14 ms·

Call this phone to become a part of William Binney's social graph at the NSA

139 points by muhpirat 11y ago

J_Darnley 11y ago
> This is an art project What art is this producing? Will there be a final product I can look at, watch, or listen to?
- scintill76 11y ago
  > A project for public space, with posters put up in Karlsruhe, Cologne and elsewhere in autumn and winter 2015/16 > Commissioned by ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe on the occasion of the exhibition Global Control and Censorship, October 4, 2015 – May 1, 2016. The Cologne part of the project consists of 200 advertising columns If you click the link "Advertising Columns" you can see those. I guess I am still confused as to what calling the number does (that we can actually see) and how it relates to the art.
  - pinjiz 11y ago
    > The mobile phone with the number +49 174 276 6483 On display in a vitrine in the exhibition Global Control and Censorship at ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, October 4, 2015 – May 1, 2016 > It's turned on and connected to the network. No-one (human) will pick up if you decide to make the call. http://hop3.de/mobiltelefon_en.html http://hop3.de/mobiltelefon_en.html
    - acqq 11y ago
      Pity that they don't have a kind of webcam so that we can see how many calls happened up to now.
      - lorenzhs 11y ago
        I'll be going to ZKM next week. From the photo ( http://hop3.de/mobiltelefon_en.html http://hop3.de/mobiltelefon_en.html ) it seems like the phone displays the number of missed calls. I'll let you know what it says.
        lorenzhs 11y ago
        As anotheryou said, the phone is sadly limited to displaying double-digit numbers of missed calls. It did ring every couple of minutes though while we were there. We were playing with the idea of calling the people back (like any phone it shows the caller's number unless the caller chooses to prevent that) but in the end we didn't. Photo: https://i.imgur.com/zBaVFMH.jpg https://i.imgur.com/zBaVFMH.jpg ("99 missed calls")
      - anotheryou 11y ago
        It sadly maxed out at 99 calls, it's an old brick-style phone.
- hartator 11y ago
  It's disruptive. Art is about disruption.
  - rajacombinator 11y ago
    True art is ... an explosion!
    - PvsNP_ZA 11y ago
      Welcome to the list. :p
Shank 11y ago
It seems this is based on the idea that NSA is tracking connections to a person connected to him. Unfortunately, if anyone at NSA were to read this, they would be very easily able to segment off this connection if they wanted. Seems like it would be trivial to add an exclusion.
- duaneb 11y ago
  It's an art project. > Do you really want to live a life where you shy away from completely normal, legal things, like calling a mobile phone? I think it's a personal experience and good political discussion more than anything.
  - johnchristopher 11y ago
    But we are already at that point. Yesterday my significant other was riding the train when some police officers came and asked here and everyone else aboard to show their ID cards for identification checking. She complied. Then she picked up her phone to text me what was going on but refrained herself at the last second. An officer was behind her back and she thought : « I don't want to be seen as suspect by using the phone while police officers are going on with their operation. ». She looked at the phone's clock instead. I am pretty sure the officers were there to find some refugees. November 11th is WW1 Armistice day where we live which is a bit symbolic.
andreabedini 11y ago
I couldn't connect
will_pseudonym 11y ago
I wonder if they could possibly know that a ton of people called this number after reading this article, and to disregard that data from their graph. :) Obfuscation is really difficult in highly effective surveillance states.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- joosters 11y ago
  Ah, but what if the owner wants their phone to be disregarded, and this is their way of baiting the NSA to do so? Now the NSA has no choice but to keep monitoring the phone, because of this possibility!
- gozo 11y ago
  Not really the point though. The point is that you're essentially volunteering for surveillance and by doing so saying that the arbitrary safe-guard implemented by the NSA still doesn't make them morally justified to do so, or something to that effect.
tomcam 11y ago
I'm for this in principle, but I have absolutely no assurance that this is the number it's claimed to be. I would not like to be part of a vigilante attack on someone who turned out the wrong person.
- acqq 11y ago
  See the photos from the streets. It's not "just a webpage" giving you the number. http://hop3.de/litfass_en.html http://hop3.de/litfass_en.html Also in the German media (the phone number is in the text): http://www.badische-zeitung.de/ausstellungen/kann-man-sich-noch-nackiger-machen--112459709.html http://www.badische-zeitung.de/ausstellungen/kann-man-sich-n...
- anotheryou 11y ago
  the exhibition space where the phone lies is well known, it's not a scam.
wavefunction 11y ago
I don't really care to. I understand William Binney has provided some whistleblowing on the shady business the alphabets have been up to but he also came up with "5 Eyes" which is the foundational legal justification that routes around the Constitution (among other legal documents and protections among the "partners"). I guess I just feel he has an impossible task to make up for that. I think he's a good cautionary tale for young nerds who have an overwhelming amount of intelligence and cleverness but a paucity of wisdom, natural or developed over time.
- rl3 11y ago
  >... but he also came up with "5 Eyes" ... That simply isn't true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement
etiam 11y ago
As much as I appreciate what the project is trying to illustrate I would think twice about really signing up for surveillance at second degree of separation. With Five Eyes surveillance reaching to three degrees of separation that makes me 'contagious', pulling every person I contact or have contacted electronically into surveillance as well. This targeting of not only you but also everyone you've been in contact with is of course one of the reasons the system is so malicious. As for signing up, then again, maybe it doesn't make that much difference in practice. With the Lists being as long as they are, two degrees of separation would have been a lot of people, but it seems that three would make for virtually everyone. Would I even be able to add my friends to the surveillance systems, or is every single one of us already there...
- nabla9 11y ago
  >I would think twice about really signing up for surveillance at second degree of separation. It's amazing how quickly this kind of advice has become a accepted reality in the west. Try to to stay small in the eyes of the government. I hope everyone understands to feel little ashamed if they do this.
  - tetrep 11y ago
    Indeed, it even validates the use of mass surveilance to begin with. After leaks of the keywords that would "put you on a list" at the NSA, some people seem concerned to exercise their liberties, like googling for things in an attempt to avoid being flagged by intelligence agencies. This, of course, makes everything worse, as now there's more reason to commit the spying, as only those truly guilty would ever willing do actions that wind up putting them on a list. This is also related to the encryption by default debate, were we must acknowledge the very large amount of metadata leaked if we only encrypt our communicatioms/data when we deem them sensitive.
  - yrro 11y ago
    I agree with you 100%. But there is no way in hell I'm phoning that number.
acqq 11y ago
Also see: http://hop3.de/litfass_en.html http://hop3.de/litfass_en.html "A project for public space, with posters put up in Karlsruhe and Cologne in autumn and winter 2015/16" The German text on the posters, before the number, means "we are not afraid." The whole exhibition is not just that project, it's much bigger: http://zkm.de/en/event/2015/10/globale-global-control-and-censorship http://zkm.de/en/event/2015/10/globale-global-control-and-ce...
UserRights 11y ago
They should have made fake ads about getting a free iphone with calling this number, that would be much more effective. It would be interesting to see the resulting numbers - how many people are already afraid to call that number? Are YOU afraid of calling that number? That is a nice real life demonstration of where that ill-minded techno-dictatorship will lead us. Unfortunately there is no way back, as the USA ANGST to fight these nazis is too strong, especially in Silicon Valley, where too many chicken-hearted apple shiners (nice word!) are hiding instead of standing up. It is shocking to see how established that culture of ANGST is already established in the USA. So be prepared for a long war and many death friends - this is always the only long-lasting result when you let paranoid and aggressive Neandertalers lead your society. Look at Germany after WW II to see the future of USA if you do not stand up now against that bigbrotherism. Yes, it is up to you to change it. Follow the few brave we have seen and change your government to obey the people, not the other way around. Do it now and the world will be very thankful and start to love USA again! Amen :)
- briandear 11y ago
  Nazis? While your sentiment can be respected, comparing the US to a national-socialist political party that manufactured and entire industry of exterminating so-called inferior races is hyperbole to the extreme. Now if you had said Stasi..
  - rurban 11y ago
    "hyperbole to the extreme"? I beg to differ. The modern US fascist state so far have managed to destroy all their sacred democratic values and entities: legal, political, law enforcement, press, TV, education, health system, basic infrastracture and is not thinking about stopping their endless offensive wars, while everybody is proud to support their army. The US doesn't give a damn about international laws and contracts and still thinks it can get away with bullying everybody as they like. Almost an entire race sits in concentration camps, the so-called US prison system. The NAZI party was the modern german part of fascism, while the modern US part has no name yet. Most of the industrial, press and wallstreet leaders were actual NAZI's, and I don't see any actual change despite the name. Looking back to the NAZI times, extermination of entire races was very a well-hidden agenda. But why is the US law enforcement free to shoot any black people? This agenda is not really hidden and pretty obvious. There is really not much difference, just that the US fascism is a much more modernized system. But the NAZI system was also a very modern and successful fascistic system those days. Not counting that the US NAZIs brought the German NAZIs to the power after all. http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/rise_of_american_fascism.htm http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/rise_of_american_... "One Country! One Language! One Flag!" [ADDED] https://www.intellihub.com/america-today-parallels-nazi-germany/ https://www.intellihub.com/america-today-parallels-nazi-germ... is also a popular link
andrewclunn 11y ago
Well I just found out that international calling isn't included in my service plan :P
noondip 11y ago
This is a cool idea! My contribution to anti-surveillance trolling is setting the subject of all encrypted mail to, "Your heroin order has shipped."
- zz1 11y ago
  Which isn't bad: your method works against lexical analysis (which as Bill Binney said is terrible because it buries analysts under too much material), while this method is against the three hops policy. Please, do not forget that encrypted e-mail should not be predictable: https://futureboy.us/pgp.html#GoodPractices https://futureboy.us/pgp.html#GoodPractices

139 points by muhpirat 11y ago

J_Darnley 11y ago

> This is an art project What art is this producing? Will there be a final product I can look at, watch, or listen to?

scintill76 11y ago
> A project for public space, with posters put up in Karlsruhe, Cologne and elsewhere in autumn and winter 2015/16 > Commissioned by ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe on the occasion of the exhibition Global Control and Censorship, October 4, 2015 – May 1, 2016. The Cologne part of the project consists of 200 advertising columns If you click the link "Advertising Columns" you can see those. I guess I am still confused as to what calling the number does (that we can actually see) and how it relates to the art.
- pinjiz 11y ago
  > The mobile phone with the number +49 174 276 6483 On display in a vitrine in the exhibition Global Control and Censorship at ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, October 4, 2015 – May 1, 2016 > It's turned on and connected to the network. No-one (human) will pick up if you decide to make the call. http://hop3.de/mobiltelefon_en.html http://hop3.de/mobiltelefon_en.html
  - acqq 11y ago
    Pity that they don't have a kind of webcam so that we can see how many calls happened up to now.
    - lorenzhs 11y ago
      I'll be going to ZKM next week. From the photo ( http://hop3.de/mobiltelefon_en.html http://hop3.de/mobiltelefon_en.html ) it seems like the phone displays the number of missed calls. I'll let you know what it says.
      - lorenzhs 11y ago
        As anotheryou said, the phone is sadly limited to displaying double-digit numbers of missed calls. It did ring every couple of minutes though while we were there. We were playing with the idea of calling the people back (like any phone it shows the caller's number unless the caller chooses to prevent that) but in the end we didn't. Photo: https://i.imgur.com/zBaVFMH.jpg https://i.imgur.com/zBaVFMH.jpg ("99 missed calls")
    - anotheryou 11y ago
      It sadly maxed out at 99 calls, it's an old brick-style phone.
hartator 11y ago
It's disruptive. Art is about disruption.
- rajacombinator 11y ago
  True art is ... an explosion!
  - PvsNP_ZA 11y ago
    Welcome to the list. :p

Shank 11y ago

It seems this is based on the idea that NSA is tracking connections to a person connected to him. Unfortunately, if anyone at NSA were to read this, they would be very easily able to segment off this connection if they wanted. Seems like it would be trivial to add an exclusion.

duaneb 11y ago
It's an art project. > Do you really want to live a life where you shy away from completely normal, legal things, like calling a mobile phone? I think it's a personal experience and good political discussion more than anything.
- johnchristopher 11y ago
  But we are already at that point. Yesterday my significant other was riding the train when some police officers came and asked here and everyone else aboard to show their ID cards for identification checking. She complied. Then she picked up her phone to text me what was going on but refrained herself at the last second. An officer was behind her back and she thought : « I don't want to be seen as suspect by using the phone while police officers are going on with their operation. ». She looked at the phone's clock instead. I am pretty sure the officers were there to find some refugees. November 11th is WW1 Armistice day where we live which is a bit symbolic.

andreabedini 11y ago

I couldn't connect

will_pseudonym 11y ago

I wonder if they could possibly know that a ton of people called this number after reading this article, and to disregard that data from their graph. :) Obfuscation is really difficult in highly effective surveillance states.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
joosters 11y ago
Ah, but what if the owner wants their phone to be disregarded, and this is their way of baiting the NSA to do so? Now the NSA has no choice but to keep monitoring the phone, because of this possibility!
gozo 11y ago
Not really the point though. The point is that you're essentially volunteering for surveillance and by doing so saying that the arbitrary safe-guard implemented by the NSA still doesn't make them morally justified to do so, or something to that effect.

tomcam 11y ago

I'm for this in principle, but I have absolutely no assurance that this is the number it's claimed to be. I would not like to be part of a vigilante attack on someone who turned out the wrong person.

acqq 11y ago
See the photos from the streets. It's not "just a webpage" giving you the number. http://hop3.de/litfass_en.html http://hop3.de/litfass_en.html Also in the German media (the phone number is in the text): http://www.badische-zeitung.de/ausstellungen/kann-man-sich-noch-nackiger-machen--112459709.html http://www.badische-zeitung.de/ausstellungen/kann-man-sich-n...
anotheryou 11y ago
the exhibition space where the phone lies is well known, it's not a scam.

wavefunction 11y ago

I don't really care to. I understand William Binney has provided some whistleblowing on the shady business the alphabets have been up to but he also came up with "5 Eyes" which is the foundational legal justification that routes around the Constitution (among other legal documents and protections among the "partners"). I guess I just feel he has an impossible task to make up for that. I think he's a good cautionary tale for young nerds who have an overwhelming amount of intelligence and cleverness but a paucity of wisdom, natural or developed over time.

rl3 11y ago
>... but he also came up with "5 Eyes" ... That simply isn't true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement

etiam 11y ago

As much as I appreciate what the project is trying to illustrate I would think twice about really signing up for surveillance at second degree of separation. With Five Eyes surveillance reaching to three degrees of separation that makes me 'contagious', pulling every person I contact or have contacted electronically into surveillance as well. This targeting of not only you but also everyone you've been in contact with is of course one of the reasons the system is so malicious. As for signing up, then again, maybe it doesn't make that much difference in practice. With the Lists being as long as they are, two degrees of separation would have been a lot of people, but it seems that three would make for virtually everyone. Would I even be able to add my friends to the surveillance systems, or is every single one of us already there...

nabla9 11y ago
>I would think twice about really signing up for surveillance at second degree of separation. It's amazing how quickly this kind of advice has become a accepted reality in the west. Try to to stay small in the eyes of the government. I hope everyone understands to feel little ashamed if they do this.
- tetrep 11y ago
  Indeed, it even validates the use of mass surveilance to begin with. After leaks of the keywords that would "put you on a list" at the NSA, some people seem concerned to exercise their liberties, like googling for things in an attempt to avoid being flagged by intelligence agencies. This, of course, makes everything worse, as now there's more reason to commit the spying, as only those truly guilty would ever willing do actions that wind up putting them on a list. This is also related to the encryption by default debate, were we must acknowledge the very large amount of metadata leaked if we only encrypt our communicatioms/data when we deem them sensitive.
- yrro 11y ago
  I agree with you 100%. But there is no way in hell I'm phoning that number.

acqq 11y ago

Also see: http://hop3.de/litfass_en.html http://hop3.de/litfass_en.html "A project for public space, with posters put up in Karlsruhe and Cologne in autumn and winter 2015/16" The German text on the posters, before the number, means "we are not afraid." The whole exhibition is not just that project, it's much bigger: http://zkm.de/en/event/2015/10/globale-global-control-and-censorship http://zkm.de/en/event/2015/10/globale-global-control-and-ce...

UserRights 11y ago

They should have made fake ads about getting a free iphone with calling this number, that would be much more effective. It would be interesting to see the resulting numbers - how many people are already afraid to call that number? Are YOU afraid of calling that number? That is a nice real life demonstration of where that ill-minded techno-dictatorship will lead us. Unfortunately there is no way back, as the USA ANGST to fight these nazis is too strong, especially in Silicon Valley, where too many chicken-hearted apple shiners (nice word!) are hiding instead of standing up. It is shocking to see how established that culture of ANGST is already established in the USA. So be prepared for a long war and many death friends - this is always the only long-lasting result when you let paranoid and aggressive Neandertalers lead your society. Look at Germany after WW II to see the future of USA if you do not stand up now against that bigbrotherism. Yes, it is up to you to change it. Follow the few brave we have seen and change your government to obey the people, not the other way around. Do it now and the world will be very thankful and start to love USA again! Amen :)

briandear 11y ago
Nazis? While your sentiment can be respected, comparing the US to a national-socialist political party that manufactured and entire industry of exterminating so-called inferior races is hyperbole to the extreme. Now if you had said Stasi..
- rurban 11y ago
  "hyperbole to the extreme"? I beg to differ. The modern US fascist state so far have managed to destroy all their sacred democratic values and entities: legal, political, law enforcement, press, TV, education, health system, basic infrastracture and is not thinking about stopping their endless offensive wars, while everybody is proud to support their army. The US doesn't give a damn about international laws and contracts and still thinks it can get away with bullying everybody as they like. Almost an entire race sits in concentration camps, the so-called US prison system. The NAZI party was the modern german part of fascism, while the modern US part has no name yet. Most of the industrial, press and wallstreet leaders were actual NAZI's, and I don't see any actual change despite the name. Looking back to the NAZI times, extermination of entire races was very a well-hidden agenda. But why is the US law enforcement free to shoot any black people? This agenda is not really hidden and pretty obvious. There is really not much difference, just that the US fascism is a much more modernized system. But the NAZI system was also a very modern and successful fascistic system those days. Not counting that the US NAZIs brought the German NAZIs to the power after all. http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/rise_of_american_fascism.htm http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/rise_of_american_... "One Country! One Language! One Flag!" [ADDED] https://www.intellihub.com/america-today-parallels-nazi-germany/ https://www.intellihub.com/america-today-parallels-nazi-germ... is also a popular link

andrewclunn 11y ago

Well I just found out that international calling isn't included in my service plan :P

noondip 11y ago

This is a cool idea! My contribution to anti-surveillance trolling is setting the subject of all encrypted mail to, "Your heroin order has shipped."

zz1 11y ago
Which isn't bad: your method works against lexical analysis (which as Bill Binney said is terrible because it buries analysts under too much material), while this method is against the three hops policy. Please, do not forget that encrypted e-mail should not be predictable: https://futureboy.us/pgp.html#GoodPractices https://futureboy.us/pgp.html#GoodPractices