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According to reports in the media this morning report this morning (11^th October) users who had been accessing the service via a third-party app, and not the official Snapchat app, had their images intercepted. Other reports state that hackers stole up to 200,000 such images and uploaded these. As around half of the users are aged between 13 and 17, there is concern that many of the images may be of children.

Snapchat said its servers “were never breached”. The company added: “Snapchatters were victimised by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practice that we expressly prohibit in our Terms of Use precisely because they compromise our users’ security. Snapchat notifies a sender if the recipient screenshots a photo. But if the recipient of a photos uses a third-party app, he or she can save the photo without the sender’s knowledge. As such, Snapchat actively looks for and reports third-party apps that bypass Snapchat’s automatic photo destruction”

“We vigilantly monitor the App Store and Google Play for illegal third-party apps and have succeeded in getting many of these removed.” However, security researchers said Snapchat had to take more responsibility over user data.

Although the download has since gone offline, photos have appeared elsewhere on the internet. Hackers have threatened to post thousands more images. However, some doubted the authenticity of the images, suggesting many of them were duplicates or “fake”.

Snapchat is a messaging app that allows the sharing of videos and images that “disappear” after a short period of time, usually within 1-10 seconds.

According to various reports hackers had boasted of having access to 13 gigabytes’ (GB) worth of pictures that had been intercepted over a number of years.

Speculation as to the source of the leak has pointed towards two third-party, unauthorised services that offered the ability to save Snapchat messages permanently. It suspected that at least one such service was keeping a database of all the pictures and videos that had passed through it.

Snapchat notifies a sender if the recipient screenshots a photo. But if the recipient of a photos uses a third-party app, he or she can save the photo without the sender’s knowledge. As such, Snapchat actively looks for and reports third-party apps that bypass Snapchat’s automatic photo destruction, the spokeswoman said.

 

Safe Communities Algarve Comment

In January, an apparently ethical hacker released 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers in an attempt to prompt a Snapchat security review, and earlier this month Snapchat accounts were effectively hacked by a weight-loss spam service.

It is important to remember once something is on-line it remains on-line, and children in particular need to be aware of the consequences of this fact. Parental advice is the key to educating children over the safe use of social media and the internet.

The Judicial Police, through the Board of the South, reported on 9^th October that have identified and arrested a man for the alleged commission of a crime of rape that occurred at the beginning of August, in the municipality of Loulé.

The man aged 36 years handcuffed a woman aged 64 years and led here to clearing and, under threat of a weapon forced her into having sex with him.

The detainee, will be subject to judicial interrogation to determine remand/reporting conditions.

New figures released by the WHO show that more than 8,000 people have now been infected with the disease and 3,879 have died. The vast majority of deaths have been in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

In Spain yesterday (8^th October) a dog named Excalibur who belonged to an Ebola-infected nurse was destroyed, even as protesters and animal rights activists surrounded the Madrid home of the nurse and her husband. An online petition calling for the dog’s life to be spared had drawn hundreds of thousands of signatures.

The furor came amid questions about whether dogs can get and transmit the disease.

In the United States, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Thomas Skinner, said Wednesday that studies had shown that dogs can have an immune response to Ebola, meaning that they can become infected. But he said there had been no reports of dogs or cats developing Ebola symptoms or passing the disease to other animals or to people.

The death of Excalibur, a 12-year-old rescue dog, was confirmed to reporters by Javier Rodríguez, an official from Madrid’s regional government. The body is expected to be cremated.

The nurse’s husband had pleaded publicly with officials in Madrid to change their minds about destroying the dog. He told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo that there was no indication that Excalibur had been infected with Ebola. The nurse has been identified as María Teresa Romero Ramos.

The fate of the dog ignited a frenzy online. More than 390,000 people signed the petition to save his life. By comparison, about 150,000 people have signed a petition urging the Food and Drug Administration to fast-track research on a potential vaccine and treatment for Ebola.

Twitter erupted with pleas in both English and Spanish to save Excalibur’s life. Then, after Excalibur was killed, came posts using the hashtag #RIPExcalibur. Some also suggested that more attention was being focused on the dog than on Ebola’s human victims.

The Spanish nurse was the first person to become infected outside West Africa. An aid worker has died in Australia following a visit to West Africa.

A World Health Organization (WHO) adviser has warned that more Ebola cases can be expected among medical staff, even in developed countries

It was reported on 8^th October that Portugal and Morocco have refused to let a small aircraft carrying an Ebola sufferer land on their territory.

The small aircraft is reported to be carrying a Norwegian citizen who was infected with the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone according to the Spanish television station Antena 3.

Antena 3 is reporting that the plane ended up making a stop on Gran Canaria, where the security protocol for such cases was put in place. Nobody and no objects were allowed to leave the plane while it was in Gran Canaria.

The victim is said to be a 32 year old women who has been working as a medical doctor for Doctors Without Borders. She is the first person from Norway to be infected with Ebola and was airlifted out of Sierra Leone in a medical transport plane.

After tests in Sierra Leone confirmed that she was carrying the virus, the woman began her journey back to Oslo but the pilot needed to refuel along the journey.

The Portuguese and Moroccan authorities were contacted, but neither country gave permission to land, and the pilot ended up landing in the Canaries, where it spent 40 minutes before continuing on to Paris, where it made another stop, reported Antena 3.

Portugal will have access to the experimental treatment for the Ebola virus if any cases are diagnosed in the country, Health Minister Paulo Macedo said in Lisbon yesterday.

Speaking to the Parliamentary Health Committee, Macedo said that Portugal was fully prepared to respond to any potential cases of Ebola and had been assured that the health system would be supplied with the experimental treatment used on patients that survived the disease in the United States.

Macedo noted that Portugal was prepared both for “repatriation of a Portuguese citizen that may have been infected by the disease and for any case that comes in from abroad.”

Europol reported on 2nd October that 14 persons have been arrested in Spain and Portugal and 4,7kg heroin, 200g cocaine and 30kg drug adulterant was seized in an operation supported by Europol.

Spanish Guardia Civil and Policia Judiciaria of Portugal managed to arrest the leader of a criminal organisation behind drugs smuggling from different European countries to the Canary Islands and Portugal. Most of the arrests took place end of September and among the arrested persons nine were from Guinea Bissau, two from Guinea and two from the Dominican Republic and one from Cabo Verde.

The investigations started in October 2013 based on Guardia Civil’s knowledge that human couriers were used to smuggle drugs into the Canary Islands. Members from the criminal organisation were travelling frequently to European countries, mainly the Netherlands, in order to obtain the best quality drug at the best price and crucially, to recruit people in charge of transportation of the narcotic over to the Canary Islands. Their methodology for this purpose involved many national and international airport layovers, boat trips between the different archipelago islands, hiding the drugs inside the luggage, and so on, in order to avoid surveillance and monitoring by authorities and to make it difficult to search for the drug at its final destination.

Prior to distribution of the heroin, it was adulterated in Portugal in order to double or triple the quantity of drug finally placed in market.

During the operation, nine searches took place (seven in Portugal, one in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and one in Lanzarote).

The key which eased the investigation and enabled the arrest of the complete criminal organisation, revealing fully the drug route from its acquisition to the final consumer, was the close cooperation and coordination of the Guardia Civil, the Combat Unit for Drug Trafficking of the Policía Judiciaria from Portugal, and the constant and fluent information exchange with Europol, facilitating control of the members of the network when travelling throughout Europe.

It was reported on 1st October that the Judicial Police South executed a European Arrest Warrant and arrested a man wanted by French justice for criminal conspiracy, pimping and money laundering. The arrest took place in a villa on the outskirts of Boliqueime area to the west of Loule. According to a Safe Communities Algarve source locals in the area, reported seeing police activity in the village concerned just prior to the arrest.

The detainee, is a Dutch national living in the villa from where he operated the “prostitution ring”. He attracted clients in London , Paris and Amsterdam and linked them up with women in France, England and Romania, charging according to one source up to €500 per hour.

During the arrest the accused was found to be in procession of about €8500, £11,000, three computers, four mobile phones and various jewellery, which were seized. Subsequently the operation involved the seizure of bank accounts with deposits amounting to around €200,000.

The man is understood to have been under investigation by the French police for around a year and they recently requested assistance from the Portuguese Judicial Police.

The detainee, 55 years old, will appear at the Court of Appeal of Évora for application to be remanded in custody pending extradition to the French judicial authorities.

On 27^th and 28^th September GNR Loule detained three citizens of 19, 26 and 45-years of age for the crime of drug trafficking.

Following an action to fight crime and drug trafficking in the locality of Franqueada – Loulé, the GNR located the individuals concerned at the location.

After surveillance, the GNR observed the individuals preparing to sell suspected drugs.

Following their detention and follow up action, including searches at the residence of individuals in Loulé, 1,800 individual doses heroin, plus a precision scale, ten mobile phones and 193 euros  were discovered and seized.

Among the material seized were those related to the preparation, packaging and distribution of narcotics.

During the action a Portuguese citizen aged 38 years of age was arrested for possession of illegal firearm and an extendable baton

On 23^rd September GNR officers in patrol in Castro Marim identified four citizens aged between 17 and 27 years for robbery.

The GNR were alerted by a resident in Altura – Castro Marim, of a suspicious vehicle with four people inside, who circulating near unoccupied residences. After accessing the situation the GNR managed to intercept the car, which had Spanish registration a few minutes later  whilst on the EN 125, near Monte Gordo. Upon searching the vehicle and people inside, two crowbars, gloves, several pieces of gold and 900 euros in cash were discovered.

Following their detention the recovered goods were recognized by the victim of another robbery which had taken place the previous day in Castro Marim. Investigations are being undertaken to determine whether those detained are responsible for other offenses using the same modus operandi that occurred in recent days in the area.

On 25^th September 2014 officers from GNR Albufeira arrested a British citizen aged 36 years and identified four others for theft, after executing a number of search warrants.

The arrest resulted from an investigation by the GNR into the person’s involvement into a number of thefts at several hotels in the area.  The arrested person is reported to be British.

The detained citizen entered hotels and stole items belonging to tourists, including watches, computer high value items, bags and money.

During the search at his residence several computer items and various wristwatches and 184 doses of hashish and 1.2 grams of marijuana were recovered. The items recovered were part of items stolen from hotels which were previously reported to the GNR.

It has been reported in the media that the four persons identified were sent the stolen items by post by the person arrested.

It is this belief that the person arrested is responsible for many other thefts using the same modus operandi that have occurred in recent months in the area.

The person was first arrested in July this year and following an earlier court appearance has been reporting to the GNR.

On 25^th September 2014 at 0800 hrs the PSP Airport Security Division arrested a 59 year old foreigner for possession prohibited weapons.

The citizen was at the screening of passengers point at Faro International Airport for access to the departure lounge for the flight to Brussels. During a security check of his hand luggage three prohibited weapons (one spring type knife point, and two 11,50cm and knives with blade 10cm respectively), as well as a can of gasoline lighter with 125ml were discovered.

The objects were seized.