested in late January as part of the ongoing investigation into Ergenekon, which stands accused of multiple assassinations and attacks designed to trigger an eventual military takeover, working through its links to the state, including the military, the judiciary and the media.
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Hotspot sniffer eavesdrops on iPhone in real-time
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“As the private call is in progress, we can see and hear what is happening,” said Jason Ostrom, a developer of UCSniff and director of Viper Labs, the research arm of security firm Sipera Systems. “There’s real-time violation of confidentiality.”
In addition to monitoring voice conversations as they happen, UCSniff can also bug video conferences in real time. Ostrom said he and fellow Viper Labs researcher Arjun Sambamoorthy plan to show those capabilities at Toorcon as well.
With the proliferation of iPhones and other smartphones, plenty of businesses and individuals have sought to save money on roaming charges by routing calls over the internet instead of over carrier networks. Adam Boone, a vice president at Sipera, said one large, unnamed client logs more than 1 million minutes per month in such VoIP calls.
The problem, he added, is that many of the iPhone apps for VoIP calls don’t provide encryption capabilities, making the conversations ripe for eavesdropping. (Sipera plans to unveil a new product to protect such users next week).
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US may have sold mass surveillance gear to Chavez
JULIAN ASSANGE (investigative editor)
July 9, 2008
Documents released today by Wikileaks reveal that a US defence contractor may have sold millions of dollars worth of telephone tapping and other surveillance equipment to the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chavez.
The multi-million dollar quotation, addressed to the Venezuelan Director General of Military Intelligence has been verified with military sources. The shipment includes bulk mobile telephone interceptors, satellite telephone interception stations, direction finding trucks, micro-sized video spy cameras, and hundreds of other billable items including training for Venezuelan intelligence officers at the defence contractor’s compound in Miami, Florida.
The contractor, Phoenix Worldwide Industries, briefly describes itself on its public website (which lists only its law-enforcement, not intelligence services) as follows:
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Guatemala president claims spying, head guard quits
By Sarah Grainger GUATEMALA CITY, Sept 4 (Reuters) – The head of presidential security in Guatemala resigned on Thursday after President Alvaro Colom said he found cameras and voice recorders hidden in his offices and home. Colom said the devices could have been used for espionage but did not specify who he thought had planted them or why. “This is a very serious infiltration in the presidential palace. We have found seven recorders, two hidden cameras and two similar devices in my private office,” he told a news conference. “There are indications there are more in the window of my house.”
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Mics, cameras found in Guatemalan presidential palace
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala (CNN) — Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom said Friday that government prosecutors are trying to determine who put microphones and video cameras in the presidential palace.
Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom: “Organized crime” may be behind cameras found in the presidential palace.
“It’s a serious allegation, it has never happened before in Guatemala,” he told CNN en Español.
He said he did not know who was responsible for the breach of security, but added, “One of the possibilities is organized crime.”
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Austrian official fuels Skype backdoor rumours
Off the cuff remarks by Austrian government officials suggest that Skype conversations might be intercepted.
Speaking at a recent meeting on lawful interception between ISPs and Austrian regulators, an unnamed “high-ranking” official at Austria’s interior ministry said that listening into a conversation over Skype presented no particular problems, Heise security reports.
The opinion contrasts with the view of Joerg Ziercke, president of Germany’s Federal Police Office (BKA). At a meeting last November Ziercke said that the inability to decipher the encryption used by Skype in order to intercept VoIP calls had become a problem in counter-terrorism investigations. Weeks after this, leaked documents outlining plans by German firm Digitask to develop software to intercept Skype VoIP communications and SSL transmissions, along with related costing and licensing proposals, surfaced through Wikileaks.
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Speculation over possible Skype backdoor
There’s growing speculation coming out of Europe that there’s a backdoor in Skype that allows remote eavesdropping of telephone conversations.
A report in the reputable Heise Online says the issue was discussed at a meeting with ISPs last month where high-ranking officials at the Austrian interior ministry claims “it is not a problem for them to listen in on Skype conversations.”
The report said a number of others at the meeting confirmed that claim.
Heise Online said Skype officials declined to give a detailed response to specific queries as to whether the popular Internet telephone service contains a backdoor and whether specific clients allowing access to a system or a specific key for decrypting data streams exist.
The response from the eBay subsidiary’s press spokesman was brief, “Skype does not comment on media speculation. Skype offers no further comment at present.” There have been rumors of the existence of a special listening device which Skype is reported to offer for sale to interested states.
Because the vendor has not revealed details of its proprietary Skype protocol or of how the client works, questions as to what else Skype is capable of and what risks are involved in deploying it in an enterprise environment remain open, the report said.
It also cited public broadcast reports that Austrian police are able to listen in on Skype connections.
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