Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

news.vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 104 posts

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#51

Post by scottishfiction »

ter0 wrote: post #12
scott77 wrote: post #8

Interestingly enough, during last trip to London, my phone (Nexus 5 running Cyanogenmod 12.1) was able to somehow detect something fishy and warned me several times "Network may be monitored by an unknown 3rd party". Among others, I've seen this warning two times out of two when passing by Cheapside/St Martin's corner - next to the St Paul's Cathedral. At the time I just dismissed this as some tinfoil hat developer a…

Could this be caused by the phone surveillance that's set up in One New Change? There are (small) notices at the entrances to One New Change that inform you of phone tracking equipment there.

If they're informing you of it, I'd assume it's more likely to be passive WiFi tracking. Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8752580

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#52

Post by vidarh »

arca_vorago wrote: post #43

I stayed in The City during the holidays and at one point walked close by the Police hq. After continuing on I enabled gps for a moment and even though I was half a mile a way my gps was showing me smack dab in the center of the police hq for about 15 minutes... I realized then what was happening and that I should have known better, but I had forgotten to ask a friend to take his faraday cage laptop bag and phone bag…

City is "special". While there are reasons to be concerned about surveillance elsewhere in the UK too, City has its own police force, and surveillance levels that makes even the rest of London seem like total anarchy.

In the rest of London there are certainly other buildings that are covered by extensive government surveillance, but most of the surveillance in London - and the rest of the UK - is privately owned, and rarely more than passively recording. The level of street level monitoring in the UK is often vastly exaggerated - police often can't be bothered even trying to check CCTV because getting hold of footage is a lot of effort and rarely is of much help.

GCHQ surveillance of networks is another matter.

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#53

Post by rwmj »

nabla9 wrote: post #36
simonvc wrote: post #4

Richard from Privacy International pointed me at these: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00RRL4XLW It's a faraday cage for you phone. Pop it in and you disappear instantly.

Government officials have data mining algorithms that detect patterns in cellphone disappearances. Big city with millions of people. Two or more cellphones disappear when they approach the same part of the city. When this happens few times, you might get flagged.

Good luck separating the signal from the noise of people disappearing into the Tube / buildings / running out of battery.

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#54

Post by jarmitage »

madaxe_again wrote: post #9

Watched the documentary last night. Given that these things are cheap, would any fellow Brits be interested in clubbing together and acquiring one and installing it in or around parliament? I'm sure there would be plenty of buyers for the call records of MPS.

Serious?

SWIM is interested

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#55

Post by Spooky23 »

raverbashing wrote: post #10
alex_duf wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't feel safe until the battery is removed (which unfortunately isn't possible on most phones anymore) The baseband still has access to your battery when your phone is off.

> The baseband still has access to your battery when your phone is off. Citation needed? Because the definition of off, for most phones, is exactly that.

This capability has been known for many years. From 2006:

>"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.

Source: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/12/can_you_hear_me....

I believe (but cannot cite) that this capability became mainstream when E911 & GPS was mandated.

This stuff is a big reason why BlackBerry was so critical to regulated industries and public company execs. PIN messaging on legacy BlackBerry was secure between devices on the same BES, and there wasn't a direct linkage to the user's identity, which made it easy to lower the value of metadata collection.

The fact that BlackBerry designed around this early on leads me to suspect (as an outside observer with an imagination) that mass metadata collection was known by folks in industry back in the 90s.

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#56

Post by thomasahle »

desdiv wrote: post #35
jritchie wrote: post #16

Do IMSI catchers have any way of verifying the intercepted IMSIs are legitimate? If not, would it be possible to build a device to flood them with fake/spoofed IMSIs?

>If not, would it be possible to build a device to flood them with fake/spoofed IMSIs? Technical ability wise, yes. Legally, no. The Mobile Telephones (Re-Programming) Act 2002 [0] makes spoofing IMSI, even that of your own, illegal in the UK. [0] https://www.staffordshire.police.uk/info_advice/crime_preven... Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

I fail to see how re-programming is related to spoofing?

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#57

Post by psykovsky »

desdiv wrote: post #35
jritchie wrote: post #16

Do IMSI catchers have any way of verifying the intercepted IMSIs are legitimate? If not, would it be possible to build a device to flood them with fake/spoofed IMSIs?

>If not, would it be possible to build a device to flood them with fake/spoofed IMSIs? Technical ability wise, yes. Legally, no. The Mobile Telephones (Re-Programming) Act 2002 [0] makes spoofing IMSI, even that of your own, illegal in the UK. [0] https://www.staffordshire.police.uk/info_advice/crime_preven... Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

and the guys with the IMSI catchers, would complain about the fake IMSI's, right?... RIGHT?...

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#58

Post by kzrdude »

Thlom wrote: post #17

Same thing found in Oslo about a year ago. Police Security Service denied they existed though. If I remember correctly these were mostly located around parliament and other government institutions as well as in the embassy area. Report in english: http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/New-report-Clear-sig...

Hopefully there will be some action on this in Norway. Unless they want to ignore unconstitutional police and agency activity, just like in .. so many other major countries.

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#59

Post by fweespeech »

thomasahle wrote: post #56
desdiv wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If not, would it be possible to build a device to flood them with fake/spoofed IMSIs? Technical ability wise, yes. Legally, no. The Mobile Telephones (Re-Programming) Act 2002 [0] makes spoofing IMSI, even that of your own, illegal in the UK. [0] https://www.staffordshire.police.uk/info_advice/crime_preven... Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

I fail to see how re-programming is related to spoofing?

> (1) A person commits an offence if:

> he changes a unique device identifier,

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#60

Post by JustSomeNobody »

scott77 wrote: post #8

Interestingly enough, during last trip to London, my phone (Nexus 5 running Cyanogenmod 12.1) was able to somehow detect something fishy and warned me several times "Network may be monitored by an unknown 3rd party". Among others, I've seen this warning two times out of two when passing by Cheapside/St Martin's corner - next to the St Paul's Cathedral. At the time I just dismissed this as some tinfoil hat developer a…

Own signed certs do this.
Post reply on HN