Wired News is reporting on some clever hackers who have taken it upon themselves to protect the public from prying government eyes. According to the article, Austrian hackers have been foiling spy cams that monitor people in public places.

The hackers have used everything from simple ballons, to block the lenses on the public spy cams, to using techy infrared lights and lasers aimed at the cameras to disrupt image reception. They have even used an inexpensive 1-GHz satellite receiver to intercept the spy cam images.

Are these hackers troublemakers or modern day Robin Hoods, on a mission to protect the public’s privacy?

You can read the entire article by Ann Harrison @ Hackers Rebel Against Spy Cams

The Smoking Gun has released their top 15 mug shots for 2005. These characters and their mug shots are entertaining, to say the least.

You can view The Smoking Gun mug shots at The Smoking Gun 2005 Mug Shots Of The Year

As we have said before on this blog, it is just a matter of time before digital cameras automatically label pictures with location and personal information.

According to an article in newscientist.com, Yahoo’s Berkeley research lab is using Bluetooth-enabled cell phone cameras along with facial recognition software to automatically label pictures with location and people identification information. So far the system is 60% accurate at identifying people in pictures from a short list of possible individuals.

From the article –

The concept, being developed by Marc Davis of Yahoo’s Berkeley research lab in California, is based on a central server that registers details sent by the phone when the photo is taken. These include the nearest cellphone mast, the strength of the call signal and the time the photo was taken.

The system also identifies the other Bluetooth-enabled cellphones within range of the photographer and combines this with the time and place information to create a shortlist of people who might be in the picture. This can then be combined with facial-recognition algorithms to identify the subjects from the shortlist.

Facial recognition software on its own can only identify people with 43 per cent accuracy from the grainy shots taken by camera phones, but in tests Davis and his team found that by combining it with context information the system could correctly identify people 60 per cent of the time. The context information can also be combined with image-recognition software to identify places within photos.

The entire article is available on newscientist.com @ Camera phone helps label snaps

Reuters is reporting that South Korean authorities announced Monday that they will start sending legal notices, including indictments, through SMS text message alerts on people’s cell phones.

Almost 75 percent of South Koreans have cell phones and prosecutors hope to save about 160 million won ($158,000) by sending legal notices to people’s cell phones. The text message legal notification system is available starting today and will become fully operational in 2006. People with cell phones will need to apply for the text message service before any legal notices will be sent.

You can read the entire Reuters article @ Mobile phones to announce ‘you’ve been indicted’

Here is a great in-depth article from the Great Falls Tribune on the tricks of the trade used by a few Great Falls, MT bounty hunters. The article discusses numerous tips and tricks of a good bounty hunter that can be used by skip tracers, investigators or anyone conducting a people search or locator.

From the article —

“Human beings are easier to hunt than deer,” said Jack Sanders, another bail bondsman and bounty hunter in Great Falls.

“They’re dumb,” Sanders added. “They’re creatures of habit. A lot of times they’re on meth, and their friends will turn them in for 50 bucks.”

Last summer, Jara persuaded one client’s mom to hand over her fugative son’s address in Wyoming by fabricating a story about a mix-up with the courts.

Then Jara, a former long-time deputy sheriff, drove to the hideout in Jackson Hole and surprised the guy just as he was heading into town for the Fourth of July festivities.

“Part of our success in capturing these fugitives is the trickery and surprise that we use,” said Scott Olson, founder and owner of the oldest bounty hunter training program in the nation.

The main goal of bounty hunting, in fact, is to outsmart the fugitive. Brute force is almost never used.

You can read the entire bounty hunter article by Jared Miller @
Great Falls bounty hunters use brains, tricks of the trade to bring in their man

A bounty hunter in Manchester, NH wears a Santa Claus disguise to catch bail skips, according to an article in the Union Leader newspaper.

From the article —

Bounty hunter Lance Allen Wilkinson of Amherst, a recognized bail enforcement agent, donned a red and white hat and frosty beard while making an arrest on Hall Street Saturday afternoon.

“He was standing outside when we got there. I said, ‘Ho, ho, ho. Off to jail you go,’ ” Wilkinson said.

You can read the entire article @ Bounty hunter dons Santa Claus disguise

Here is a fun Christmas Eve free people search site for all you professional and amateur skip tracers out there. The NORAD Santa Tracker System is now operational. Merry Christmas to all our readers.

You can visit the NORAD Santa Tracker @ NORAD Santa Tracker

ChoicePoint, a leading provider of consumer information and database searches, has been put at the top of the “losers list” for TechTarget’s annual IT winners and losers of 2005, for their data security debacle that compromised 145,000 customer records and exposed the personal information in these records to hackers.

From the article —

ChoicePoint: The database broker tops the loser list both literally and figuratively after emerging as the poster child for corporate data insecurity. In September 2004, the company’s customer authentication processes were compromised; hackers accessed 145,000 customer records. Amazingly, the company waited until the following February to publicly disclose the breach, resulting in at least 750 cases of identity theft. Sure, there were plenty of other companies that fell prey to hackers and bad data management — and shame on them (i.e., LexisNexis and DSW). But ChoicePoint takes the prize because of its failure to manage the crisis appropriately. Not only did it wait some five months before notifying customers who were victims, it also seemingly underestimated the extent of the damage, adding another 17,000 names just last month in its quarterly report to the SEC. And the kicker? ChoicePoint actually had the audacity to charge victims seeking to access their information.

You can read the full list of TechTarget’s 2005 IT winners and losers @ 2005′S IT WINNERS AND LOSERS

The Associated Press is reporting that a Nigerian national has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and grand theft in a case involving an identity theft ring that obtained consumer data from provider ChoicePoint.

From the article –

Olatunji Oluwatosin, 42, of North Hollywood, Calif., was indicted by a grand jury in August on 22 counts of identity theft, conspiracy, grand theft and credit card fraud.

Oluwatosin pleaded guilty on Tuesday and is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 10.

At the time of his indictment, prosecutors said the scheme cost at least $4 million in damages and involved 16 victims and five banks or credit card companies.

You can read the full AP article @ Nigerian pleads guilty in ChoicePoint case

According to killermovies.com, Columbia Pictures is planning on releasing a comedy in 2006 called “Skip Tracer”.

The movie is about a man who accidentally kidnaps a young girl embroiled in a custody battle when he repossesses a yacht.

Columbia Pictures should have hired our readers; I am sure they have some stories that are even wilder and funnier than that.