Archive for the 'Dirty Tricks' Category

Internet Honeypots

Published
by
Richard McEachin
on June 29, 2009
in Courts, Dirty Tricks and Forensic Science
. 1 Comment

 A honeypot is a trap set to attract (or detect) some manner of interaction with an information system.

FBI posts fake hyperlinks to snare child porn suspects

The FBI has recently adopted a novel investigative technique: posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, and then raiding the homes of anyone willing to click on them.

Undercover FBI agents used this hyperlink-enticement technique, which directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, to stage armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and contained no illegal images…

The implications of the FBI’s hyperlink-enticement technique are sweeping. Using the same logic and legal arguments, federal agents could send unsolicited e-mail messages to millions of Americans advertising illegal narcotics or child pornography–and raid people who click on the links embedded in the spam messages…

Civil libertarians warn that anyone who clicks on a hyperlink advertising something illegal–perhaps found while Web browsing or received through e-mail–could face the same fate.

When asked what would stop the FBI from expanding its hyperlink sting operation, Harvey Silverglate, a longtime criminal defense lawyer in Cambridge, Mass. and author of a forthcoming book on the Justice Department, replied: “Because the courts have been so narrow in their definition of ‘entrapment,’ and so expansive in their definition of ‘probable cause,’ there is nothing to stop the Feds from acting as you posit.”

Iranian HoneyPots

The Iranian authorities are creating a different type of honeypot to catch people who may object to the re-election of Ahmedinejad and his crowd.

Marked for Death by Twitter

But in recent days people believed to be members of the Iranian security apparatus have set up apparent decoy Web sites about the demonstrations to gather IP addresses that will allow them to locate the computer of anyone tricked into clicking on them. Others—again believed to be government agents—have begun what appears to be an active campaign to mis- and dis-inform through Twitter postings.

Craigslist Dirty Talk Conviction

Published
by
Richard McEachin
on May 26, 2009
in Dirty Tricks, Identity Theft and News
. 0 Comments

A Wisconsin woman has been convicted of disorderly conduct for posting her ex-boyfriend’s work telephone number and photos under the “casual encounters” section of Craigslist, encouraging men to “talk dirty to me.”

The 20-year-old has been ordered to write an apology and perform community service for the misdemeanor charge, and should consider herself lucky. She was originally charged with identity theft, a felony that would have entailed time in an unflattering orange jumpsuit.

The Modern Slave Bracelet

Published
by
Richard McEachin
on April 24, 2009
in Communication, Dirty Tricks, Privacy, Security and Surveillance
. 0 Comments

Your mobile phone can become a slave bracelet if it is compromised by malicious software.

Craigslist Crooks

Published
by
Richard McEachin
on April 10, 2008
in Dirty Tricks and Fraud
. 1 Comment

We have seen our share of weird cases involving Craigslist, but nothing like these: Continue reading ‘Craigslist Crooks’

Hedge Fund Dirty Tricks

Published
by
Richard McEachin
on April 2, 2008
in Dirty Tricks and Private Investigator
. 0 Comments

A good look at how modern crooks operate from Michael Thomas at The Daily Caveat.

Hedge Fund Dirty Tricks and the HBOS Implosion

You’ll love this article from The Daily Telegraph - an inside look at the “dirty-tricks unit” of a London-based hedge fund. This story has all the good stuff - PIs, hacking, the obligatory sub-prime mortgage crisis connection, rogue traders, market manipulation - it’s one stop shopping.

This isn’t Competitive Intelligence

Published
by
Richard McEachin
on March 24, 2008
in Competitive Intelligence, Dirty Tricks and Industrial Espionage
. 2 Comments

An interesting post on B2B Sales Pipline:

Adam…asked a pricing question about an application component that could not be purchased alone…

…this question doesn’t pass the “Smell Test”…

Called him anyway…Cell Phone, with no company name provided…

…search Adam’s name in LinkedIn. Lo and behold - Adam works for a competitor. I called the competitors office, asked for Adam, and let him know that I would love to chat with him, since it’s always good for competitors to get to know each other. At the time of this posting, Adam has not called me back, and has likely joined the witness protection program.

This kind of amateurish nonsense passes for Competitive Intelligence far too often.

Business Identity Theft

Published
by
Richard McEachin
on March 11, 2008
in Company Research, Competitive Intelligence, Dirty Tricks, Fraud, Identity Fraud, Identity Theft, Methods and Private Investigator
. 0 Comments

Infamous hacker Kevin Poulson paid the defaulted Yellow Page accounts of escort services to get their defunct telephone numbers reactivated. He collected the profits and when the police became interested, only the original advertiser was on record with the telephone company. I once saw this done in a home renovation scam.

In Cynthia Hetherington’s excellent book, , she tells of a group of crooks who moved into an office recently vacated by an insurance company. They took-up the old phone number and began selling insurance.

When new policy holders complained about bad service to the insurance company’s head office, the scam was revealed, but the crooks had moved on.

It’s not just people who have their identity stolen.

WikiLeaks

Published
by
Richard McEachin
on March 5, 2008
in Dirty Tricks, Methods and Privacy
. 0 Comments

I just found this:

“WikiLeaks.org is developing an uncensorable version of WikiPedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis.”

I’m not sure how I might use this site, but it does have some very interesting instructions on how to submit material anonymously.

The Prepared Hotel Room

Published
by
Richard McEachin
on January 18, 2008
in Dirty Tricks, Espionage, Security and Surveillance
. 0 Comments

EASY TO PLANT CAMERAS IN HOTEL ROOMS

THE recent sex DVD scandal involving former Malaysian Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek shows how easy it is to rig a spy camera and film someone without their knowledge.

Experts tell The New Paper on Sunday that it takes anyone just 30 minutes to rig a spy cam.

It takes the professionally trained even less time…

GeoSlavery, Surveillance, & Murder

Published
by
Richard McEachin
on December 31, 2007
in Dirty Tricks, Privacy, Security and Surveillance
. 0 Comments

I wrote about the dangers of mobile telephones a while back. Now we have a new term for the abuse of GPS tracking associated with mobile telephones — Geoslavery.

This story links geoslavery to the probable murder of Stacy Peterson.

Private Investigators Indicted for Pretext

Published
by
Richard McEachin
on December 21, 2007
in Dirty Tricks, Ethics, Fraud, Identity Fraud, Identity Theft, Privacy and Private Investigator
. 0 Comments

We wrote about this here in Ten Private Investigators Indicted on 7 Dec 07.

Wired Magazine has posted the Indictment of the accused who allegedly employed false pretenses to gain personal information. A related Wired article compares this type of pretexting to the HP mess.

The accused are from Washington, California, Oregon, Texas and New York:

Emilio Torrella, BNT Investigations, Washington State
Brandy Torella, BNT Investigations, Washington State
Steve Berwick, BNT Investigations, Washington State
Victoria Tade, C.I., Inc., California
Megan Ososke, P.I. and Information Services, Oregon
Robert Grieve, Robert Greive International, Texas
Ziad Sakhleh, Robert Greive International, Texas
Darci Templeton, sole proprietor, Texas
Patrick Bombino, AAA Allstate Investigations, New York
Esau Pinto, AAA Allstate Investigations, New York

The Indictment alleges that BNT supplied the improperly obtained personal information to the PI’s for a fee. BNT was not identified as a private investigation firm in the Indictment, but was identified as a company that sold its pretexting services to PI firms. Some of the PI firms even advertised for sale to other PI’s what they were obtaining from BNT.

Accusations #17 and #21 allege that BNT obtained medical information by pretext, much in the same way as was revealed by he Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Confidentiality of Health Records in Ontario, Canada, by Mr. Justice Horace Krever.

Ten Private Investigators Indicted

Published
by
Richard McEachin
on December 7, 2007
in Canada, Dirty Tricks, Ethics, Privacy and Private Investigator
. 1 Comment

Ten private investigators were indicted on December 5, 2007,in Seattle, WA, by the U.S. Attorney’s office.

The alleged defendants collected information via pretext from the I.R.S., Social Security Administration, various State Unemployment Insurance Departments, private financial institutions, banks, pharmacies and hospitals. The alleged defendants fraudulently posed as the individuals about who information was sought.

If this is true, they broke Rule #1.

Washington State requires a Private Investigator to be licensed. However, it seems that BNT Investigations and the three named individuals in Washington state might not have state-issued Private Investigator’s licences. I don’t know the licence status of the others.

This type of behaviour is not new. In Canada, this issue was, in part, dealt with during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Confidentiality of Health Records in Ontario, Canada, by Mr. Justice Horace Krever.

The Royal Commission heard from over 500 witnesses, including private investigation firms, insurance companies, hospitals, and others. During 1976 and 1977, the Royal Commission found evidence of hundreds of successful efforts to acquire health information from Ontario hospitals and doctors under pretext.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada admitted to the Royal Commission that its members had gathered medical information through “various sources” without the authorization of the patients.

Several investigation companies went out of business due to the Royal Commission exposing their activities.

Where there are clients willing to pay for this improper and unprofessional behaviour, there will be providers of such services.



							
 

		
 

	
		
		

			

				
A Spy in Your Pocket


				

					Published 
by 
Richard McEachin
 
on November 30, 2007
 
in Communication, Dirty Tricks, Industrial Espionage, Intelligence Services, Privacy, Security and Surveillance
.
					0 Comments
					
									
 
			
 

			

				
An article entitled Stalked by a cell phone: Who’s spying on you?  warns of the danger of downloading software to your cell phone, connecting to the Internet from a mobile phone, and the dangers of letting it get out of your sight.


Update: See this at:


http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=9346833 and


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCyKcoDaofg


							
 

		
 

	
		
		

			

				
Spammers pose as private eyes to spread malware


				

					Published 
by 
Richard McEachin
 
on November 25, 2007
 
in Dirty Tricks, Fraud, Identity Fraud, Identity Theft, Privacy, Private Investigator and Security
.
					0 Comments
					
									
 
			
 

			

				
Commtouch, an Israeli security firm that specializes in protecting e-mail integrity, says that it has detected a new malware outbreak that is spread through e-mails claiming to be from private investigators. According to Commtouch, the e-mails tell recipients that a private investigator has been recording the recipients’ phone calls and that an audio file of one of the calls is attached to the message. When unwitting recipients download the “call” to their hard drives, their computers become infected with malware…


Some common subject headings for the malware e-mails include “I’m monitoring you,” “You’re being watched” and “The tape of your conversation.” Commtouch says that the malware is sent in the form of a password-protected, compressed file that appears to be an MP3 sound file.


							
 

		
 

	
		
		

			

				
Reputation Management


				

					Published 
by 
Richard McEachin
 
on September 16, 2007
 
in Dirty Tricks, Reputation Management and Search Engines
.
					0 Comments
					
									
 
			
 

			

				
A growing proportion of our research is directed at reputation management efforts. It is very easy for someone to put up a Web site or Blog that libels a company or person anonymously.


I found two excellent articles about companies that claim to erase, or at least push lower in the search engines results, negative comments about a company. The first, is on an MSNBC Blog called The Red Tape Chronicles and the second is on Forbes.


I have no idea about the effectiveness of these services, but they represent an interesting concept.


							
 

		
 

		
		
	


			
	

			
« Older Entries