Meddling

It would’ve worked, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!

There are 608 posts filed in Meddling (this is page 2 of 61).

bellingcat – Guide To Using Reverse Image Search For Investigations – bellingcat

Reverse image search is one of the most well-known and easiest digital investigative techniques, with two-click functionality of choosing “Search Google for image” in many web browsers. This method has also seen widespread use in popular culture, perhaps most notably in the MTV show Catfish, which exposes people in online relationships who use stolen photographs on their social media.

However, if you only use Google for reverse image searching, you will be disappointed more often than not. Limiting your search process to uploading a photograph in its original form to just images.google.com may give you useful results for the most obviously stolen or popular images, but for most any sophisticated research project, you need additional sites at your disposal — along with a lot of creativity.

This guide will walk through detailed strategies to use reverse image search in digital investigations, with an eye towards identifying people and locations, along with determining an image’s progeny. After detailing the core differences between the search engines, Yandex, Bing, and Google are tested on five test images showing different objects and from various regions of the world.

Source: bellingcat – Guide To Using Reverse Image Search For Investigations – bellingcat

‘Shattered’: Inside the secret battle to save America’s undercover spies in the digital age

When hackers began slipping into computer systems at the Office of Personnel Management in the spring of 2014, no one inside that federal agency could have predicted the potential scale and magnitude of the damage. Over the next six months, those hackers — later identified as working for the Chinese government — stole data on nearly 22 million former and current American civil servants, including intelligence officials.

The data breach, which included fingerprints, personnel records and security clearance background information, shook the intelligence community to its core. Among the hacked information’s other uses, Beijing had acquired a potential way to identify large numbers of undercover spies working for the U.S. government. The fallout from the hack was intense, with the CIA reportedly pulling its officers out of China. (The director of national intelligence later denied this withdrawal.)Personal data was being weaponized like never before. In one previously unreported incident, around the time of the OPM hack, senior intelligence officials realized that the Kremlin was quickly able to identify new CIA officers in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow — likely based on the differences in pay between diplomats, details on past service in “hardship” posts, speedy promotions and other digital clues, say four former intelligence officials. Those clues, they surmised, could have come from access to the OPM data, possibly shared by the Chinese, or some other way, say former officials.

The OPM hack was a watershed moment, ushering in an era when big data and other digital tools may render methods of traditional human intelligence gathering extinct, say former officials. It is part of an evolution that poses one of the most significant challenges to undercover intelligence work in at least a half century — and probably much longer.The familiar trope of Jason Bourne movies and John le Carré novels where spies open secret safes filled with false passports and interchangeable identities is already a relic, say former officials — swept away by technological changes so profound that they’re forcing the CIA to reconsider everything from how and where it recruits officers to where it trains potential agency personnel. Instead, the spread of new tools like facial recognition at border crossings and airports and widespread internet-connected surveillance cameras in major cities is wiping away in a matter of years carefully honed tradecraft that took intelligence experts decades to perfect.

Source: ‘Shattered’: Inside the secret battle to save America’s undercover spies in the digital age

Facebook audio snooping almost certainly prompted targeted ad

A story in July’s Consumer Reports discussed the possibility of our social media apps secretly listening to us:

Well, it’s technically possible for phones and apps to secretly record what you say. And lots of people sure seem to think they do.

According to a nationally representative phone survey of 1,006 U.S. adults conducted by Consumer Reports in May 2019, 43 percent of Americans who own a smartphone believe their phone is recording conversations without their permission.

But, to date, researchers have failed to find any evidence of such snooping.

While there might not be any fire yet, there sure as hell is smoke.
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Electronics testing at the airport

I haven’t posted a TSA story in a while because I’m lucky enough not to travel as often as I did. When I have traveled, I have come to appreciate how professional the team at my home airport, Raleigh-Durham, is. I’ve never had a bad experience with them and this – I want to stress – is not a bad one, either. Just unusual.

For years I have enjoyed the benefit of TSA-Pre, allowing me to speed through security lines. Naturally, I headed into the TSA-Pre line when I flew out of Raleigh on Wednesday morning. Expecting all to be well, I was intrigued when I apparently set off the metal detector.

“Wait right here, sir,” the screener said, calmly. “We’re going to screen your electronics.”

I waited on the mat next to the metal detector while another agent got through checking another traveler’s electronics. He invited me over and I carried my bags to the testing station.

“Got any thing that is sharp, going to stick me, contraband, etc?” he asked. When I answered no, he politely asked if I had a laptop in the bag. I showed him the pocket it was in and he laid it out on the counter.

He then swabbed my laptop with a chemical pad, popped the swab into the sensor for analysis, and stepped away. To my surprise, the sensor began beeping. My newish work laptop had only been on my office desk and my home desk – not to the coca fields of South America or anything. I began to think over kind of substance could have possibly set off this false alarm.
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Our car’s keyfob was hacked – the question is how?

We were out of town over the weekend and at 5:30 AM Saturday I awakened to the sound of one beep of our car’s “alarm” horn. Thinking it was the neighbor’s car and knowing our car was locked, I went back to bed. When we walked to the car later that morning, the hatch was standing wide open. Nothing appeared to be touched or taken.

I was immediately concerned that somehow our keyfob had been hacked. Kelly thought something probably bumped up against one of our keyfobs and that caused it to open. We’ve had the car for years, though, and an “accident” like this has never happened. If something pressed a keyfob button, why would it sound just one beep of the horn alarm? Why not trigger it to sound repeatedly, as would happen if it were a single press of the button? Seems unlikely an accidental press of a button would cause one clean beep and then cause the hatchback to open.

So, naturally I am fascinated with whatever technology was used for this! There are a couple of approaches.
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Rep. Joe John statement on Abe Zeiger’s arrest

NC House District 40 Representative Joe John was the person Abraham Zeiger was due to meet on Friday before Zeiger was arrested for carrying a pistol and two fully-loaded magazines into the North Carolina General Assembly building. Rep. John read the following statement on the House floor Monday night:

This gentleman actually had an appointment to see me. I made the following statement on the House floor Monday night:

Members, last week I had an 11:30 AM Wednesday constituent appointment with a resident of House District 40, whom I had not met previously, to discuss some fairly non-controversial issue. 11:30 came and went without the appointment being met, not all that unusual as many of you have experienced. When I went to lunch at 12:30, he was still a no-show.

We learned later that day the reason my appointment never arrived. He had been detained at our legislative building security check-in while attempting to enter this building with a loaded handgun and two full clips concealed in his bag, and had consequently been arrested and charged accordingly. He reportedly gave no explanation for his actions and was actually remarkably silent.

I want to thank publicly the members of the NC General Assembly Police Department who were on duty last Wednesday and acted expeditiously and appropriately. I would also like to thank the Legislative Services Officer and the Rules Chair for their follow-up and the many of you who expressed your concern.

That being said, in light of very recent events, I would ask each of you, for a moment, to imagine that the gentleman’s appointment was with you, in your office, rather than with me in mine. This incident after all took place, not hundreds of miles away in the distant states of Ohio and Texas, but right here, not only in our North Carolina capital city, but in this very building where we work and govern and spend so many hours. And as you reflect, I would ask you to consider whether it is now not time to throw partisanship and ideology into the trashcan, and to sit down for a full, frank and open-minded conversation about reaching a North Carolina common sense consensus with regards to role of firearms in our state.

I considered this often over the past weekend which Evelyn and I were able to spend at the coast with two adult children and three young granddaughters. I, for one, greatly enjoyed being “Pa” at the beach, I look forward to many more such weekends, and I am more than ready to have the conversation of which I spoke. If any of you feel the same, please let me know.

AP: Man with gun stopped by security at N Carolina legislature

Here’s an uncredited AP story on the arrest of Zeiger. It includes a quote from his attorney:

“It is unfortunate that any malice be attributed to such an upstanding citizen who merely made an oversight,” Gibson wrote.

Nice spin there, counselor! At the checkpoint, Zeiger was specifically asked whether he had any weapons in his bag. That should’ve been enough to trigger (so to speak) Zeiger’s memory that perhaps he did, in fact, have a weapon in his bag and that he should take it back to his vehicle. Oversight, my ass.

I look forward to Zeiger’s day in court.

August 2, 2019

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A man faces charges of carrying a concealed handgun into North Carolina’s legislative building, which this year implemented airport-style security measures for people seeking to interact with lawmakers.

Abraham James Zeiger, 36, of Raleigh was charged with trying to carry the gun into the building on Wednesday, police records show. He sought to enter the building to speak to his legislator and didn’t realize he was carrying the gun, attorney Emily Gibson said in an email Friday.

“It is unfortunate that any malice be attributed to such an upstanding citizen who merely made an oversight,” Gibson wrote.

The General Assembly’s police chief and its chief management officer didn’t return a call Friday seeking more details about the arrest.

Zeiger was stopped by officers who spotted a suspicious item as his bag passed through an X-ray scanner, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported . Officers found a 9 mm handgun and two magazines, each loaded with 15 bullets, General Assembly Police Chief Martin Brock told the newspaper.

The arrest marked the first instance of a gun being found during the screening process at the entrance to the state’s legislative building, which hosts staff and legislative offices, hearing rooms and the chambers where the 50-member Senate and 120-member House meet.

Legislative activities were minimal this week as lawmakers try to overcome Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the two-year state budget. On Wednesday, House members discussed a commission to oversee the purchase and sale of milk and approved legislation to expand the requirement for adults to report claims of child sex abuse to the authorities.

Man who brought gun to NCGA expressed far-right views

Update 2019-08-14: I have been pondering Friday’s arrest of Abe Zeiger for bringing a gun into the North Carolina General Assembly and it’s possible that I was wrong about his intentions. Yes, I certainly did find a number of gun-themed and seemingly anti-government posts on his Facebook page but to be fair, these were all forwarded and not authored by Zeiger himself. Other photos portray Zeiger as a family man and I found no evidence that things weren’t going well with his life. I am sorry if I misinterpreted the digital breadcrumbs I was able to piece together.

On the other hand, I hope he sees how someone could draw this conclusion. The Bundy item was especially disturbing – celebrating the pointing weapons at law enforcement officers is no joke – and what’s more it wasn’t even remotely truthful. To repost this on Facebook a week before showing up at the state legislature with a pistol and 30 rounds is enough to put a community on edge.

Any why was the gun in his bag when he didn’t have a concealed carry permit (CCP)? Why didn’t he declare the gun when asked by officers at

While his intentions could have been completely innocent when he showed up with a gun, the truth is that no one could know that for certain. It only takes seconds for a mass shooting to occur and officers don’t have the luxury of trust.

Zeiger could very well be a stand-up guy, just trying to do the right thing. If so, I applaud his intentions though I’d rather he left the “good guy with the gun” role to law enforcement. At the same time, he made a big mistake by not removing his weapon before entering a secured building, and for carrying a weapon around in his bag without possessing a CCP. While I am not as concerned as I once was that he may be a threat to society, there is no getting around the fact that he was not being responsible with his gun.

Abe Zeiger

On Friday afternoon, a man was arrested at the North Carolina General Assembly for trying to sneak in a 9mm pistol and two magazines of 15 rounds apiece. The man, Abraham James Zeiger, age 36, was charged with unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon and violating legislative building rules. The story by Lauren Horsch in the N&O quoted the N.C. State Capitol Police as expressing surprise at their catching Zeiger as he was not on their radar, so to speak. The General Assembly implemented stricter security measures at the General Assembly in April of last year.

“I can’t be more pleased with the (screening) process,” General Assembly Police Chief Martin Brock said of the security measures that caught the gun. “It could have easily been missed.”

Since this story took place on a Friday afternoon – a time when news stories tend to get lost in the lull of the weekend – there didn’t seem to be many in the media who were asking just who is Zeiger? Also since I happen to know several people who work in the General Assembly, I wanted to know what might have motivated Zeiger and what he may have been planning to do with that gun. It didn’t take me long to find the answers.
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Jeffrey Epstein’s travel patterns revealed by public flight data – INSIDER

This kind of article includes so many of my interests: tracking bad guys by combing through crowdsourced, open data.

I maintain an ADS-B receiver, too, and track planes in the Triangle area on a real-time basis but I need to start stuffing this information into a database so I can keep it long-term.

As reporters and federal prosecutors turned the screws on Jeffrey Epstein over the past two years, the notorious money manager and sex felon appears to have enjoyed a globetrotting lifestyle that involved weekly flights between his properties in New York, New Mexico, Florida, the US Virgin Islands, and Paris, as well as occasional excursions to the United Kingdom, Slovakia, and Morocco.

This account of Epstein’s travels is based on two years of flight data associated with two of his Gulfstream airliners. Without detailed passenger manifests, it’s impossible to know whether Epstein was present on each individual flight. In the aggregate, however, the flight records illustrate an improbably lavish life, and raise further questions about how he earned and spent his fortune.

Source: Jeffrey Epstein’s travel patterns revealed by public flight data – INSIDER

How did Kim Jong Un get his Mercedes-Benzes? – CNN Style

On June 14, 2018, two armored Mercedes-Maybach S600 Guard vehicles were shipped from the Dutch Port of Rotterdam, heading out on a journey that would take months and see the cars transported thousands of miles through six countries, according to a new report from the Washington-based Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS).

After stops in China, Japan, South Korea and Russia, the two cars — each worth about $500,000 — are believed to have been flown to their final destination, Pyongyang. And in the North Korean capital, there’s only one customer who likely requires this type of ride.

The origin and journey of the two Mercedes luxury vehicles were exposed in the C4ADS report. CNN has not independently verified C4ADS’ reporting.

Source: How did Kim Jong Un get his Mercedes-Benzes? – CNN Style