Anonymous hackers have posted a YouTube video of a candid and embarrasing conference call between the FBI and Scotland Yard in which investigators talk about hacking suspects. One of the suspects is a 15-year-old which a UK-based law enforcement official called “a bit of an idiot” and a “pain in the butt.”

Ironically, this sensitive conference call between the FBI and Scotland Yard was recorded by the very people they are investigating - the hacking group known as Anonymous.

The group released a nearly 17-minute-long recording of what appears to be a Jan. 17 conference call devoted to tracking and prosecuting members of the loose-knit hacking group (video link included in story link below).

The FBI stated that the information “was intended for law enforcement officers only and was illegally obtained” but that no FBI systems were breached. I am not sure what the FBI means when they say “systems” weren’t breached. Clearly they were or else the group would not have been able to eavesdrop on the call. The FBI says it’s not entirely clear how the hackers got their hands on the recording. Parts of the recording appear to have been edited to bleep out the names of some of the suspects being discussed.

If you listen to the recording, you can hear people entering their pass code to get into the call throughout the entire call. The first few people who called in identified themselves; however, after that, people continued to call in without identifying themselves (you can hear several beeps). Anonymous published an email purportedly sent by an FBI agent which gave details and a password for accessing the call. This sounds like the obvious way that Anonymous was able to gain information to access the call. “The FBI might be curious how we’re able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now,” the group gloated in a message posted to Twitter.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the matter is under investigation, told The Associated Press that authorities were looking at the possibility that the message was intercepted after a private email account of one of the invited participants was compromised.

On Friday, London police confirmed that one of its e-crimes specialist was on the intercepted conference call but said that “at this stage no operational risks” to the police service had been identified.

In the future, I think the investigators should start using handles instead of their real names. They used their first names in the call and identified their locations.

Graham Cluley, an expert with data security company Sophos, said that knowing the time, telephone number and passcode for the call meant it was all too easy to spy on the investigators.

“Even my ironing lady could have rung in and silently listened to the call just like Anonymous did,” Cluley said in an email, calling the fiasco “highly embarrassing for the cops.” Yes indeed!

The breach is likely to act as a wake-up call to law enforcement agencies globally, said Marcus Carey, who spent years securing communications for the NSA before joining security-risk assessment firm Rapid7.

The FBI says ”a criminal investigation is under way to identify and hold accountable those responsible.”

There was enough on the call to clearly hear the investigators talk about a 15-year-old who they say goes by the handle of Tehwongz, who one official said was arrested just before Christmas. The UK-based investigator said the teen was currently under the subject of a local police investigation and that his hard drive was in custody.

He said the teen had written a statement explaining how he came to become a hacker and what he has done, including hacking into a gaming site with access to 32,000 users and their financial information. The FBI might want to consider recruiting this kid.

British police say the intercepted phone call between cybercrime investigators from the FBI and Scotland Yard poses no immediate risk to operations.

Anonymous also made good on one of its promises on Friday. The group also claimed credit for defacing the Boston Police Department’s website, saying it was retaliating for police brutality against protesters at Occupy Wall Street. Anonymous has warned they were intending to go after any police officers who were caught on video pepper spraying or hitting protesters.

Anonymous, an eclectic group of hackers, pranksters and activists, has increasingly focused its attention on law enforcement agencies in general and the FBI in particular.

The group began with targeting the Church of Scientology, the music industry, and financial companies such as Visa and MasterCard. It then expanded its targets to include government, police and military targets.

Dozens of suspected members and supporters have been arrested across the world.

Read story and view video@ msnbc

This story sounds like a bad Lifetime movie – a suspense/drama thriller that goes beyond the norm of what “normal” people will do. I can’t imagine how this poor woman has lived out such a real nightmare for so many years.

A Seattle-area man was given a 26 1/2-year prison term for waging a 17-year campaign of harassment against a former classmate he met in middle school. Prosecutors are calling this the longest sentence for stalking in memory.

Shawn Moul, 31, passively accepted the sentence last week which came about six months after being convicted on two felony counts of stalking and 19 counts of violating anti-harassment orders.

Moul began stalking classmate Tracy Lundeen in 1994, shortly after Lundeen saw him at the school library struggling with his homework and offered to help him. Lundeen said Moul began following her and wrote her more than 100 letters, alternately threatening her and vowing to kill himself. He also contacted Lundeen’s family members, demanding that she contact him.

Moul has already served prison time for repeatedly violating a no-contact order, having been sentenced to eight years in prison in 2001. Apparently, eight years wasn’t enough to teach him a lesson because after his release, he again initiated contact through Lundeen’s sister.

In court, Lundeen spoke of the long nightmare Moul has made her and her family endure. “We never asked for this,” Lundeen said. “We have, from the beginning, asked for one thing, and that’s to be left alone.”

She also addressed her stalker directly in court, saying: “Mr. Moul , please listen to me. I don’t love you. I don’t like you. I don’t intend to ever be with you. Please quit trying to contact me or my other family members.”

Lundeen added she believes that until Mr. Moul is dead, “nothing changes,” the Seattle Times reported.

Moul also spoke at his sentencing and did not oppose the lengthy prison term. “I don’t mind being in custody for the rest of my life,” he said.

Maybe now Tracy and her family can find some peace. Mr. Moul could use some psychiatric help.

The prosecutor’s office has taken steps to ensure Moul is unable to send Lundeen letters from prison.                                               

I know of a woman who was stalked for one year. It was difficult to collect evidence. For example, she would see his car parked in the front of her house, but when she ran out to take a picture or video, he would drive away.

If you need help building a case, you can contact MSI Detective Services. You should also try to take as many protective measures as possible such as carrying pepper spray and a personal alarm. Some states will allow you to purchase a stun gun. Our U-Spy website, under “Personal Defense/Stun Guns,” has a list of states where we cannot ship stun guns and a link for laws in your area.

Always let someone know where you are going. Stalking is being taken much more seriously than it has in the past. Do not be embarrassed to ask people for help. 
Read story@ msnbc

Other Source: mynorthwest.com

A Wisconsin man charged with domestic abuse told police that a “ghost” had attacked his wife and was responsible for her injuries.

The weird story by Michael West, 41, did not provide much of a defense as police arrested him for strangulation, battery, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest.

After responding to a report of a domestic dispute on Jan. 15, at the West residence in Fond du Lac, Wis., police found West’s wife crying and bleeding from the nose. Drops of blood stained areas of the kitchen and her Packers’ jersey.

The woman told police her husband repeatedly punched her in the face and attempted to strangle her “to the point that [her] vision went black and [she] felt like she was going to pass out,” the report said. In a criminal complaint, the victim says that when she tried to dial 911, her husband punched her in the face.

Police said West appeared intoxicated and was yelling and swearing at the two officers questioning him. The man claimed his wife had fallen several times, causing her to sustain injuries to her face and neck.

When pressed by a cop–who pointed to marks on the woman’s neck–the intoxicated West replied with slurred speech and shifted his story. “A ghost did it,” he said.

After a struggle, he was handcuffed and transported to the county lockup, where he remains in custody in lieu of $1000 bail.

His wife told police the fight was started over the impending foreclosure on their home.

Sources: MSNBC and The Smoking Gun

Have you ever wondered what a virus sounds like? Or what noise a bacterium makes when it moves between hosts? If the answer is yes, you may soon get your chance to find out, thanks to the development of the world’s tiniest ear. The “nano-ear,” a microscopic particle of gold trapped by a laser beam, can detect sound a million times fainter than the threshold for human hearing.

Looking at this from a completely scientific perspective, this is exciting news. But with the advent of new technology, sometimes there are downsides – like when the technology gets into the wrong hands.

It’s still at the experimental stage, but this could lead to far more sensitive surveillance microphones in the future. The required laser beam could be carried by a difficult-to-detect optical fiber strand to the sensor.  Combined with DSP and advanced acoustic signal processing algorithms, this could represent a major security threat.

We already know that listening and viewing devices can be planted in homes and offices or people can carry audio listening devices on their clothing, etc. However, all of this requires a bit of work or being within a reasonable range of proximity to your target. Even then, the listening/recording quality may not be perfect. Can you imagine what a scary world this would be if people’s ears could be devised to be listening devices – not to mention with superb hearing capability? This sounds like some espionage Sci-Fi movie to me.

The concept of the nano-ear began with a 1986 invention known as optical tweezers. The tweezers use a laser beam focused to a point with a lens to grab hold of tiny particles and move them around. They’ve become a standard tool in molecular biology and nanotechnology, helping researchers inject DNA into cells and even manipulate it once inside. Optical tweezers can also be used to measure minuscule forces acting on microscopic particles; once you’ve grabbed hold of your particle with the laser beam, instead of moving it yourself, you simply use a microscope or other suitable monitoring apparatus to watch whether it moves of its own accord. That’s where the nano-ear comes in.

Sound waves travel as a forward and backward displacement of the particles of the medium they pass through. So to detect sound, you need to measure this back-and-forth motion.

As well as having unprecedented sensitivity, their nano-ear could also calculate the direction the sound had come from. They suggest three-dimensional arrays of nano-ears working together could be used to listen in on cells or microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses, all of which emit very faint acoustic vibrations as they move and respire.

Biophysicist Lene Oddershede of the Optical Tweezer Laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen is impressed and suspects the paper will inspire others in the field to look for sound waves when studying microorganisms. “It’s a really interesting idea, and we could easily do that, but we have never made any attempt to do so,” she says. “I would say this paper’s very inspiring in that sense.” She cautions, however, that the experimental setup will need to be significantly refined to improve its ability to separate sound waves from random molecular movement before the suggested acoustic microscope can become a reality. But she is optimistic: “I do believe they can relatively quickly improve the equipment.”

Read story@ sciencemag