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Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

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Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#61

Post by nabla9 »

tombrossman wrote: post #46
nabla9 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That WaPo news has been debunked: http://blog.erratasec.com/2013/07/no-nsa-cant-track-phones-e... There is NSA method called 'implant', but it requires installation of software (possibly in the firmware). It's not so easy and it can't be used in large scale.

Reading the blog post, it definitely does not 'debunk' the Washington Post report. All it does is take issue with Snowden's blanket claim that all mobiles are vulnerable (which is a good point and is one I'm inclined to agree with).

Let's not confuse mass surveillance and targeted surveillance of small number of people. They are two different things.

Snowden is right when he says that every phone is vulnerable for targeted surveillance. For people like him, every phone is dangerous even when they are closed.

Mass surveillance is different. NSA can't just pick random person and remotely track their phone when it's turned off.

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#62

Post by knodi123 »

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.

wouldn't that make your phone get hot and then blaze through the battery as it desperately boosts power in order to reach a base station?

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#63

Post by ChuckMcM »

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?

Like anything, it is technically possible to do this. As a defensive mechanism, I think it would make sense to perhaps hang out at city call and collects a bunch of IMSI's worth spoofing, and then rebroadcast those while you were being subject to surveillance, the goal being to force the adversary to follow down a bunch of leads which are bogus.

That said, this is completely illegal (unlike the actual surveillance which has been made legal by a series of unfortunate events). So I would not advise anyone to do this. Not to mention that unless you design your own cellular baseband radio circuit (so that you have access to all the docs) building something like this with "off the shelf" parts is quite expensive.

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#64

Post by dfox »

fweespeech wrote: post #59
thomasahle wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> (1) A person commits an offence if: > he changes a unique device identifier,

Technically, IMSI is not a device identifier. MT has IMEI and SIM (or more precisely ICC) has ICCID (which is normally never transmitted over the network). And the legislation probably specifically targets spoofing the IMEI, as spoofing IMSI does not gain you anything other than absence of service (on normal GSM/3GPP network).

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#65

Post by fweespeech »

dfox wrote: post #64
fweespeech wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (1) A person commits an offence if: > he changes a unique device identifier,

Technically, IMSI is not a device identifier. MT has IMEI and SIM (or more precisely ICC) has ICCID (which is normally never transmitted over the network). And the legislation probably specifically targets spoofing the IMEI, as spoofing IMSI does not gain you anything other than absence of service (on normal GSM/3GPP network).

The fact the Government is using it as an identifier likely means they can argue legally you are attempting to change the identifier.

Technically correct for technical discussions is not the same as contextually correct in a court room.

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#66

Post by [deleted] »

rwmj wrote: post #53
nabla9 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#67

Post by pakled_engineer »

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…

There's apps that can read Qualcomm debugging to detect GSM encryption has changed like SnoopSnitch maybe CM has their own built in version but last I heard their kernel removed many proprietary drivers needed for the Nexus 5 to access Qualcomm DIAG.

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#68

Post by doogle88 »

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…

Sorry if I'm being a bit slow here, but what was happening? Why was your gps showing you in the middle of the police hq?

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#69

Post by vetinari »

fweespeech wrote: post #65
dfox wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, IMSI is not a device identifier. MT has IMEI and SIM (or more precisely ICC) has ICCID (which is normally never transmitted over the network). And the legislation probably specifically targets spoofing the IMEI, as spoofing IMSI does not gain you anything other than absence of service (on normal GSM/3GPP network).

The fact the Government is using it as an identifier likely means they can argue legally you are attempting to change the identifier. Technically correct for technical discussions is not the same as contextually correct in a court room.

IMSI is not a mobile phone identifier, it literally means International Mobile Subscriber Identity and is provisioned in the SIM card.

You will change your IMSI by simply changing the SIM card.

Re: Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London

#70

Post by sosborn »

madaxe_again wrote: post #38
chippy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it illegal to have one and run one in the UK if not licensed?

Well, as they're officially not used at all in the UK, there's been no need to create any legislation around them, so while this could be an offence under the communications act, you could argue (probably unsuccessfully) that you're actually providing a service to customers by taking their data to protect them from themselves, as they may be terrorists and not yet know it.

I am sure that is how the courts will look at it :)
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