Apr 25
2018

US Govt Acknowledges Stingrays

Posted on April 25, 2018 by Cloak Meister

Used by various US agencies for years now, Stingrays allow their operators to snoop on cell phone calls and messages. They aren’t legal, so it is interesting that Homeland Security is admitting they exist – seemingly because “bad actors” are now using them as well.

So basically, if any corporation or government might have a strong desire to intercept your calls, don’t use your phone.

Via Wired:

The DHS statement came in the form of a response to senator Ron Wyden, who had inquired about rogue cell-site simulators in a November letter. DHS acting undersecretary Christopher Krebs wrote, “Use of IMSI catchers by malicious actors to track and monitor cellular users is unlawful and threatens the security of communications, resulting in safety, economic, and privacy risks. … Overall, [DHS’s National Protection and Programs Directorate] believes the malicious use of IMSI catchers is a real and growing risk.” The agency added that NPPD “has observed anomalous activity in the Nation Capital Region that appears to be consistent with IMSI catchers. NPPD has not validated or attributed such activity to specific entities or devices.”

 

Posted in Government Surveillance, Spy Equipment | Leave a comment
Apr 21
2018

Big Brother in the Sky

Posted on April 21, 2018 by Cloak Meister

earthnow

I’m yet to work out if Bill Gates is a good guy or not. I’m sure he believes he only does good (these days), but self-judgement isn’t something everyone has. He has invested in a global live satellite video project that could be just two years away. They do not disclose the resolution of the video, so I’m guessing there will be consumer level, commercial level, and governments-we-like level.

The proposed purposes for EarthNow sound great…

Catching illegal fishing in the act, watching hurricanes and typhoons as they evolve, detecting forest fires the moment they start, watching volcanoes the instant they start to erupt, assisting the media in telling stories from around the world, tracking large whales as they migrate, helping “smart cities” become more efficient, providing on-demand data about crop health, and observing conflict zones around the world.

…but the negative aspects are extraordinary. War comes to mind. Tracking individuals. Spotting when groups of people meet somewhere. Tracking planes, including stealth craft and Air Force One. And war. And war.

EarthNow is a new company looking to provide satellite imagery and live video in virtually real-time. Its unsettling pitch describes a network of satellites that can see any corner of the globe and provide live video with a latency of about a second. And a look at the startup’s top investors gives a lot of confidence that this thing is happening.

On Wednesday, EarthNow announced that it will emerge from the Intellectual Ventures ISF Incubator to become a full-scale commercial business. Its first round of investors is comprised of a small group of complimentary powerhouses: AirBus, the SoftBank Group, Bill Gates, and satellite-industry vet Greg Wyler. Gizmodo

If there is a war that includes Russia, and these satellites are used, expect them to be shot down. And then EarthNow can try and sue Russia. It isn’t an act of war if you take out private property in space.

Posted in Corporate Surveillance, Eye In The Sky, Government Surveillance | Leave a comment
Feb 17
2018

Banks Checking Your Pulse

Posted on February 17, 2018 by Cloak Meister

The article at Fortune is titled Banks Are Using Biometrics to Detect Scammers.

And it has already begun…

A sensor in the branch, located in a port city on the East Coast, had detected unusual heartbeats and body heat patterns from new customers who had come to open an account.

Something was wrong. These “customers” had entered the country days before as human cargo on a ship from Europe. Now a criminal gang was using them to orchestrate financial fraud.

Imagine if retailers start using this – a quickening pulse might indicate a desire to purchase. A car dealer would love this intel.

Would a cloaker be able to thwart such systems? I guess it would be obvious if you were masking your vitals, which would be even more suspicious unless it was widely adopted.

Posted in Biometrics | Leave a comment
Oct 07
2017

Identifying Someone from Anonymised GPS Tracking

Posted on October 7, 2017 by Cloak Meister

Many smartphone apps record your travels vias GPS. Even if the data is stripped of any personal information (like your login or phone number), there is usually enough to learn a whole lot about you, even your name and address.

  • Home address is simple – where you sleep at night
  • Work address is simple – where you go for 8 hours at a time
  • If you own your own home, your name will be easy to find on a county database (in the USA)
  • Regularly visit schools briefly in the morning and afternoon? You have kids
  • The bank you use can be determined from branch or ATM visits

Once your name has been discovered, combined with your suburb or town, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles can be found. This means there is a good chance that combing through your Facebook posts will discover your birthday…

In 2013, researchers at MIT and the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium published a paper reporting on 15 months of study of human mobility data for over 1.5 million individuals. What they found is that only four spatio-temporal points are required to “uniquely identify 95% of the individuals.”

Posted in Corporate Surveillance, Identification and Personal Data | Leave a comment
Jul 30
2017

Confusing Face Recognition

Posted on July 30, 2017 by Cloak Meister

face1 face2

This Russian scientist isn’t the first to have this idea – using shapes and lines on your face to confuse facial recognition technology. But it my opinion these look quite good as well. However the reality is that few people care about privacy enough to put in the effort. Unless they are criminals…

Posted in Avoiding Detection | Leave a comment
Jun 22
2017

Black Box Buildings

Posted on June 22, 2017 by Cloak Meister

Some future citizens will crave privacy in a world saturated with surveillance. Here’s a way for them to conduct their lives privately outside of their homes:

Ground floor – shopping centre – full of surveillance.
First floor – offices – no surveillance – all wireless transmissions blocked
Basement – secret meeting spaces, bars and clubs – no surveillance – all wireless transmissions blocked

If the building is of sufficient size, all that those who are tracking you know is that you entered an elevator and either went up or down.

Posted in Avoiding Detection, Corporate Surveillance, Government Surveillance | Leave a comment
Apr 30
2017

US Border Patrol Increases Digital Searches

Posted on April 30, 2017 by Cloak Meister

cbp

In the first full month after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, warrantless searches of electronic devices by U.S. Customs and Border Protection — which had already dramatically expanded during the Obama administration — exploded beyond anything on record. According to numbers obtained by NBC, border agents searched 5,000 devices in February, more than in all of 2015, and on pace to more than double the number of searches in 2016.

The article at The Outline looks at the legal and privacy angles. For the innocent, it is an invasion of privacy and on shaky legal ground (except for how in the no-mans land of borders the authorities can do anything they want…)

The solution for anyone with secrets or operating in a grey area is simple – don’t have anything on devices that travel with you. And don’t use those devices to log in to anywhere that you’d rather they didn’t know about.

Tip: Maintain multiple social media profiles, and only use your real name or photos on the safe one.

 

Posted in Government Surveillance, Identification and Personal Data | Leave a comment
Mar 12
2017

Thermal Imaging Reveals Smartphone PIN

Posted on March 12, 2017 by Cloak Meister

The concept is quite simple – the screen on your smartphone retains the heat from your fingertips for a short while. If you unlock your phone and then it can be scanned by thermal imaging equipment (within 30 seconds), your PIN can be revealed. See this 30 second video:

I feel the real risk would be from thermal imaging already in place (say beneath a table), that can capture the PIN entry in real time. The scenario in the video is kinda unlikely.

To protect yourself, have a phone that shows updates on your home screen without unlocking it.

Story : The Atlantic

Posted in Spy Equipment | Leave a comment
Feb 25
2017

Ping GPS Tracker

Posted on February 25, 2017 by Cloak Meister

Ping Cut No Sound v2 from Joshua Lippiner on Vimeo.

Inside Ping is a GPS module, Bluetooth, and 3G cellular module. Bluetooth is used for short distance, while the 3G cellular lets owners find things that are miles away. Users pay $36 per year for the service, with an additional $3 per month per device.[More at ReadWrite]

The battery lasts a long time – months.

It looks cute, but I presume the casing can be removed, and then the device could be disguised for covert tracking. Imagine if a Ping was hidden in the heel of your shoe by someone – you’d never know.

I think it is fair to say that from now on, if anyone has a desire to tracks your movements, they can.

The small size has been a rapid improvement. An article written less than 2 years ago said “A concealed GPS is usually Battery Powered, so whomever has placed a tracker on your vehicle, needs to have access to remove and recharge. Some units are smaller than smartphones…”

What can you do to protect yourself? You can buy a GPS detector from just $99.

Posted in Spy Equipment | Leave a comment
Feb 19
2017

Office Monitoring Has Begun

Posted on February 19, 2017 by Cloak Meister

office-lights-nightBecause legally an employer can track anything you do at work (except for bathroom breaks), it is clear what the end result will be – total tracking. The only question is how long it will take to become commonplace.

The beginning is here already, workplaces that can tell whether you are at you desk or not. The primarily function is to save electricity by not having heating/cooling/lighting running unnecessarily. And in the same report, something that should be safe because the data is anonymised:

The Boston Consulting Group has outfitted about 100 volunteer employees in its new Manhattan office with badges that embed a microphone and a location sensor. Made by Humanyze in Boston, the badges track physical and verbal interactions. BCG says it intends to use the data to see how office design affects employee communication. [Bloomberg]

The obvious next step is for the data to not be anonymised.

So expect a future where everything you do at work is recorded (except bathroom breaks, but they can deduced of course). And then AI will decide who is or isn’t a good employee without needing to quantify their decisions.

And then, collectives of private premises will share their data. Your workplace will know how often you go to the gym, and what you ate at a restaurant. The only safe places will be in public (depending on your local government) and your home (depending on you).

 

 

 

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