Wrap Your Key Fob in Foil to Protect Against Thieves ?

A story in USA Today (July 8, 2018) suggests that you should store your automobile key-fob in a aluminum can at night, and wrap it in aluminum foil while you carry it around during the day. The idea being that this will prevent thieves from cloning your key fob and driving off with your vehicle. 

While it is theoretically possible for someone with the right technology to copy the code from a key fob and use it to access a vehicle; this theoretical attack requires detailed knowledge of the system implementation and a combination of data, skills, and equipment which is seldom feasible for the average car thief. A thief would not only have to capture your key fob code, but would then be required to spend time processing data to replicate your key fob and produce the correct entry code in order to steal your vehicle.

Warnings about thieves capturing or manipulating vehicle keyless entry systems have been around for years (since at least 2008), and are far more hype than fact. Yes, the attack is possible, but it is also unlikely. The average person has little to worry about when it comes to thieves cloning their key fob and stealing their car.

Still, if this is a concern for you, I believe that you will be far better served with a Faraday bag specifically designed to block signals, than trusting your security to a tin can and a sheet of aluminum foil.
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Seattle to Fine Owners of Unlocked Guns

SEATTLE - A new city ordinance that would assess fines of up to $10,000 against gun owners who do not safely store their firearms has passed a vote by the Seattle City Council. It now awaits Mayor Jenny Durkan's signature. Under the ordinance, a gun owner could be fined up to $500 for failure to store a firearm in a locked container or to render it unusable to anyone but the owner. The fine would increase to $1,000 if a minor or prohibited person gets their hands on an unsecured weapon, and up to $10,000 if a minor or prohibited person uses an unsecured firearm to cause injury, death or commit a crime. (KOMO 4 News, July 9, 2018)

According to this article if you have a firearm in your home that is not stored in a locked container you will be fined by the city. Will Seattle PD be conducting door-to-door checks? If a criminal breaks into your home and steals your firearm, you will now be fined up to $10,000 for the actions of the criminal. What is a locked container? A gun safe, of course, but what about a locked closet? A locked room? Do those cheap cable locks that come with many guns render them unusable?

This is bad law, and a slippery slope that will invade the privacy of private homes.
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Know Your Gun Rights

Many people choose to keep and bear (own and carry) arms for their personal security. In the United States this right is enumerated in the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution.

“According to U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics data, having a gun and being able to use it in a defensive situation is the most effective means of avoiding injury (more so even than offering no resistance) and thwarting completion of a robbery or assault. In general, resisting violent crime is far more likely to help than to hurt, and this is especially true if your attacker attempts to take you hostage, such as sometimes happens in a carjacking situation. Most often with gun defenses, criminals can be frightened away or deterred without a shot being fired. Estimates of these types of defensive uses of firearms are wide ranging, from a low of 65,000 to 82,000 annual defensive gun uses (DGUs) reported to the U.S. Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), to a high end of some 2.1-2.5 million annual DGUs, but they seem to occur at least as often (if not far more often) each year as misuses of firearms by violent criminals.”

But with rights come responsibilities, and it is important that we understand just what our rights and responsibilities are with regard to firearms.

The book Infringed by Alexandria Kincaid, a nationally renowned firearms law attorney, is an excellent and highly recommended reference for understanding your rights and responsibilities when it comes to firearms laws and regulations.

 

The National Rifle Association - Institute for Legislative Action is also an excellent resource for learning more about firearms law and policies throughout the United States.

If you choose to own and carry firearms for your personal protection you should take the time to understand the laws that govern your rights and responsibilities.

Federal Judge Schools FBI on Who Can Approve Search Warrants (Ooops)

An FBI agent investigating possible fraud obtained warrants from two Alameda County judges in 2016 to search a cell phone and use a tracking device, and said he found incriminating evidence.

The only problem, a federal judge said Tuesday, was that California law prohibits state and local courts from issuing warrants to federal officers — a fact that was apparently unknown to the agent, the FBI, and possibly even to the judges who approved the warrants.

The law authorizes state courts to issue search warrants to “peace officers,” who include police, sheriffs’ deputies and other state and local law enforcement officials, but not federal agents, said U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of San Francisco.

While some states give federal agents the same court access as local police, “California chose to limit federal authority to enforce state criminal laws,” Chhabria said. He ordered his ruling published in legal casebooks and distributed to the FBI, prosecutors’ offices and other agencies, “to put the relevant actors in the criminal justice system on notice.” (SF Chronicle, July 3, 2018)
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Another Fitness App Revealed the Location of Overseas Soldiers

According to Mashable (July 8, 2018) another fitness app revealed the location of overseas soldiers. Fitness apps help you track your runs, calories burned, and maybe even your heart rate. If you happen to be using a Polar device and its associated app, however, that information — in addition to small details like where you live — could end up in the wrong hands.

Approximately six months after researchers revealed that so-called Strava heatmaps allowed for the identification of secret overseas military bases, another fitness app was making all kinds of user data public.

Specifically, Polar's Polar Flow app "is revealing the homes and lives of people exercising in secretive locations, such as intelligence agencies, military bases and airfields, nuclear weapons storage sites, and embassies around the world."

Read the complete Bellingcat article here.

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It should probably go without saying, but if you are living and working in a secret or sensitive location, don't upload your location data to the Internet.

 

 

A Short Video from Privacy International - Government Hacking 101

 

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Privacy International's Open Letter to Thomas Reuters CLEAR Database

According to Medium (June 21, 2018): Documents show that ICE currently has contract with West Publishing Corporation, a Thomson Reuters subsidiary, providing it with access to the Consolidated Lead Evaluation and Reporting (CLEAR) system as part of a contract value worth over $20 million.

The CLEAR system allows ICE access to a “vast collection of public and proprietary records” including phone records, consumer and credit bureau data, healthcare provider content, utilities data, DMV records, World-Check listing, business data, data from social networks and chatrooms, and “live access to more than 7 billion license plate detections”.

With Thomson Reuters Special Services providing ICE’s Detention Compliance and Removal office with “subscription data services”. The contract is worth over $6.7 million and was signed in February 2018. Other documentation specifies that the contract is for a “continuous monitoring and alert system to track 500,000 identities per month” which is “able to securely process and return aliens’ information and addresses using the following types of specified data: FBI numbers; State Identification Numbers; real time jail booking data; credit history; insurance claims; phone number account information; wireless phone accounts; wire transfer data; driver’s license information; vehicle registration information; property information; pay day loan information; public court records; incarceration data; employment address data; Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) data; and employer records.”

Privacy International (PI) has today sent an open letter to the President of Thomson Reuters Corporation asking whether he will commit to ensuring the multinational company’s products or services are not used to enforce cruel, arbitrary, and disproportionate measures, including those currently being implemented by US immigration authorities.
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CLEAR is a records aggregator, similar to TLO and LexisNexis Accurint. These companies gather data and records from a large number of public and semi-public sources and consolidate those data and records into searchable databases.

While these databases are useful investigative tools for law enforcement, they are not magic. What these databases do however is pull together large amount of information about hundreds of millions of individuals that can be accessed by law enforcement and other government employees without the need for a warrant, and without any requirement for notification to the individual whose information is accessed. 
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