Includes items such as:

• GPS Jammer
• Cell Phone Bugs
• VHF/UHF Jammers
• Bug detecting
• and more.

Homebrew Military & Espionage Electronics

The artwork was taken from the home that the owners of the collection, A. Benjamin Amadio and Dr. Ralph Kennaugh, were renting while they looked at property in the area.

Amadio said the pieces of art hadn’t been hung since they were just renting the home. He also said that several other pieces of art that were part of the collection weren’t stolen.

Amadio and Kennaugh are offering two separate rewards — a $1 million reward for the return of the stolen artwork, and a $5 million reward for the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the heist.

The $1 million reward can be claimed anonymously, Amadio said.

The following is a list of the stolen artwork:
•G.H. Rothe (3 pieces)
•Jackson Pollock (1 piece)
•Matisse ( 1 piece)
•Miro (4 pieces)
•Rembrandt (2 pieces)
•Renoir (1 piece)
•Van Gogh (1 piece)

The stolen Pollock piece is estimated to be worth $20 million.

An investigation is ongoing and is currently being handled by the Monterey County Sheriff’s Department. A private investigator has also been hired by Amadio and Dr. Kennaugh.

Both Amadio and Kennaugh are originally from Massachusetts. Amadio is an entrepreneur, while his housemate, Kennaugh, is a retired Harvard medical professor.

Amadio and Kennaugh said they think that the heist was an inside job and done by a professional who had knowledge of what art was at the home.

“I think the people that stole it number one knew what we had, and two, probably had buyers for the artwork before they went to take it,” Kennaugh said. “I think chances of getting it back are slim.”

Kennaugh also said the artwork was uninsured because hardly anyone knew about his collection, which is why he thinks it was an inside job.

Earlier this month, a collection of 11 Andy Warhol paintings was stolen from a home in West Los Angeles.

The collection included portraits of O.J. Simpson, Muhammad Ali, Pele and Chris Evert.

The owner of the collection had once tried to sell the artwork for $3 million in 2002, but the current exact value is unknown.

The largest known art heist to take place in the U.S. was in Boston during St. Patrick’s Day in 1990. A total of 13 pieces, including work by Rembrandt and Degas were stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

An investigation into the art heist, which was estimated to be valued at $300 million, has included FBI probes into the Irish Republican Army, a Boston mob boss and a notorious art thief.

Do you remember the magnetic card spoofer in Terminator 2? It was a bit farfetched because apparently the device could be swiped through a reader and magically come up with working account numbers and pin numbers. We’re getting close to that kind of magic with [Jaroslaw's] card spoofer that is button-programmable.

Building off of a project that allows spoofing via an iPod and electromagnet, [Jaroslaw] wanted something that doesn’t require a computer to put together the card code. He accomplished this by interfacing a 16-button keyboard and a character LCD with an AVR ATmega168 microcontroller. Card codes can be entered with the buttons and verified on the LCD. Of course this is still dependent on you knowing the code in the first place.

As you know, credit cards use this technology. We don’t think Walmart is going to be OK with you pulling this out in the checkout line, not to mention local five-oh. This technology is also used for building access in Universities, businesses, and hotels. If used in conjunction with some other spy technology you’ll be on your way to becoming a secret-agent-man.

Did you forget your hardware-based password and now you’re locked out? If it’s an IBM ThinkPad you may be in luck but it involves a bit more than just removing the backup battery. SoDoItYourself has an article detailing the retrieval of password data from an EEPROM.

The process is a fun one. Disassemble your laptop. Build a serial interface and solder it to the EEPROM chip where the password is stored. Connect this interface to a second computer and use it to dump the data into a file. Download a special program to decipher the dump file and dig through the hex code looking for something that resembles the password. Reassemble your laptop and hope that it worked.

We know that most people won’t be in a position to need a ThinkPad administrator password, but there must be other situations in which reading data off of an EEPROM comes in handy. What have you used this method for?

Early this morning a white helicopter landed on the roof of a money depot, three men walked out and into the building, the helicopter lifted again and hovered above the building, explosions went off, the robbers came back out with several large bags after the helicopter landed again and they took off. They have not yet been found but the helicopter has been found by a small lake. Many witnesses who live nearby saw the whole thing and gave detailed descriptions of the modus operandi.

http://www.thelocal.se/22234/20090923/

Update: Seems CNN has got the story too: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/09/23/stockholm.helicopter.heist/index.html

Yes, these are firesafes, but many many people use them to store real valuable stuff other than papers.

Here’s a few methods on how to open them.

Using a Screwdriver and penny:

Using a paperclip:

Using a homemade pick:

We’ve covered this sort of thing before, but there is something to be said for the simplicity of this tiny GSM alarm system by [trax]. The alarm system is designed to send the owner a text message when a sensor is triggered. This alarm only works with Siemens phones, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find one.  The alarm is configured via a dip switch on the board and can also be armed and disarmed by text. The brains of this system is a PIC16F84A. The code and schematics are included at the bottom of the page.

Read more here: http://planaheist.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=160

Rich Harley from Suspicion Industries sent in some pictures of a vehicle that they just completed. This is what I call a office away from home! I know where to go if I ever start a career as a super secret spy! Instead of a limo could I rent this van for an evening?

“Here is a rather large home project we have completed – a surveillance
vehicle or mobile office. The project took around 9 months to finish
and we have pictures and build information to document progress. The
van has:

* onboard power system/batteries (10 hour runtime), plug sockets etc
* lighting
* onboard computers x 2 + TFT wall mounted monitors
* wireless router
* desk + chair setup
* furnished walls and floor
* climate control

We’ve also added a Pan-Tilt-Zoom Camera connected to the computers
for surveillance or recording use. Our aim is to hire the van to
individuals/small business, or perhaps to sell the vehicle outright.”