BrickHouse Security Blog

Ohio lawman Barry Carpenter was recently found guilty of breaking into the home of Sarah Jessica Parker’s surrogate mother of her twin girls.

Apparently looking for some pregnancy documents, Carpenter was suspended from his post as Chief of the Martin Ferry Police Department and officially charged with receiving stolen property, theft in office and tampering with evidence. “Barry admits that he acted very stupidly, but denies that he acted criminally,” said his attorney Dennis McNamara in his closing argument. Carpenter admitted to going into the house, but says it was only because the door was open. He also admitted to taking pictures of some pregnancy documents including the ultrasound photos and a plaster cast of the surrogate’s pregnant stomach. He also admits showing them to the paparazzi.

Currently Carpenter remains free but is being closely monitored by a GPS system. He is scheduled for sentencing on Dec 30Th. “The bottom line is that there is a victim in this case whose privacy was so gravely intruded upon,” said Ohio Assistant Attorney General Emily Laube after the verdict was read, “If you can’t trust the police, who can you trust?”

(Via E! Online)

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Police were able to make an arrest in a cold case after a local news station aired enhanced surveillance video captured at the scene of the crime.

Earlier this year, police enhanced surveillance video of the alleged suspect in a “PITT” sweatshirt with a woman wearing distinctive glasses. After NBC4 aired the report in October, someone recognized the woman in the video and contacted police. From that information, investigators were able to make an arrest contingent on the surveillance tape evidence.

This is not the first time that this tactic has worked; this was the third in a series of high-profile cold case arrests by the District Police within the past two years. The other two arrests were in the Chandra Levy murder case and the Shakita Bell case. Airing this surveillance tape really made the difference between another cold case, and an actual arrest.

(Via NBC)

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Cyber terrorism is becoming a growing concern in India. Recently,  celebrity cyber security expert Ankit Fadia stated “The next big war that the country may have to wage against terror will be on the Internet. The network infrastructure of the country may be attacked any time. Social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Orkut and Myspace may also pose a threat,” Fadia told IANS in an e-mail interview.

Fadia, who was working with the Central Bureau of Investigation until a couple of years ago said that terrorists are now using “VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) chats, hidden messages inside photographs, draft e-mails and encrypted pen drives to communicate across the world. According to Fadia, cyber laws in India may be quite good, “but the problem is that the police who enforce those laws are not trained properly. If anyone lodges a cyber crime complaint at the nearest police station, I am sure that nine out of 10 times, officials attending to you won’t even know what you are saying.”

Law enforcement’s goal is to bring those who are guilty to justice. “According to NASSCOM-IDC surveys the demand for ethical hackers is estimated at 77,000 in India and 188,000 worldwide currently” said Fadia. Fadia fears that as we continue to rely upon the Internet in our daily lives we aslo leave ourselve’s open.

(Via New Kerala)

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Food banks in the United States are going high-tech in an attempt to automate and effectively distribute food to the people who need it the most. By using bar coding, GPS tracking, and automated warehouses, administrators hope to use technology to their advantage to feed more hungry people.

“What we tell people a lot is that we are a food distribution business wrapped in an altruistic skin,” says Jan Pruitt, president and CEO of the North Texas Food Bank in Dallas.

Pruitt’s food bank along with the Food Bank of Central New York in East Syracuse are testing a $60 million effort to create state-of-the-art national computer network that will help automate services. This system called the Athena Project will let food banks standardize accounting, inventory, and donor software, use the Internet and manage pickups and deliveries using GPS tracking. Feeding America is installing the systems at no charge.

“We are going to gain so much efficiency,” says Linda Nageotte, Food Lifeline’s president and CEO. “We’re going to be able to provide so much better accountability, and this also really increases our credibility.”

Athena, she and others say, opens a world of possibilities:

-GPS tracking and instant communication to send trucks on the most efficient routes. Lutz says this alone can cut transportation costs by40 percent. Food Lifeline is equipping drivers with smart phones that eventually could scan in donations as they are picked up.

-Inventory management systems to track every food item, from truckloads of potatoes to individually donated cans. This not only saves time and reduces waste, but is a safeguard for product recalls.

-Generating lists of food, money and volunteer hours for donors, handy at tax time.

-Common software and backup computer servers, allowing agencies to trade or divert food, share donor information or step in if a food bank is overwhelmed by a disaster.

Such innovations aid a strategy that”needs to be twofold,” she says. “It needs to be about feeding the people who are standing in line better and it needs to be about making the line shorter.”

(Via AP)

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Yowza is offering Black Friday coupons accessible on your iPhone or Android mobile device. The service allows you to search a specific geographic area for coupons, deals, and discounts. When you find a coupon you want to use,  show your phone to the cashier who in turn will scan the bar code provided. This new way of bargain hunting is completely revolutionizing Black Friday madness and replacing paper coupons.

(Via Huffington Post)

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In Seattle last week, a man was caught on surveillance camera stealing cash, liquor and food from Loretta’s Northwesterner restaurant. When the store’s manager, Mike Poetzel, arrived at the scene of the crime, he discovered that the thief had left behind a Mix cassette tape labelled “Summer of ’86″.

This gave Mike an idea. “I grabbed the security camera footage and was processing it and I was listening to the tape on my tape deck while I was working on the video,” he said. “So I got to know the songs, so I picked a couple that would fit.” Mike took some of the songs on the mix tape and dubbed it on to the surveillance footage of the man robbing the store, and he then uploaded his creation to YouTube. Mike hopes that someone on YouTube will recognize the thief. “It’s a positive way to deal with a negative situation,” Mike Said.

On the other hand, the store’s regular patrons hope that the nostalgia of the mix tape will be able to lure the thief back to the scene of the crime. “Maybe he’s missing it. Maybe he’ll come back to get it,” said customer Dara Elish.

(Via Komonews)

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A Spokane, Idaho Washington woman has not only been accused of kicking her child, but she’s been caught on camera. Often times, authorities are unable to properly help or prosecute bad parents because of lack of proof. In Keyana Keys case, this 28-year-old mother has been caught on a Spokane Transit Authority surveillance tape kicking and throwing her child around. A judge formally charged Keys on Monday.

“I think that she just had a momentary…just flipped and lost it because there was just too much for her.  And she’s a very, very good mother.  She makes sure they are fed well, they are cleaned, clothing.  Always buy them everything.  She’ll spend all her money on her kids,” said her friend Paula Nieves.

Regardless of what witnesses, or friends, or family say, this poor parental behavior was caught on surveillance tape and a unbiased judge was able to review the evidence. Hopefully having cameras like this capture bad acts on tape will make people more accountable for their actions, especially when it comes to their kids.

(Watch the video via KTVB)

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A South African jewelry firm was surprised to find that one of their own staff had been stuffing a cooked chicken with gold and precious metal in an attempt to steal the goods. Carrying the cooked chicken out of the building on his way home, the man was stopped at the metal detector with chicken in hand. This is when security officials discovered that instead of being stuffed with sage and onion, the chicken had been stuffed with expensive jewelry.

The jewelry company had recently tightened security when a woman tried to smuggle gold out of the building in her under wire bra. Banning under wire bras, they didn’t think to ban rotisserie chickens. The man is due to appear in Johannesburg’s Hillbrow Magistrate court on Tuesday on charges of attempted theft and possession of suspected stolen goods. The firm’s boss Larry Brown says he has been doing his best to stop the thefts,

“The very nature of the jewelery industry makes it a target for criminals,” he said. “Part of our procedures are to routinely visit dubious dealers who trade in fine metals, diamonds and gold. These dealers are known to buy stolen jewelery, often at enormous cost to lives.”

(Via BBC)

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Jailbroken iPhone users in the Netherlands beware, a new worm is luring itself by redirecting users from the ING bank web site. When users visit the bank’s home page they are redirected by the worm which leaves them vulnerable to criminals that can capture their banking log-in information. Security experts at F-Secure are also warning that the worm can potentially turn infected iPhones into a “bonnet”, which is a network of compromised computers at the mercy of hackers or cybercriminals that can be accessed and controlled without the permission of the user. The worm can also be easily spread from one jailbroken iPhone to another when the jailbroken iPhones are connected to the same wireless internet connection.

Although this iPhone Worm is far from the first iPhone security threat to come out recently, Mikko Hypponen of F-Secure says that this is worm is the first seriously malicious virus for the iPhone. “There’s a clear financial motive behind it,” he told the BBC. “It’s fairly isolated and specific to the Netherlands, but it is capable of spreading.”

(Via the Telegraph)

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A police officer in Manchester, England was recently relieved of duty after he failed to complete his duties. Turns out he was visiting the city’s red light district while on duty.

Robert Bowen, 45, was a normal traffic cop who one day decided to ignore an emergency call because he was indulging himself in the city’s red light district. When his absence was noticed, his superiors decided to track the officer’s car using cameras, audio recordings, and GPS. When they found out that he was cutting out on calls to go to the red light district he was let go. Officer Bowen had been working for the police force for 26 years and had been the recipient for numerous medals. In court he plead guilty to one count of misconduct in public office.

During his career he received the chief constable’s commendation and two chief superintendent’s commendations for going beyond the call of duty, but now he is simply the cop that got caught.  Detective Inspector Martin Reddington, of the Greater Manchester Police, said: “This serious neglect of duty could have had devastating consequences as he potentially put the lives of members of the public at risk and also those of his colleagues, who had to rush to the scene from other parts of Manchester, delaying our response and leaving the areas those other patrols were supposed to be looking after vulnerable.”

(Via BBC News)

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Police are hoping that they will find a criminal responsible for robbing two nuns by releasing video footage of the crime.

The two nuns were doing some grocery shopping when they were approached in a parking lot by a man asking for money. One of the nuns, named Sister Mary De Leon, refused to give the man money and instead referred him to many of the town churches for help. However, the suspect had other things in mind, as he snatched De Leon’s purse and jumped into a van that was circling the lot. The two nuns attempted to chase the crook, but where unable to stop the vehicle.

Luckily the whole thing was caught on tape by the parking lot security camera. Police have released the footage of the crime in the hopes that someone will help bring these heartless men to justice.

(Via ABC News)

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The more popular Facebook becomes, the more dangerous it becomes to use. As if you didn’t already have to be wary of Facebook’s emails, now a worm is spreading via Facebook user’s walls. According to anti-virus maker, AVG, the worm spreads when users click on a provocative photo that is being placed on infect dusters walls. By clicking on that image, users are then opening themselves up to attack.

Below is an explanation of how this nasty works according to one of AVG’s bloggers:

“For those unfamiliar with Facebook (is there anyone other than me in that set?) the thumbnail of the worm’s infective page is a link to the page. The worm’s objective, of course, is that others viewing the victim’s wall will click the link, and as they are logged into Facebook, the worm will propagate its link to that victim’s wall, and so on…
This worm uses what is technically known as a CSRF (Cross-site Request Forgery, also called XSRF) attack. A sequence of iframes on the exploit page call a sequence of other pages and scripts, eventually resulting in a form submission to Facebook “as if” the victim had submitted a URL for a wall post and clicked on the “Share” button to confirm the post.”

(Via Mashable)

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Today, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a major recall on cribs with dropdown sides. Dropdown sides have been known to injure small children by causing strangulation or crushing. This common design found in many baby cribs is slated to be one of the largest recalls to date. Not targeting a particular make or manufacturer, this recall will affect many crib companies and families.

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John Ford was so eager to avoid arrest that he may have eaten the evidence that would help convict him.

Ford was suspected in a bank robbery during which he reportedly passed a note to one of the tellers demanding money. After police matched his car to a witness’ description, the police pulled Ford over and discovered a bag of money in his car. Afterwords while emptying his pockets, Ford grabbed a piece of paper in his mouth and proceeded to eat it. Police believe that the piece of paper may have been the ransom note he showed to the teller.

The dashboard camera in the police vehicle captured everything as Ford was pressed upon the hood of the car eating a large piece of white paper.  Despite his best efforts it seems that Ford will be unable to avoid his jail time. At least in jail he won’t go hungry.

(Via The Sun)

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