Dissolvable espionage

Imagine spy devices that dissolve completely into nothingness...

"The technology, which will be announced in a paper this week in Science, is called transient electronics or resorbable electronics. These systems work until they are no longer needed, at which point they dissolve completely away—the dissolution triggered by ordinary water in their operating environment. ...

It's not hard to imagine the uses of small electronic devices that vanish without a trace when exposed to water. Disappearing sensors and other spy gear could be air-dropped or strategically embedded in hostile environments with no one the wiser. ...

The work is being funded in part by DARPA, the Defense Department's mad science arm, which sees a range of applications. To no one's surprise, though, those uses are classified."I can't get into those details," he tells PM." Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/breakthroughs/transient-electronics-could-dissolve-inside-your-body-13098637?click=pm_latest

The spies can't tell you what their plans are, but this thriller writer can - a spy device based on the above concept is used by characters in my latest novel THE BLACK VAULT:  http://www.spywriter.com/tbv/index.html

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Cyber espionage, made in USA

"Members of the Berlin-based Chaos Computer Club, however, examined the so-called R2D2 keylogging Trojan after getting hold of a copy of it, and discovered that it was doing much more than it was legally supposed to do. In addition to monitoring Skype calls and recording keystrokes to capture e-mail and instant messaging communications, the Trojan had the ability to take screenshots and activate a computer’s microphone and webcam to allow someone to remotely spy on activities in a room. Furthermore, the program includes a backdoor that would allow authorities to remotely update the program with additional functionality.

The backdoor, CCC found, also contains several security vulnerabilities that makes any system on which the spyware is installed potentially vulnerable to takeover by other parties who could commandeer the spyware for their own purposes. Commands sent to the Trojan are not encrypted, and the spyware requires no authentication between the Trojan and the system communicating with it, meaning that anyone could take remote control of the spyware to spy on a user, plant evidence on his machine or even impersonate a law enforcement Trojan to communicate with law enforcement systems."

This spyware does not come from China, it's proudly made in the USA.

More: http://m.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/10/germany-fbi-spy-tool/

Psychic Chocolate Killers

NSA is preparing to employ psychological warfare against online threats:

"Operational attacks against an Internet threat would begin by locating and identifying the individuals involved in the hacks. NSA psychic warfare operatives would assess the targets to identify personality vulnerabilities and determine an operational strategy to remotely influence and effect changes in the bio-physical responses of the targeted individuals. An individual's propensity to develop a specific disease might be enhanced to 'post-select' development of the illness in the target, via emotional influences remotely driven by the operational officer. Feelings of illness or weakness might be enhanced to discourage unwanted behavior." From: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/239048

Should these psychic tactics fail spies can always turn to chocolate:

"A leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Haddad was accused by Israel of responsibility for several terrorist operations, the last of which was the hijacking of an Israeli passenger plane en route to Entebbe in 1976. According to a recently published book by the Israeli journalist Aharon Klein, Haddad had a great fondness for Belgian chocolates. Mossad obtained some of these special chocolates, coated them with a slow-acting poison, and had them delivered to Haddad, who was then living in Baghdad, by an Iraqi official who was a Mossad agent and who had struck up a friendship with Haddad. Klein relates that the deadly substance was first developed in the IIBR and that its slow-acting and undetectable properties ensured that the agent and the instrument of death would not be discovered.

And indeed, following a gradual but severe deterioration in his health, Haddad was flown to a hospital in East Germany where he was diagnosed with leukaemia and eventually died on 28 March 1978." From: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg