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When I was in the wireless industry, we did many shady things and had all the lawyers and lobbyists to back us up. We could change any laws that got in our wa

When I was in the wireless industry, we did many shady things and had all the lawyers and lobbyists to back us up. We could change any laws that got in our way. My employer was never remotely interested in ethical issues. They were only interested in paying subscribers. I could go on all day with examples if HN were interested. As a funny side note, we would joke that our best customers were drug dealers. They always paid on time and always in cash. They could not afford to miss any calls.

astazangasta 8y ago
Go on, go on. What are some examples of laws you had changed and what was the result?
- LinuxBender 8y ago
  One example was hands free laws. That was supposed to happen in 96/97. Our lobbyists kicked that can down the road quite a long ways. I had a major project queued up in PoC phase with an AI that listened in the background to everything you said. You could tell her to conference in someone, call someone, hang up the call, etc.. This was before "smart" phones. It was the same software used by the gov. to monitor calls for key phrases. No training required, she could understand any language, accent and context. Really cool software actually. Another incident was around someone that broke the GSM encryption algorithms and was going to go public. My boss and a federal official met with them and explained what prison they would disappear into and for how long. Such things were postponed until long after the internet had grown and disclosures became more common. Nowadays people know that the GSM algo's have been broken for some time. Another one was a spammer that managed to get his own SS7 signaling link and was spamming phones with text messages. I suggested dropping his link and I was told to let it go, since he was paying for the link... There are no laws against spamming mobile devices because they are not landlines. The laws around unsolicited advertisements only applies to landlines and fax machines. As I am sure you all know, having your own SS7 link means you can spoof the caller ID, do caller-id blocking override, drop callers on congested cell sites and much more. This is why 2FA on cell phones is less effective. This one isn't so much about laws but rather ethics, and phone theft. From day one, we had the ability to brick any GSM phone over the air. We chose not to do this however, as customer support could accidentally brick the wrong phones. As you know, this led to phone theft being very profitable. That was the very thing that GSM bricking was supposed to stop, but we were just not willing to do it. There were no laws requiring us to use our capabilities to remove incentive to steal phones. There was discussion of making laws to require this, but we blocked all discussion from happening. Some of the other issues I can think of would be rather risky to post here, despite being well after the statute of limitations, as they could cause embarrassment for certain agencies and could risk HN getting censored.
  - lawnchair_larry 8y ago
    Nothing you post could get HN censored.
    - LinuxBender 8y ago
      Perhaps you are right, but with all due respect, I will pass on that.
wallace_f 8y ago
Why does our society tolerate so much evil? Most days I learn something new about how people somewhere are being evil.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Doing the right thing takes work, effort, time, and money.
- monksy 8y ago
  Agree to this contract and I'll tell you.

astazangasta 8y ago

Go on, go on. What are some examples of laws you had changed and what was the result?

LinuxBender 8y ago
One example was hands free laws. That was supposed to happen in 96/97. Our lobbyists kicked that can down the road quite a long ways. I had a major project queued up in PoC phase with an AI that listened in the background to everything you said. You could tell her to conference in someone, call someone, hang up the call, etc.. This was before "smart" phones. It was the same software used by the gov. to monitor calls for key phrases. No training required, she could understand any language, accent and context. Really cool software actually. Another incident was around someone that broke the GSM encryption algorithms and was going to go public. My boss and a federal official met with them and explained what prison they would disappear into and for how long. Such things were postponed until long after the internet had grown and disclosures became more common. Nowadays people know that the GSM algo's have been broken for some time. Another one was a spammer that managed to get his own SS7 signaling link and was spamming phones with text messages. I suggested dropping his link and I was told to let it go, since he was paying for the link... There are no laws against spamming mobile devices because they are not landlines. The laws around unsolicited advertisements only applies to landlines and fax machines. As I am sure you all know, having your own SS7 link means you can spoof the caller ID, do caller-id blocking override, drop callers on congested cell sites and much more. This is why 2FA on cell phones is less effective. This one isn't so much about laws but rather ethics, and phone theft. From day one, we had the ability to brick any GSM phone over the air. We chose not to do this however, as customer support could accidentally brick the wrong phones. As you know, this led to phone theft being very profitable. That was the very thing that GSM bricking was supposed to stop, but we were just not willing to do it. There were no laws requiring us to use our capabilities to remove incentive to steal phones. There was discussion of making laws to require this, but we blocked all discussion from happening. Some of the other issues I can think of would be rather risky to post here, despite being well after the statute of limitations, as they could cause embarrassment for certain agencies and could risk HN getting censored.
- lawnchair_larry 8y ago
  Nothing you post could get HN censored.
  - LinuxBender 8y ago
    Perhaps you are right, but with all due respect, I will pass on that.

wallace_f 8y ago

Why does our society tolerate so much evil? Most days I learn something new about how people somewhere are being evil.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Doing the right thing takes work, effort, time, and money.
monksy 8y ago
Agree to this contract and I'll tell you.