9 ms·
FBI: If you knew what your phone company tells us, you'd probably sue
- forensic 15y agoI wonder how much of this applies to Facebook.
- GoodIntentions 15y agoIf the feds don't have root-level read access I would be shocked.
- jrockway 15y agoPrepare to be shocked, but they don't. I mean, other than busting down the doors and taking the servers they need. Remember that guide that was leaked a few weeks ago, detailing the procedure required for law enforcement agencies to get user info? Presumably that is not some sort of elaborate conspiracy to convince Facebook users that the government is not monitoring each and every one of their check-ins.
- Devilboy 15y agoThe FBI has free-range to do whatever it wants on Facebook. All they need to do is submit a request to the FISC which approved 100% of such requests in 2010 http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/domestic-surveillance-court-approved-100-of-2010-warrant-requests.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/domestic-sur...
- alexqgb 15y agoWas it really 100%? I thought it was only 99.998%, or something close to that.
- drivebyacct2 15y agoAgain, this is all ancient news. We've known for years now that the FBI has had eavesdropping ability not just on phones but on the Internet. We've had whistle blowers talk about installing large routers to duplicate and divert Internet traffic on huge top-tier ISP levels. Time and time again, no one cares or at least cares enough to do anything.
- yuhong 15y agoBut it is surprising to see they admit it.
- cookiecaper 15y agoIf you talk to individuals they'll almost always tell you something along these lines. I've heard "the public doesn't want to know what it takes to keep America safe" a couple of times now from agents in different federal law enforcement/intel agencies.
- brettnak 15y agoI can't help but wondering why statistics aren't published about "the things it takes to keep us safe" and how much they actually help at keeping us safe. It seems, to me, that if it was actually working, they would want to try to vet it with the public. It seems to me that this data is not being used to keep anyone safe, but for other purposes.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- Lost_BiomedE 15y agoMany people I talk to only think about their cell calls and do not know about mic recording as well. They also do not know that this can occur while the phone is off.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
- fleitz 15y agoYou know you might not be serving the public interest if... "The stigma of working with the FBI might cause customers to ... file civil actions to further prevent the disclosure of information"
- Joakal 15y agoServing national interest is different to serving public interest despite some similarities.
- cqdx 15y agoAnd both are perverted frequently enough to require proper oversight.
- bluedanieru 15y agoNot necessarily. It's hard to tell what you mean though. Are you saying the interests of the state and the interests of its people are necessarily at odds, or just that they have become so in the US?
- Joakal 15y agoThat's a good question to ask the FBI.
- nkassis 15y agoI'm with Kirk on this one, the Good of the one sometimes outweigh to good of the many as is the case here.
- DanI-S 15y agoI'm pretty sure the state should exist to promote the quality of life of its inhabitants, not the other way around.
- potatolicious 15y agoI'm with Spock on this one, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... or the one. Which is my roundabout way of saying that violating the constitutional freedoms of an entire people is probably not worth it just to catch a few bad guys.
- rglover 15y agoHonestly at this point, most people should expect this sort of behavior from any type of telecom company. Yeah, it sucks but it's the name of the game. Take into consideration that the gov owns the air space/spectrum these companies use, and you'll understand why they're so compliant with releasing information. The only way this will change is if there's a privatization of air space which at this point is seemingly impossible.
- bluedanieru 15y agoI don't know that privatization is a panacea for the government corruption we see here. And you are right that privatization of airspace is impossible (read: undesirable). How about taking steps to curb government corruption?
- cookiecaper 15y agoThat's pretty pie in the sky too barring an entire reform of our economic system. How about we take steps to get everyone using strong client-side encryption?
- dublinclontarf 15y agoHave you ever tried to get someone to use gpg? Now take that pain, and multiply it by a million or more. I do agree with you, and am using gpg.
- cookiecaper 15y agoI've actually actively started to petition clients to use GnuPG since the HBGary hack, but I agree that it's difficult to make progress. Someone has to develop interfaces to make it usable. This is especially needed for web mail clients, the Firefox extension that used to allow this on GMail is no longer maintained. I'm not a browser hacker so I'm not sure if it would be easy or hard to get this integrated, but ideally the browser would have built-in support for crypto on designated input fields, i.e., "encrypt this text box" option on right-click. I'm sure it would be hard, but I bet if Mozilla and Google got together and worked out a common interface that allowed Gmail et al to pass information to the browser (like whose keys should be used), this would eventually get implemented and be awesome. As usual, Microsoft is the biggest roadblock with Outlook. Hopefully if your company is using Outlook it can afford a license for PGP, which afaik is the only complete crypto extension for Outlook.
- wattsbaat 15y agoThis why the recent iPhone location data "scare" doesn't make sense to me. The wireless carriers must have MUCH more extensive location data on a much larger user base. I understand the growing concern over privacy issues as more companies begin aggregating user data etc, and I'm glad that people are (hopefully) becoming more aware of this issue, but shouldn't we react a bit more proportionately to corporate violations of user privacy?
- MrVitaliy 15y agoThe iPhone scare was about the availability of data. If someone finds/steals your iPhone they can with little effort recover the GPS data. As oppose to federal bureau or phone company who are, at least theoretically, bound by law.
- iwwr 15y agoWhen they can railroad through just about any piece of law they want (in the interest of 'national security'), they're not exactly bound by law.
- stephen_g 15y ago"If someone finds/steals your iPhone they can with little effort recover the GPS data." Except that it wasn't GPS data - just a list of cell tower and wifi hotspot pings.
- cookiecaper 15y agoAll comes to the same end: random guy, jealous colleague, nosy employer or landlord snatches your phone while you're not looking and it only takes a few minutes to upload a very thorough archive of "places stephen_g's iPhone has been".
- zygen 15y agoThey can get a very rough idea of the places you've been. But if they've stolen your phone, getting access to a list of cell towers you've been near isn't very much of a breach compared to all of your email, bookmarks, facebook, twitter, all of your contacts, etc. The whole thing is a very silly argument and Apple has already addressed it; so lets stop spreading FUD, please.
- jcampbell1 15y agoThis is why you should use Skype. The only phone service not based in the US... oh, wait a second. Seriously, though, I wonder if the FBI can eavesdrop on a Skype call. It seems like it would be damn near impossible because it is peer to peer and encrypted.
- timmyd 15y agoSee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_security http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_security My understanding was that some global intelligence organisations can request decryption and that China is doing this actively [see above link]. I also recall reading some time ago that organisations that work exclusively with skype to provide some add-ons can be given access to decrypt. Further, there was also that techcrunch article - http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/08/skypes-innermost-security-layers-claimed-to-be-reverse-engineered/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/08/skypes-innermost-security-l... - which spoke about this
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- hugh3 15y agoQuestion: if you're embarrassed about the idea of the FBI knowing something about you, then why are you cool with the idea of the phone company knowing it?
- daniel1980fl 15y agowhat you mean by "knowing it"? I am sure your mobile operator does not have a separate human to sit down all day long and go through your data. Just because they store it, doesnt mean they access and digest through it all the time, something I would call "knowing". FBI does to the contrary. the real question is, best put in Kim Jon Schmitt: if there is something you want to hide from FBI or telecom company, maybe you shouldnt be do it at first place? :)
- ceejayoz 15y agoThe phone company doesn't have the ability to bash down my door and point guns in my face, and I can switch providers if I don't like them.
- hugh3 15y agoAre you committing crimes? If so, you can hardly complain about the FBI breaking down your door. If not, then gaining additional evidence doesn't make it more likely that they're going to break down your door.
- ceejayoz 15y ago> Are you committing crimes? No, but neither was this guy: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/04/26/mistaken-fbi-porn-raid-underscores-wi-fi-privacy-risks/ http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/04/26/mistaken-fbi-porn-...
- smokeyj 15y ago> If not, then gaining additional evidence doesn't make it more likely that they're going to break down your door. Unless they tap your lines without a warrant to gain one. I thought we were passed the "if you're not a terrorist you have nothing to hide" mentality.
- daniel1980fl 15y agoif you run the business (any business) and want to rather think about making more money, then users privacy or just simple put "not being evil", then print yourself out this ruling: the highlighted sentence that something is not told to public because if they would know they would have stop utilizing said company services is amazing precedence and can get you out of pretty much any client's lawsuit when they claim you have mislead or did not tell them something!! this country is rolling back into wild wild west.
- pstack 15y agoAre you kidding? While we're a litigation-happy society, we are also entirely content with letting government and business trample all over us without raising an eyebrow, much less a finger. We let companies get away with destroying the economy through sloppy and greedy irresponsible behavior and then we cover their asses by bailing them out. Because the committees that determine their bailing out are filled with former/current executives of the same companies they're bailing out (Goldman Sachs, for example). We let companies stick dangerous and unproven chemicals in our food, soda, animals with little evidence that it's safe beforehand and little oversight afterhand, because the various government agencies (FDA, for example) are staffed primarily with executives of the companies that are trying to ram these things through (aspartame, roundup-ready seeds, rbgh in milk, etc). We have food that is mass produced in conditions that are horrifying to anyone who, even if they love meat like I do, don't like to see living creatures abused and tortured in the process and that are filthy and commonly spread disease (that we see reports of all the time on the news when there are outbreaks and recalls), because the FDA and other agencies are - again - staffed with current/former executives of the biggest food manufacturers and processors in the world. Hell, we even have government officials shutting down public run juvenile rehabilitation centers so that private ones can take their places and then those private companies paying judges directly to incentive's them to send juveniles to jail. I forget where this was (the northeast is what I remember), but a couple years ago it was huge news and it actually happened. The judge in question (and there may have been more than one) received millions of dollars in payola from the private prison industry system that built the juvenile detention centers. As a result, the judge just kept sending kids there. First time offenders. Kids who did very little to deserve it (get in a fight at school, use foul language, skip school) would get about two minutes of face time with the judge before he sentenced them to the facility. And once at the facility, they would keep kids indefinitely, until they said it was time to go. So a two week sentence could turn into a year. (Oh, found the story: http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/02/13/us-crime-usa-judges-idUSTRE51B7B320090213 http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/02/13/us-crime-usa-judge... -- "Two judges pleaded guilty on Thursday to accepting more than $2.6 million from a private youth detention center in Pennsylvania in return for giving hundreds of youths and teenagers long sentences.") So if we know all of these things and we don't care (I'm sipping on a diet coke and eating a processed microwave burrito right now, for example), why should I expect that people are going to give much more concern to their privacy or the liberties of anyone else around them? Unless they think you're taking jesus away from them, cheap gasoline away from them, or their $5 latte away from them, or their favorite television show away from them . . . they don't fucking care. Not only don't they care, but a big percentage will always play the role of apologist. For anything. FBI pouring through your personal information, using your geolocation data. Whatever it is, the complaining voices are always few and the people taking action even fewer.