Wired.com has published an interesting article on the secret lives of some professional secret shoppers, who work for Consumer Reports. It just so happens that the job of a secret shopper is a lot like the jobs of undercover police officers and private investigators.

There are nine full-time and 85 freelance secret shoppers that are part of an undercover shopping network employed by Consumer Reports. Their jobs often require them to make some peculiar purchases under suspicious circumstances that require good acting and explanations with little white lies as well as some tall tales.

There is the time when a secret shopper named “Jon” had to buy 9 pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream with the requirements that all the pints needed to be from the same production line, on the same date.

Jon walks into a supermarket with a Styrofoam cooler filled with dry ice (to keep the ice cream cool), a pair of gloves (to keep his hands warm), and a flashlight (to help him see the indentations on the bottom of the containers that show where and when the ice cream was made). This whole incident required some creative excuse making, when an unhappy stocker approached him as to why he was stacking pints of ice cream all over the store floor.

Consumer Reports tests thousands of products a year and spends millions of dollars purchasing these products. According to the magazine’s strict ethics code, all of these purchases need to be made by secret shoppers. Making large and sometimes strange purchases like these without giving explanations can be a difficult business.

According to the article, Jon once told a salesman that he needed an older model because his mother had Alzheimer’s disease and he couldn’t teach her how to use a newer model. Another time he recalls all the strange looks he received from people when he filled up a shopping cart with condoms. He once excused the purchase of five different washing machines by saying that his landlord dad had given his renters their choice of brands.

And how did he get out of the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream debacle with the angry supermarket stocker? According to Jon — “I go into my Rain Man routine,” he says. “Count the vanilla, count the vanilla, gotta count the vanilla.’ Eventually, the stocker just gives up and walks away. And I get my ice cream.”

Source: Consumer Reports’ Secret Shoppers Have Lots of Explaining to Do.

Portfolio.com has published a lengthy and interesting article on the world of ex CIA agents who are using their “Company” skills to do private-sector spy work for corporations and businesses.

The article discusses numerous current hot topics like pretexting and privacy issues.

From the article –

They’re leaving “the Company” to snoop on your company. How C.I.A. agents are pushing corporate espionage to ominous new extremes.

…………………………………………………

The best estimate is that several hundred former intelligence agents now work in corporate espionage, including some who left the C.I.A. during the agency turmoil that followed 9/11. They quickly joined private-investigation firms whose U.S. corporate clients were planning to expand into Russia, China, and other countries with opaque business practices and few public records, and who needed the skinny on international partners or rivals.

These ex-spies apply a higher level of expertise, honed by government service, to the cruder tactics already practiced by private investigators. One such ploy is pretexting—obtaining information by pretending to be somebody else. While private detectives have long posed as freelance reporters or job recruiters to get people to talk, former agents have elevated pretexting to an art.

You can read the Portfolio.com article @ Spy vs. Spy

Since 2003 the pedophile-hunting organization “Perverted Justice” has been responsible for the conviction of 104 child predators. The organization has numerous supporters and critics. Some say the organization cleans up the internet and makes it safer for minors, while others claim it entraps people for entertainment and money.

The New York Times has published an interesting look into the organization (it’s pros as well as cons); how it got started and it’s elusive founder, Xavier Von Erck, in a recent article.

Web Site Hunts Pedophiles, and TV Goes Along

CNET news is reporting on how cell phone tracing was used in the search and rescue effort to find editor James Kim and his family, and how the technology is routinely used by law enforcement to locate missing people.

From the article –

Cellular phone networks have become key tools used by search and rescue teams as they try to locate people who’ve become lost in remote areas.

As has been reported in recent days, CNET Reviews editor James Kim and his family disappeared in Oregon during a Thanksgiving road trip. James’ wife, Kati, and their two children, Penelope and Sabine, were found safe Monday afternoon. The body of James Kim, who left his family on Saturday in search of help, was found Wednesday.

Authorities conducting the search said at a news conference Monday that a signal sent from the Kims’ mobile phone to a tower in the region was key to locating the family.

The search for the Kim family is the latest example of how important cell phone technology has become as a public safety tool.

While other technologies such as global positioning system, or GPS, navigation may help people find their way out of trouble, it does little to help when people are stranded on the side of the road like the Kims were. Tracking devices that send beacons to rescuers could be helpful, but they are used mostly by wilderness backpackers and backcountry skiers. Few people carry them on road trips. And even though satellite-based tracking technology exists, even fewer people are likely to consent to having their whereabouts tracked on a daily basis in the off chance that they might get lost on a backcountry road.

At the end of the day, the technology that has proved the most valuable for locating lost or missing people has been cellular phones.

Source: Turning cell phones into lifelines

An aerial and ground search is under way for a missing CNET News editor, along with his wife and child. The three have been missing since Thanksgiving day, while on a road trip to the Pacific Northwest.

You can view the full story along with photos and a tip information hotline for the San Francisco Police Department @ CNET News.

CNET is a great source for Technology, Social Network and Web 2.0 news. We cite their stories regularly on this blog.

A web site whose purpose is to expose police informants and undercover agents online has law enforcement authorities concerned. WhosaRat.com claims to expose over 4,000 of these people , possibly hampering numerous investigations.

From an AP story on MyWay.com –

Police and prosecutors are worried that a Web site claiming to identify more than 4,000 informants and undercover agents will cripple investigations and hang targets on witnesses.

The Web site, WhosaRat.com, first caught the attention of authorities after a Massachusetts man put it online and named a few dozen people as turncoats in 2004. Since then, it has grown into a clearinghouse for mug shots, court papers and rumors.

Federal prosecutors say the site was set up to encourage violence, and federal judges around the country were recently warned that witnesses in their courtrooms may be profiled online.

“My concern is making sure cooperators are adequately protected from retaliation,” said Chief Judge Thomas Hogan, who alerted other judges in Washington’s federal courthouse. He said he learned about the site from a federal judge in Maine.

The Web site is the latest unabashedly public effort to identify witnesses or discourage helping police. “Stop Snitching” T-shirts have been sold in cities around the country and popular hip-hop lyrics disparage or threaten people who help police.

Source: Police Decry Web Site on Informants

An innovative homeowner in Texas has caught an alleged thief on a home web cam that he monitored from his office computer.

From nbc5i.com —

A Dallas man is on a mission to find the burglar who keeps targeting his home.

Frustrated by multiple break-ins, Marshall Hays set up a security system that he is able to control from the comfort of his work desk.

Hays said it took only hours to capture an alleged thief on a Web cam.

“I pulled up the Web cam and I have this guy right here going through my dresser drawers at the house,” he said.

Police are looking for the man in the video.

Copyright 2006 by nbc5i.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or re

You can view the web cam video clip @ Victim Catches Alleged Burglar On Webcam.

TechWeb is reporting on a former VP of Technology for SourceMedia, who allegedly hacked into the company’s network, read confidential emails and then warned employees of potential layoffs.

From the article –

A former VP of technology at SourceMedia has been arrested and charged with hacking into the company’s network, reading confidential e-mails, and tipping off employees who were in line to be laid off.

Stevan Hoffacker, 53, of Queens, N.Y., was arrested on Nov. 15 and charged with one count of unauthorized access to a protected computer network. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

According to a written release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, three years after he was dismissed from SourceMedia, Hoffacker broke back into the system, read e-mails regarding a pending layoff and then e-mailed two employees from a Yahoo account alerting them that they might be losing their jobs. The U.S. Attorney’s Office reported that before the employees received what were anonymous e-mails, their employment status had been the subject of e-mail strings between senior SourceMedia executives discussing their possible termination.

SourceMedia is a New York-based publisher of financial publications such as the Bond Buyer and American Banker.

Source: Former VP Of Technology Charged With Hacking Corporate Network

PI Buzz reports that Court TV is currently looking for professional private investigators, who are currently working on active cases, to appear in primetime television programming.

You can find out more by visiting PI Buzz.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports on a MySpace confession, allegedly posted by a teenage driver that has led investigators to file criminal charges against her in a drunk driving case.

From the report –

Heather Ann Tucci, an 18-year-old motorist accused of swigging vodka just before a crash in August that killed two of her friends, refused to talk with investigators about what happened.

But she apparently opened up on MySpace, admitting the crash was “my fault” and taking “full responsibility” for the deaths.

Now authorities are aiming to use those words against her. Investigators have obtained a search warrant to get records from MySpace to confirm that Tucci authored the posting.

Tucci is charged with two counts of criminal vehicular homicide in the Aug. 19 wreck in White Bear Township. The one-car crash killed passenger Joseph Murphy Renner, 19, and Joseph E. Shafer, 19.

Tucci also was charged with criminal vehicular operation in connection with injuries her best friend, Samantha Eileen Ziebell, 18, suffered.

Source: MySpace, my confession?