BrickHouse Security Blog

Hoping to discourage crime, the city of Vallejo, California  intends on planting five surveillance cameras on light poles around its Vallejo City Park and more in other areas of town by July 1. This security project is part of a city wide endeavor to revamp the historic city landmark, although making the surveillance cameras a reality has been challenging because of budget constraints and logistics. The idea was conceptualized three years ago, but last fall the city crafted new legislation concerning surveillance camera use and the process was temporarily halted when questions of who would be monitoring the footage came into play. [...]

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Oh look, a friend requ–who in the heck is this? Zero mutual friends? Buenos Aires, Argentina? How did he find me?! If you’re wondering whether to accept that random guy from Argentina that just friended [...]

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It’s hard to comprehend doing anything without the aid of computers these days, but the state of Arizona’s Department of Homeland Security seems to be holding fast to a simpler time of paper records and file cabinets. [...]

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Dog-nappers, Bonnie Heyman and her grandson were charged with stealing a small chihuahua/dachshund canine that was tied to the ice machine in front of Gardner’s SuperValu grocery store while the owner was inside. Thankfully a high quality surveillance camera caught the March 20th’s criminal activities, making the alleged dog thieves identifiable, thus retrieving the dog back to his rightful owner within about 45 minutes. [...]

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When you find yourself attempting to cheat while playing Mafia Wars on Facebook, take that as a sign that you’re taking the moral of the game a bit too seriously.

Nevertheless, for those less than honest mobsters that want an easier way to ’86 the rat, one wrong click may cost them more than just the game.

New phishing scams using toolbars that advertise ways to cheat at popular Zynga games like Mafia Wars have been popping up that lure users to access their Facebooks through a button featured on the toolbar. The toolbars direct Facebook users to fake websites that appear to be the Facebook login page and collect usernames and passwords. [...]

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You know the text message you just sent using your new iPhone? That one about how much of a “power-hungry slave driver” your boss is?

Until Apple releases a patch to correct the issue, you better hope he doesn’t have the same skills as the two European researchers that recently discovered a way to hijack the iPhone.

Vincenzo Iozzo, 22, and Ralf Philipp Weinmann, 32, successfully broke into the iPhone and hacked into the SMS database in about 20 seconds during the Pwn2Own hacking contest. They were even able gain access to messages that had already been deleted. The hacking technique developed by the two researchers, known as an exploit, could have also extracted the phone contact list, the email database, photographs, and iTunes music files on any iPhone.

The iPhone’s sandbox, a security tool that protects the iPhone from being attacked, was able to keep the hackers from bypassing it. But the winning exploit was strong enough to operate without having to break free from the sandbox.

“Apple has pretty good counter-measures but they are clearly not enough,” said Halvar Flake, a security researcher that assisted with the exploit.

Weinmann said that they were able to hone in an a vulnerability in the iPhone’s design. By using the exploit, a hacker is able to have the same user privileges as a non-root user called mobile located in the iPhone sandbox.

“It was a real world exploit against a popular device, ” said Aaron Portnoy, a security researcher from the company sponsoring the Pwn2Own hacking contest, TippingPoint Zero Day Initiative. “They exfiltrated the entire SMS database in about 20 seconds. It was as if a webpage was loading.”

TippingPoint ZDI will report the issue to Apple and will withhold details until a patch to correct the vulnerability is released.

(Via ZDNet)

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After getting their home robbed, a New Albany, Indiana couple learned the hard lesson that not everyone that that sends you a “friend request” on Facebook is really your friend. [...]

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After breaking into President Obama’s and Britney Spear’s Twitter account this Wednesday, a 25-year-old French hacker is now under arrest in the central French town of Clermont Ferrand. [...]

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After having his business equipment stolen numerous times before (worth around $50,000), Scott Williams, a Tampa businessman, decided to take the matter of protecting his property into his own hands. He installed GPS trackers in his business truck and all of his landscaping equipment, so that he would be able to track its exact location in case it was stolen again.

And when it did get stolen yesterday morning, he logged on a friend’s computer and was able to see exactly where the truck and stolen equipment was heading. He then called up the police and gave them the exact location of the truck.

“When the vehicle was taken, he got with a friend who could track it on his home computer and was able to give our officer a play-by-play, street-by-street location of that vehicle as it was fleeing the area,” said Lt. Bruce Leidholdt.

Thanks to the GPS trackers, within a few hours, all of Scott’s equipment and truck was returned to him and he was able to get back to work.

Now most people wouldn’t normally expect lawnmowers and landscaping equipment to be tracked by GPS, but when you really think about it, all of this equipment is really expensive.

“A mower is $15,000. A weed eater is $400. Back pack blower is, like, $600. This stuff gets expensive,” Williamson said.

As of right now, the police haven’t found the thief, but they have found what seems to be his car and a gun inside it. And as for Scott Williams, he is just happy that the thieves didn’t put him out of business.

(Via MyFoxTampaBay)

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Stricter monitoring requirements have been placed on sex offenders in California, mainly in response to the failure to catch Phillip Garrido after several chances in the Jacey Dugard case. As of Friday, sex offenders in California must [...]

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The Air Force, Boeing, and United Technologies are developing the X-51 Waverider, an airplane designed to travel faster than Mach 5, or hypersonic speed. When it will be first tested, the X-51 will [...]

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If you’re a wanted criminal, choose your Farmville neighbors wisely. Instead of peeking over a picket fence at the strawberry patch belonging to the mysterious red-head who just friended you on Facebook, you could be looking through steel bars straight at the FBI agent that caught you.

According to an FBI document redacted by Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group, the FBI is using social networking sites to gather information on those suspected of illicit activity, known witnesses to crimes, and people who are targets of crime.

But the FBI is able to access a bit more information on a person than the average Tweeter. Under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the FBI agents can prompt a social networking site like Facebook, Myspace, or LinkedIn to send a request in order to view confidential information such as private inbox messages.

The FBI document states that such information can be helpful in proving or disproving alibis, locating a suspect, discovering connections and relationships between people, and detecting the existence of a crime or a crime in the making.

Should your welfare ever depend on a criminal being caught using MySpace or Twitter, you’re probably out of luck. According to the document, MySpace requires a search warrant to view private inbox messages less than 181 days old.  Though Twitter also requires a subpoena or search warrant, it gives no contact information for law enforcement officials to use in order to demand information and retains only the IP address of the latest login. Facebook, on the other hand, usually cooperates with law enforcement officials.

So if you’re running from the law, maybe collecting cyber friends isn’t such a good idea–you might end up with a federal agent on your tail.

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A vending machine thief toting a pickax sliced through surveillance cameras at a Georgia high school–but not before his face was captured on film. The thief, 57-year-old Robert Lee Banks, caused 6,000 dollars worth of damages to the high school’s vending machines by smashing them with his pickax to steal cash and coins. [...]

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When the FDNY wanted to cut costs and improve efficiency for faster response, they turned to GPS tracking. The system was designed to locate some 1,300 ambulances and fire trucks so workers could better dispatch emergency responders. When GPS tracking has proved to increase efficiency and cut costs for most businesses, the FDNY are still facing astronomical consulting fees from their Hewlett Packer private consulting firm. Facing budgetary constraints that may result in the layoffs of over 1,000 firefighters [...]

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