Corporate Security Officers may select the easy path: trust that their current and potential competitors' "Competitive Intelligence" departments would resource only to legal approaches to snoop on them. However, the stakes may be too high to adopt such a conservative strategy. 

But it is not just corporate executives who may be targeted by illegal surveillance activities. Other targets include: famous people, movie stars, celebrities, scientists, bankers, employees of companies subject to hostile takeovers, real estate development planners, politicians, diplomats and their staff, people involved in high bidding wars, political campaign offices, journalists, etc.

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Technical Surveillance Counter Measures

Telephone conversations are vulnerable. Several tools (cell phone scanners, IMSI catcher, etc.) are available to listen into private mobile and landline conversations, and there is no way to guarantee private conversations without end-to-end encryption. 

There are some well known cases of massive illegal wiretapping scandals which could, according to some experts, even put democracies at risk. In some of these cases former telco executives are suspected of belonging to the spy rings. 

Technical Surveillance Counter Measures (TSCM) sweeps are intended to protect against wiretapping and telephone bugging, and are the most commonly used defense mechanisms. TSCM was originally used by government entities to protect top secret and critical information from foreign spies. 

Sigillu uses end-to-end strong encryption to provide full protection against illegal bugging and eavesdropping of private and corporate mobile conversations. It is a cost effective counter surveillance solution that offers complete protection to people that want to make sure their cellular communications remain secure, private, and confidential.

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Does Source Code Publishing Mean a More Secure Product?

Short answer: not necessarily. 

Does the company provide all the code needed to compile the voice encryption product I can then install in my mobile phone or the one they include in the firmware of the phone they provide?

If the answer is no, how do I know that the code they provide me for review is the same one they used to produce the software they installed in the phone?My understanding is that there is no way to verify that. 

But even if the source code they are providing for review is the same one they used to compile their product, can’t the security be compromised by how their solution was implemented on the specific phone? Does it make sense to verify the encryption algorithm if I cannot make sure the other processes involved in securing my calls, including but not limited to voice de-coding and interaction with the phone OS, are also secure and free of programming errors or back-doors? 

And who is reviewing the code? Is there any incentive to do it? Are good an honest people investing their time in reviewing source code published by second tier vendors? Probably not. 

That the code is available does not necessarily mean that it is reviewed. The other day I stumbled upon the web site of a company selling voice encryption products, and I sadly read their conclusion of why other vendors may not be offering their source code for review. They state they can only assume that the other vendors have something to hide, or that they may be afraid of competition, or trying to protect “so called” “trade secrets.” How sad is that?

In relation to protecting their “trade secrets,” I hope that’s true. My understanding is that trade secret protection lasts for as long as the secret is kept confidential. 

Also, what do they mean by “so called trade secrets”? If it means they have a strong position against intellectual property protection, fine. But then the question would be why are they not just releasing the software as open source? Could that impact their “so called bottom line”?

In their web site they also state that they “have no (trade) secrets”. Really?

(written by uzimanu on 4/26/2007)

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Spy Bugs to Listen In

By John Pawlett 

There are many different spy bugs that can be used to listen in on conversations. These can be bugs that you plant at a home, or listening devices that you wear on your person (or have someone else wear). But no matter how you use spy bugs, it is possible to glean useful information with them, whether you are an amateur, a professional, or are just looking for the truth. 

The most common spy bugs are bugs that use a radio frequency to transmit the sounds around them. These bugs may be placed inside a home or office to catch conversations held in a room, or they may be hooked into a phone. When hooked into a phone, they can listen to both sides of a conversation over a phone line. Additionally, it is possible to wear these listening devices hidden on the body in what look regular items (pens, lighters, hats, etc.). The radio frequency is transmitted to a location where it can be heard, usually with no more than a regular FM radio. 

Other spy bugs make use of ways that tap into the line itself and do not send radio transmissions. These types of bugs are harder to detect. A wiretap might fall into this category of direct bugs, as may a soft tap that makes use of computer software to listen to phone conversations. The best spy bugs, however, are the portable kind that go with the subject and allow you to phone in. 

While it is possible to plant radio transmitting spy bugs on a person to go with her or him, it is far more practical to use a device that they trust, and that is unlikely to be shed or lost. This is a cell phone. 

Of course, spy bugs in the form of cell phones can only be used to learn information from people you know, and whom you might reasonably be expected to give a cell phone. A Spy Matrix Spy Phone is really a portable bug that lets you listen to conversations that make use of the cell phone as well as whatever is going on in the room at the time. 

When you need to hear what is being said, the best things to use are spy bugs. 

Other helpful spy equipment accessories include camera housings. These housings for CCTV cameras protect them from the elements, helping them last longer and protecting your investment in better home security through premises surveillance. Some housing are even equipped with blowers and heaters. These keep the cameras from overheating during the summer and protect them from the bitter cold during the winter. 

About the author: Private Investigator Site is an informative resources site on everything Private Investigator related. Find out how Private Investigator Site can expand your horizons.

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Sites With Additional Related Information

• "How Wiretapping Works", Tom Harris, www.howstuffworks.com/wiretapping.htm
• Is your cell phone bugged? Video by Vortex Technology
• Blog: Secure Mobile Communications

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Books Recommended in This Site (for text-only browsers)

• 101 Questions & Answers About Business Espionage by William M. Johnson, Ph.D.
• Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C, 2nd Edition by Bruce Schneier
• Beyond Fear by Bruce Schneier
• Brute Force: Cracking the Data Encryption Standard by Matt Curtin
• CIA, Inc: Espionage & the Craft of Business Intelligence by F. W. Rustmann
• Competitive Intelligence by Chris West
• Competitive Intelligence : How to Gather, Analyze, and Use Information to Move Your Business to the Top by Larry Kahaner
• Confidential: Business Secrets - Getting Theirs, Keeping Yours by John Nolan
• Corporate Espionage: What It Is, Why It's Happening in Your Company, What You Must Do About It by Ira Winkler
• Cryptography Decrypted by H. X. Mel, et al.
• Cryptography Demystified by John Hershey
• Cryptography for Dummies by Chey Cobb
• Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
• E-mail Security: How to Keep Your Electronic Messages Private by Bruce Schneier
• Economic Espionage and Industrial Spying (Cambridge Studies in Criminology) by Hedieh Nasheri
• Espionage by David Owen
• Espionage P by Volkman
• Fast Software Encryption: 7th International Workshop, FSE 2000, New York, NY, USA, April 10-12, 2000. Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science) by Bruce Schneier (Editor)
• Hidden Secrets: The Complete History of Espionage and the Technology Used to Support It by David Owen, Antonio J. Mendez (Foreword)
• Modern Cryptography: Theory and Practice by Wenbo Mao
• Practical Cryptography by Niels Ferguson, Bruce Schneier
• Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption by Whitfield Diffie, Susan Landau
• Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence: Lessons from the Trenches by John E. Prescott, et al.
• Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World by Bruce Schneier
• Spies Among Us: How to Stop the Spies, Terrorists, Hackers, and Criminals You Don't Even Know You Encounter Every Day by Ira Winkler
• Spies, Inc.: Business Innovation from Israel's Masters of Espionage by Stacy Perman
• Spooked: Espionage in Corporate America by Adam L. Penenberg, Marc Barry
• Stealing the Network: How to Own a Continent by FX, et al.
• Stealing the Network: How to Own an Identity (Stealing the Network) by Raven Alder, et al.
• Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box by Ryan Russell, et al.
• Strategic and Competitive Analysis: Methods and Techniques for Analyzing Business Competition by Craig S. Fleisher, Babette Bensoussan
• The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security by Mitnick, Simon
• The Electronic Privacy Papers: Documents on the Battle for Privacy in the Age of Surveillance by David Banisar, Bruce Schneier (Editor)
• The Spy's Guide: Office Espionage by Duane Swierczynski, et al.
• The Twofish Encryption Algorithm: A 128-Bit Block Cipher by Bruce Schneier, et al.
• War by Other Means: Economic Espionage in America by John J. Fialka

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