Social Media Privacy

As times goes by, the big (and small) social media sites tend to upgrade this or that and inevitably change the privacy settings you forgot how to set.

Usually they will give out some press release, but for the noon-0nerds out there who don't get the tech blog info, they tend to miss it.

It should be a general monthly chore to go and check your privacy settings, but people are busy and let's face it, we like to think once we have set something, we can forget about it.

That being said, if you're reading this, then it's a good time to remind you about some of the more recent changes:

• Google has decided to implement a new system in which your +1's and Google+ endorsements can now be publicly used to help advertise certain products. While not really new in the free to use business model, it can be a shock to people who were not aware their info would be used in this way. If it is a shock and you want to adjust these settings, take a look at this blog to find out how you can limit this -  http://www.tomsguide.com/us/how-to-google-shared-ads,news-17690.html 
• Facebook has also made some new changes, namely the unhiding of people from it's new graph search function. This is great news for a private investigator (as I am), but not so great for everyone else. The thing here is that there is no way to adjust this setting. Add to this, Facebook indicates now that they are unblocking the ability for youth to share with others, meaning that their indiscretions may yet haunt them down the road. The best thing here is to educate yourself and kids about what is appropriate and not on Facebook. If you can't beat 'em, at least limit what they can get.
• Final point here is for those living in Canada, Bell has decided it will now use your browsing data to sell targeted ads to you. This is a pretty gross violation that hopefully hits the courts soon or gets shut down by privacy heads. As opposed to others who do this, like Google, you can't escape the grip of your internet service provider (ISP), who can see everything you do (for Google and others, you can simply use a service that does not take your data and sell it). An ISP getting into this is pretty major and should be fought at all levels, so feel free to contact your local MP and let your voice be heard.

Thats it for this week. As always, take precautions on all you do online and limit what you and those you know post about you to keep things as private as you can.

Blog post is courtesy Elemental Investigations: Private Investigator Edmonton, an Edmonton, Canada based private investigator agency. They can be found online at www.elementalpi.ca

Parental Abduction

Parental abduction cases are traumatic events for obvious reasons. This occurs when one parent takes a child away from the other, sometimes in the midst or after a divorce and child custody decision, sometimes at other times. Although in some cases the abduction is in the abducting parent's mind altruistic, it is nevertheless illegal and needs to be settled ultimately through law enforcement and legal remedy.

While abductions within the parent/child home country is usually sorted out easily once the parent/child have been located, traditionally in the past, once the abducting parent has crossed a border (or more), the recovery process becomes very difficult.

This have gotten better though, as the UN and signatory countries have enabled the recovery process to be eased significantly on most locations, enabling local law enforcement and courts to hasten transfer back to the home country quickly for legal proceedings there.

The trick still remains location. While law enforcement should be the first stop in an abduction case, the more complex the movement, the more difficult it is for local law enforcement to keep up the hunt in a quick and manoeuvrable fashion. Private investigators can help out significantly in cases like this as they are significantly less bogged down by jurisdiction issues and can deploy rapidly to a host country or city and begin the leg work, sometimes with local support when the laws require, and can keep immediate pressure on the abducting parent. Once found, they can advise local and home country law enforcement and maintain surveillance until contact by law enforcement is made.

If you are involved in a situation like this, contact a local PI after you have notified police to see how they can help out and what advice they can provide.

Blog post is courtesy Elemental Investigations: Private Investigator Edmonton, an Edmonton, Canada based private investigator agency. They can be found online at www.elementalpi.ca

Recent Corporate Spying

Here in Canada, and specifically Ottawa, two events serve well to warn off the public sector about the effects of corporate espionage, and to hammer home the concept that corporate espionage does in fact occur on the large scale, and the work can often be split between public and private bodies to execute.

The first report came from the Department of National Defence report leaking out indicating that there were concerns over the potential presence of eavesdropping devices on the former Nortel campus. While it is amazing that a defence security/intelligence organization failed to consider this before dropping a cool billion on a real estate transaction, the real bit goes to show that while Ottawa is only an average sized city globally, it is a hub of hi-tech business, and as such has a heavy amount of corporate espionage. That the Nortel campus had been bugged is not so new, but knowing the extent of the penetration is really an interesting story on the capabilities and the devastating effects of corporate espionage, as this was one of the main factors contributing to the downfall of the former tech giant.

The other story is the Communications Security Establishment of Canada getting its hand caught in the Brazilian mining cookie jar after further Snowden leaks revealed the Canadian spy agency was prying into mining and energy sector information from Brazil. Again, this should not (I hope) be news, as many advanced countries take part in healthy spying campaigns, even on their allies. This means that France spies on the US, we spy on the Brazilians and the Americans spy on the Germans. It is normal business. However there exists a belief, particularly in newer companies, that the first world and allied countries are super duper friendly and would never seek to advance their own corporate capabilities and R&D. This is naïve and all corporations should make sure they incorporate at least some thought towards how they manage their info and counter-measures to mitigate the damage which can occur in the face of international corporate espionage.

Blog post is courtesy Elemental Investigations: Private Investigator Edmonton, an Edmonton, Canada based private investigator agency. They can be found online at www.elementalpi.ca

Physical Due Diligence

Anytime an organization, business or individual needs to make an acquisition, merger or partnership, the main thing that needs to be conducted is a due diligence check. In plain speak, this is doing what you can to ensure that what you are being told or led to believe is actually what you are getting.

While this is required by law for major corporate moves, it is largely only so in terms of financial due diligence, which involves accountants going over the books to ensure that the financial health of an organization has been accurately disclosed to the interested party.

What is not as well known or enforced, is the physical , or real world side of due diligence which can have major implications when not conducted.

A physical due diligence investigation involves real world checking of facts and holdings, which can exist on paper but not in fact. The on paper disclosures must be checked against reality as financial papers can be simply created, and when done well, can evade the financial due diligence process.

What a Private Investigator can provide in the conduct of a physical due diligence investigation includes the following:

• Check labour practices and obligations
• Confirm environmental standards
• Verify the existence and effectiveness of businesses and alliances
• Assess business reputation
• Identify the involvement of criminal elements
• Identify and confirm stockpiles of product and resources, including those moving
• Conduct background checks on important personnel and assess conflicts of interest

A PI can help identify these and many other aspects of interest to a prospective move and should be brought in to work in concert with the financial aspect of the due diligence process. Give a local PI a call to see how they can help!

Blog post is courtesy Elemental Investigations: Private Investigator Edmonton, an Edmonton, Canada based private investigator agency. They can be found online at www.elementalpi.ca

Scam Seasons Are A Changin'

With the end of summer coming up and fall and winter rearing their heads, there is the inevitable change in tactics of the door to door and local scammer. The cooling of the season, the return of kids to school (particularly those going away to college) and big family holidays coming up present a different opportunity from those present in the warmer months. Let's look at a few of the anticipated scams we will see getting an uptick in the coming months:

• The Grandparent scam - While always present, the return of kids to school away from home adds credibility to this scam where the fraudster will call an elderly person and pretend to be a grandchild who got into trouble while away at college and is too embarrassed to call home. Seeking a fat payout, these scammers will usually look to get a few thousand out of a particular victim before moving on to the next.
• Charity Scams - As seen whenever there is a natural disaster, these cretins seek to take advantage of the giving spirit normally associated to the coming Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons. These usually come disguised as real charities and can be door to door or online/telephone enabled. Either way, they target a large number of relatively small hits, but will gladly take a larger donation where available.
• The furnace upgrade scam - While the insufferable hot water heater/water filtration scams start to wane, they return in another form, seeking to gain entry to your home while presenting themselves (or at least heavily alluding to the fact) that they come from a utility or city department out of concern for your home. at one end, the scammer is looking to assess your home for a future break in while at the other end they are trying to peddle some overpriced equipment you don't need and lock you into a punishing contract.
• Lastly are increases in parking lot muggings and assistance scams. While the muggings are straightforward and common during the heavy shopping seasons, there is also a large upswing in "benevolent helpers" who will identify things you dropped to get close to you to swipe your keys or take a more valuable package while you are distracted. This is actually a new style of pickpocketing which requires you to view the individual in a positive light while they distract you to obtain your goods.

As with all scams, it pays to be attentive while moving with goods from the store to your car and ask plenty of questions when being solicited, even from family members if there is any doubt as to their identity. Also, ensure to help family members at risk (such as the elderly) are aware of scams which target them specifically to help all enjoy the coming season a bit more.

Blog post is courtesy Elemental Investigations: Private Investigator Edmonton, an Edmonton, Canada based private investigator agency. They can be found online at www.elementalpi.ca

Information Leak Testing

Information leaks have long been the bane of companies, particularly for hi-tech and consumer products. Indeed, one only has to look at some high profile product releases to see how profitable the business of leaking information can be, as people scramble to obtain any kind of leaked info to blog about.

In addition to the geek tech bloggers though, are the competitors who are keenly listening to hints about a competitors upcoming product releases and strategic outlooks so as to take mitigating measures or find a way to fast track development of their own products.

These leaks occur in a number of ways, and unfortunately, exist largely outside of the context of your normal security plan for your business. Enthusiastic product fans, paid informants and accidental reveals of information which can be assembled to discover the intent of a company, bypassing all active measures to cloak activity through security programs.

The most effective way to deal with information leaks is to set up a strong information management program. this will enable a company to track sources of leaks if they do occur, but also allow for the careful release of information to only those who need it.

When leaks do occur, particularly in large companies with massive manufacturing and distribution channels, a penetration test can be performed to assess where leaks are coming from and indicate where future measures should be focussed to minimize the leak in the future. This can help indicate if it is a bad employee, evidence of infiltration by a corporate spy or poor resource management or press release activity which is allowing competitors from accessing your secrets.

While penetration tests are well understood for IT departments, they tend to be overlooked in the physical world, where leaks are far more common, damaging and more difficult to locate.

A skilled private investigator can help determine where the leaks are coming from and help develop a strategy for dealing with these leaks, allowing for future mitigation and cessation of leaks from a given area.

Blog post is courtesy Elemental Investigations: Private Investigator Edmonton, an Edmonton, Canada based private investigator agency. They can be found online at www.elementalpi.ca

Bullying

Bullying cases have been very prominent lately in the news. Unfortunately, labelling them this way obscures the reality of the situation and diminishes the perceived severity of actions against a victim.

Even with all of the attention provided by the media, when we hear the word bullying, most of us still get the image of a schoolyard bully pushing around smaller kids. This is a normal part of growing up. What isn't however, is the types of activity that reaches the news...this is not bullying, it constitutes criminal activity and the media and public would do well to label these better.

Here in Canada, we have had many cases of "bullying" which are reported in the media as such. The problem is that the acts committed were not bullying, they were acts of criminal harassment, breaches of various anti-stalking legislation and assault. The US and many other countries have had similar issues recently and the same problem exists there.

Add to this, these activities are also being reported in the workplace....not a new phenomenon, but disturbing in that these have traditionally been cases of workplace harassment and intimidation, which have now morphed into schoolyard hijinks. They are not.

The victims of these types of behaviours are not new, and are most certainly not victims of mild bullying activities. Compounding the unfortunate label these people now have surrounding their victimization, is the fact that there is still no real ability for law enforcement to initiate investigations into the majority of these cases due to lack of resources and low reporting.

This is where a private investigator can come in and make a difference. With dedicated resources, a PI can put together the relevant facts, conduct interviews and prepare a case package for follow up by employers, schools or law enforcement to assist in stopping these activities and providing relief to a victim.

If you or someone you know is a victim of these types of crimes, there are a variety of local resources you can find online. If you need to move forward with an investigation, you can always start with your local police to at least open a criminal complaint. Once open, you can contact a local private investigator for more information on how they can help out for your individual case.

Blog post is courtesy Elemental Investigations: Private Investigator Edmonton, an Edmonton, Canada based private investigator agency. They can be found online at www.elementalpi.ca