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The SINGLE Most Important Step to Protect Yourself from Government Spying
Given that the NSA is tapping into your phone calls and spying on your Internet activities, you might have switched to a search engine which is more privacy-conscious.
You might have started using encrypted communications. After all, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the leading electronic privacy group – the Electronic Frontier Foundation – say that encryption helps to protect privacy. On the other hand, Tech Dirt points out that the NSA might consider you suspicious if you encrypt information, and so hold onto your data until they can decrypt it.
The above are all issues about which you are at least somewhat aware.
But there is a giant type of snooping which you probably don’t even know about. Specifically, ABC News reported in 2006:
Cell phone users, beware. The FBI can listen to everything you say, even when the cell phone is turned off. A recent court ruling in a case against the Genovese crime family revealed that the FBI has the ability from a remote location to activate a cell phone and turn its microphone into a listening device that transmits to an FBI listening post, a method known as a “roving bug.”
Experts say the only way to defeat it is to remove the cell phone battery.
“The FBI can access cell phones and modify them remotely without ever having to physically handle them,” James Atkinson, a counterintelligence security consultant, told ABC News. “Any recently manufactured cell phone has a built-in tracking device, which can allow eavesdroppers to pinpoint someone’s location to within just a few feet,” he added.
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According to the recent court ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan, “The device functioned whether the phone was powered on or off, intercepting conversations within its range wherever it happened to be.”
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“The courts have given law enforcement a blank check for surveillance,” Richard Rehbock, attorney for defendant John Ardito, told ABC News.
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“Big Brother is upon us…1984 happened a long time ago,” he said, referring to the George Orwell futuristic novel “1984,” which described a society whose members were closely watched by those in power and was published in 1949.
Fox News covered the story as well:
CNET noted the same year:
The U.S. Commerce Department’s security office warns that “a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone.” An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can “remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner’s knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call.”
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Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone–all without the owner knowing it happened.
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A BBC article from 2004 reported that intelligence agencies routinely employ the remote-activiation method. “A mobile sitting on the desk of a politician or businessman can act as a powerful, undetectable bug,” the article said, “enabling them to be activated at a later date to pick up sounds even when the receiver is down.”
Given that the American and British intelligence agencies are trying tap every single communication, some rogue agency or contractor might be tapping your phone … even when it’s off.
Indeed, even private hackers might be listening in. Specifically, private parties without security clearance may be activating your microphone or camera without your knowledge.
Indeed, commercially-available, off-the-shelf software allows people to spy on you:
Your iPhone, or other brand of smartphone is spying on virtually everything you do (ProPublica notes: “That’s No Phone. That’s My Tracker“) … and sending the information to private companies.
And CNET pointed out 7 years ago:
Malicious hackers have followed suit. A report last year said Spanish authorities had detained a man who write a Trojan horse that secretly activated a computer’s video camera and forwarded him the recordings.
So the single most important step to protect yourself from government – or private – spying is to remember that your conservations might not be private when your cellphone is nearby … even if it is turned off.
Note: If you have a microphone in your car, that might also open you up to snoopers. As CNET points out:
Surreptitious activation of built-in microphones by the FBI has been done before. A 2003 lawsuit revealed that the FBI was able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors’ OnStar to snoop on passengers’ conversations.
When FBI agents remotely activated the system and were listening in, passengers in the vehicle could not tell that their conversations were being monitored.
And Fox news notes that the government is insisting that “black boxes” be installed in cars to track your location.
And see this.
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Wife and cell phone, or wife and microwave?
LOL...That's what makes ZH so great: Informative and Funny!
"Small steel cage will not pass electromagnetic waves."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage
Keeping you cell phone in a metallic fiber case when you aren't using it would help. Something like the pouches that protect RFID chip passports: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Travelon-RFID-Blocking-Deluxe-Boarding-Pouch-Black-/360668760226?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item53f98888a2
All passports since 2006 have RFID chips in them, so they can track those everywhere now. If you don't care for this feature, a few seconds in a microwave oven or a careful blow with a hammer can decommission that capability.
No shit on the battery, it is well known that the only hard off on a newer phone is to completely remove the battery. Forget about pinging a phone, modulation is another issue also and not only with phones but with laptops and other devices. Malware is going to be the great equalizer when it comes tracking phones from both sides of the proverbial fence. That shit swings in both directions only depends on who wrote and controls the malware.
U have to pay blankfien
Very, very old news and why cell phones are not allowed in SCIFs.
And on a more current note, the remote activation of computer video cameras and mics:
Meet the men who spy on women through their webcams
The Remote Administration Tool is the revolver of the Internet's Wild West
10 Mar 13
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/rat-breeders-meet-the-men-who-spy-on-women-through-their-webcams/
These asshat hackers should love the new XBox One with its always on Internet connected HD camera and mic. I'm sure the NSA, FBI, etc. will, too.
The camera is taken care of by a 1 inch piece of electrical tape. Works pretty good with mics as well.
"The camera is taken care of by a 1 inch piece of electrical tape"
Most people won't know that and the whole point of keeping the camera and mic active is to allow the system to react to gestures and commands that make it an intelligent gaming and entertainment system that doesn't require a remote. That utility is somewhat defeated by having to walk over and remove the tape.
Also, any claims of system security are usually untrustworthy as the RATs described in the link I posted often use zero day exploits and as revealed in other recent articles, there are commercial firms which find and sell zero day exploits to governments and anyone else who can afford to pay for them.
"...the whole point of keeping the camera and mic active is to allow the system to react to gestures and commands that make it an intelligent gaming and entertainment system that doesn't require a remote."
I guess I'm a bit more interested in liberty than "an intelligent gaming and entertainment system that doesn't require a remote."
a few years back, all web cams came with an apature or alide that physically closed... oddly, that feature has all but dissappeared.
Lack of demand and manufacturing cost issues of course.............
So how can I get in on this? Who do I pay to listen in on what Blankfein et al are talking about in meetings? The govenrment certainly knows and condones it- otherwise there would be prosecutions.
anyone else realizing that any actual terrorists probably just write letters and drop them in the mail and bypass all this high tech snooping?
All they have to do is make it look like a FHA refi offer and no one will look at it
Except the front and back of every letter is photographed and stored also. It's been going on for years.
point being? you can crypto anything inside the letter and they dont have any record of it.. let me know when they open each letter up, OCR it and crypto anaylze it like the NSA is doing with electronic communications
and we all know you can fudge where you are sending from and where and who is picking it up
you can send it from santa claus north pole to disneyland pluto as long as you have someone working a mailroom somewhere..
etc etc
At least twice, at origin sorting, and at destination sorting.
need to start saving those credit card etc envelopes
I don't carry a phone anymore. I'm not kidding about this. Might as well call them spy phones.
maybe the NSA will start to subsidize the Iphone...with a four year contract, camera & microphone included
They're called Obamaphones. Livestock owners used to use cowbells to keep track of their herd. It's more automated now thanks to modern technology.
Banzai, I wouldn't worry about it. All this talk about removing batteries, etc is a distraction. Any phone service you use (AT&T, Verizon, whatever) are nothing more than facilities to enable your communication and RECORD everything for later parsing by paranoid spy computers (it's for the children, of course).
Removing a phone battery/SIM chip is kinda useless if you put both those back in the phone, call somebody up, and start talking over the network again. Think of it this way... if the "spies" really want to go through the motions to turn on your phones microphone to record the "action" as it happens, that's a shitload of work they gotta do. Much easier for them to just pull the records (including voice records) from Verizon at their convenience. I believe Ed Snowden just fucked his own company and they never thought to turn on his cell microphone.
.gov is incredibly stupid and bloated with ass kissers, cowards, and people with no regard for their fellow humans that think nothing of throwing an innocent person to the wolves to advance their "careers" in "terrorism". They want Leviathan to take care of them, and they will sell there bloody souls for earthly comforts... or at least until I get my hands on the miserable, traiterous fuckers!
Sorry, my HATRED for .gov spies and other pukes is showing. I should call a crisis line on my cell phone to discuss my issues with a strangler. /sarc
What's a phone? I carry my end of the can phone:
http://projecttgm.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/can-phones.jpg
So far it's been pretty safe unless Campbell's has installed some secret device in the lining (other then the toxic BPA's)
Gotta be kinda tuff to dish out the line doing 75mph down the highway and texting @ the same time...wait, yur phone does have text right?
I don't have a cell phone either, although it doesn't have much to do with snooping. I just never used it enough to justify the cost. The other thing is that I know the claims of cellphone safety are bogus and I always worried what was happening in my brain. I looked into the empirical evidence, and all the studies make the assumption that the only effect from microwave radiation is heating effects. Other have pointed out that there are likely mechanisms of action beyond heat alone, and in any event, it's difficult to explain the fairly dramatic increase in brain cancers following the introduction of cellphones.
If folks do use cellphones, use a headset and don't put it in your pants pocket when on or off. Oh, and all that stuff GW said.
adding myself to the "never owned a cell phone, never will" club - having a device that allows others to bzzzzz me whenever an idea pops into their head? why on earth.
every so often I take a break from the computer too, just to re-fresh the brain with some real s p a c e from running the information through it, in case an idea wants to surface amongst all the noise, heh.
though I must say, lately I'm being less and less drawn to info-gathering via 'net - what more is there to *know* about this surreal farce we see playing out? I'd rather be out on the land. . .
I seem to be leaning the same way myself. I often think of a book written by Chet Bowers called "Let Them Eat Data" where he completely destroys all the current myths about the "information society." He makes a number of arguments, but the one that has stuck with me is the difference between information, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. He provides many examples arguing there is certainly a lot of information on the net, but as for knowledge, understanding, and especially wisdom, not so much.
I agree with you. It's very very sad to contemplate but I believe there will be a massive wave of brain cancer in young people who grew up using cellphones constantly from a very early age. Logic alone should tell you that holding a microwave transmitting device right up to your ear channel which provides a clear path to the soft tissue of the brain has to be dangerous.
But this is one of those issues where there is such a monumentally vast amount of money being made that the issue will not be brought to public awareness until long after the damage is done.
Nonsense.
I have kept my cellphone in my pocket for years and all three testicles are fine.
It is sad because it's the same pattern being repeated over and over again with every new technology. As you said, the evidence comes out after the damage is done - even though early evidence suggested exactly this outcome, but was ignored albeit for a number of reasons, some good, some not so good.
I researched this a while back and don't have the original links handy, but a quick search yielded: "WHO: Cell phone use can increase possible cancer risk," from two years ago.
"Radiation from cell phones can possibly cause cancer, according to the World Health Organization. The agency now lists mobile phone use in the same "carcinogenic hazard" category as lead, engine exhaust and chloroform."
I'm guessing they don't notify the customers at the Verizon and AT&T and Apple stores about this, eh?
Never have, never needed one. One thing I welcome about this WHOLE mess is how wonderfully public it is.
I for one rejoice at the demise of the 'cell phone'. Never has such an annoying toy been so ubiquitous, and so obviously PUSHED by slimy gov and corporates. The fact that it's awakened huge herds of sheep to the fact that those same slimy gov and corporates WILL take advantage of the toys they sell you, is only the icing on the cake.
Who knew that the very same nuisance I have cursed so often, would turn out to be an alarm that spooked so many out of their cud and slumber! This is almost - almost - worth the years of annoyance hearing teenagers and inane adults rabbit on at the top of their lungs about their boring lives in the seats all around me, in an otherwise quiet (transport/restaurant/park/theatre).
Technically speaking it is even easier to tap into desktop, laptop, notepad, ipad computer microphones and cameras than to do it with phones. So, I invite you to guess whether that is being done or not... LOL
I used to work in an F500 high tech company. We used to joke, more than 15 years ago that there was absolutely NO PRIVACY whatsoever, only an illusion of it. Imagine, if we said that 15 years ago, with memory and hard disk space 1 million times cheaper now a days, what privacy you have today!!! LOL :)
Until next time,
Engineer
But not if you keep your desktop or laptop properly firewalled and secured. Unfortunately, with a cell phone I don't believe there is any way for the user to do this.
Yessir (ma'am?), you're correct about that. It's this public impact that surprises me. People have known that for years about PCs and yet, no-one has cared. Strange, isn't it. It's been known for years that (internet-connected) computers are not secure for storing private information, but let it be known that cells are also spyware? Suddenly Barky's polls are falling, fear of spying is all over the internet, the whole herd gets spooked and suddenly I'm no longer a tinhat-wearing crazy.
Go figure.
like "barky". the next three will go harder than the last five. he'll be all cotton on the top if he's still above ground.
"We used to joke, more than 15 years ago that there was absolutely NO PRIVACY whatsoever"
Definitely.
mine is 5 years gone
i buy a new 20 dollar disposable one for road trips in case i need to call triple A
when the initial free minutes are gone, so is the phone
No problem, I'll just take my battery out.
...Oh wait... fucking iPhone...
Use the cone of silence
Burner phones are probably red flagged from the mfg. by .gov.
That's what I'd do.
LOL. No doubt true in the US, but I'm not so sure about HK.
Either way, I foresee a large potential market for NSA-proof hardware/firmware/software going forward, especially outside the US.
10 dollar pouch
100 dollar bag
They already told us about this in Batman, stop wasting our time with old, repetitive news.
/sarc