FEATURE The spying game

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FEATURE The spying game
46 April 2002
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The spying game FEATURE
THE
SPYING
GAME
You can track almost anyone in under an hour using the Net.
Dan Oliver investigates the world of online espionage
S A KID, the back pages of comic
books held hidden delights. For
a few weeks’ pocket money you
could get your hands on
top-secret Russian X-ray glasses
that could penetrate walls and
clothing or a telescope that could capture
movement on the moon. Technology was
wonderful. Days would seem like weeks as you
waited for your goodies until the blessed
moment when they arrived and you opened
them, only to be greeted with the tattiest
pieces of crap you had ever laid eyes on. The
glasses were plastic and had little cardboard
lenses with pinholes cut in the middle and the
telescope was like looking through two panes
of glass; we’d been had!
That was then, though, when becoming a
spy was mere flight and fancy. Now all you
need is the Internet and you can track
people down, monitor what they do online,
buy the kind of spy equipment that should
not be available to the general public and
even become the unfortunate victim of a
cyberstalker yourself.
Right now, someone could be tracking
you online or if you’re using a PC, they could
be logging every keystroke you enter and
grabbing screenshots of the content you are
viewing on the Net. Don’t freak out just yet,
though, because in order for someone to want
all this information about you, you’ve either
done something quite bad or someone is
really, really interested in who you are and what
A
you’re doing. To be honest, most of us are too
dull to merit this kind of attention from anyone
but this doesn’t mean these things aren’t
happening every day.
Tracking resources
During the Jill Dando murder trial, it emerged
that someone had used the online service
192.com to search for the BBC presenter’s
home address. This was then followed by
calls for such services to be banned but the
information they contain is available to anyone
with the time and inclination to find it; all the
Internet does is make it a lot easier to get
your hands on.
Tim Burchell works for UK Private
Investigators, a member of the World
Association of Professional Investigators, and
he uses the Net every day to legitimately track
people around the world. “We have been using
the Net for five years now,” Burchell tells
.
“It’s an invaluable tool. Using the Net we can
find out all kinds of information on individuals
and businesses. I think many people in the UK
are ignorant to the power of the Internet.”
There’s a big difference between the
resources available to the general public and
those made available to people willing to
spend hundreds of pounds tracking someone
online, but a little searching and an applied
knowledge of how to use online tools and you
can find almost anyone.
“Using the right tools and understanding
how the Net works, anyone can track most
J
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FEATURE The spying game
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IS CYBER
SNOOPING
A PROBLEM?
In 1997, the problem
of harassment was
recognised in the UK
and the Protection from
Harassment Act 1997
was introduced. It was
estimated that within the
first year of the Act’s
introduction around 200
cases would be reported;
the actual figure was more
than 6,000. As the number
of Net users in the UK
continues to rise, the
problem of cyberstalking is
increasing but no official
figures are available and
finding a police officer at
your local station that
even knows what
cyberstalking is will be
pretty unlikely.
people down within minutes,” explains
Burchell. “The trick is knowing which tools to
use and how to use them.”
Private investigators don’t just make
checks on the people they are tracking
down and, as Burchell explains, one of the
major issues when taking on a new job is
to ensure there are no illegal activities
taking place. “We are always very careful
not to conduct investigations on behalf of
anyone with an illegal motivator,” he adds.
It is clear that the UK’s criminal
fraternity has been utilising the Net for
longer than law enforcement agencies
but Burchell believes the UK is catching
up. “I think the Police in the UK are taking
a lead from the American law enforcement
agencies, namely the FBI, in using the Net
for keeping tabs on illegal activity,” Burchell
says. “If their work prevents people being
ripped off or catches paedophiles then it is
extremely good news. However, if their work
intrudes into private individuals lives, then
no, it is most definitely not a good thing.”
With well-publicised uses of the
Internet to spy on individuals, a new term
- cyberstalking – has been born out of the
numerous stories. Cyberstalking is a pretty
broad umbrella under which a number of
acts, not all of them criminal offences, fall
and people are becoming more and more
aware of their vulnerability online.
Never one to miss an opportunity to
involve the Net in a storyline, even soap
operas have bought into the cyberstalking
hype. There has recently been a story revolving
around a young character being stalked via a
chat room in none other than Coronation
Street. None of this scare mongering can be
healthy for the Internet but the fact that
cyberstalking has made it on to prime time
television is a clear illustration that there is a
problem here that needs more investigation.
Spying online
To illustrate how easy it is to track
someone down using the Net we decided to
use a number of techniques available with
some alarming results. Having visited a
random Web-based
forum, we simply
took a sample email
address from the
message board. To
find more info, we
went to
groups.google.com
and entered the
email address in the
search window. All newsgroup postings (we
assumed that, as a Net user, they had
contributed to newsgroups at some point)
We now knew
our target was a
man with a liking
of Formula 1
PREVENTING SNOOPS AND STALKERS
1
Use various email addresses. Always keep your
personal email address secret from all those but
your friends and family.
2
The idea that anyone can search your newsgroup
postings may have come as a shock but you can
stop Google archiving your message by typing ‘x-noarchive: yes’ into the x-header field. You can also just
place this string as the first line in the body of your
message. However, this will not prevent your
messages from being archived if they are copied or
referenced in a reply to your message.
3
Be very careful when identifying yourself online.
Don’t use screen names that have sexual
connotations. Try and choose a gender-neutral handle.
4
When chatting or posting to a message
board/newsgroup, do not reveal any personal
information that you wouldn’t want a stranger to
have access to, such as your name, address, or
other identifying information.
submitted by the owner of the email address
were returned. From reading these postings
(there were around 50) we learnt the full name
of the person we were
searching and the city
where they lived. Not
only did we discover
this information but
we could also build up
a profile from the
newsgroups that our
target visited. We now
knew our target was a
man, with a liking for Formula 1 racing and
who drove a Ford Puma.
Not only did we have all this information
but we could also discover his IP address from
his newsgroup postings that could be used
maliciously by hackers or to trace his ISP and
cause him problems there. All this information
can be found in a matter of minutes just by
searching the Net.
By using more powerful tools such as
infobel.com and 192.com you can find even
more information. Infobel.com is a company
that produces telephone and professional
directories on the Internet and on CD-ROM;
its online service is free. We now entered our
target’s name into the infobel.com search
engine and although the site features many
UK residents, our target was not on the
database – we decided to subscribe to the
192.com service to see if we could find our
target there.
192.com has a number of different options
available for both casual users and businesses.
Around £30 will secure you access to the
electoral roll for the UK with the addresses
of everyone registered to vote at your
Emails can still be archived if they’re copied in a reply to your message
J
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fingertips. With this
tool you can find
almost anyone in
the land. Having
entered our
target’s name,
we got around
20 results back
and had to
search until we
found the extra
information we
had learnt in
the newsgroups
– in this case, the
town where he
lived. This took a
matter of minutes.
From one posting within
an online forum we had
discovered the identity of the
man, his address, his interests, his
phone number, his IP address (via a
service such as www.neowebscript.com/
tests/lookup.nhtml) and the fact he drove a
Ford Puma. We then decided to go for some
bigger fish such as football players and TV
presenters and found many of them – again
with handy maps supplied to where they live.
This information, used in conjunction with
some of the tools we managed to purchase
online, (see ‘Spying Kit’, below) could get us
well on the way to our first News of the World
exclusive, if we were that way inclined. With no
training in tracking someone down online, and
using tools known to many Net users, we
managed to find a number of people with very
little information to go by, within an hour of
getting online – but just how widespread is the
use of such techniques?
“My perception is that the problem
of Internet crimes such as cyberstalking
is growing and under-reported,” explains
Neil Addison, barrister and creator of
www.harassment-law.co.uk. “As the use of
the Internet increases, criminal activity will
SPYING KIT AVAILABLE ONLINE
You can report any cyber crime you have been
the victim of at www.cybersnitch.net
increase also. The police now recognise
that the use of threatening and harassing
messages sent by mobile phones is increasing
and becoming a serious problem for victims.”
Having seen cases of harassment from
both sides, Addison knows what drives
people to pursue someone online and also
the effects it has on the victim. He believes
that prevention and common sense are
HANDY TRUSTER
LIE DETECTOR £69.99
If you’re the kind of person that watches a James Bond film and
then finds that you can’t stop dreaming about all his cool toys for
weeks, then your credit card could well be maxed when you see
some of the goodies you can buy for your own spying pleasure.
went online to see what was on offer
We tried this in the office and it worked!
You can either speak to people directly
using the detector or connect it to
your mobile phone. The Truster
creates a voice profile of the
subject and makes an automatic
analysis of speech flow. Taking
all these aspects of a
person’s voice into account,
the Truster can work out
just how much truth
there is in their words.
www.boysstuff.co.uk.
WQV- 3 CASIO WRIST CAMERA £219.99
We have been reliably informed that the Casio Wrist Camera
is merely a gimmick and not the kind of thing that would
be useful to spies because it doesn’t capture images in a
high enough resolution. To be honest, we don’t care – it
looks cool and it’s a camera in a watch.
www.gizmos-uk.com
ADAPTOR BUG AND
RADIO RECEIVER
ADAPTOR BUG: £34.99
RECEIVER: £39.99
GO-SCOPE £19.99
You may look like a pervert wandering around
with this little telescope attached to your eye
but the Go-Scope is super compact and
super powerful. Originally
designed and developed for
military use, the Go-Scope
is now available to the
general public and if you
ever feel the need to
inspect things a little closer,
then this is the tool for you.
www.boysstuff.co.uk.
50 April 2002
It looks like a plug but it’s really a
high-powered bug that transmits
up to 300 metres away. There is
also no need to worry about
changing batteries as the
bug is powered via the
mains. The bug inside
the adaptor will transmit
any sounds within a
30-feet radius, to a
receiver up to 300
metres away. You also
need an FM receiver to tune
into your bug’s frequency.
www.gizmos-uk.com
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The spying game FEATURE
essential in these circumstances. “Do not
delete anything, however unpleasant it may
be, keep it so it can be used as evidence,”
Addison continues. “Do not respond to
cyberstalking messages and use your common
sense. If I walked up to you in the street and
asked for your details (phone number, address
and so on) you’d wonder why. Use the same
caution on the Net.”
Cyber crime?
As it stands, there are currently no figures for
cyberstalking in the UK because it is not
technically classed as a crime.
“At the moment, with the way in which
crime is reported, there isn’t a recording
system that shows us the crimes that have
been committed over the Internet,” explains
Stuart Hyde, cyber crime expert and chief
superintendent with the West Yorkshire police.
“One of the difficulties is that a lot of crime is
committed using the Internet as opposed to
on the Internet. Those offences can be
Cyberangels.org is a great place to go to read
up on cyberstalking
traditional crimes as well as high-tech ones.”
This grey area leads to many police officers not
knowing how to deal with someone that
claims to have been a victim
of an Internet crime. “The law is extremely
effective but perhaps not the legal system,”
Addison explains. “Often the police do not
know how to handle such cases and try to
avoid them. Also, if a cyberstalker is outside
England and Wales the legal position is not as
clear as it should be.”
asked Stuart Hyde what he would
advise anyone that had suffered cyberstalking
to do and rather than point people to their
local bobbies, he pointed a little farther afield.
“There is a site (www.cybersnitch.net)
available to people to report crime online that
is based in the US. It’s a high-tech crime
reporting system and it links into investigators
both in the US and UK and anyone can use it,”
says Hyde. “If people are having difficulty, the
best approach is to go straight to their ISP and
usually they can block the incoming email. Our
advice would be preventative although most
forces now have the capability of detecting.”
This ‘capability of detecting’ came under
fire at the fifth annual Parliamentary ISPA
(Internet Service Providers’ Association) forum
in the House of Lords. Rachel Basger,
J
COVERT SPY CAMERA £149.95
THE SPY CALCULATOR £19.99
We didn’t know whether to laugh or take this
product seriously when we took it out of the
box. The wireless spy camera has a thirtymetre range (great) featuring both a colour
picture and audio (good) and comes in a
specially modified book with a big camera
hole in the spine that wouldn’t fool a
short-sighted monkey (bad).
www.gizmos-uk.com
Is it ethical? Probably not but we’ve all wanted to
know what people say once we have left a room
before and the spy calculator makes this easy.
Simply place it in a room and it will pick up
whatever conversation is taking place and
transmit it to your very own receiver with
earphones at distances up to 100 feet away.
The powerful microphone is housed in a fully
working, silver-metallic finish calculator but it’s
the biggest calculator we’ve seen this side of the
80s but what do you expect for £19.99 with
batteries supplied, too?
www.boysstuff.co.uk
INTERCEPTOR
3000 £99.99
We’d better start by saying that, as
you read this, anyone could have
bugged the room you
are in and be
listening in on you.
Fear not, though,
because the
Interceptor 3000 is a
bug-detecting device,
capable of detecting
virtually any kind of
transmitter. This device
is used by the big-name
stars, allegedly.
www.gizmos-uk.com
www.netmag.co.uk
LISTEN THROUGH WALL DEVICE £199.99
So you want to hear what’s going on next door, do you? Well,
this wall contact listening device is capable of listening to
sound through 30cm of solid concrete. The kit comes in three
parts and is ready to use straight from the box. Simply place
against the wall and listen. A word of advice, though, don’t flick
the microphone with the volume up full to see if it works!
www.gizmos-uk.com
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WHAT IF YOU’VE
BEEN STALKED?
If you know the offender,
send the stalker a written
warning, making it clear
that the attention you are
receiving is unwanted and
ask it to stop. After this,
never respond to any
further contact from the
stalkers. You should report
the incident to the system
administrator of both your
Internet Service Provider
(ISP) and the ISP of the
person giving you grief.
Be sure to forward a
complete copy of the mail,
including the headers, to
the ISP sysadmin as they
can ascertain who is
harassing you from
this information. Most
sysadmins will not hesitate
to cancel the account of
anyone using their ISP to
send abusive mail. If your
ISP does not take your
complaint seriously or
refuses to cancel the
account of the person
harassing you, then we
suggest you dump them
and find a more caring ISP.
52 April 2002
regulatory manager at World Online claimed
that information officers had asked for on
suspects was inappropriate and claimed that
‘the police have often been clueless’.
“Last year at the fifth annual Parliamentary
ISPA Forum, the police were slagged off
somewhat for our preparedness, so we are
having to address this issue,” Hyde tells
.
“It’s quite possible to trace stalkers and there’s
a lot of training taking place with officers on
how to identify people using the Net.”
There is a feeling that there needs to be
one place for people to report cases of cyber
snooping, and other crimes, online but the
stumbling block is under whose authority it
would fall and how cases would be dealt with.
“You’d need a filtering system and someone to
decide who dealt with each case,” says Hyde.
“There’s also a difficulty that most offences can
travel around the world before they actually
land anywhere. There are
different jurisdictions
and time zones
involved.”
It’s clear that officers
like Stuart Hyde would
like nothing more than
to address cyber crime
but it will take a major
involvement from the
Home Office and a long
time to perfect. The fear
among many people is that it
will take one case that
captures the imagination of the
media and the public as much as a
Coronation Street story line before
something is done to address cyber
snooping. Barrister Neil Addison fears the
worst: “I hope it’s not the case but I think that
it could take something that no one can ignore
before the Home Office or the National Crime
squad takes over the responsibility for dealing
with such cases.”
UK PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS
Why not pay a visit to UKPI and discover
the kind of services you can purchase
from private detectives in the UK?
www.ukprivateinvestigators.com
HARASSMENT LAW
Neil Addison’s site provides a wealth
of information on both on and offline
harassment law and he also links to
a range of other great resources on
the Net.
www.harassment-law.co.uk
CYBERANGELS
If you’ve been a victim of cyberstalking
or want to learn more about it and how
to protect yourself, this IUS resource is a
great place to visit.
www.cyberangels.org
TOPSECRETSOFTWARE.COM
This site features many unique computer
and Internet spy, surveillance, security and
monitoring packages for business and
private PC users.
www.topsecretsoftware.com
SNAP SHOT SPY
Snap Shot Spy monitors computer and
Internet activities by taking screenshots,
while working in the PC’s background and
is completely undetectable by the user.
www.virtual-imagination.com
KEY LOGGER
192.com can be used to track down people via
the electoral register and Directory Enquiries
AMERICANS ARE MENTAL: IT’S OFFICIAL
It’s nice to know that when
someone retires from the law
enforcement agency in the US,
they go into socially responsible
jobs. Jobs like stalking women
and tapping phones all so that
the chances of a rich weirdo
getting a date are increased.
US Web site Coincidence
Design (www.coincidence
design.com) claims that it has a
team of top investigators from
various agencies that will stalk a
woman with the objective being
to set up a coincidental meeting.
It believes that it can find out all those gems
that you can use to make yourself seem like a
lady’s perfect gentleman and all for $54,000.
The perfectly above-board people behind the
Web site are keen to point out that security is
key to their activities and that these activities
are totally legal.
SPYING LINKS
This handy device records all of the
keystrokes, visited Web sites and programs
used on a computer, with time and date, in
a handy password-protected log file.
hop.clickbank.net/hop.cgi?serpant/
pcspy
192.COM
If you’re looking for someone in the UK,
then 192.com is a great resource that not
only enables you to find people but you can
also access maps, a route finder and a list
of public telephone locations should you
ever need it.
www.192.com
HOME OFFICE
Why not pay a visit to the Home Office
Web site and drop them a line voicing
your concerns over Internet crime
and cyberstalking?
www.homeoffice.gov.uk/webwork/
contact.htm
GADGETS AND GIZMOS
BOYSSTUFF.CO.UK
The first thing that springs to mind is
that the Web site is a hoax but then it is
based in the US and, at the time of writing,
we retain a child-like naivety that makes us
want to believe people. We do think they
may still actually be waiting for their first
job, though.
These two Web sites sell a full line of spying
equipment, some of which are more serious
than others. You’ll be amazed at some of the
spy goodies you can buy from right here in
the UK.
www.gizmos-uk.com
www.boysstuff.co.uk
www.netmag.co.uk