Clearer line needed on phone-hacking

The information commissioner is right when he calls the legislation ‘very
uneven and very unclear’

Peter Preston

The Observer, Sunday 1 May 2011

Acting Met commissioner Tim Godwin is investigating alleged phone-hacking.
But the law is ‘very uneven and very unclear’, says information commissioner
Christopher Graham.

When Christopher Graham, the ex-BBC man turned information commissioner,
tells MPs that anti-phone-hacking legislation is “very uneven and very
unclear”, who could disagree? Suppose I use a private eye to blag, con or
wheedle private mobile and pin numbers out of some dozy phone company. That
infringes section 55 of the Data Protection Act of 1998 – and I could be
fined up to £5,000. But if I hack into the mobile in question and hear the
messages left there, I’m committing a crime under the Regulation of
Investigatory Powers Act 2000 – and could face two years in clink.

See full Article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/01/peter-preston-phone-hacking-law

Feel free to comment and let us know your thoughts.

Regards,

Frank

www.nig.co.uk Nationwide Investigations Group Established 1963

One of Britain’s premier private investigation organisations, Nationwide Investigations Group or NIG at NIG.co.uk has extensive experience in investigative matters that are known throughout the United Kingdom, Europe and the world.

Click Here for the full press release

A few of our members have asked for an explanation regarding what a boiler room scam actually means, so we thought we would draft this article for all interested in this type of scam.

The following explanation provides a simple insight

Boiler Room Scams – what they are and what to look out for

What is a Boiler Room?

Boiler Rooms are businesses that use high-pressure sales techniques to sell ‘sure thing’ investments with the promise of massive returns. In fact, what they’re selling is worthless stock in often unquoted companies that are either overvalued, or simply don’t exist at all.

How they work

Boiler Room operatives generally cold-call their targets, using phone numbers from publicly available shareholder lists.

Because it’s against the law for investors to cold-call in the UK, they tend to be based abroad (often Spain, Switzerland, or the US) where they’re beyond the jurisdiction of the Financial Services Authority (FSA). They can approach anyone, anywhere.

Boiler Room techniques

A Boiler Room can look and sound legitimate. They may mention companies you’ve heard of, give themselves a UK address or phone number, and have a professional looking website.

They’re notoriously persistent, and can hound a victim for months in the hope of a sale, catching out even seasoned investors. According to the FSA, Boiler Room Scam victims lose on average £20,000.

Remember, as a general rule, if an investment sounds too good to be true, then it almost probably is.

Anyone interested in a pretty accurate understanding of what a boiler room scam looks like should take it upon themselves to watch the movie released in 2000 about a bunch of scam artists selling all sorts of stocks and sinking peoples lives based on hard selling techniques into products and stocks that don’t exist.

What to do if you’re called

If you think you’re being targeted by a Boiler Room, the FSA’s advice is not to worry about being polite, just hang up. You should then dial the FSA contact centre on 0845 606 1234 with as much detail as you can remember. You’ll find more information about Boiler Rooms on the FSA website www.fsa.gov.uk

Social Networking website used to serve a court summons

A lawyer based in Britain has used a Social Networking website to serve a court summons, in what is believed to be the first such case in Britain.

Hilary Thorpe a solicitor based in Eastbourne was finding it difficult to reach a debtor in order to issue him a court summons regarding his finances. She had exhausted all avenues in trying to reach the debtor and recalled a rare case in Australia whereby the Supreme Court had given the solicitor permission to utilise a social networking website to serve a summons.

She wondered if a British court would accept the same principle.

Hastings Count Court in East Sussex accepted her request, and Ms Thorpe had logged onto Facebook and served the court order.

“It is great to see that the courts are willing to embrace new technology”.

This case has proven to be an effective way of resolving an age old problem in the legal system! From a private detectives point of view this case should be the bench mark for serving a wide range of legal documents and summons to those hard to reach individuals, speaking from experience this type of service would have made my job and life a million times easier.

Frank

With the extremely high rise in identity theft it’s become an increasingly popular practice to purchase encryption based software to further protect sensitive information. While the major operating systems provide a certain level of encryption security to your emails and telephony calls, this type of standard software based applications does not provide 100% guaranteed security.

It has been seen from recent press reports that organisations & individuals have been able to access other people’s emails, telephone calls and more, only because these people failed to protect themselves, probably because they didn’t know that this could be done. We of course to not condone or advocate this type of activity,  Private Investigators / Private Detectives who use this route to obtain information run extremely high risks and bring our whole industry into disrepute.  

We would however like to suggest that most people investigate the possibility that your information is never 100% secure, therefore make certain that when you are sending personal and sensitive information you check that encryption box. On a closing note here are a few good practices that might help you secure your information.

Since your documents and information are unlikely to start a war here are a few simple options (sorted by complexity):

• Archive your document in an encrypted 7-zip file. Since 7-zip is pretty much “standard” it’s likely the recipient will be able to open the file without installing anything on its side. 7-zip AES 256 to encrypt the archives.
• Encrypt your files with AxCrypt. The issue will be that it’s likely that the recipient will have to install it on its side. AxCrypt uses AES 128 to encrypt the files.

Send the encrypted files by email. Then give the recipient the password over the phone (or by other means of communication).

In today’s day and age a major concern for all parents is that their children are so vulnerable to a number of different types of bullying and attacks. From mobile phones to internet cyber bullying our children and families are exposed to a whole new world of bullying. Here are a few forms of bullying that are currently taking place in and around the United Kingdom.

• Texting threatening or nasty messages to people.
• ‘Happy slapping’, which is when people use their mobiles to film and share videos of physical attacks.
• Posting an embarrassing or humiliating video of someone on a video-hosting site such as YouTube.
• Harassing someone by repeatedly sending texts or instant messages in a chat room.
• Setting up profiles on social networking sites, such as Bebo or Facebook, to make fun of someone.
• Excluding people on social networking sites.
• Stealing someone’s identity by hacking into their account.
• Sending or forwarding personal or private information or images.
• Sending viruses that can cause damage to another person’s computer.
• Making abusive comments about another user on a gaming site.

Research done on 15000 children in the UK found that 47% of 14-year-old, 41% of 15-year-olds and 29% of 16-year-olds reported being bullied. The children most likely to be bullied were the most vulnerable in the class. Those with special educational needs, who were disabled or were in the care of the local authority, were much more likely to be targets.

This alarming report brings me to my next point that these children are not alone and there is something we can do as parents. Private Investigators across the world are able of putting together certain tracing procedure that can expose these bullies, such as mobile traces, tracing of IP and Mac addresses of certain devices used to send harmful emails and different forms of harassment.

Be warned that you are being watched bullies even if you think you’re safe behind your fictitious profiles and wrongful use of technology.

www.nig.co.uk Nationwide Investigation Group

After we received intelligence about the centres, Operation Nevada was launched involving our investigators, the Metropolitan Police, awarding bodies (HABC, EDI, Edexcel), the qualifications regulator Ofqual, and the UK Border Agency. Police have arrested one individual on suspicion of fraud, and the police and the UKBA are continuing to investigate various offences.

Unannounced visits led by us took place at training providers in locations across London and the South East of England on 12 November 2010. We found evidence of serious training malpractice, such as the centres registering candidates and awarding them certificates when they had not sat the examination.

As a result, four London-based training providers – Divine College, St Joseph’s College of Science and Technology, ME Training and Inter-Continental College – have had their approval to provide training withdrawn by their awarding bodies.

The awarding bodies have withdrawn more than 300 certificates awarded to candidates registered with these centres. Of these qualifications, 69 candidates had used them to obtain an SIA licence (door supervision), all of which we have suspended. These licence holders have a 90 day period following the suspension to gain a valid qualification, after which time we will revoke their licence.

SIA Director of Compliance and Enforcement Dave Humphries said:

“Investigations into allegations of training malpractice are a key part of our compliance activity. In the interest of public protection it is vital that all operatives working in the security industry are properly trained to deal with the demands of their role.

This operation involved very successful joint working with partner organisations and has provided a model that will be used again in the future to close down training providers where there is evidence of misconduct.”

The SIA have confirmed  that the API (Academy of Professional Investigation) Edexcel BTEC Advanced Private Investigation Level 3 Diploma Course sufficiently covers the scope of the SIA Specification for Private Investigators when the licensing of private investigators commences which will lead to an exemption for proof of competence for those applicants who have achieved the qualification.

It should be appreciated that the API Edexcel BTEC course is a comprehensive A to Z teaching course for either new investigators or the more experienced investigator who wants to achieve a recognised qualification. Whereas what is currently available is only for the purpose of obtaining a license which would enable a person to conduct licensable activities, it is not intended to teach individuals the required skills of a professional private investigator .

“The ABI has always been very wary of criminals masquerading as Private Investigators. What we (ABI) wanted to do was clean-up the profession and stop bone fide investigators being tarnished all the time through the media.

The ABI has tightened its membership up as AN ALTERNATIVE TO LICENSING” – Peter Farrington ABI

Ian Withers is a former chairman of the World Association of Professional Investigators – WAPI.  He reckons there are “somewhere between 10,000 and 25,000 investigators” and argues that it is “totally wrong” that the ABI should become favoured by the Law Society.

He describes WAPI as “a competitor professional association with approximately the same membership”.  The ABI has set itself up “as a self policing body for the sector”, he says “I don’t think that’s acceptable for the vast majority of investigators.  That’s why alternate associations were formed.”

Ian Withers

A good result for the World Association of Professional Investigators at the latest NOS meeting

, Process is now back in, and available to be used by awarding bodies for future qualifications of our sector.

At the Investigations Advisory Working Group Workshop 5 held at Skills For Security on 02/03/2010 Ian Withers representing the World Association of Professional Investigators  clarified that NOS are not to be confused with SIA Licensing. NOS may be used by awarding bodies to develop qualifications, but a pick and mix approach would be used to suit the relevant requirements. Ian Withers confirmed that from a WAPI perspective process serving is an essential part of an investigators role and should not be omitted; concerns were raised highlighting that if process serving were to be omitted from the suite of NOS this would potentially take a critical stream of income away from investigators.

After detailed discussions and consideration of the implications to omit process serving, the group agreed that this activity should be reinserted into the suite of NOS which will be submitted to the regulators and (UKCES) on 31/3/2010.

http://blog.skillsforsecurity.org.uk/?p=12