Chinese military leaders call automation the great equalizer, since its enemies heavily depend upon computers. An effective attack upon their enemy’s IT infrastructure provides an immediate and disproportionate impact which is the core concept of asymmetric warfare.

This asymmetry benefits the attacker, regardless of his motives or methods.

I was asked to surrender my electronic gadgets. Being of the old school, I had none. This pleased the gatekeeper. I was led to a room furnished with only a curious table and four old wooden bankers chairs. No telephone, no electrical outlets, one florescent light fixture above the table.  The gatekeeper had to unlock the room. She then waited at the open door until my contact arrived.

My contact enters and places pieces of chalk and a chalkboard eraser on the the table. Most of the table top is painted with chalkboard paint.

We eventually compose a handwritten Memorandum of Agreement regarding the engagement, sign it, and off we go.

These people understand the rules, especially Rule #1 — If you don’t want it overheard, don’t say it. But I must admit, I have never seen a “Magic Slate” table before.

1. Assume nothing.
2. Technology will always let you down.
3. Murphy is right.
4. Never go against your gut.
5. Always listen to your gut; it is your operational antennae.
6. Everyone is potentially under opposition control.
7. Don’t look back; you are never completely alone. Use your gut.
8. Go with the flow; use the terrain.
9. Take the natural break of traffic.
10. Maintain a natural pace.
11. Establish a distinctive and dynamic profile and pattern.
12. Stay consistent over time.
13. Vary your pattern and stay within your profile.
14. Be non threatening: keep them relaxed; mesmerize!
15. Lull them into a sense of complacency.
16. Know the opposition and their terrain intimately.
17. Build in opportunity but use it sparingly.
18. Don’t harass the opposition.
19. Make sure they can anticipate your destination.
20. Pick the time and place for action.
21. Any operation can be aborted; if it feels wrong, then it is wrong.
22. Keep your options open.
23. If your gut says to act, overwhelm their senses.
24. Use misdirection, illusion, and deception.
25. Hide small operative motions in larger non threatening motions.
26. Float like a butterfly; sting like bee.
27. When free, In Obscura, immediately change direction and leave the area.
28. Break your trail and blend into the local scene.
29. Execute a surveillance detection run designed to draw them out over time.
30. Once is an accident; twice is a coincidence; three times is an enemy action.
31. Avoid static lookouts; stay away from chokepoints where they can reacquire you.
32. Select a meeting site so you can overlook the scene.
33. Keep any asset separated from you by time and distance until it is time.
34. If the asset has surveillance, then the operation has gone bad.
35. Only approach the site when you are sure it is clean.
36. After the meeting or act is done, “close the loop” at a logical cover destination.
37. Be aware of surveillance’s time tolerance so they aren’t forced to raise an alert.
38. If an alert is issued, they must pay a price and so must you.
39. Let them believe they lost you; act innocent.
40. There is no limit to a human being’s ability to rationalize the truth.

Many of these rules apply to the Investigator or Detective today. If you are the recipient of unwanted attention (surveillance), then they also apply.

Corporate Blogger, or Corporate Espionage?

Doug Cantwell, a Boeing spokesman who attended a recent industry symposium as an “independent blogger.” By passing himself off as a blogger — and not as a Boeing employee — Cantwell stirred up a controversy that could have serious implications for both companies that want to experiment with social media — and for reporters who work in the new medium.

your job will be much harder when you have to persuade someone that, yes, your blog  is a legitimate, independent news outlet and no, you’re not masquerading as a reporter for the purposes of collecting intel, corporate or otherwise.

when traditional journalism jobs — particularly in newspapers — are rapidly disappearing. A venture like Defensedialogue.com, it seems, opens the door to more cynical operators who are willing to blur the lines between journalism and other lines of business.

Border Guard

The first was when the Border Guards took away a client’s mobile phone to ensure that it was “legal” in the country he was entering. They returned it a few minutes later saying it was “legal”.

In the car on his way to the hotel our client took off the battery and removed the chip. He didn’t use or carry the phone for the rest of his trip. Upon his return home he had the phone examined. The battery had been swapped for one that turned it into a mobile bug and tracking device.

Industrial Espionage

The second client had similar alterations done to his phone while he was having a shower in his hotel room. Later, he remembered that it was on the wrong side of the night stand when he retrieved it before going to dinner.

The tampering was discovered by his corporate security staff while he was in a meeting. The Security Guard took the battery out and placed the phone on the table in front of him at the entrance of the meeting room. Without anything to do, the bored Guard was staring at the batteries of two identical phones and noticed that a label was on upside-down on one battery. This prompted him to have both phones examined.

This client now knows why things had not been going well with his project during the weeks since his overseas trip to meet with a potential supplier.

Tin Foil Hat

Now some mobile telephones like the iPhone have an integral battery that can’t be changed, but these  smartphones can be loaded-up with malicious software. It has been suggest that you fashion a tin foil hat for your cell phone to thwart tracking and eavesdropping.

Faraday Cage Cell Phone Wallet

A Faraday Cage is a grounded metal cage with holes that are smaller that the RF wave length from which you wish to be shielded.  A tin foil wallet might shield the cell phone and prevent it from receiving or sending signals.

I haven’t tried this but it might work with a a little tinkering, even though it isn’t grounded, due to the week signal strength of cell phones.

Detecting a Cell Phone Bug

The following video about cell phone bugs, and related topics, begins by listing some ways to detect a mobile telephone altered to become a surveillance device.

A Chinese spy was caught “red-handed,” according to federal authorities, as she was about to board a plane at O’Hare bound for Beijing.

Hanjuan Jin says she worked as a computer engineer for Schaumburg-based Motorola, a global leader in communications technology.

Federal agents say Jin was also working as a spy for a Chinese company, and she has been charged in a corporate espionage case that reflects a growing national security problem.

• She downloaded hundreds of confidential documents valued at $600 million from Motorola’s internal network.
• Arrived at O’Hare Airport with a one-way ticket to Beijing.
• She was really carrying $30,000.00
• A routine check of passengers revealed she was carrying the cash and a laptop computer with more than 30 compact data storage devices containing stolen Motorola files.

Men with ‘highly sensitive’ cameras arrested at airport

Two men attempting to board a plane to China with nearly a dozen sensitive infrared cameras in their luggage were arrested on Saturday, a federal official said.

Yong Guo Zhi, a Chinese national, and Tah Wei Chao, a naturalized U.S. citizen, were arrested for investigation of trying to take thermal imaging cameras with potential military use to China without the proper export licenses, Weir said.

Outsourcing passports ‘profound liability’

The blank passports travel to Europe where a microchip is inserted in the back cover and then onto Thailand where they are fitted with a radio antenna. The Netherlands company that makes the covers for the passport said in October that China stole the technology for the microchips, the Times said.

Outsourced passports netting govt. profits, risking national security

The Government Printing Office’s decision to export the work has proved lucrative, allowing the agency to book more than $100 million in recent profits by charging the State Department more money for blank passports than it actually costs to make them, according to interviews with federal officials and documents obtained by The Times.

Google, and others, offer tools such as on-line word processing but your data is housed by that entity, usually in the USA, and is thus subject to the US Patriot Act, and other laws that allow government surveillance of your data.

In my view, using these Web-based collaborative tools amounts to Reckless Personal Information Handling.

Web-based Collaborative Tools

The Globe and Mail recently published an interesting article about this:

Patriot Act haunts Google service

by SIMON AVERY, Globe and Mail March 24, 2008

Some other organizations are banning Google’s innovative tools outright to avoid the prospect of U.S. spooks combing through their data. Security experts say many firms are only just starting to realize the risks they assume by embracing Web-based collaborative tools hosted by a U.S. company, a problem even more acute in Canada where federal privacy rules are at odds with U.S. security measures.