Northwestern Pakistan suffers 16 lives lost, plus 80 wounded as two car bombs go off at a spy agency that oversees most of the country's anti-terror campaign.
"Every phone call, text message, email and website visit made by private citizens is to be stored for a year and will be available for monitoring by government bodies.
All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.
Despite widespread opposition to the increasing amount of surveillance in Britain, 653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors.
Ministers had originally wanted to store the information on a single government-run database, but chose not to because of privacy concerns.
However the Government announced yesterday it was pressing ahead with privately held “Big Brother” databases that opposition leaders said amounted to “state-spying” and a form of “covert surveillance” on the public.
It is doing so despite its own consultation showing that it has little public support.""Every phone call, text message, email and website visit made by private citizens is... more
To the CIA she was Donna: a Cuban spy who hid documents inside cans of food and sent secret messages via a clandestine radio and two tunes – a waltz and a song from the opera Madame Butterfly.
Today, Donna was revealed to the rest of the world as Juanita Castro – the sister of Fidel and Raúl, rulers of Cuba and legendary conquerors of US espionage efforts – when she blew the whistle on her career as a CIA agent.
The rogue sibling revealed extraordinary details of her hidden identity in a memoir, Fidel and Raúl, My Brothers: The Secret History, which could force a partial revision of the CIA's role in Cuba. For half a century its efforts against Fidel were considered fiascos, prompting recrimination and ridicule. It tried and failed to kill him, tried and failed to invade Cuba, and tried and failed to foment revolt.To the CIA she was Donna: a Cuban spy who hid documents inside cans of food and sent... more
Spawn Kill's Tigresa was able to get her hands on EA's upcoming WWII spy thriller, The Saboteur. Is it just a pretty face, so-to-speak, or is it something gamers should be anxiously anticipating?Spawn Kill's Tigresa was able to get her hands on EA's upcoming WWII spy thriller, The... more
In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, is putting cash into Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media. It’s part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using ”open source intelligence” — information that’s publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day. http://www.iqt.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel
Visible crawls over half a million web 2.0 sites a day, scraping more than a million posts and conversations taking place on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon. (It doesn’t touch closed social networks, like Facebook, at the moment.) Customers get customized, real-time feeds of what’s being said on these sites, based on a series of keywords.
“That’s kind of the basic step — get in and monitor,” says company senior vice president Blake Cahill.
Then Visible “scores” each post, labeling it as positive or negative, mixed or neutral. It examines how influential a conversation or an author is. (”Trying to determine who really matters,” as Cahill puts it.) Finally, Visible gives users a chance to tag posts, forward them to colleagues and allow them to response through a web interface.
In-Q-Tel says it wants Visible to keep track of foreign social media, and give spooks “early-warning detection on how issues are playing internationally,” spokesperson Donald Tighe tells Danger Room.
Of course, such a tool can also be pointed inward, at domestic bloggers or tweeters. Visible already keeps tabs on web 2.0 sites for Dell, AT&T and Verizon. For Microsoft, the company is monitoring the buzz on its Windows 7 rollout. For Spam-maker Hormel, Visible is tracking animal-right activists’ online campaigns against the company.
The intelligence community has been interested in social media for years. In-Q-Tel has sunk money into companies like Attensity, which recently announced its own web 2.0-monitoring service. The agencies have their own, password-protected blogs and wikis — even a MySpace for spooks.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence maintains an Open Source Center, which combs publicly available information, including web 2.0 sites. Doug Naquin, the Center’s Director, told an audience of intelligence professionals in October 2007 that “we’re looking now at YouTube, which carries some unique and honest-to-goodness intelligence…. We have groups looking at what they call ‘citizens media’: people taking pictures with their cell phones and posting them on the internet. Then there’s social media, phenomena like MySpace and blogs.”
But, “the CIA specifically needs the help of innovative tech firms to keep up with the pace of innovation in social media. Experienced IC [intelligence community] analysts may not be the best at detecting the incessant shift in popularity of social-networking sites. They need help in following young international internet user-herds as they move their allegiance from one site to another,”
Lewis Shepherd, the former senior technology officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, says in an e-mail. “Facebook says that more than 70 percent of its users are outside the U.S., in more than 180 countries. There are more than 200 non-U.S., non-English-language microblogging Twitter-clone sites today. If the intelligence community ignored that tsunami of real-time information, we’d call them incompetent.” http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/10/exclusive-us-spies-buy-stake-in-twitter-blog-monitoring-firm/
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." -George OrwellU.S. Spies Buy Stake in Firm That Monitors Blogs, Tweets... more
A top American scientist who once worked for the Pentagon and Nasa was arrested on Monday night, accused of trying to spy for Israel.A top American scientist who once worked for the Pentagon and Nasa was arrested on... more
The British publisher Penguin launched an unusual book Monday — an authorized history of MI5, the British domestic intelligence agency, to mark the centenary of its founding in 1909. It's the first authorized history of any Western intelligence agency. Allowing an academic to write it and comb through the agency's files has raised questions about why its secrets shouldn't be kept secret.
James Bond was MI6, but the launch of a book about the history of MI5, presided over by a former intelligence chief, still conjures up expectations of hearing, "Now, listen carefully 007," or seeing rogue journalists gunned down with a ballpoint pen. But that, it seems, is in many ways why MI5 has taken the unusual step of allowing an outside historian to trawl through its files.
There are too many myths, movies and conspiracy theories about the intelligence agencies, said former MI5 chief Sir Stephen Lander, who commissioned the book.
"We thought if we had a history, we could assign to history all those allegations and stories that have been around, with someone not in the service making a professional judgment about what really happened," Lander said. "And it would be possible not to have to be dragged back in the press or anywhere else to stories about the Wilson plot, or about whether we investigated John Lennon, or studied Mickey Mouse ... or all the rest. The answer is, 'Read the book.' "
The Defence of the Realm, with more than 1,000 pages, will be published in the United States next month. The man chosen to write it was Christopher Andrew, professor of history at Cambridge, a university that provided a large number of senior agents for MI5 in the past — though, as it turned out, many of them unfortunately were also working for the KGB.The British publisher Penguin launched an unusual book Monday — an authorized... more
MOSCOW, Sept 24 (Reuters) - The United States has complained to Russia's Foreign Ministry over what it says is a bid to smear a diplomat with a fabricated sex tape, the U.S. ambassador in Moscow told ABC television.
Ambassador John Beyrle said a video apparently featuring the diplomat and prostitutes that appeared in the Russian media was "clearly fabricated," according to a transcript of an interview broadcast late on Wednesday on ABC.
Ties with Moscow sank to a post-Cold War low under the last U.S. administration but President Barack Obama, who met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in New York on Wednesday, has said he wants to press the "reset" button on the relationship.
"I think there are people here who don't want the U.S.-Russian relationship to get better. That's unfortunate," Beyrle said.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said it would issue a statement on the case later on Thursday. A spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Moscow said it had nothing to add to Beyrle's comments on ABC.
Beyrle said that the video, posted last month on the web site of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, www.kp.ru, spliced genuine footage of diplomat Kyle Hatcher in a Moscow hotel room with staged footage of a couple having sex.
"Kyle Hatcher has done nothing wrong," Beyrle said. "Clearly the video we saw was a montage of lot of different clips, some of which are clearly fabricated," he told ABC News.
Hatcher works in the embassy's political section and is responsible for outreach to religious, civil society and human rights organizations.
"There may be some people here who don't like that job description and would like to discredit him in the eyes of his contacts," Beyrle said.
"I have full confidence in him and he is going to continue his work here at the embassy." (Writing by Conor Humphries; Editing by Jon Boyle)MOSCOW, Sept 24 (Reuters) - The United States has complained to Russia's Foreign... more
Robert Lee Taylor is a College English (4.0) Honor Student who grew up on the gang ridden streets of the West Coast of the United States. He has since moved to Northern Virginia, is the Director of Research for the Youth Foreign Languages Organization based in the Langley suburb of McLean and has worked for the U.S. Government in Intelligence Operations a few blocks from the White House in Washington D.C. Instrumental by Emotion-LRobert Lee Taylor is a College English (4.0) Honor Student who grew up on the gang... more
Cell phone hijackers can track you movements, read your texts and emails as well as listen to your calls. Its cheap and easy. Soon, you'll realize the importance of the Constitution. Hopefully, not too late.
click link, watch video.Cell phone hijackers can track you movements, read your texts and emails as well as... more
I have a role in the spy series TMT GIRLS: THE OLIGARCH DUPLICITY. Watch the premiere right now!I have a role in the spy series TMT GIRLS: THE OLIGARCH DUPLICITY. Watch the premiere... more
Just 2 more days til the premiere episode of TMT Girls on Tuesday, September 1st!
Tune in every Tuesday for a new episode of the spy series! But every day there will be new content for your enjoyment, so bookmark the below address, and take an intern...ational adventure! I will leave my role a surprise, but I will give a hint: I am not a good guy.
www.tmtgirls.comJust 2 more days til the premiere episode of TMT Girls on Tuesday, September 1st!... more
Whether you're hunting for jobs at work, or taking some "alone time", the Wi-Spy wireless surveillance system can avoid anyone sneaking up on youWhether you're hunting for jobs at work, or taking some "alone time", the Wi-Spy... more
Flying cars, super hot babes, Astro-tubes, this world of tomorrow is everything we imagined in the 60s. It's the Jetsons in "Lost Vegas" baby. Retromania at it's wildest most colorful charming best. It's time to feel good again and let our pop-culture imaginations flow. Made on a PC using my famous Las Vegas friends. Hopefully some day this will be a full blown TV showFlying cars, super hot babes, Astro-tubes, this world of tomorrow is everything we... more
Morgan Freeman is in talks to star alongside Bruce Willis in a big screen adaptation of Warren Ellis’ Wildstorm comic book Red for Summit Entertainment.
The three-issue mini-series is about a former black-ops CIA agent who is forced out of retirement when a high-tech assassin shows up to kill him. The official comic description from Wildstorm reads:
As a C.I.A. operative, Paul Moses’s unique talent for killing took him around the world, from one hotspot to another, carrying out the deadly orders of his superiors. And when he retired, he wanted to put his bloody past behind him. But when a new administration takes over the White House, the powers that be decide that Moses knows too much, forcing him back into the game against the agency that trained him.Morgan Freeman is in talks to star alongside Bruce Willis in a big screen adaptation... more
Laid off from Wall Street? The CIA wants you -- as long as you can pass a lie detector test and show that you are motivated by service to your country rather than your wallet.
The Central Intelligence Agency has been advertising for recruits and will be holding interviews on June 22 at a secret location in New York.
"Economics, finance and business professionals, if the quest for the bottom line is just not enough for you, the Central Intelligence Agency has a mission like no other," one radio advertisement for the agency says.
"Join CIA's directorate of intelligence and be a part of our global mission as an economic or financial analyst. Make a difference in your career and for your nation," it says.
Ron Patrick, a spokesman for recruitment and retention at the CIA, told Reuters Television the agency had received several hundred resumes so far from applicants ranging from people just out of graduate school to laid-off bankers.
"It's going to be a very different use of their skill set than perhaps they've used on Wall Street," Patrick said.Laid off from Wall Street? The CIA wants you -- as long as you can pass a lie detector... more
Don't talk: your cell phone may be eavesdropping. Thanks to recent developments in "spy phone" software, a do-it-yourself spook can now wirelessly transfer a wiretapping program to any mobile phone. The programs are inexpensive, and the transfer requires no special skill. The would-be spy needs to get his hands on your phone to press keys authorizing the download, but it takes just a few minutes—about the time needed to download a ringtone.
This new generation of -user-friendly spy-phone software has become widely available in the last year—and it confers stunning powers. The latest programs can silently turn on handset microphones even when no call is being made, allowing a spy to listen to voices in a room halfway around the world. Targets are none the wiser: neither call logs nor phone bills show records of the secretly transmitted data.
More than 200 companies sell spy-phone software online, at prices as low as $50 (a few programs cost more than $300). Vendors are loath to release sales figures. But some experts—private investigators and consultants in counter-wiretapping, computer-security software and telecommunications market research—claim that a surprising number of people carry a mobile that has been compromised, usually by a spouse, lover, parent or co-worker. Many employees, experts say, hope to discover a supervisor's dishonest dealings and tip off the top boss anonymously. Max Maiellaro, head of Agata Christie Investigation, a private-investigation firm in Milan, estimates that 3 percent of mobiles in France and Germany are tapped, and about 5 percent or so in Greece, Italy, Romania and Spain. James Atkinson, a spy-phone expert at Granite Island Group, a security consultancy in Gloucester, Massachusetts, puts the number of tapped phones in the U.S. at 3 percent. (These approximations do not take into account government wiretapping.) Even if these numbers are inflated, clearly many otherwise law-abiding citizens are willing to break wiretapping laws.Don't talk: your cell phone may be eavesdropping. Thanks to recent developments in... more
This is just mind-blowing: Spy Fired Shot That Changed Germany. Why is it mind-blowing?
Here's an excerpt:
It was called “the shot that changed the republic.”
The killing in 1967 of an unarmed demonstrator by a police officer in West Berlin set off a left-wing protest movement and put conservative West Germany on course to evolve into the progressive country it has become today.
Now a discovery in the archives of the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, has upended Germany’s perception of its postwar history. The killer, Karl-Heinz Kurras, though working for the West Berlin police, was at the time also acting as a Stasi spy for East Germany.
Freaking unbelievable.This is just mind-blowing: Spy Fired Shot That Changed Germany. Why is it... more
Speculation is growing that the reason for the sudden withdrawal of the ThinkVantage system update tool was due to unauthorised & extended system access by the Chinese state on unsuspecting ThinkVantage users.Speculation is growing that the reason for the sudden withdrawal of the ThinkVantage... more
