From: James M. Atkinson Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 3:45pm Subject: Litz Wire Does anybody on the list have a reliable supplier for Litz type wire? -jma ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We Expertly Hunt Real Spies, Real Eavesdroppers, and Real Wiretappers. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- James M. Atkinson Phone: (978) 546-3803 Granite Island Group Fax: (978) 546-9467 127 Eastern Avenue #291 Web: http://www.tscm.com/ Gloucester, MA 01931-8008 Email: mailto:jmatk@t... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- World Class, Professional, Ethical, and Competent Bug Sweeps, and Wiretap Detection using Sophisticated Laboratory Grade Test Equipment. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8297 From: Ocean Group Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:14pm Subject: Telecom Encrypt About time in my mind, its also a good pointer that there is money to be made in developing low priced end to end encryption systems that can run on mobile phones etc. It shouldn't be long before you can buy add on software that will provide a base level end to end encryption on mobile to mobile calls to stop the long trend of eavesdropping, government and commercial. http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2004/Feb/1024564.htm Comments welcome! Regards 8298 From: James M. Atkinson Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:54pm Subject: 'Blix's mobile phone was bugged and US and Britain shared transcripts' http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=495963 'Blix's mobile phone was bugged and US and Britain shared transcripts' By Kim Sengupta and Kathy Marks in Sydney 28 February 2004 The controversy over alleged British and American "dirty tricks" at the United Nations deepened yesterday with claims that two chiefs of Iraq arms inspection missions had been victims of spying. Hans Blix and Richard Butler were said to have been subjected to routine bugging while they led teams searching for Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction. The new charges came within 24 hours of the former cabinet minister Clare Short stating that British intelligence had taped the telephone calls of the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan. As demands grew at home and abroad for Tony Blair to confirm or deny Ms Short's allegations, the British ambassador to the UN, Emyr Jones-Parry, telephoned Mr Annan on Thursday evening. The UN said Mr Jones-Parry's call has not shed any fresh light on the matter. Edward Mortimer, Mr Annan's director of communications, said: "There was a telephone call which was apologetic in tone but did not really amount to an admission of substance. "Basically, the answer we got was the same as the Prime Minister gave at his press conference [on Thursday]. We are not complete innocents, we do realise these things happen but it was rather a shock to hear that the British government had been spying on the secretary general." Charles Kennedy, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said Mr Blair should make a statement to MPs on the affair. His call was backed by the Labour backbencher, John McDonnell. He will table a Commons motion next week demanding to know if there was an "eavesdropping operation", and if so, how extensive it was. Mr Kennedy said: "We need to know whether British intelligence took part in spying on the United Nations Secretary-General. This is a serious allegation, made by a member of Mr Blair's cabinet, which cannot go unanswered. The United Kingdom was one of the founding members of the UN ... the suggestion that our security services were involved in some kind of illegal operation damages our national standing." Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the predecessor of Mr Annan as secretary general, said: "This is a violation of the United Nations charter. It complicates the work of the secretary general, of the diplomats, because they need a minimum of secrecy to reach a solution." Mr Butler, who led the UN disarmament team in Iraq in the 1990s, Unscom, said he was "well aware" he was being bugged. But he said spying on the UN was illegal and harmed the peace-making process. "What if Kofi Annan had been bringing people together last February in a genuine attempt to prevent the invasion of Iraq, and the people bugging him did not want that to happen, what do you think they would do with that information?" The news of the alleged bugging of Dr Blix, in charge of the last crucial UN mission before the war, seen as the last chance to avoid war, is being viewed in diplomatic circles as part of a concerted effort to sabotage attempts at a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis. Dr Blix, who retired in June, is highly critical of George Bush and Tony Blair for the claims they made about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction. Washington and London, he said, had aborted the search for weapons to pave the way for an invasion. In his reports to the UN, Dr Blix, and his fellow inspection team leader Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had asked for more time to investigate Iraq's arsenal, a plea rejected by Washington and London. The claims of espionage against Dr Blix emerged in the Australian media, sourced to a member of the country's intelligence service. Yesterday a senior UN source confirmed to The Independent that the Iraq mission, Unmovic, were convinced they were victims of spying operations. Reports say Dr Blix's mobile telephone was monitored every time he went to Iraq, and the transcripts shared between the US, Britain and their allies, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Dr Blix, who retired in June, had said he was aware of the possibility of being a spying target. "There are rumours in New York that there was bugging and I wouldn't be at all surprised," he said. "I assumed when I was in New York that I might well have been bugged in my office." Yesterday, a senior UN official said: "While in the Canal Hotel in Baghdad (the Unmovic headquarters at the time), we never used to talk about anything sensitive in our rooms because we thought the Iraqis might be bugging us. We used to go outside to the garden. " It is one of the ironies of life that back in New York we would sometimes take similar measures, discuss things we thought should be confidential, out of the office, in public places, sometimes the sidewalk. "The only saving grace is that neither Dr Blix or anyone else among us would speak about sensitive matters on mobile telephones, so they would not have heard anything earth-shattering just by that. But I suspect there was other, more widespread, interceptions. There were plenty of attempts to undermine us." A spokesman for the Australian attorney general, Philip Ruddock, whose office oversees security matters, would say only: "We don't make it a practice of commenting on what we might or might not have seen in relation to intelligence matters." In London, the Foreign Office said it had no comment. Dr Blix's predecessor, Mr Butler, now the governor of Tasmania, said he was actually shown transcripts of his bugged conversations. "Those who did it would come to me and show me the recordings that they made on others. 'To try to help me to do my job in disarming Iraq', they would say. 'We're just here to help you'," Mr Butler said. But the former UN chief maintained that it was not only Britain which was spying. He said: "I was utterly confident that in my attempts to have private conversations, trying to solve the problem of disarmament of Iraq, I was being listened to by the Americans, British, the French and the Russians. And they also had people on my staff reporting what I was trying to do privately. Do you think that was paranoia? Absolutely not. There was abundant evidence that we were being constantly monitored." Mr Butler said that he too had to hold sensitive conversations in the noisy cafeteria in the basement of the UN building in New York or in Central Park. "We were brought to a situation where it was plain silly to think we could have any serious conversation in our office. No one was being paranoid, everyone had a black sense of humour about it. "I was reduced to having to go either to a noisy cafeteria where there was so much noise around, and then whisper in the hope that we wouldn't be overheard, or literally take a walk in the park. I would take a walk with the person in the park and speak in a low voice and keep moving so we could avoid directional microphones and maybe just have a private conversation." Mr Boutros-Ghali also described the vulnerability of the organisation to espionage. "From the first day I entered my office they said, 'Beware, your office is bugged, your residence is bugged and it is a tradition that the member states who have the technical capacity to bug will do it without any hesitation'. "That would involve members of the Security Council," he said. "The perception is that you must know inn advance that your office, your residence, your car, your phone is bugged." The targets Richard Butler Former UN chief weapons inspector/p> He said he was "well aware" that he was being bugged at the UN. "How did I know? Because those who did it would come to me and show me the recordings that they had made on others to help me do my job disarming Iraq." He asked: "What if Kofi Annan had been bringing people together last February in a genuine attempt to prevent the invasion of Iraq, and the people bugging him did not want that to happen, what do you think they would do with that information?" Boutros Boutros-Ghali Former UN secretary general He said he was warned that he was likely to be bugged as soon as he started the job. "From the first day I entered my office, they said: 'Beware; your office is bugged, your residence is bugged, and it is a tradition that the member states who have the technical capacity to bug will do it without any hesitation.' That would involve members of the Security Council. The perception is that you must know in advance that your office, your residence, your car, your phone is bugged." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We Expertly Hunt Real Spies, Real Eavesdroppers, and Real Wiretappers. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- James M. Atkinson Phone: (978) 546-3803 Granite Island Group Fax: (978) 546-9467 127 Eastern Avenue #291 Web: http://www.tscm.com/ Gloucester, MA 01931-8008 Email: mailto:jmatk@t... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- World Class, Professional, Ethical, and Competent Bug Sweeps, and Wiretap Detection using Sophisticated Laboratory Grade Test Equipment. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8299 From: James M. Atkinson Date: Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:55pm Subject: Former UN chief not surprised by spying allegations http://www.abc15.com/news/morenews/index.asp?did=8008 Former UN chief not surprised by spying allegations Posted: 02/27/2004 - 14:36:36 (London-AP) -- A former secretary general of the United Nations says he always assumed his office and home were being bugged. Boutros Boutros-Ghali -- who led the U-N from 1992 to 1996 -- says he was warned that it was likely agents from various countries planted listening devices at the U-N headquarters and his residence. Boutros-Ghali's comments to the B-B-C follow a disclosure from a former member of the British Cabinet, who says she read transcripts of tapped phone calls made by current U-N chief Kofi Annan. But Clare Short's announcement is drawing fire from a former British envoy to the U-N. He says if Short was uneasy about the behavior of the intelligence community, the issue should have been addressed privately. Meantime, former chief U-N weapons inspector Richard Butler says he knew his phone calls were being bugged for a time during his tenure at the U-N. He tells Australia Broadcasting Corporation he couldn't use his office for any serious discussions on Iraq because he knew it was bugged. (Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We Expertly Hunt Real Spies, Real Eavesdroppers, and Real Wiretappers. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- James M. Atkinson Phone: (978) 546-3803 Granite Island Group Fax: (978) 546-9467 127 Eastern Avenue #291 Web: http://www.tscm.com/ Gloucester, MA 01931-8008 Email: mailto:jmatk@t... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- World Class, Professional, Ethical, and Competent Bug Sweeps, and Wiretap Detection using Sophisticated Laboratory Grade Test Equipment. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8300 From: Cornolio Date: Sat Feb 28, 2004 1:20am Subject: Re: Telecom Encrypt On Sat, Feb 28, 2004 at 01:14:46AM +0000, Ocean Group wrote: > About time in my mind, its also a good pointer that there is money to be > made in developing low priced end to end encryption systems that can run on > mobile phones etc. It shouldn't be long before you can buy add on software > that will provide a base level end to end encryption on mobile to mobile > calls to stop the long trend of eavesdropping, government and commercial. > > http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2004/Feb/1024564.htm Steps in that direction are being made. We even publish the complete source code so people can verify we did not put in a back door, or made mistakes. So far the only comments we got from the academic community is that we 'over engineered' it. Meaning we use too much crypto and assume AES alone might not be good enough. And more neat features are being added as we speak, so stay tuned at: http://www.cryptophone.de/ Do not underestimate the amount of effort that goes into a project like this. Realtime voice encoding (compression) on these platforms is not trivial! It took us almost three years with a team of experts to create it.... (including a lot of research on the platforms) With regards, Barry Wels 8301 From: A Grudko Date: Sat Feb 28, 2004 5:01am Subject: SA political party finds 'bugging device' Political party finds 'bugging device' 25/02/2004 16:37 - (South Africa) Cape Town - The African Christian Democratic Party has demanded an urgent inquiry following the discovery of "bugging equipment" in its City of Cape Town caucus room on Wednesday. The bugging equipment was linked to high frequency transmitter/receiver devices and video cabling leading into the ceiling of the caucus room, the party said in a statement. "ACDP Cape Town councillors discovered the cluster of audio-video equipment upon entering the caucus room prior to the council meeting (on Wednesday morning). "Councillor Ivann Kirsten immediately approached city head of security, Deon Neft, who eventually admitted that the equipment belonged to him. "Visibly shaken, Mr Neft urged Kirsten not to produce the communication device in the council chamber because of the sensitive nature of the equipment," it said. According to Neft, the equipment was not used to spy on political caucuses, but rather to record happenings "on the floor and security points". "Demanding immediate access to the caucus room in order to retrieve the equipment as well as the video recordings housed in a cupboard, the ACDP was not only denied access by security, but was informed that the video material was not viewable as the system had been compromised during the discovery." The ACDP had demanded an urgent and thorough enquiry into the security breach, as well as access to its caucus room, the statement said. Kirsten said the incident left serious questions as to the behaviour of senior city officials, as well as the extent to which it "has been endorsed by the mayor (Nomaindia Mfeketo) and her ANC/NNP coalition". "A thorough enquiry into this security and privacy breach is necessary, followed by a comprehensive written report to be submitted to council urgently. We will not let this matter rest until the truth has been exposed," Kirsten said. Andy Grudko (British), DPM, Grad IS (South Africa) Consulting Investigator, Est. 1981. PSIRA reg. No. 8642 www.grudko.com , andy@g... Pretoria (+27 12) 244 0255 - 244 0256 (Fax) Sandton (+27 11) 465 9673 - 465 1487 (Fax) Johannesburg (+27 11) 781 7206 - 781 7207(Fax) Cellular (+27) 82 778 6355 - ICQ 146498943 SACI(Pres) SASA, IPA, WAD, CALI, UKPIN, IWWA. "When you need it done right - first time" 8302 From: Date: Sun Feb 29, 2004 5:14am Subject: Jim Atkinson is an expert in electronic surveillance and is http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=496254 The whistleblower, the loose cannon and the case for war A week that began with extraordinary and embarrassing revelations about British spying at the UN in the run-up to the Iraq war has ended with the far more damaging suspicion that the Government is attempting to withhold evidence that may reveal there was no legal justification for the invasion in the first place. A special report by Foreign Editor Raymond Whitaker and Political Editor Andy McSmith 29 February 2004 Katharine Gun and Clare Short have never met. One is 29, the daughter of Christian missionaries still living in Taiwan, with no strong political attachments. The other is twice her age, a lifelong Labour activist who spent six years in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for International Development. Yet together they have not only blown a huge hole in the Official Secrets Act, but they have also plunged Tony Blair back into a nightmare. Just when the Prime Minister thought that he might be succeeding in his efforts to put the Iraq war behind him and refocus the political debate on domestic issues such as the revival of a "Thatcherite" Conservative Party threatening huge public spending cuts, all the unanswered questions about the war have resurfaced. When did Mr Blair agree to join President George Bush's crusade to oust Saddam Hussein? Was Britain's participation in the war legal? And is it possible to justify the tactics employed in the run-up to the war, from the use of intelligence about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction to claims that friends and allies were spied upon? Mr Blair has been here before, of course. Only a month ago Lord Hutton's report appeared to exonerate the Government entirely of the charge of "sexing up" its September 2002 dossier on Iraqi WMD, only for the report to be seen as so one-sided that it actually hurt the Government. That was followed by further uncomfortable revelations about the notorious claim that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes, the issue over which No 10 and the BBC fought themselves to a standstill. Yet by the beginning of last week it must have seemed to the Prime Minister that Iraq was at last receding, not so much into the background, but to the point where it was possible to discuss other questions without it seeming like an attempted diversion. His staff were delighted when they got through the usual Monday morning lobby briefing without a single question on Iraq, possibly for the first time in more than a year. Mr Blair would have known that the legal authorities were about to drop their case against Ms Gun, charged with breaking the Official Secrets Act by leaking an email from the National Security Agency in the US, which asked Britain to help to spy on other countries' diplomats at the United Nations. He was aware that on Thursday morning, when he was due to hold his monthly televised press conference at Downing Street, the papers would be full of the collapse of the Gun case at the Old Bailey the previous day. But he would have his answers ready, and the prospect of a few difficult questions was a lot better than a drawn-out hearing during which Ms Gun's lawyers, with maximum publicity, would question the Government's entire legal basis for the war. The plan was to get the matter out of the way as swiftly as possible and move on to a more palatable topic, a new aid initiative for Africa. The Prime Minister had not bargained, however, on Ms Short. Mr Blair, not surprisingly, did not have his ear to the radio when Clare Short made her live appearance on the Today programme, just after 8.10am on Thursday, but staff in the Downing Street press office did. Within minutes, the Prime Minister's director of communications, David Hill, was on the line, delivering the bad news. Ms Short was invited on to the Today programme to discuss the decision not to prosecute Ms Gun. In the middle of an answer about the events of early 2003, she mentioned almost casually: "The UK in this time was also spying on Kofi Annan's office, and getting reports from him about what was going on." The sentence hung in the air for a moment until her interviewer, John Humphrys, returned to the subject, suggesting that spying on the UN was an odd thing to do. "These things are done, and in the case of Kofi's office it has been done for some time," she replied. Asked whether she believed that Britain was involved in this spying, she replied: "Well, I know. I have seen transcripts of Kofi Annan's conversations. In fact, I have had conversations with Kofi in the run-up to war thinking: 'Oh dear, there will be a transcript of this and people will see what he and I are saying'." She was asked, again, whether British spies had been carrying out operations in the UN on people like Mr Annan. "Yes, absolutely," she said, adding: "I read some of the transcripts of the accounts of his conversations." We do not know what the Prime Minister's immediate reaction was, but it is very likely that he or one of his staff will have immediately picked up the telephone to ring John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, and Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6. We know that when the 45-minute claim was attacked in the famous broadcast by Andrew Gilligan on the Today programme last May, Mr Blair's first reaction was to clear his lines with the intelligence chiefs. It is probable that what he heard from the intelligence chiefs this time was not altogether helpful to the Prime Minister. He had to go and face searching questions in front of the cameras in a couple of hours. They almost certainly told him that they did not want him to make any public comment on the activities of intelligence agencies, whether British or American, because of the precedent it would set. Those who watched the Prime Minister's public performance noticed how confident and clear he was in handling questions about the collapse of Ms Gun's trial - and how awkward he looked when discussing Ms Short. He could not say whether his former colleague's claims were true or false, falling back on the convoluted statement: "I'm not going to comment on the work that our security services do, [but] don't take that as an indication that the allegations that were made by Clare Short are true. Simply understand, I am not going to comment on the operations of our security services." Then, having denounced Ms Short for being "totally irresponsible", he was wrongfooted by a question from the Daily Express: "Have you only just woken up to the nature of Clare Short, and what does it say about your own judgement that you could allow someone like that in the Cabinet?" The furore over Ms Short's allegations, which went round the world, had scarcely anything to do with the issue in Ms Gun's trial, and arguably distracted attention from it. This might have been a help to Mr Blair, but for one fact. Both the leak for which Ms Gun was charged, and the spying claims of Ms Short, concerned a period the Prime Minister would prefer to forget: the fraught weeks in late 2002 and early 2003 as we headed for war with Iraq. By mid-October 2002, President Bush had an open mandate from both houses of Congress to go to war with Iraq. The attacks on New York and Washington were only just over a year in the past, and the White House had used the time in between to convince the American public that Saddam Hussein was somehow linked to them. With mid-term elections due the following month, few Democrats wished to seem unpatriotic by voting against the President, something which is now coming to haunt Senator John Kerry, the Democratic front-runner in this year's Presidential race. The threat of force from the US was in the background as the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1441 on 8 November, warning of "serious consequences" if Iraq did not take a "final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations". As far as Washington was concerned, that would mean war. In London, however, things were different. The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, was advising, as was the Foreign Office, that another UN Security Council resolution would be required for war to be legal. Tony Blair said of Resolution 1441: "In the event of Saddam refusing to co-operate or being in breach, there will be a further UN discussion." It seemed clear that Britain would have trouble going to war unless the Security Council specifically mandated the use of force. By the start of 2003, however, the pressure from Washington to go to war was mounting by the day. It was all Mr Blair could do to persuade a sceptical Bush administration to seek a second UN resolution. From the American point of view it was always understood that the whole UN effort was a favour to George Bush's closest ally. Lord Goldsmith, meanwhile, was confronted by the concerns of Britain's military chiefs of staff, who were arguing that they needed a clear legal basis for committing British troops to a new kind of pre-emptive war, in which it was far from clear that Britain itself was under imminent threat. The only other grounds for war permitted by the UN Charter is an explicit authorisation of force by the Security Council. It is understood that Lord Goldsmith and his staff produced a paper addressing this question, but the military chiefs said its careful balance of arguments did not meet their need for legal clarity. With a new UN resolution looking hard to achieve, it was about this time that the Attorney General began searching through earlier resolutions for a justification for war. But the all-out diplomatic effort in New York continued, and on 31 January Ms Gun, a translator of Chinese at GCHQ, the government's communications monitoring organisation in Cheltenham, came across an email from Frank Koza, a senior official of the National Security Agency, GCHQ's (much bigger) equivalent in the US. It sought British help in spying on the UN delegations of six nations which were temporary members of the Security Council. Their votes were seen as potentially making the difference between success or failure for a second resolution. Whether Britain complied with the request or not is unknown, but the email found its way to a Sunday newspaper after Ms Gun showed it to a friend with journalistic contacts. Once it was published, she immediately confessed her part and acknowledged having breached the Official Secrets Act. Why the Government dropped its case against her, therefore, can be explained only by looking at her planned defence, which was that the war was illegal. The only way this could have been countered was by making public Lord Goldsmith's final opinion, the one on which Britain went to war. Last week Lord Goldsmith said he had decided to drop the case before Ms Gun's lawyers presented a document outlining their strategy. But Barry Hugill, spokesman for Liberty, the civil rights organisation backing Ms Gun, said it had been "obvious for months that it would become a trial of the legality of the war". According to Ms Short, not even the Cabinet was allowed to see the Attorney General's legal opinion. On 17 March last year, with less than 72 hours before the bombs began falling on Baghdad, she says a document consisting of two sheets of paper was displayed, but not circulated. When she tried to initiate a discussion on it, she was cut off. At this point Elizabeth Wilmshurst, a member of the Foreign Office's legal team for nearly 30 years, abruptly resigned as deputy legal adviser. With war imminent, her departure attracted little attention at the time, but it now seems clear that she at least had seen the Attorney General's full opinion, and found it unacceptable. Last week, as speculation mounted, she spelled it out, saying: "I left my job because I did not agree that the use of force against Iraq was lawful." All that the rest of us know, from Lord Goldsmith's brief summary, is that he is relying on a 12-year-old Security Council resolution which authorised the use of force to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991. How he justifies such a seemingly thin argument remains a secret, one guarded by the claim that there is no precedent for publishing legal opinions drawn up for the Government. But other cases are pending, including those of 14 Greenpeace supporters who occupied tanks at a Southampton military base in February last year, and five peace activists charged with criminal damage at RAF Fairford. Their lawyers are expected to demand the full opinion as well. The only legal step Downing Street is contemplating in the wake of the Katharine Gun fiasco is a review of the Official Secrets Act, which would appear to be all the more urgent following Clare Short's trampling of the same law. But a spokesman shed little light, describing the review as "the normal process that you go through after the outcome of a case", and said that it would be carried out "by the normal people in the normal way". One possibility is that government lawyers will try to write into the act a precise definition of the concept of "necessity" which cropped up during the case of the former MI5 agent David Shayler, who was jailed for selling information to a Sunday newspaper. When Mr Shayler appealed to the House of Lords, Lord Woolf raised the possibility that a defendant might be acquitted of a breach of the Act if he could show that he had revealed secrets in order to avert a threat to human life, before dismissing this possibility in Mr Shayler's case. Ms Gun's lawyers intended to argue that she was seeking to save lives by exposing skulduggery at the UN which could lead to war, and the Attorney General decided that the prosecution could not answer that claim. This might be seen, absurdly, to give immunity to anyone who wants to leak secrets in the run-up to a war. In some ways the uproar over spying at the UN, though highly embarrassing for the Government, is easier to deal with by stonewalling: nobody seriously expects any government to confirm that it is eavesdropping on its supposed friends and allies, even though everyone knows it goes on. Even anti-war MPs on the left wing of the Labour Party, who refused to join in the condemnation of Clare Short, were saying yesterday that whether or not British agents spied on Kofi Annan was not the political issue of the moment. "All of this is a massive distraction," said Alan Simpson, chairman of the left-wing Campaign Group. "I don't think we should be surprised at bugging operations. When you talked to UN officials, they presumed they were being bugged. "The issue is not about Clare's loyalty or disloyalty. It's about this assumed, untrammelled right of the Bush administration to go to war. The obsession was not about whether Saddam posed a threat to the West, but about whether the UN posed a threat to America's determination to have a war." Experts say that electronic eavesdropping is an accepted, if rarely acknowledged, part of life at the UN and one of the reasons why the US was so willing to allow the body to establish its headquarters in New York in April 1945 - a move that gave America a head start in its spying efforts. Indeed, in the aftermath of Ms Short's allegations diplomats said it was almost a matter of pride to be spied on. Spain's ambassador to the UN, Inocencio Arias, told The Washington Post: "In my opinion everybody spies on everybody, and when there's a crisis, big countries spy a lot. I would not be surprised if this Secretary-General and other Secretary-Generals have been listened to by a handful of big powers, and not only the ones you are thinking." No wire-tapping is allowed on UN premises. Three treaties are supposed to ensure the protection of the UN from spying, and yet experts say that among diplomats it is a given that spying takes place. Under an agreement by the so-called Spoke countries - the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - spying on US territory is carried out by America's National Security Agency and then shared. Jim Atkinson is an expert in electronic surveillance and is regularly contracted by countries and private companies to sweep buildings for bugs and provide protection against electronic eavesdropping. He told an astonishing story about spying at the UN. Travelling between jobs in New York in his mobile laboratory - one of a number of vehicles fitted with detectors and anti-bug equipment - he recently made several passes of the UN headquarters. The equipment in his vehicle was deliberately left on. "The equipment immediately started logging on to bugs that had the frequencies of [bugging equipment routinely used by] various countries," he said. "I can even pick out specific bugs in specific offices." Mr Atkinson declined to identify the countries whose equipment he detected that day, but he said: "Britain and America do this stuff all the time. They have scores of people who do this ... they do it to everybody. Everybody does it to them. Everybody in the diplomatic community does not trust anybody else." He claimed that in addition to Britain and America, he expected that Iraq would have bugged Mr Annan's office, and that Saudi Arabia and Israel would also have been electronically eavesdropping. The Prime Minister's phrase of the moment is that he wants to "move on", which means that he would like the public to forget the Iraq war and pay attention to political questions such as the sharply focused differences between Labour and the Conservatives. Yet thanks to three women - Katharine Gun, Clare Short and Elizabeth Wilmshurst - Mr Blair has spent another week on the back foot. Comment from around the world on the former minister's sensational revelations emphasised that the Prime Minister still suffers lingering damage to his reputation from the Iraq war. Whether he can answer the questions which remain from that conflict, and dispel the clouds of mistrust that remain, is likely to determine how his premiership is judged. Tony Blair: Trapped in the Iraq storm The Prime Minister's phrase of the moment is that he wants to "move on", which means he would like the public to forget the Iraq war. At the start of the week, Mr Blair really thought he was getting somewhere. Interest in Iraq seemed to be fading at last. The decision not to prosecute Katharine Gun took away the possibility of a long, highly publicised trial. He had an announcement about aid to Africa at the ready for his monthly Downing Street press conference on Thursday, and on Friday he would be delivering a speech on domestic politics to the Scottish Labour Party conference. Then Clare Short's sensational revelations ruined his week, leaving his advisers wondering if he will everrid himself of this feisty Labour rebel, or repair the damage the Iraq war has done to his reputation. Lord Goldsmith: Little-known lawyer thrust into the front line after 9/11 It is possible to serve for years as Attorney General without making the news. Even the average lawyer would struggle to recall who occupied the post as recently as five years ago. The answer is that it was held for the first two years of the Blair government by the veteran MP John Morris, and for the next two years by Gareth Williams before he became Leader of the House of Lords. Peter Goldsmith, who took over the post after the 2001 election, is an experienced lawyer but a virtual unknown in the political world. Yet since his appointment, he has been involved in one political controversy after another, most of them arising from the 11 September attacks. He has negotiated on behalf of Britons detained in Guantanamo Bay; warned David Blunkett that lowering the standard of proof required to convict suspected terrorists could be a breach of the law; and - most controversially - was asked for a judgement on the legality of the Iraq war. Why the full text of that judgement has to be kept secret is now a hot political issue. Similar judgments have been made public, although there was a famous case in 1986 when the then Trade and Industry Secretary, Leon Brittan, had to resign after ordering the leak of an Attorney General's letter. Clare Short: Former minister who fell out with her colleagues Clare Short was never a politician to hold back or speak softly. She is also impulsive, and has made enemies where her friends ought to be, on the left wing of the Labour Party. They have not entirely forgiven her for staying in the Cabinet during the Iraq war, only to resign afterwards. Those with longer memories recall her part in expelling or disciplining members of the left in the 1990s. Having entered the Commons at the same time as Tony Blair, in 1983, Ms Short served for years on the National Executive Committee, the body that may yet bring her to book for her outspokenness. She held the post of International Development Secretary for six years, and was generally thought to have run her department well. Now she has aroused the anger of the party leadership like no other former minister. Andy McSmith Katharine Gun: Translator who had to follow her conscience A fluent Mandarin speaker and daughter of an English literature professor, Katharine Gun was a low-level translator for GCHQ, the government's top-secret eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. But last March, she leaked the now infamous memo from a very senior US intelligence official at the National Security Agency, asking for British help to bug delegates of six countries at the United Nations. Sacked from GCHQ in June 2003, she has always admitted disclosing the email, written by the NSA's Defence Chief of Staff (Regional Targets), Frank Koza. But she has insisted she had "only ever followed her conscience" to prevent an "illegal war against Iraq". Ms Gun, aged 29 and married to a Turk, learnt Mandarin as she grew up in Taiwan where her father, Paul Harwood, teaches at Tunghai University. After moving to Eastbourne, East Sussex, to study for her A-levels, Ms Gun went on to read modern Chinese with Japanese at Durham University where she was described as a capable, "lively" student who would always speak out if she had something to say. Professor Harwood and Ms Gun's mother, Jan Harwood, have declared that they were "deeply proud" of their daughter's decision to breach the Official Secrets Act. Elizabeth Wilmshurst: FO specialist believed that the war was illegal The former deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Secretary, who resigned over the legality of the Iraq war last year, Elizabeth Wilmshurst is seen as one of Britain's leading experts on international criminal and diplomatic law. While little known outside diplomatic and legal circles, Ms Wilmshurst spent 29 years in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office legal department before becoming deputy head of legal affairs in 1997. Ms Wilmshurst is now head of the international law programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London and a visiting professor at University College London. In 1998 she was made a Companion of St Michael and St George, one of the highest honours for diplomats. She had resigned her post in March last year because she believed the Iraq war was illegal - a view many Foreign Office experts are said to share. Before resigning, Ms Wilmshurst had led the UK delegation to set up the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, served as legal counsellor to the UK's mission to the UN, and given evidence for the Foreign Office to the House of Commons International Development Committee on the legality of sanctions. She played a controversial role in the setting-up of the ICC, when, as a Foreign Office negotiator, she supported a US attempt to block the court from prosecuting US citizens. Despite this, she is now an adviser to the ICC. There was speculation that Ms Wilmshurst might have appeared as a witness for Katharine Gun, the former GCHQ translator whose trial for leaking an email concerning a UK-US spying operation collapsed last week. Ironically, Ms Wilmshurst was due to have co-chaired with Clare Short a conference on the US-UK occupation of Iraq at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law last Thursday - the day Ms Short revealed Britain's bugging of the UN. Severin Carrell [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 8303 From: Date: Sun Feb 29, 2004 2:58pm Subject: File - mission.txt TSCM-L Technical Security Mailing List Dedicated to TSCM specialists engaging in expert technical and analytical research for the detection, nullification, and isolation of eavesdropping devices, wiretaps, bugging devices, technical surveillance penetrations, technical surveillance hazards, and physical security weaknesses. This also includes bug detection, bug sweep, and wiretap detection services. Special emphasis is given to detecting and countering espionage and other threats and activities directed by foreign intelligence services against the United States Government, United States corporations, establishments, and citizens. The list includes technical discussion regarding the design and construction of SCIF facilities, Black Chambers, and Screen Rooms. This list is also for discussing DIAM 50-3, NSA-65, and DCID 1/21, 1/22 compliance. The primary goal and mission of this list is to "raise the bar" and increase the level of professionalism present within the TSCM business. The secondary goal of this list is to increase the quality and effectiveness of our efforts so that we give spies and eavesdroppers no quarter, and to neutralize all of their espionage efforts. This mailing list is moderated by James M. Atkinson and sponsored by Granite Island Group as a public service to the TSCM, Counter Intelligence, and technical security community. 8304 From: James M. Atkinson Date: Sat Feb 28, 2004 9:57pm Subject: Britain, Russia sweat as secret operations exposed http://www.kuwaittimes.net/today/analysis_s2.php Britain, Russia sweat as secret operations exposed In the twilight world of secret services there are few hard-and-fast rules, but the main one is: don't get found out. In two very different cases, Britain and Russia both broke that rule on Thursday. The British government was rocked by allegations by a former cabinet minister that it spied on United Nations chief Kofi Annan in the run-up to the Iraq war last year. Russia, for its part, was angrily demanding the return of secret agents arrested in Qatar and charged over the assassination of a former Chechen rebel president. The contrasting cases raise troublesome issues for international law and for other governments such as those of the United States and Israel. When is it legitimate to spy against your friends? And when is it justified to use lethal force against militant opponents in the name of the war on terror? On the first point, intelligence experts expressed no surprise at the charges by former aid minister Clare Short that Britain had bugged Annan's office and she had seen transcripts of his conversations. But they did see the leak as highly embarrassing to the government. "It does not shock me that the old days-we do not spy on our friends, and gentlemen do not read other gentlemen's mail -- are over," said Anthony Glees of the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies in England. "We've known for several years now that British intelligence has spied on our European Union partners." Analysts noted the United Nations was a key intelligence priority because of its pivotal role in the run-up to the Iraq war, for which the United States and its key allies were seeking Security Council backing. "Clearly every major Western government would have an interest in what's going on there, and that would be covered both by normal diplomatic reporting and intelligence activities," said Crispin Black of the Risk Advisory Group. Compounding the government's discomfort, Short's revelations came the day after Britain dropped charges against a translator who leaked a top-secret U.S. document seeking London's help in bugging UN members in the run-up to last year's war on Iraq. To the extent that "rules of the game" exist for espionage, they are set out in the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. It states, for example, that the premises of a diplomatic mission "shall be inviolable", and agents of the host state cannot enter without permission. But Glees said the 43-year old rules mean little in a world where everyone spies on everyone else, including their allies. "We do not stick to the Vienna Convention, and I do not know of any liberal state in the world that does. And those states that weren't liberal never did in any case," he said. Analysts say it suits the purposes of governments and intelligence services to operate in a legal "grey zone" when it comes to espionage. "It is a kind of legal murky area," said Black. In theory, violations of the Vienna Convention could be brought before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In practice, spy rows are handled discreetly with minimal publicity and just the occasional tit-for-tat expulsion. In the case of the two arrested Russians in Qatar, Moscow protested to the Qatari authorities that its citizens were "members of the Russian special services...linked to the battle against international terrorism". They were held over the February 13 car bombing in Qatar that killed Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, who was briefly separatist leader of the Russian region of Chechnya. Russia is not the only country whose agents have been captured abroad while carrying out covert operations. Two Israeli Mossad agents were arrested in Jordan after trying to poison a Hamas official in 1997, and the Jewish state had to free the militant group's jailed leader to get them back. "What is the difference between (the Yandarbiyev killing) and a group of CIA agents scouring a mountain in Central Asia looking for (Osama) bin Laden?" Black said. "I think most people would accept if (the British) SIS or CIA saw bin Laden springing up a mountain they would be perfectly within their rights and morally correct to shoot him. "I don't think that's difficult. It's where you get into more nuanced cases...I'm not sure necessarily a sort of codified law is going to make them any easier to handle." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We Expertly Hunt Real Spies, Real Eavesdroppers, and Real Wiretappers. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- James M. Atkinson Phone: (978) 546-3803 Granite Island Group Fax: (978) 546-9467 127 Eastern Avenue #291 Web: http://www.tscm.com/ Gloucester, MA 01931-8008 Email: mailto:jmatk@t... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- World Class, Professional, Ethical, and Competent Bug Sweeps, and Wiretap Detection using Sophisticated Laboratory Grade Test Equipment. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8305 From: James M. Atkinson Date: Sat Feb 28, 2004 9:58pm Subject: Whistle-blower tipped by Downing St mole http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=237052004 Whistle-blower tipped by Downing St mole BRIAN BRADY WESTMINSTER EDITOR THE collapse of the trial of GCHQ 'whistle-blower' Katharine Gun was caused by a tip-off to her defence team from within Tony Blair's government, it was claimed last night. A source close to Gun's lawyers has told Scotland on Sunday that a government insider told them there were serious concerns within Blair's administration about the legal justification behind the decision to go to war. Armed with this crucial information, the GCHQ translator's legal team planned to go into court and demand from the government highly sensitive documents on which the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, based his advice. The case against Gun, accused of breaking the Official Secrets Act by leaking confidential war-related information to the press, was dropped suddenly without a full explanation at the Old Bailey last week. The revelation that the case began to unfold after a leak from within Westminster follows claims by former Cabinet minister Clare Short that UK intelligence services had eavesdropped on UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Last night, sources close to Gun's defence team claimed Goldsmith had been "duped" by inaccurate intelligence information into giving the legal green light for the Iraq conflict. Despite the growing storm, the government made it clear last night it would not make public the Attorney-General's advice on the legality of the war. But a further court challenge is expected from Greenpeace, who said they would demand to see the documents as part of an attempt to clear 14 of their activists of charges relating to anti-war protests. Gun's planned defence rested on the argument that she was trying to expose illegal activity on the part of the government. Proving this relied upon showing that the government's legal case for war was flawed. Her defence was planning to reveal startling claims that Goldsmith did a U-turn on earlier advice that a conflict would not be justified, after he was shown disturbing intelligence reports claiming Saddam Hussein represented an immediate threat to Britain's national security. It is believed that the "evidence" rested on a range of intelligence sources, including controversial claims in the government's dossiers on Iraq 's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) capabilities, chiefly the allegation that Saddam could launch an attack within 45 minutes. Goldsmith is understood to have accepted that a pre-emptive strike under such conditions would be legitimate, and would not require the official endorsement of the international community. "What it rests on is that Lord Goldsmith, like the rest of the nation, was sold a pup," said a senior source close to Gun's defence. "It looks very much like he wrote the advice that he was asked to write. He did it in such a way that he covered his own back. That is what we were seeking to have disclosed in court." The case was abandoned the day after Gun's confidential submission was delivered to the government last Tuesday, serving notice that the defence would demand publication of all Goldsmith's advice and the intelligence used to back it up. The government was left facing an 'ambush', with Gun's team - assembled by the civil rights group Liberty - challenging ministers to reveal hugely sensitive documents. The defence's successful strategy began with 'inside information' about the dubious quality of intelligence passed to Goldsmith. The source told Scotland on Sunday: "We were sure of the information because it came from a good source." Asked if that meant someone within the government, the source replied: "Yes." When the source was asked whether the informant was Short he laughed and refused to answer. The submission by Gun's legal team says: "The defence believes that the advice given by the Foreign Office legal adviser expressed serious concerns about the legality (in international law) of committing British troops in the absence of a second resolution." It added: "Our understanding is that Goldsmith changed his advice in January last year to say that war would be legal, but only on this basis: it was put to him that British intelligence had credible evidence that there was a serious and imminent threat." Yesterday Downing Street insisted Goldsmith's advice would remain under wraps. A spokesman said: "The Attorney-General's advice remains confidential because of the long-standing convention that advice from government law officers is not disclosed." In a new development last night, George Foulkes, Short's former deputy at the Department for International Development, claimed that Short had told him while still a minister that if she was forced out of office, she would bring down the Prime Minister. "We were having a drink together and I think she had begun to feel there was a possibility she would be out," he said. There were always tensions between her and No 10 - not about specific issues but with the way things were being done. And she said to me, 'If I go, I am going to bring Tony Blair down with me.'" It also emerged last night that according to other unpublished documents from the Gun case, Britain's army chiefs were refusing to go to war in Iraq, amid fears over the conflict's legality, just a few days before the US and British bombing campaign began. Senior military leaders were adamant that war could not begin until they were satisfied neither they nor their men could be tried for war crimes, but were persuaded by the government's legal advice. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We Expertly Hunt Real Spies, Real Eavesdroppers, and Real Wiretappers. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- James M. Atkinson Phone: (978) 546-3803 Granite Island Group Fax: (978) 546-9467 127 Eastern Avenue #291 Web: http://www.tscm.com/ Gloucester, MA 01931-8008 Email: mailto:jmatk@t... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- World Class, Professional, Ethical, and Competent Bug Sweeps, and Wiretap Detection using Sophisticated Laboratory Grade Test Equipment. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8306 From: Ocean Group Date: Sun Feb 29, 2004 6:40pm Subject: Does this man *really* know what he is talking about? Eavesdropping made easy . . . they can listen through a closed window (Filed: 27/02/2004) Daily Telegraph Michael Smith, who worked with GCHQ during the Cold War, says that spying on allies is routine The spying operation that led to Clare Short reading transcripts of Kofi Annan's private conversations was unlikely to have involved the use of a "bug" like those seen in spy films. The British and American intelligence agencies have many more high-tech methods of intercepting conversations that are far more adaptable and much less likely to be detected. It is far from clear from what Miss Short actually told the BBC which method was used, or even if the UK was actually involved in the interception of his conversations rather than simply a recipient of the intelligence. "The UK in this time was also getting spy [sic] on Kofi Annan's office, and getting reports from him about what was going on," Miss Short said. The first point to make is that if someone was planting bugs in Mr Annan's office, which would have been illegal under international law, the most obvious candidates are the CIA and NSA, not MI6 and GCHQ. But the main point is that surveillance technology is now so advanced that planting bugs under desks or in telephones is not even necessary. Powerful unidirectional microphones can pick up conversations through open windows. Even if the window is closed, radio beams can be bounced off the glass to detect the vibrations caused by the noise inside. These can then be translated back to produce the speech. However, the easiest way to bug a modern office is through the mobile telephones of the people working there. You don't have to actually use a mobile telephone for intelligence agencies to be able to listen to you speak. As long as it was simply switched on, a mobile telephone on Mr Annan's desk could be used to listen in to anything he was saying to anyone else. Mobile telephones communicate continuously with their control stations over a frequency that is quite separate from the one used to talk on. Anyone who has details of the frequencies and codes in use can listen in to what is being said in the immediate vicinity of any telephone on the network. Intelligence services such as GCHQ and NSA do not even need to obtain the frequencies and codes from the network provider. They can bypass the main network to take complete control of any mobile telephone. But the most likely circumstance that would have led to Miss Short seeing the transcripts of Mr Annan's conversations would be that he was talking to leaders or officials from countries that were the real target of the interception. International telephone conversations, which travel via communications satellites, are routinely intercepted by US spy satellites. The capabilities of these satellites and the computers used to process the millions of conversations they intercept are often wildly overstated. But they can pick out key telephone links, recognise key words and even "fingerprint" voices. Nor is listening in to countries or organisations that are our friends an unusual occurrence. Britain's spies routinely intercept the conversations and correspondence of our allies to discover what they are really doing. When the Government Code and Cypher School, GCHQ's predecessor, was set up at the end of the First World War, its two top targets were America and France, the two countries it had just finished fighting alongside. During the British negotiations to enter the then European Economic Community, GCHQ intercepted French diplomatic messages to find out what stance the British negotiators should take to ensure the best deal. Delegates to anything from trade negotiations to peace conferences are likely to find their rooms bugged by MI6 and their messages home intercepted by GCHQ in order to give British ministers detailed intelligence on what can and cannot be achieved. The hotel rooms of Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo were bugged during the 1979 Lancaster House talks on the future of Zimbabwe, as were the rooms in Lancaster House used for meetings. As a result, Lord Carrington, the then Foreign Secretary, was briefed at the start of each day on what positions the various parties would take and what their fall-back positions in the negotiations would be. MI6 also bugged the rooms of the delegates attending the 1992 London conference on Bosnia, with regular transcripts provided to Douglas Hurd, who was then Foreign Secretary. The only surprise about the memo leaked by Katharine Gun, in which the Americans asked for increased surveillance on the six countries whose votes might help win a Security Council vote on Iraq, would be if it wasn't already happening. Nor is that illegal. Under the terms of the 1994 Intelligence Services Act, GCHQ and MI6 "obtain and provide information relating to the actions or intentions of persons outside the British Isles" to safeguard our national security and economic welfare. Miss Short's claims are controversial because interference with UN property is illegal under international law. But if the target of the intercept was the other party in the conversation rather than Mr Annan, then it is unlikely that any GCHQ officer involved could be deemed to have acted illegally. Even if they were, as long as the Foreign Secretary deemed it necessary for the proper discharge of GCHQ's statutory functions, the Intelligence Services Act exempts them from any liability under British law. ? Michael Smith's book The Spying Game is published by Politicos. 8307 From: Steve Uhrig Date: Sun Feb 29, 2004 7:20pm Subject: Re: Does this man *really* know what he is talking about? On 1 Mar 2004 at 0:40, Ocean Group wrote: > You don't have to actually use a mobile telephone for intelligence > agencies to be able to listen to you speak. As long as it was simply > switched on, a mobile telephone on Mr Annan's desk could be used to > listen in to anything he was saying to anyone else. This is untrue. > Mobile telephones communicate continuously with their control stations > over a frequency that is quite separate from the one used to talk on. > Anyone who has details of the frequencies and codes in use can listen > in to what is being said in the immediate vicinity of any telephone on > the network. This is untrue. > Intelligence services such as GCHQ and NSA do not even need to obtain > the frequencies and codes from the network provider. They can bypass > the main network to take complete control of any mobile telephone. This is true, however it's not as simple as it may sound, and requires a substantial amount of info obtained in advance, and a local (within a few hundred meters *maximum*) placement of a portable cell site simulator and appropriate antenna. It is difficult to conceal the antenna unless you are quite close to the user and have strong enough signals to get away with an inefficient covert antenna. You also need direct line of sight to a local cell site on the service the bad guy's phone uses, within the same few hundred meters. Not workable in many situations. Remember many office buildings have a cell site on their roof, and large buildings, hotels, multi story, etc. will have a cell site every few floors. Worst case is you disable all of these to give you a clear shot to the places you need, but there is a lot of side effects to doing this and it's done only in tactical situations. You wouldn't get away with it in a totally covert operation. This work is done not for surveillance, but to control communications and access via cell phone to a bad guy in a hostage situation. The law enforcement temporary cell site services the bad guy's phone transparent to him, and LE can restrict, intercept and control all calls in or out to the phone. Many times a bad guy will have a cell phone and will have a low profile confederate outside in the crowd reporting the activity of law enforcement to the bad guy. The LE command post with the portable cell site can restrict incoming calls from the media to the bad guy also, which is a real problem. Many times the bad guy will be talking to the media unknown to LE. Things can be controlled so only preauthorized cell phones can originate a call to the bad guy, or any calls must be prefixed with a dynamic code to be allowed to go through. We integrate this equipment. ---------- When the gentleman who mentioned the above untrue comments, he's either naďve or misinformed or deliberately pushing hyperbole. Any of these would cast dispersions on anything he says. And he's trying to sell his book, so that may explain trying to glamourize the matter and get people paranoid. Always look for an ulterior motive when trying to establish someone's credibility when they make a questionable statement. ---------- Does anybody *really* know what time it is? Steve ******************************************************************* Steve Uhrig, SWS Security, Maryland (USA) Mfrs of electronic surveillance equip mailto:Steve@s... website http://www.swssec.com tel +1+410-879-4035, fax +1+410-836-1190 "In God we trust, all others we monitor" ******************************************************************* 8308 From: David Alexander Date: Mon Mar 1, 2004 3:42am Subject: RE: Britain, Russia sweat as secret operations exposed First a disclaimer - I'm British and therefore maybe slightly biased, but it also means I have a far better 'handle' on events in Britain than someone overseas. I don't believe that we are 'sweating' over being found out for bugging the UN. There are something like 143 Foreign Intelligence Services (FISs) around the world, all trying to do this kind of thing to each other - what do people think they do all day - haven't they seen James Bond ? (OK, so that's a bit extreme and simplistic, but it I think it makes the point). The irony is we weren't caught doing this, someone, who in my opinion is a totally irresponsible idiot , who was "in the know" owned up ! I think that what the British government is really sweating about is the legality of the decision to go to war. This is a could easily be a major political disaster which has the potential to bring down the government. I suspect it maybe the straw that breaks the camels back for us, and if it does, it may have very unfortunate effects on 'dubya', especially in an election year, because then the spot light will turn and focus on him - "Mr President, if it wasn't legal for the Brits to go to war, how come it was legal for us ?"... My 2c. David Alexander Dbi Consulting Ltd Stoneleigh Park Mews Stoneleigh Abbey Kenilworth Warwickshire CV8 2DB Office : 01926 515515 Mobile: 07836 332576 Email : David.Alexander@d... Have you visited our website? http://www.dbiconsulting.co.uk -----Original Message----- From: James M. Atkinson [mailto:jmatk@t...] Sent:29 February 2004 03:58 To:TSCM-L Subject:[TSCM-L] Britain, Russia sweat as secret operations exposed http://www.kuwaittimes.net/today/analysis_s2.php Britain, Russia sweat as secret operations exposed In the twilight world of secret services there are few hard-and-fast rules, but the main one is: don't get found out. In two very different cases, Britain and Russia both broke that rule on Thursday. The British government was rocked by allegations by a former cabinet minister that it spied on United Nations chief Kofi Annan in the run-up to the Iraq war last year. Russia, for its part, was angrily demanding the return of secret agents arrested in Qatar and charged over the assassination of a former Chechen rebel president. The contrasting cases raise troublesome issues for international law and for other governments such as those of the United States and Israel. When is it legitimate to spy against your friends? And when is it justified to use lethal force against militant opponents in the name of the war on terror? On the first point, intelligence experts expressed no surprise at the charges by former aid minister Clare Short that Britain had bugged Annan's office and she had seen transcripts of his conversations. But they did see the leak as highly embarrassing to the government. "It does not shock me that the old days-we do not spy on our friends, and gentlemen do not read other gentlemen's mail -- are over," said Anthony Glees of the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies in England. "We've known for several years now that British intelligence has spied on our European Union partners." Analysts noted the United Nations was a key intelligence priority because of its pivotal role in the run-up to the Iraq war, for which the United States and its key allies were seeking Security Council backing. "Clearly every major Western government would have an interest in what's going on there, and that would be covered both by normal diplomatic reporting and intelligence activities," said Crispin Black of the Risk Advisory Group. Compounding the government's discomfort, Short's revelations came the day after Britain dropped charges against a translator who leaked a top-secret U.S. document seeking London's help in bugging UN members in the run-up to last year's war on Iraq. To the extent that "rules of the game" exist for espionage, they are set out in the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. It states, for example, that the premises of a diplomatic mission "shall be inviolable", and agents of the host state cannot enter without permission. But Glees said the 43-year old rules mean little in a world where everyone spies on everyone else, including their allies. "We do not stick to the Vienna Convention, and I do not know of any liberal state in the world that does. And those states that weren't liberal never did in any case," he said. Analysts say it suits the purposes of governments and intelligence services to operate in a legal "grey zone" when it comes to espionage. "It is a kind of legal murky area," said Black. In theory, violations of the Vienna Convention could be brought before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In practice, spy rows are handled discreetly with minimal publicity and just the occasional tit-for-tat expulsion. In the case of the two arrested Russians in Qatar, Moscow protested to the Qatari authorities that its citizens were "members of the Russian special services...linked to the battle against international terrorism". They were held over the February 13 car bombing in Qatar that killed Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, who was briefly separatist leader of the Russian region of Chechnya. Russia is not the only country whose agents have been captured abroad while carrying out covert operations. Two Israeli Mossad agents were arrested in Jordan after trying to poison a Hamas official in 1997, and the Jewish state had to free the militant group's jailed leader to get them back. "What is the difference between (the Yandarbiyev killing) and a group of CIA agents scouring a mountain in Central Asia looking for (Osama) bin Laden?" Black said. "I think most people would accept if (the British) SIS or CIA saw bin Laden springing up a mountain they would be perfectly within their rights and morally correct to shoot him. "I don't think that's difficult. It's where you get into more nuanced cases...I'm not sure necessarily a sort of codified law is going to make them any easier to handle." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- We Expertly Hunt Real Spies, Real Eavesdroppers, and Real Wiretappers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- James M. Atkinson Phone: (978) 546-3803 Granite Island Group Fax: (978) 546-9467 127 Eastern Avenue #291 Web: http://www.tscm.com/ Gloucester, MA 01931-8008 Email: mailto:jmatk@t... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- World Class, Professional, Ethical, and Competent Bug Sweeps, and Wiretap Detection using Sophisticated Laboratory Grade Test Equipment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- ======================================================== TSCM-L Technical Security Mailing List "In a multitude of counselors there is strength" To subscribe to the TSCM-L mailing list visit: http://www.yahoogroups.com/community/TSCM-L It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Star Bucks that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shaking, the shaking is a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. =================================================== TSKS Yahoo! Groups Links 8309 From: contranl Date: Sun Feb 29, 2004 7:57pm Subject: Who makes this frequency hopping tx ? . Recently discovered Frequency hopping transmitter Size: pack of cigarettes Frequency hopping Centerfreq: 850 mhz Bandwidth +/- 80 mhz no internal mic or batt 4 mini connectors mic1,mic2,vdc/panic,antenna Metal housing Type/indication: FH5000 Looks like a universal professional unit Questions: A) Does anyone know the unit and who makes it ? B) How to detect such a unit ? walking/driving by...not being very close (but in range ofcourse)...not specificly doing a search and not using bulky equipment like spectrumanalyzers and not using a simple wideband-detector that would receive to much other sigs...more like something that you could have in your pocket...if neccesary such a detector could be tuned (fixed) for the above frequency band. Thanks Tetrascanner . 8310 From: J Grudko Date: Mon Mar 1, 2004 8:30am Subject: Re: Britain, Russia sweat as secret operations exposed --Original Message----- From: David Alexander >First a disclaimer - I'm British and therefore maybe slightly biased, Me too, but only by birth. I won't comment on the 'war' - the George Michaels video said it all. >I don't believe that we are 'sweating' over being found out for bugging the >UN. I agree - more upset that that was 'just not cricket' Ms Short. She will probably go for a walk one night and turn up dead in the woods with slit wrists in the middle of a crop circle (aerial photos will later reveal a second identical crop circle forming a perfect 'OO' symbol....) oThere are something like 143 Foreign Intelligence Services (FISs) around >the world, all trying to do this kind of thing to each other - what do >people think they do all day - haven't they seen James Bond ? In the late '80s one of my staff was caught in a car with a surveillance receiver in Zurich, outside the Iraqi embassy. He was arrested and charged but in Court the Judge agreed that he was 'probably working for an allied intelligence agency and acting in western interests' and the charges were returned 'no prossicution'. I must find the newsclipping and put it on my site - maybe GWB will give me a nice, shiney tin badge. Andy Grudko, Grudko Associates, Johannesburg Crime investigation, intelligence & VIP Protection since 1981 www.grudko.com. Johannesburg (+27 11) 781 7206 - 781 7207 (Fax) Sandton (+27 11) 465 9673 - 465 1487 (Fax) Pretoria (+27 12) 244 0255 - 244 0256 (Fax) Members of :SIRA, SACI, WAD, CALI, SASFed, SASA, UKPIN, AFIO (OS),IWWA. "When you need it done right - first time" 8311 From: J Grudko Date: Mon Mar 1, 2004 6:30am Subject: Fake debugger unfrocked I found this today whilst researching an investigation into tampering with university records... Andy Grudko www.grudko.com SA varsities earn top marks for deceit Cape Argus (South Africa) July 09 2002 at 11:00AM South Africa has emerged as a hub of one of the world's biggest fake university degree scams, offering diploma and degree certificates on the Internet via email spam and telemarketing. Fake degrees from the so-called "Harrington University" came to light after a Bothasig woman accused a Maitland electronic surveillance expert of posing as an academic doctor in electronics and later found herself defending a defamation claim in court. The Goodwood Magistrate's Court found that Maureen Gallon, a University of Cape Town staffer, had not defamed businessman Klaus Knopf, who based his claim on a certificate showing he had a degree from Harrington. Knopf, who was being sought by German justice authorities for posing as a "doctor", was listed by a special police task team in Cape Town as a wanted fugitive. Harrington would sell degrees to anyone, 'no questions asked' Knopf told the Cape Argus on Monday that he was a "legal degreed academic", but when a reporter confronted him about the Harrington certificate, he refused to discuss it. Harrington has a single web advertisement page, which simply refers visitors to a London address and phone number. Retired US university professor John Bear, who has studied fake "cyberspace degrees" and has testified for the FBI as an expert witness on the topic, said on Monday that he had been contacted by an "insider" in a Romanian company which sold the Harrington degrees saying that he wanted to spill the beans on the scam. Bear said his contact's company had sold more than 70 000 fake degrees in the past few years, as well as selling fake international driver's licences on the side Bear's contact told him the fake university's main banking activities were in South Africa and in Cyprus, and most of the telemarketing was by South Africans. Telemarketing was done from Romania by people with South African accents He said Harrington provided employers with transcripts and recommendation letters, all without any grades or coursework, for an additional fee. The Cape Argus has in its possession copies of Knopf's supposed degree and letters of recommendation from the Harrington source, which he produced as possible evidence in his civil claim. Gallon's attorney, Bev Bird, said she had been handed copies of supposedly authentic documents, but "Internet-based" documents were not accepted as evidence in court, and the case had been decided in Gallon's favour without them. Bear said there were "borderline" unaccredited Internet universities, which offered degrees on the basis of correspondence courses and practical experience in the workplace, "but Harrington is not one of them". Harrington would sell degrees to anyone, "no questions asked". Bear toured South Africa in the mid-1990s, meeting the rectors of several universities, including the University of South Africa and the University of Cape Town, to discuss the Harrington fraud. He said Harrington University was owned by an American using an address in Britain, a printer in Jerusalem and banks in Cyprus and South Africa. Telemarketing was done from Romania and South Africa "by people with South African accents", according to Bear. Harrington University had headquarters in London, but students had to wire payments overseas through Western Union, and more recently through South African banks. For a small fee, a Harrington University diploma, purportedly accepted anywhere, could be delivered within 10 business days. Harrington was offering bachelors and masters degrees, as well as doctorates, based on "life experience" for $1 400 (R14 000) - discounted by $500 for signing up the same day. Bear said a Harrington representative told a "prospective student" that with a custom-made PhD based on work experience, "you can legally call yourself doctor." The proliferation of legitimate distance-learning institutions and the ease of setting up virtual sites overseas had made it easier for people to obtain unsubstantiated degrees via the Internet, he said. The world-wide web had spawned a new generation of cyber-degree scamsters, creaming off about $200m a year - some of them up to $20m each. He estimated there were more than 300 unaccredited university sites, with one or two new ones cropping up every week. The anonymity of the Net makes it all but impossible to find the con artists, who operate fake virtual universities from remote spots, such as the Caymans tax havens or Costa Rica. Bear said the biggest problem was the ease with which a fraudster with a few hundred dollars could create a convincing front on the Net. Someone with computer savvy could steal the source code and graphics of an authentic online university and simply change a few things to create a convincing fake. Andy Grudko, Grudko Associates, Johannesburg Crime investigation, intelligence & VIP Protection since 1981 www.grudko.com. Johannesburg (+27 11) 781 7206 - 781 7207 (Fax) Sandton (+27 11) 465 9673 - 465 1487 (Fax) Pretoria (+27 12) 244 0255 - 244 0256 (Fax) Members of :SIRA, SACI, WAD, CALI, SASFed, SASA, UKPIN, AFIO (OS),IWWA. "When you need it done right - first time" 8312 From: James M. Atkinson Date: Mon Mar 1, 2004 8:49am Subject: UN steps up anti-spying measures as Blix reveals belief he was bugged http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=496266 UN steps up anti-spying measures as Blix reveals belief he was bugged By Raymond Whitaker and Andrew Buncombe 29 February 2004 The United Nations has stepped up anti-bugging measures at its New York headquarters in the wake of a claim by Clare Short, the former Cabinet minister, that she had seen a transcript of a private telephone conversation by Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General. A UN spokesman, Farhan Haq, told The Independent on Sunday: "The UN routinely takes technical measures to guard against invasions of its privacy." He said such measures would be increased after Ms Short's comments in an interview last Thursday on the BBC's Today programme. Amid the storm caused by the former International Development Secretary's comments, Boutros Boutros Ghali, the former UN Secretary-General, as well as Hans Blix, the former UN chief weapons inspector, and one of his predecessors, have said they believed they were spied on. Dr Blix said he suspected that his UN office and his home in New York were bugged by the US during the run-up to war in Iraq, when he was in dispute with the British Government and the Bush administration over his demands for more time to complete his search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Dr Blix, who gave lectures in Edinburgh and Cambridge last week ahead of the publication of his book, Disarming Iraq: the Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction, is promising "some big revelations". The actions of Tony Blair and George Bush in the period leading up to the war would be closely scrutinised. Asked by the IoS if he was more critical of the Prime Minister or President Bush, Dr Blix replied that he "had something to say about everyone concerned". In an interview with The Guardian, which is serialising the book, the former chief inspector said a UN counter-surveillance team had swept his home and office for bugs. But his fear of surveillance was reinforced when John Wolf, a senior member of the US administration, showed him a set of photographs that he said could only have been obtained from the UN weapons office. "I asked him how he got them and he would not tell me, and I said I resented that," Dr Blix said. He added that he had expected to be spied on by the Iraqis, but found it "disgusting" that he was treated the same way by his own side. Another former chief weapons inspector, Richard Butler, said he would go to New York's Central Park for confidential conversations with his contacts, because it was "plainly silly" to think such a conversation could be held in his office without it being monitored. Dr Blix said he, too, would go to the restaurant at the UN building or "out into the streets" for sensitive discussions. Ms Short's allegation gave rise to speculation that Britain had planted a listening device in the UN Secretary General's office, but intelligence experts believe it is far more likely that if his calls were monitored, it would be part of the traffic intercepted electronically by the National Security Agency in the US and GCHQ in Cheltenham. There have also been suggestions that what the former minister might have seen was a copy of notes routinely made of Mr Annan's telephone calls by a UN employee made for the organisation's own records. Additional reporting by Bryan Coll ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We Expertly Hunt Real Spies, Real Eavesdroppers, and Real Wiretappers. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- James M. Atkinson Phone: (978) 546-3803 Granite Island Group Fax: (978) 546-9467 127 Eastern Avenue #291 Web: http://www.tscm.com/ Gloucester, MA 01931-8008 Email: mailto:jmatk@t... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- World Class, Professional, Ethical, and Competent Bug Sweeps, and Wiretap Detection using Sophisticated Laboratory Grade Test Equipment. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8313 From: Date: Mon Mar 1, 2004 3:44pm Subject: Michigan official faces charges for spycam in Civic Center Holland official faces charges for spycam in Civic Center Tuesday, February 24, 2004 By Shandra Martinez and John Tunison The Grand Rapids Press HOLLAND -- Holland's top recreation administrator is accused of using a hidden video camera in a private changing room to spy on teenage girls and women at the Holland Civic Center. Curt Wright, director of the city's Leisure and Cultural Services, allegedly used the device to secretly watch his victims change clothing, and may have been doing it for four years or longer, a source close to the investigation said. Wright, 57, was charged Monday with three felony eavesdropping counts. Holland City Manager Soren Wolff this morning announced the details of a two-week city investigation and said Wright was fired Friday. "As far as we know, there were 12 victims," Wolff said. "I'm just happy there isn't any more than those 12." The 12, all young women, have been contacted by police, and city officials have offered to meet with them and their parents. At least five were Hope College students, while other were summer city employees and acquaintances of Wright's family, records show. At least one was as young as 15. "I place all the blame on him, but part of me wonders how could he get away with it for so long," said one of the women, a high school senior. Wright has been a city department head for 15 years, overseeing the parks system and Civic Center operations. His salary was about $70,000. The discovery has angered the alleged victims and their parents, and rocked City Council members and city employees. "It makes me sick to my stomach," Councilwoman Linda Falstad said. "It's an unbelievable situation," said longtime councilman Bob VandeVusse. "I feel terrible for the victims. I feel terrible for his wife and children. I feel terrible for Curt. He is going to pay an awful price for very poor judgment and decisions he has made." The father of one alleged victim said he feels only anger. "As a father, if I meet this man, he is in trouble," he said. Wright was arraigned Monday in Holland District Court on three counts of eavesdropping, a felony carrying up to two years in prison and a $2,000 fine. "I can't comment," Wright said after the hearing. He then met with his lawyer, Brad Johnson, before leaving through a back door. According to court papers, Wright is charged for offenses on Sept. 13, 2000; May 24, 2001; and Sept. 23, 2003. District Judge Susan Jonas set a $5,000 personal recognizance bond for each count. Wright's bond allows him to travel to Indiana to visit relatives. "I think it would be good to get away," he told Jonas. City Manager Soren Wolff said he confronted Wright two weeks ago about a complaint. He and police declined to comment in detail on the case. The investigation began after a college student became suspicious about the photo shoots and talked to city staffers, one of the victims said police told her. Wolff put Wright on paid leave the same day, Feb. 10, and asked Holland Police Chief John Kruithoff to investigate. A clock radio with a hidden video camera was found in a dressing room inside the Civic Center. Alleged victims were photographed there after Wright reportedly asked them to participate in a marketing campaign. The campaign was supposed to generate money to renovate the aging Civic Center, victims said, adding police have told them there was no campaign. "The whole story about using this as a marketing campaign just didn't add up," Wolff said. The alleged ploy came to light Feb. 10 after one of the girls who was asked to participate in the fictitious campaign declined, became suspicious and filed a complaint against Wright with the city personnel department. The young women brought their own wardrobe that included formal wear and bathing suits. They then changed in the dressing room. Police said they discovered the hidden video camera Feb. 16, after they began investigating at the request of Wolff. "During the time the girls were asked to change their clothes, he would go into the office and observe that," the police chief said. No video recordings were found, he said. Police seized three computers, including two from his home and one from his Civic Center office, which state police are analyzing. The photos for the purported publicity campaign, which Wright took with a digital camera, were found stored on disks. The woman were clothed in those pictures. "I just felt really violated. I was really shocked because it was a city official," said one of his alleged victims. The high school senior, who did a photo shoot with Wright for the past two summers, believes Wright saw her nude. She said detectives have told her they can't find images of her in Wright's possession, but that Wright confessed she was one of his victims. She also is listed in court documents as a victim. According to the teen, who asked that her name not be used, Wright would return to his office while she changed clothes. "He would come back and be all flustered and really weird and all gross," said the teen, who was 15 and 16 when the alleged incidents occurred. She remembers feeling uncomfortable by Wright's comments like "you should wear a thong" and suggestions that she remove her bra so it didn't show beneath her strapless gown. The teen said that her sister, a friend of Wright's daughter, also had her picture taken by him six years ago. "I don't know if she was the first one," she said. Mayor Pro-Tem Craig Rich praised the city manager for responding quickly to the complaint. "From what I know, he handled (the investigation) extremely well. He went with his gut and was right," Rich said. The city manager and City Council members described Wright as competent and easy to work with. "He did a lot of good things for the city of Holland and particularly for our parks department. He was instrumental in seeing a lot of grants to pay for park improvements," VandeVusse said. "Strictly from a professional perspective of managing a department, he did a very good job." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 8314 From: David Alexander Date: Tue Mar 2, 2004 7:34am Subject: another BBC 'report' more hype and half-truths on tscm from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3522137.stm David Alexander Dbi Consulting Ltd Stoneleigh Park Mews Stoneleigh Abbey Kenilworth Warwickshire CV8 2DB Office : 01926 515515 Mobile: 07836 332576 Email : David.Alexander@d... Have you visited our website? http://www.dbiconsulting.co.uk 8315 From: Date: Tue Mar 2, 2004 3:37am Subject: Nebraska Wiretap experts meet behind closed doors - Petersen Case Wiretap experts meet behind closed doors By Michelle Durand, Daily Journal Staff Arguments in the Scott Peterson double-murder trial moved behind closed doors again yesterday as attorneys continue to debate what evidence will be presented to the jury. Jury selection starts Thursday morning, leaving presiding judge Al Delucchi only days to finalize requests from both sides about what can be used. Still lingering are motions to squash evidence from tracking dogs and more than 3,000 phone calls from or to Peterson following his pregnant wife’s disappearance. Two wiretap experts from Nebraska were called by Peterson’s defense team yesterday to refute last week’s testimony on the calls. Both witnesses were heard in Delucchi’s chambers instead of open court, leaving the media and court spectators wondering what they said and what calls they are referencing. Most of the earlier arguments of wiretaps two weeks ago were also held behind closed doors as both sides listened to the calls. Defense attorneys not only want every phone call dismissed as evidence but also any other evidence gathered as a result of the taps. At question are a trio of calls between Peterson and his first attorney, Kirk McCallister, that were accidentally listened to by police. Defense attorney Mark Geragos maintains the breach of client-attorney privilege has tainted all the phone calls and that investigators cannot prove that the calls did not directly result in his client’s arrest. Delucchi is also expected to rule today or tomorrow on dog tracking evidence after listening to three days of testimony last week. Prosecutors want to use the dogs to show Peterson left his Modesto home with his wife’s body, took it to the Berkeley Marina where he would later claim to be fishing, and weighted her down in the bay. Dog handlers have testified that the animals positively identified Laci Peterson’s scent in her husband’s warehouse, his fishing boat and at the end of the pier where he launched the vessel. Geragos is trying to prove that the dogs are unreliable and might have tracked Scott Peterson’s scent rather than his wife’s. Peterson reported his 27-year-old wife missing the evening of Christmas Eve 2002. He told police he had been fishing in the marina and returned to an empty home. Her body and that of the couple’s unborn son washed up on a Richmond shore the following April. Within days, Peterson was arrested. He faces the death penalty if convicted of the two first-degree murders. The wiretaps collected calls on Peterson’s phone for weeks in January 2003 following his wife’s disappearance and again in April right before his arrest. The dogs were used to track Laci Peterson nearly immediately after she was reported missing. Handlers admitted that police automatically assumed she was dead and zeroed in on her husband as the suspect. Delucchi is expected to rule on the motions today. Michelle Durand can be reached by e-mail: michelle@s... or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 104. What do you think of this story? Send a letter to the editor: letters@s.... [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 8316 From: Date: Tue Mar 2, 2004 5:33am Subject: This article has good illustrations if you go to the web site http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3522137.stm 'This goes no further...' By Brian Wheeler BBC News Online Magazine Following revelations about bugging at the United Nations, is there any way of ensuring that your private conversations stay that way? News that Kofi Annan and other senior UN figures may have been routinely bugged by US or British security services has caused a huge political row around the world. But it will also have caused alarm among other people in the public eye who deal with sensitive information - or anyone, indeed, who values their privacy. If the secretary general of the United Nations cannot prevent his private conversations from being listened to by all and sundry, who can? It seems if someone wants to listen to what you are saying badly enough, there is very little you can do to stop it. "Technological advances, particularly in the fields of power supply and miniaturisation, mean that its now possible to bug almost anywhere and anything," says Charles Shoebridge, a former counter-terrorism intelligence officer. "Similar advances have enormously improved anti-bugging capabilities too, and an enormous effort has gone into making communications secure - particularly those of governments and even large commercial organisations. "However, if security is absolutely critical, it will always pay to assume that a conversation is at least capable of being monitored." Mobile phones According to security experts, the most common listening device remains the electronic bug. But government agencies such as the CIA and MI5 have far more advanced systems at their disposal. Powerful uni-directional microphones can pick up conversations through open windows. If the window is closed, radio waves or a laser beam can be bounced off the glass. The vibrations detected can be translated into speech. But potentially the most powerful tool for the modern spy is the mobile phone. Mobiles that double as listening devices can be bought over the internet. Undetectable But today's spies are also able to convert conventional phones into bugs without the owners' knowledge. Experts believe this is the most likely method used to gather information in the UN building. Mobiles communicate with their base station on a frequency separate from the one used for talking. If you have details of the frequencies and encryption codes being used you can listen in to what is being said in the immediate vicinity of any phone in the network. According to some reports, intelligence services do not even need to obtain permission from the networks to get their hands on the codes. So provided it is switched on, a mobile sitting on the desk of a politician or businessman can act as a powerful, undetectable bug. The technology also exists to convert land line telephones into covert listening devices. Encryption technology According to one security expert, telephone systems are often fitted with "back doors" enabling them to be activated at a later date to pick up sounds even when the receiver is down. Telephone conversations are also routinely intercepted by spy satellites. The potency of key word recognition technology is often overstated, but it is still used to scan millions of conversations a day for potentially juicy information. Encryption devices, which clip on to the base of mobile phones and scramble the voice data being sent from your phone, are available. But those listening in may well be able to crack the codes. Intelligence is constant battle between the bugger and the bugged, says Michael Marks, of surveillance-equipment supplier Spymaster, and "at the moment the buggers probably have the upper hand". Mr Marks' advice to anyone who thinks they may be under surveillance is to ensure their office is swept regularly for bugs, buy an encrypted phone and make sure no one in a meeting has a mobile phone on them. Inside the tent Another way of making sure you are not being bugged is to use a Faraday cage or shielded tent, which prevents radio waves entering or leaving. Mobile phone calls are impossible from inside the tent, but no-one will be able to listen to your conversations using bugs or radio wave listening devices. It will also prevent anyone intercepting radio emissions from computers, preventing them from seeing what you have on screen. "[A Faraday cage] will stop you doing anything other than having a conversation. It is a very crude, but very secure, way of talking," says Michael Marks. A more sophisticated - and expensive - method is to build a "clean room", of the type used by the military, to shield radio waves and electromagnetic signals. Simple steps But the hardest part, according to counter-surveillance consultant William Parsons, is trying to convince diplomats and politicians that there is a threat. "They think you are trying to cramp their style. Talking is what they do. "The fact that someone might be listening doesn't actually come into their mind. It is not something that they actually comprehend." There are a few simple steps anyone can take, Mr Parsons says, to throw would-be eavesdroppers off the scent. Don't hold sensitive conversations in your office or boardroom. Or rather, give anyone listening enough to think they are getting the full picture and then save anything truly top secret for conversations in unusual locations, such as the basement. It is better to use the office phone for secret conversations, Mr Parsons says, rather than a home phone, because with 20 or more lines leaving most buildings they are much harder to bug. The big outdoors Switching on the shower while you talk in the bathroom - a favoured method of celluloid spies - is also unlikely to work, as constant volume noise can easily be filtered out. In fact, the only way to truly guarantee privacy, according to most security experts, is to take a walk in the park. Charles Shoebridge says: "It remains the case today as it has always been, that probably the best way to avoid being eavesdropped is to pass information during a long, unpredictable and unannounced walk in the big outdoors. "Word of mouth is always preferable to any form of electronic communication - assuming the information's recipient is entirely trustworthy, of course." Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3522137.stm Published: 2004/03/02 11:50:33 GMT © BBC MMIV [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 8317 From: Steve Uhrig Date: Tue Mar 2, 2004 10:00pm Subject: Do you have a beat up TDR? Hi all, If you have a Riser Bond yellow box TDR which is beat up and would like to clean it up, I have a quantity of brand new empty yellow boxes to fit any R-B yellow box TDR. They have the clear plastic shelf inside the lid to hold the manual and a cable, and are drilled to accept the mounting screws going into the bottom of the TDR. I service these TDRs and purchased too many new cases from R-B. I need to clean them out to make room. Price is $100 + ship. I can take credit cards and ship anywhere in the world. I also have some R-B 1270s, a 1205T-OSP and a 3300 (not a yellow box) TDRs if anyone needs one. Contact me off list for details. Steve ******************************************************************* Steve Uhrig, SWS Security, Maryland (USA) Mfrs of electronic surveillance equip mailto:Steve@s... website http://www.swssec.com tel +1+410-879-4035, fax +1+410-836-1190 "In God we trust, all others we monitor" ******************************************************************* 8318 From: contranl Date: Wed Mar 3, 2004 7:45am Subject: Wanted used handheld spectrumanalyzer . I am looking for a used/second hand...handheld spectrum analyzer Handheld Minimal up to 3 Ghz Digital Demodulator/Audio Something like these: Rhode & Schwarz FSH-3 Anritsu MS2711 B Willtek 9101 Protek 3201 Use: measurements on radio-equipment and countersurveillance Any frequency extenders to go with the above are also welcome. Please reply to: info@t... Thanks Tetrascanner Amsterdam The Netherlands . 8319 From: James M. Atkinson Date: Wed Mar 3, 2004 7:49pm Subject: Robin Williams for President 2004 Robin Williams for President 2004. Leave it to Robin Williams to come up with the perfect plan... what we need now is for our UN Ambassador to stand up and repeat this message. Robin Williams' plan...(Hard to argue with this logic!) I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here's one plan: 1. The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Noriega, Milosovich and the rest of those 'good ole boys.' We will never "interfere" again. 2. We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany, South Korea and the Philippines. They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one sneaking through holes in the fence. 3. All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of who or where they are. France would welcome them. 4. All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit. No one from a terrorist nation would be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers. 5. No "students" over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a "D" and it's back home baby. 6. The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing non-polluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while. 7. Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go some place else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.) 8. If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything. 9. Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island some place. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens. 10. All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. There Now, ain't that a winner of a plan. "The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying 'Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'You want a piece of me?'" If you agree with the above forward it to friends. the Language we speak is ENGLISH.....learn it...or LEAVE ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We Expertly Hunt Real Spies, Real Eavesdroppers, and Real Wiretappers. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- James M. Atkinson Phone: (978) 546-3803 Granite Island Group Fax: (978) 546-9467 127 Eastern Avenue #291 Web: http://www.tscm.com/ Gloucester, MA 01931-8008 Email: mailto:jmatk@t... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- World Class, Professional, Ethical, and Competent Bug Sweeps, and Wiretap Detection using Sophisticated Laboratory Grade Test Equipment. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 8320 From: Date: Thu Mar 4, 2004 3:18am Subject: How Tiny Swiss Cellphone Chips Helped Track Global Terror Web March 4, 2004 New York Times How Tiny Swiss Cellphone Chips Helped Track Global Terror Web By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and DESMOND BUTLER ONDON, March 2 — The terrorism investigation code-named Mont Blanc began almost by accident in April 2002, when authorities intercepted a cellphone call that lasted less than a minute and involved not a single word of conversation. Investigators, suspicious that the call was a signal between terrorists, followed the trail first to one terror suspect, then to others, and eventually to terror cells on three continents. What tied them together was a computer chip smaller than a fingernail. But before the investigation wound down in recent weeks, its global net caught dozens of suspected Qaeda members and disrupted at least three planned attacks in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, according to counterterrorism and intelligence officials in Europe and the United States. The investigation helped narrow the search for one of the most wanted men in the world, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is accused of being the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to three intelligence officials based in Europe. American authorities arrested Mr. Mohammed in Pakistan last March. For two years, investigators now say, they were able to track the conversations and movements of several Qaeda leaders and dozens of operatives after determining that the suspects favored a particular brand of cellphone chip. The chips carry prepaid minutes and allow phone use around the world. Investigators said they believed that the chips, made by Swisscom of Switzerland, were popular with terrorists because they could buy the chips without giving their names. "They thought these phones protected their anonymity, but they didn't," said a senior intelligence official based in Europe. Even without personal information, the authorities were able to conduct routine monitoring of phone conversations. A half dozen senior officials in the United States and Europe agreed to talk in detail about the previously undisclosed investigation because, they said, it was completed. They also said they had strong indications that terror suspects, alert to the phones' vulnerability, had largely abandoned them for important communications and instead were using e-mail, Internet phone calls and hand-delivered messages. "This was one of the most effective tools we had to locate Al Qaeda," said a senior counterterrorism official in Europe. "The perception of anonymity may have lulled them into a false sense of security. We now believe that Al Qaeda has figured out that we were monitoring them through these phones." The officials called the operation one of the most successful investigations since Sept. 11, 2001, and an example of unusual cooperation between agencies in different countries. Led by the Swiss, the investigation involved agents from more than a dozen countries, including the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Britain and Italy. Cellphones have played a major role in the constant jousting between terrorists and intelligence agencies. In their requests for more investigative powers, Attorney General John Ashcroft and other officials have repeatedly cited the importance of monitoring portable phones. Each success by investigators seems to drive terrorists either to more advanced — or to more primitive — communications. During the American bombing of Tora Bora in Afghanistan in December 2001, American authorities reported hearing Osama bin Laden speaking to his associates on a satellite phone. Since then, Mr. bin Laden has communicated with handwritten messages delivered by trusted couriers, officials said. In 2002 the German authorities broke up a cell after monitoring calls by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has been linked by some top American officials to Al Qaeda, in which he could be heard ordering attacks on Jewish targets in Germany. Since then, investigators say, Mr. Zarqawi has been more cautious. "If you beat terrorists over the head enough, they learn," said Col. Nick Pratt, a counterterrorism expert and professor at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. "They are smart." Officials say that on the rare occasion when operatives still use mobile phones, they keep the calls brief and use code words. "They know we are on to them and they keep evolving and using new methods, and we keep finding ways to make life miserable for them," said a senior Saudi official. "In many ways, it's like a cat-and-mouse game." Some Qaeda lieutenants used cellphones only to arrange a conversation on a more secure telephone. It was one such brief cellphone call that set off the Mont Blanc investigation. The call was placed on April 11, 2002, by Christian Ganczarski, a 36-year-old Polish-born German Muslim whom the German authorities suspected was a member of Al Qaeda. From Germany, Mr. Ganczarski called Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, said to be Al Qaeda's military commander, who was running operations at the time from a safe house in Karachi, Pakistan, according to two officials involved in the investigation. The two men did not speak during the call, counterterrorism officials said. Instead, the call was intended to alert Mr. Mohammed of a Qaeda suicide bombing mission at a synagogue in Tunisia, which took place that day, according to two senior officials. The attack killed 21 people, mostly German tourists. Through electronic surveillance, the German authorities traced the call to Mr. Mohammed's Swisscom cellphone, but at first they did not know it belonged to him. Two weeks after the Tunisian bombing, the German police searched Mr. Ganczarski's house and found a log of his many numbers, including one in Pakistan that was eventually traced to Mr. Mohammed. The German police had been monitoring Mr. Ganczarski because he had been seen in the company of militants at a mosque in Duisburg, and last June the French police arrested him in Paris. Mr. Mohammed's cellphone number, and many others, were given to the Swiss authorities for further investigation. By checking Swisscom's records, Swiss officials discovered that many other Qaeda suspects used the Swisscom chips, known as Subscriber Identity Module cards, which allow phones to connect to cellular networks. For months the Swiss, working closely with counterparts in the United States and Pakistan, used this information in an effort to track Mr. Mohammed's movements inside Pakistan. By monitoring the cellphone traffic, they were able to get a fix on Mr. Mohammed, but the investigators did not know his specific location, officials said. Once Swiss agents had established that Mr. Mohammed was in Karachi, the American and Pakistani security services took over the hunt with the aid of technology at the United States National Security Agency, said two senior European intelligence officials. But it took months for them to actually find Mr. Mohammed "because he wasn't always using that phone," an official said. "He had many, many other phones." Mr. Mohammed was a victim of his own sloppiness, said a senior European intelligence official. He was meticulous about changing cellphones, but apparently he kept using the same SIM card. In the end, the authorities were led directly to Mr. Mohammed by a C.I.A. spy, the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, said in a speech last month. A senior American intelligence official said this week that the capture of Mr. Mohammed "was entirely the result of excellent human operations." When Swiss and other European officials heard that American agents had captured Mr. Mohammed last March, "we opened a big bottle of Champagne," a senior intelligence official said. Among Mr. Mohammed's belongings, the authorities seized computers, cellphones and a personal phone book that contained hundreds of numbers. Tracing those numbers led investigators to as many as 6,000 phone numbers, which amounted to a virtual road map of Al Qaeda's operations, officials said. The authorities noticed that many of Mr. Mohammed's communications were with operatives in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. Last April, using the phone numbers, officials in Jakarta broke up a terror cell connected to Mr. Mohammed, officials said. After the suicide bombings of three housing compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 12, the Saudi authorities used the phone numbers to track down two "live sleeper cells." Some members were killed in shootouts with the authorities; others were arrested. Meanwhile, the Swiss had used Mr. Mohammed's phone list to begin monitoring the communications and activities of nearly two dozen of his associates. "Huge resources were devoted to this," a senior official said. "Many countries were constantly doing surveillance, monitoring the chatter." Investigators were particularly alarmed by one call they overheard last June. The message: "The big guy is coming. He will be here soon." An official familiar with the calls said, "We did not know who he was, but there was a lot of chatter." Whoever "the big guy" was, the authorities had his number. A Swisscom chip was in the phone. "Then we waited and waited, and we were increasingly anxious and worried because we didn't know who it was or what he had intended to do," an official said. But in July, the man believed to be "the big guy," Abdullah Oweis, who was born in Saudi Arabia, was arrested in Qatar. "He is one of those people able to move within Western societies and to help the mujahedeen, who have lesser experience," an official said. "He was at the very center of the Al Qaeda hierarchy. He was a major facilitator." In January, the operation led to the arrests of eight people accused of being members of a Qaeda logistical cell in Switzerland. Some are suspected of helping with the suicide bombings of the housing compounds in Riyadh, which killed 35 people, including 8 Americans. Later, European authorities discovered that Mr. Mohammed had contacted a company in Geneva that sells Swisscom phone cards. Investigators said he ordered the cards in bulk. The Mont Blanc inquiry has wound down, although investigators are still monitoring the communications of a few people. Christian Neuhaus, a spokesman for Swisscom, confirmed that the company had cooperated with the inquiry, but declined to comment. Last year, Switzerland's legislature passed a law making it illegal to purchase cellphone chips without providing personal information, following testimony from a Swiss federal prosecutor, Claude Nicati, that the Swisscom cards had become popular with Qaeda operatives. The law goes into effect on July 1. One senior official said the authorities were grateful that Qaeda members were so loyal to Swisscom. Another official agreed: "They'd switch phones but use the same cards. The people were stupid enough to use the same cards all of the time. It was a very good thing for us." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 8321 From: Date: Wed Mar 3, 2004 8:55pm Subject: Re: Robin Williams for President 2004 Hi James I am great fan of Robin he speaks a lot of truth and our government in the UK could learn a lot from it. But before you completley isolate yourselves remember that you have friends in the world and not just fair weather kind ie the UK. Strangely though even these friends are treated with disdain by the US immigration service on entry Firstly we need to obtain a special visa here in the UK to visit the US for more than one month. [US citizens visiting here do not need a visa] on arrival we are often interrogated almost like criminals and the manners of the Immigration personnel are appalling. Once into the USA though I found the people more friendly and hospitable than any I have met anywhere in the world [I am very widely travelled]. Regards Dave DEMTEC David McGauley TSCM [Technical Surveillance and Countermeasures] Electronic Surveillance and Countermeasures Specialist Electrical Electronics Engineer ex Police Demtec House Ormskirk Lancs L390HF UK 01695 558544 07866206112 demtec@a... www.demtec.co.uk The manufacture and installation of custom made covert electronic audio and video devices. Audio Tape and Video Sound track cleanup and enhancement. Professional physical and electronic countermeasures [sweep] services. note: any fellow Private Investigator e-mail groups member welcome to call in or phone to discuss applications, projects or just seeking advice. Workshop located alongside the M58 junction 3 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 8322 From: Intercept Investigations Date: Thu Mar 4, 2004 3:49pm Subject: From ? to 5.8 + GHz TSCM Equipment Does anyone have any recommendations for any 'basic' (I translate this to infer 'simple and relatively inexpensive') sweep gear that can cover up to at least the 5.8 GHz range. I have a client who is specifically requesting this equipment for ongoing self-protection. Thank you, -- Steven W. Gudin, Director Intercept Investigations 700 NW Gilman Boulevard #463 Issaquah (Seattle), WA 98027 Tel: (425) 313-1776 Fax: (425) 313-1875 Web: www.InterceptInvestigations.com Email: mail@I... Washington License # 1661 Nevada License # 847 NATIONWIDE & INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION SERVICES This communication is intended for the sole use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If the reader of this communication is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent for delivering the communication to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication may be strictly prohibited. If you receive this email in error, please notify us immediately and delete this message from your computer. Nothing contained within this email message is intended, nor should it be interpreted as, legal advice or counsel. 8323 From: Boris Kokov Date: Thu Mar 4, 2004 4:07pm Subject: RE: Digest Number 1507 Greetings, I'm looking for a Spectrum Analyzer that will run on a laptop if such a thing exists. I would assume a serial or USB connected antennae. Also, I have several of Marty Kaisers black boxes that I'd like to sell. Whats the best avenue for selling those? Best prices, etc. Thanks. _________________________________________________________________ Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee when you click here. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 8324 From: Date: Thu Mar 4, 2004 1:51pm Subject: Al-Qa'ida suspects captured after phone chips left electronic trail Al-Qa'ida suspects captured after phone chips left electronic trail By Andrew Buncombe in Washington 05 March 2004 Anti-terrorism officials have captured dozens of al-Qa'ida suspects and were able to narrow the hunt for one of the world's most wanted men because of the suspects' use of a specific mobile phone chip, it was revealed yesterday. Operation Mont Blanc, launched in 2002, tracked down the suspects by following an electronic trail left by the Swiss-made chips. Among the alleged al-Qa'ida members whose whereabouts was narrowed by following that trail was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man often described as the network's operations director. "They thought these phones protected their anonymity, but they didn't," a senior European-based intelligence official told The New York Times. "This was one of the most effective tools we had to locate al-Qa'ida. The perception of anonymity may have lulled them into a false sense of security. "We now believe al-Qa'ida has figured out that we were monitoring them through these phones." It had long been suspected that members of the terrorism network were using mobile phones to communicate with each other, regularly changing the phones and the numbers they were using. But the investigation led by Swiss officials focused on the discovery that the operatives preferred a specific type of chip that carried pre-paid minutes and could be used around the world. The chips, made by Swisscom, were popular with the alleged terrorists because they could buy them without providing personal information. The investigation gathered momentum after 11 April 2002, when investigators traced a call placed by Christian Ganczarski, a 36-year-old Polish-born German Muslim who the authorities suspected was a member of al-Qa'ida. From Germany, Mr Ganczarski called Mr Mohammed, who was at the time in a safe house in Karachi. Officials said that the two men did not talk during the call but that it was instead intended to alert Mr Mohammed that a suicide bombing mission against a synagogue in Tunisia was under way. A total of 21 people, most of them German tourists, were killed in the blast. Using electronic surveillance, German authorities traced the call to Mr Mohammed's Swisscom mobile phone, even though they did not know it belonged to him. German police later searched Mr Ganczarski's house and found a log of his many numbers, including one in Pakistan that was eventually traced to Mr Mohammed. Once it was revealed he was in Karachi, the authorities turned to the National Security Agency - America's electronic eavesdropping facility - to help pinpoint him. Mr Mohammed, said to have planned the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, was captured in March 2003. Among his belongings was a personal phone book that contained hundreds of numbers. Tracing those numbers led investigators to as many as 6,000 phone numbers, investigators said. Authorities say that terrorists have now stopped using the chips. It is believed that communications are instead being carried out using internet phones, e-mail or personal messengers. "They know we are on to them and they keep evolving and using new methods, and we keep finding ways to make life miserable for them," said a senior Saudi official. "In many ways, it's like a cat-and-mouse game." They claim, however, that operation Mont Blanc disrupted at least three planned attacks in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. Last January, authorities arrested eight people accused of being members of a Swiss-based al-Qa'ida logistical cell. Some of them are suspected of being involved in attacks last year on a housing compound in Riyadh, which killed 35 people. A spokesman for Swisscom confirmed that the company had co-operated with the inquiry but declined to comment further. Last year, the Swiss authorities passed a new law making it illegal to buy mobile phone chips without providing personal information. * Yemen has captured an Egyptian militant with suspected links to al-Qa'ida, the second arrest of a senior militant in the south of the country this week. He is believed to be Imam al-Sherif, founder of the Jihad group. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 8325 From: Steve Uhrig Date: Thu Mar 4, 2004 7:10pm Subject: Re: From ? to 5.8 + GHz TSCM Equipment On 4 Mar 2004 at 13:49, Intercept Investigations wrote: > Does anyone have any recommendations for any 'basic' (I translate this > to infer 'simple and relatively inexpensive') sweep gear that can > cover up to at least the 5.8 GHz range. I have a client who is > specifically requesting this equipment for ongoing self-protection. You would be doing this client a disservice selling him equipment. The equipment is worse than useless without proper training. I virtually can promise the client will encounter many false positives and almost certainly would miss any genuine hostile transmitter. It's a challenge for those properly equipped, trained and experienced. If the client had proper training, he wouldn't need to ask what to buy. Nothing for the range you mention which works is inexpensive. You're in the 4 figures to start. If the client is serious, he needs to contract a countermeasures person to perform the work. If he's not serious then why bother anyway? Might be kindest just to educate the client as to the realities of life and send him on his way. There's really nothing ethical you can do for him other than coordinate a competent TSCM person for him, from what you described. That said, I have precisely what you are requesting for sale in the form of an Avcom spectrum analyzer with frequency extenders to 6 gigs, but I'm trying real hard to dissuade you from pursuing it. Steve ******************************************************************* Steve Uhrig, SWS Security, Maryland (USA) Mfrs of electronic surveillance equip mailto:Steve@s... website http://www.swssec.com tel +1+410-879-4035, fax +1+410-836-1190 "In God we trust, all others we monitor" **********************************************