5 ms·

This sounds to me like a single, global, commercial IMSI catcher that can track international movement of cell phones.. I guess the question is how good their

This sounds to me like a single, global, commercial IMSI catcher that can track international movement of cell phones.. I guess the question is how good their triangulation will be, but I imagine the back-end data market for this will be fairly lucrative for them. And they don't really need any countries permission to _listen_ from space... .. .

bagels 4y ago
I find it hard to believe that there aren't already intelligence satellites up there listening to as much RF as possible everywhere all the time.
- MonkeyClub 4y ago
  There are, but I think the idea here is “the more the merrier”.
  - jrexilius 4y ago
    I wouldn't go that far. Rather I'd say that it opens up the risks and abuses to a much wider audience. I think the fact that there is no open source baseband firmware or open hardware for the GSM/LTE stack makes it even worse. There is no escape valve for consumers to exercise control over their privacy, and the technology doesn't care about regulatory boundaries, not that _any_ countries government actually wants that.
    - RF_Savage 4y ago
      Currently Osmocombb can be considered a fully open source and audittable GSM stack, down to the baseband and modem firmware. Too bad it does not fit the phone completely. FreeCalypso does and is audittable, but it's licencing situation is murky at best. It's based on leaked Texas Instruments sources with a gpl licence stuck on top. But Calypso is essentially abandonware and TI got out of the GSM modem biz in early 2000's so they apparently don't care. For LTE there's srsUE from Software Radio Systems, but it's a 100% SDR implementation that does not fot any phone and is more of a lab and research tool. But it is open and audittable.
- mlindner 4y ago
  I mean it's been a common facet of movies from the 80s/90s of satellites intercepting cell phone communications directly.
- Firmwarrior 4y ago
  The cool thing is that now you'll be able to cheaply monetize this information in order to better serve users with great perfectly-tailored advertising It'll be like a cool guy is just following you around 24/7 making sure you know what to buy and do and think
  - dismalpedigree 4y ago
    Barf. This sounds like a version of my own personal Hell.
    - mikehotel 4y ago
      Given the forum, the sarcasm tag is almost certainly implied.
      - Firmwarrior 4y ago
        haha, to be fair, that's exactly the kind of thing a lot of Facebook/Google employees would say unironically in a face to face conversation about ad tracking
  - SyzygistSix 4y ago
    >It'll be like a cool guy is just following you around 24/7 making sure you know what to buy and do and think Can they animate him (or her) so I don't feel lonely too?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- walrus01 4y ago
  There literally are, there's very good declassified evidence that has leaked out periodically in small pieces since the mid 1980s that some of what the NSA has are very large satellites with big unfolding umbrella-like antennas aimed directly down at the ground. For SIGINT collection and analysis. Or possibly some combination overlap between the black budget parts of the NRO and NSA. Same size satellite bus as the largest class of things you would see in geostationary orbit (approx 6500 kg and the size of a school bus) but in high inclination orbits around 600 km.
  - ipdashc 4y ago
    I believe you're referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(satellite) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(satellite) > The satellites have estimated mass close to 5,200 kg and very large (estimated 100 m diameter)[2] radio reflecting dishes. USA-223 (NROL-32), which is seen as the fifth satellite in the series, is according to NRO director Bruce Carlson "the largest satellite in the world".[3] It is believed that this refers to the diameter of the main antenna, which might be well in excess of 100 m (330 ft).[4] I've never bothered following the citations so I don't know how true this is, but it's pretty insane if it's real. A 100-meter-diameter satellite! I know it's an unfolding-umbrella-style mesh like you said, but still, that's impressive.
    - walrus01 4y ago
      The giant unfolding umbrella antenna is not far off from what has been thoroughly commercially publicized for the unclassified commercial first and second gen Thuraya satellites (Boeing 702 bus).
  - billh 4y ago
    Trevor Paglen has a pretty amazing talk that discusses finding and photographing some of these satellites. I've linked the specific part of the talk where he starts getting into this, but the entire thing is well worth a watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvEMSRKniWk&t=1480s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvEMSRKniWk&t=1480s
  - nbar 4y ago
mmaunder 4y ago
That’s old sigint tech at this point.
- RF_Savage 4y ago
  Yep, and the modern day thing seems to be buying or hacking the movememt data directly from the telco. For example if leaks are to be believed NSA has access to around 70% of the movement data of GSM subscribers in Pakistan. That said, there has been a sigint sat parked close below Thurayas sat for ages.
wyager 4y ago
What are the chances of convincing a regulatory body to overturn laws mandating hard-coded hardware identifiers on a privacy basis? Probably not very good

bagels 4y ago

I find it hard to believe that there aren't already intelligence satellites up there listening to as much RF as possible everywhere all the time.

MonkeyClub 4y ago
There are, but I think the idea here is “the more the merrier”.
- jrexilius 4y ago
  I wouldn't go that far. Rather I'd say that it opens up the risks and abuses to a much wider audience. I think the fact that there is no open source baseband firmware or open hardware for the GSM/LTE stack makes it even worse. There is no escape valve for consumers to exercise control over their privacy, and the technology doesn't care about regulatory boundaries, not that _any_ countries government actually wants that.
  - RF_Savage 4y ago
    Currently Osmocombb can be considered a fully open source and audittable GSM stack, down to the baseband and modem firmware. Too bad it does not fit the phone completely. FreeCalypso does and is audittable, but it's licencing situation is murky at best. It's based on leaked Texas Instruments sources with a gpl licence stuck on top. But Calypso is essentially abandonware and TI got out of the GSM modem biz in early 2000's so they apparently don't care. For LTE there's srsUE from Software Radio Systems, but it's a 100% SDR implementation that does not fot any phone and is more of a lab and research tool. But it is open and audittable.
mlindner 4y ago
I mean it's been a common facet of movies from the 80s/90s of satellites intercepting cell phone communications directly.
Firmwarrior 4y ago
The cool thing is that now you'll be able to cheaply monetize this information in order to better serve users with great perfectly-tailored advertising It'll be like a cool guy is just following you around 24/7 making sure you know what to buy and do and think
- dismalpedigree 4y ago
  Barf. This sounds like a version of my own personal Hell.
  - mikehotel 4y ago
    Given the forum, the sarcasm tag is almost certainly implied.
    - Firmwarrior 4y ago
      haha, to be fair, that's exactly the kind of thing a lot of Facebook/Google employees would say unironically in a face to face conversation about ad tracking
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  >It'll be like a cool guy is just following you around 24/7 making sure you know what to buy and do and think Can they animate him (or her) so I don't feel lonely too?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
walrus01 4y ago
There literally are, there's very good declassified evidence that has leaked out periodically in small pieces since the mid 1980s that some of what the NSA has are very large satellites with big unfolding umbrella-like antennas aimed directly down at the ground. For SIGINT collection and analysis. Or possibly some combination overlap between the black budget parts of the NRO and NSA. Same size satellite bus as the largest class of things you would see in geostationary orbit (approx 6500 kg and the size of a school bus) but in high inclination orbits around 600 km.
- ipdashc 4y ago
  I believe you're referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(satellite) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(satellite) > The satellites have estimated mass close to 5,200 kg and very large (estimated 100 m diameter)[2] radio reflecting dishes. USA-223 (NROL-32), which is seen as the fifth satellite in the series, is according to NRO director Bruce Carlson "the largest satellite in the world".[3] It is believed that this refers to the diameter of the main antenna, which might be well in excess of 100 m (330 ft).[4] I've never bothered following the citations so I don't know how true this is, but it's pretty insane if it's real. A 100-meter-diameter satellite! I know it's an unfolding-umbrella-style mesh like you said, but still, that's impressive.
  - walrus01 4y ago
    The giant unfolding umbrella antenna is not far off from what has been thoroughly commercially publicized for the unclassified commercial first and second gen Thuraya satellites (Boeing 702 bus).
- billh 4y ago
  Trevor Paglen has a pretty amazing talk that discusses finding and photographing some of these satellites. I've linked the specific part of the talk where he starts getting into this, but the entire thing is well worth a watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvEMSRKniWk&t=1480s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvEMSRKniWk&t=1480s
- nbar 4y ago

mmaunder 4y ago

That’s old sigint tech at this point.

RF_Savage 4y ago
Yep, and the modern day thing seems to be buying or hacking the movememt data directly from the telco. For example if leaks are to be believed NSA has access to around 70% of the movement data of GSM subscribers in Pakistan. That said, there has been a sigint sat parked close below Thurayas sat for ages.

wyager 4y ago

What are the chances of convincing a regulatory body to overturn laws mandating hard-coded hardware identifiers on a privacy basis? Probably not very good