Oligarch's yacht uses laser defenses against passive optical spying

Billionaire Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich is known for the measures he takes to protect his privacy. Like Michael Dell, the interiors of his homes and vehicles aren't photographed.

The Times reports that Abramovich's 170 meter yacht M/Y Eclipse, currently undergoing shakedown cruises, has been fitted with a state-of-the-art optics countermeasure system:

Infrared lasers detect the electronic light sensors in nearby cameras, known as charge-coupled devices. When the system detects such a device, it fires a focused beam of light at the camera, disrupting its ability to record a digital image.

Although this report says a digital camera's CCDs are detected, it seems likely that this is instead an active optics detector. An optics detector works by emitting a brief laser pulse and then waiting for any glint from reflected optics. In this case, the system then targets a laser on the hostile lenses, flooding them with light and rendering the viewing optics ineffective.

If this system indeed detects optics and not just camera CCDs, then all optics would be flared with laser light, including binoculars, telescopes, and film cameras lacking digital Charged-Coupled Devices.

Wired speculates on the legality of this system under British law:

UK photo magazine Amateur Photographer asked a London lawyer about the legalities of destroying photos from afar. Here’s what he said: "intermeddling with goods belonging to someone else, or altering their condition, is a trespass to goods and will entitle the photographer to claim compensation without having to prove loss."

Defense against optical surveillance isn't the Russian businessman's only concern: M/Y Eclipse is also fitted with armor plate, bullet-resistant glass and a missile defense system.

Defeat infrared surveillance cameras

A German arts group is publicizing a technique to defeat surveillance cameras that can see in the infrared range by overwhelming their arrays with infrared light from IR LEDs mounted on a headband or hat.

According to commenters, this technique would work best against low-light surveillance cameras with particular sensitivity in the infrared range, optimized for low-light situations.

Many cameras have sensitivity into the IR but wouldn't be so easily overwhelmed by the brighter infrared LEDs.

Security Insider claims this technique would only work intermittently against cheap CCTV cameras:

I can tell you that this may work for a second or two on cameras that have a cut filter (that's the real name for "IR sensitive" cameras), but all that is really going to happen is your face will get illuminated in between the frames that are actually "flared" out by the light. Also, you're more likely to be noticed doing this due to the motion detection alarms going off due to the large pixel change. You would be much better off with a laser, than an LED. We've been doing these type of tricks for years in the lab to try to trick the cameras. Anymore, its not the cameras you need to trick, but the intelligent video algorithms that are going to pick up on the anomaly and register it as an event. Oh, one more thing. Don't even try to attempt this during the daytime. Like another poster said, the cut filter doesn't activate until a timer either trips it (set on a schedule) or a preset low lux threshhold is met. (it gets dark). Even then many cameras these days have dynamic range circuits that will tame the bright spots and highlight the dark spots. Look up some Pelco, Panasonic, or Sony cctv specs for more info.

The Anonymity Experiment

A Popular Science writer spends a week staying anonymous in the digital age: paying cash, dodging surveillance cameras and using disposable cellphones.

Irish Grandparent? Irish Passport

Many people who can document that one of their grandparents was an Irish citizen, can apply for Irish citzenship via entry in the Register of Foreign Births, and then apply for an Irish passport. Children of those foreign-born Irish citizens with Irish grandparents are eligible too, as long as the child was born after the parent's citizenship was recorded by an Irish Consulate.

Before applying, I investigated and verified that Ireland had no military draft law and did not tax citizens living abroad, thereby making it safe to proceed. What were the advantages beyond maintaining a link to our ancestral homeland being a conversation piece? The idea of having an EU passport that allowed me to travel and work in the, now 27, nations of the EU without having to hassle with visas and work permits that are usually required to travel, live or work in a foreign nation was appealing. Also, being familiar with the bloody history of the 20th century as well as having worked in both aviation and IT, two areas where backup systems are standard operating procedure, I felt that a costless backup citizenship might make sense for my descendants. The biggest reason was probably the potential advantages it would offer to my children and me in the global economy which, even then was the apparent trend for the future.

U.S. citizens can become dual citizens as long as the alternate citizenship is granted after their U.S. citizenship, as the U.S. citizenship process requires an applicant to renounce all other citizenships. Ireland, by contrast, does not require an applicant to renounce other citizenships.

Bermuda to track road vehicles with RFID

RFID Journal reports that the Caribbean nation of Bermuda plans to tag registered cars and trucks with RFID transponders to increase road registration compliance and revenues.

The ISO 18000-6B standardized, 915 MHz tags will be embedded in tamper-resistant windscreen stickers, and are made by 3M. The laser readers placed by the side of the road are made by Transcore.

Sabotaging the RFID tag is ineffective because the RFID interrogation is combined with an ANPR system:

If a car arrives at an intersection and no interrogation of an RFID tag can be performed, the system will take a picture of the car's license plate. Using optical character recognition software, the system will read the vehicle's plate numbers and input them into a database so a citation can be automatically issued. The same system will be employed to detect commercial vehicles operating in restricted areas during rush hour without permits.

Bermuda's Transport Control Department expects that all of the island nation's registered cars should be RFID tagged by June 2008. Motorcycles will be exempt from the RFID tagging requirement, though authorities may later decide to being them into the program.

The privacy implications of the mandated RFID transponders are profound. It is very feasible for groups unassociated with Bermuda's Transport Control Department to develop the ability to read the RFID tags and track specific automobiles by their electronic ID. In fact, an older version of this technology was used by a United States intelligence agency during the Cold War to track Soviet attaches whenever they crossed one of a handful of Washington, D.C. bridges and passed outside the 20-mile unrestricted transit limit.

Laptop data searches at border checks

U.S. courts have approved border agents' search of traveler's laptops without articulable probable cause.

Indications are that U.S. and Candian customs officials are searching laptops for pornography and obscene material.

Some travelers report being asked if the laptop they were carrying was a personal or company unit. Presumably, corporate laptops are less likely to be checked for obscene material than personal units are.

Authorities also have the ability to conduct forensic computer searches at border crossings and have done so in the past.

Data transmitted across national borders via the Internet is more strongly protected than data hand-carried through Customs checkpoints, because wiretaps must comply with the requirements of Title III, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2522, or the Pen/Trap statute, 18 U.S.C. §§ 3121-3127. The few advantages of hand-carry are totally lost if one cannot be assured that the data hasn't been copied, or that software or hardware spying mechanisms haven't been implanted within it.

Travelers with sensitive or legally privileged data will want to Customs-proof their laptop before crossing a controlled border. Strong encryption is the best tool to protect data that must be hand-carried through Customs instead of residing on a remote server. Some organizational IT departments are investigating hardware hard-disk encryption, sometimes combined with hardware biometric readers.

It is unclear at this time whether a traveler can be forced to divulge a password. One privacy wonk has suggested wearable or concealable USB drives as a measure of protection.