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Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments

citylab.com

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Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments

#61

Post by wwweston »

nojvek wrote: post #50
sreenadh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However, Texans do have a tendency to blindly support anything the Military and Police want to do, while at the same time complaining about big government. I did observe that. Why is that so? Historically was the police or sheriffs independent from the government?

I never understand why America spends an obscene amount of money to make technology to kill other people. Education is suffering, public transportation and healthcare is ridiculously behind western nations but military still gets an insane budget. I would like Google and Apple to really up their game on security.

It might be part and parcel with the American Dream. Believing that society is a meritocracy -- that your success or failure is primarily a function of the effort you put in (plus whatever sui generis "merit" you personally have) is another version of a just world. And if you have a just world, well, surely if you've commanded the attention of the police or ire of the military, you've done something to deserve it, right?

Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments

#62

Post by sdoering »

visarga wrote: post #52
nojvek wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understand why America spends an obscene amount of money to make technology to kill other people. Education is suffering, public transportation and healthcare is ridiculously behind western nations but military still gets an insane budget. I would like Google and Apple to really up their game on security.

It's a consequence of the puritanical roots of US. It's a fetish for punishment.

This does seem to me to be a little bit of a to easy explanation. Is it really so that this can be tied back to the founding roots of the country, when the setup of the population nowadays can be tied back to so many different influences from different parts of the world?

I never understood the "fetish" of Hollywood for the lone ranger and bullet slinging revenge guy. Or the idea that guns are a valid protection.

Non the less - there are other parts of the world that maybe have the same (or even higher) amounts of guns in private possession without the military and police fetish.

I am even not sure, that this is a valid correlation. Private gun ownership and police/military spending/fetish.

Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments

#63

Post by wwweston »

upofadown wrote: post #38
Retric wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are options between stop it and do nothing. I would assume cellphone companies can easily give access to any conversation from their internal network so that's probably a more cost effective solution at all levels. The question becomes, why do police feel the need for other tools?

Casual ad hoc surveillance can be very useful for law enforcement. It can save a tremendous amount of time and money keeping track of where people are and where they are planning to be. The fact that the information gained is not admissible in court is not important. From the article: >“You guys picking up any information? Where they're going, possibly?" Law enforcement has become somewhat dependent on this sort of a…

"Effectively."

"Why are you looking for the lost keys by the lamppost when they were lost on the other side of the street?"

"Well, it's dark over there, and the lamppost is where the light is."

Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments

#64

Post by qznc »

dredmorbius wrote: post #30
M_Grey wrote: post #11

Huh. Is there a good, open, secure encryption messaging system you can get on Android?

Android is your first problem there. I'm inclined to say there's no reliably secure mobile platform, though idlewords (Maciej Ceglowski) and tptacek (Thomas Ptacek) are presently recommending iPhone or iPad. (I'm writing this on an Android device I fear, dread, and detest.)

I believe Android is ok, IF you flash LineageOS (previously CyanogenMod) on it or buy a new phone every two years. The biggest problem with Android is that they stop giving you updates after two years and are too slow within those two years.

Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments

#65

Post by dogma1138 »

nojvek wrote: post #50
sreenadh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However, Texans do have a tendency to blindly support anything the Military and Police want to do, while at the same time complaining about big government. I did observe that. Why is that so? Historically was the police or sheriffs independent from the government?

I never understand why America spends an obscene amount of money to make technology to kill other people. Education is suffering, public transportation and healthcare is ridiculously behind western nations but military still gets an insane budget. I would like Google and Apple to really up their game on security.

Check the list of largest arm exporters and manufacturers the enlightened EU says hi.

Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments

#66

Post by justinjlynn »

justinjlynn wrote: post #8
lend000 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It should be noted that, while cell phones do use encryption for content, the encryption can be turned off easily by a cell-site simulator itself, and there’s no notification that encryption is no longer operating." The incompetence of telecom companies / chipmakers knows no bounds. Of course, it could be by design.

It is absolutely by design. The GSM standard recommends that, if encryption is disabled, the user be notified. This feature is called the "chiphering indicator". However, practically none of the available handsets do so.

oops, "ciphering" ... also, even if the handset supports ciphering indication the SIM can disable it. Oh, and you're not permitted to reconfigure that part of the SIM either.

Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments

#67

Post by tr1ck5t3r »

wwweston wrote: post #61
nojvek wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understand why America spends an obscene amount of money to make technology to kill other people. Education is suffering, public transportation and healthcare is ridiculously behind western nations but military still gets an insane budget. I would like Google and Apple to really up their game on security.

It might be part and parcel with the American Dream. Believing that society is a meritocracy -- that your success or failure is primarily a function of the effort you put in (plus whatever sui generis "merit" you personally have) is another version of a just world. And if you have a just world, well, surely if you've commanded the attention of the police or ire of the military, you've done something to deserve it, ri…

You forget the espionage aspect or extortion aspects. All technology is dual use. You can make your own fake cell towers for under £100 with a raspberrypi and a USB Software Defined Radio (SDR) adaptor that's got a range of 40metres. However its not just fake cell towers you can make, you can listen into calls made with wireless handsets that plug into landlines, obviously crack wifi, but you can also intercept and mess around with peoples air conditioning, lighting systems and central heating if these use radio frequency.

The infrared remote controls need line of sight to interfere with devices, so someone appearing at your lounge window to switch TV channels is a bit obvious.

Some instructions you may be interested in.

This link even played Stevie Wonder's "I just called" to hacked mobiles, but you can download everyones messages, and other files from their smart phones now a days or infect their smart phone, again dual use! https://julianoliver.com/output/stealth-cell-tower

http://hackaday.com/2013/10/22/cracking-gsm-with-rtl-sdr-for...

Even back in 2008 its been going on, well actually I was first alerted to it in the 90's, when mobiles were just coming into existence, that person who alerted me is now the highest risk Cat A prison in the UK. http://hackaday.com/2008/02/15/shmoocon-2008-intercepting-gs...

Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments

#68

Post by tr1ck5t3r »

jjawssd wrote: post #19
sh-run wrote: post #9

I've lived in Fort Worth, TX for about a year. I was already aware of the existence of these devices. I had no clue that my local PD was spending such an insane amount of money on surveillance. It's also worth mentioning that our population is only 792K. I've lived in Texas most of life and in general I think the people here are great. However, Texans do have a tendency to blindly support anything the Military and Po…

Are we powerless to stop it? Should we bother?

Just use a landline phone with a cable although you call will still be listened into like mine currently are, but anything using radio frequency can be hacked easily, which also means vpn's in the online sense.

There is an illusion of security which naive pen testers like to sell.

Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments

#69

Post by ciaranm »

sdoering wrote: post #62
visarga wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a consequence of the puritanical roots of US. It's a fetish for punishment.

This does seem to me to be a little bit of a to easy explanation. Is it really so that this can be tied back to the founding roots of the country, when the setup of the population nowadays can be tied back to so many different influences from different parts of the world? I never understood the "fetish" of Hollywood for the lone ranger and bullet slinging revenge guy. Or the idea that guns are a valid protection. Non…

From an outsider's perspective, nowhere comes close to the US for gun (and by extension, miltary/police) fetish.

Wikipedia seems to back up my first thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c...

Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments

#70

Post by pjc50 »

sreenadh wrote: post #48
sh-run wrote: post #9

I've lived in Fort Worth, TX for about a year. I was already aware of the existence of these devices. I had no clue that my local PD was spending such an insane amount of money on surveillance. It's also worth mentioning that our population is only 792K. I've lived in Texas most of life and in general I think the people here are great. However, Texans do have a tendency to blindly support anything the Military and Po…

>However, Texans do have a tendency to blindly support anything the Military and Police want to do, while at the same time complaining about big government. I did observe that. Why is that so? Historically was the police or sheriffs independent from the government?

It's strange, isn't it?

I wouldn't discount the possibility of people simply failing to think it through and tribally repeating statements ("get your government hands off my medicare"). But historically there's been a faction that very preferred local law enforcement to Federal law enforcement, because of a particular set of interventions made about 50 years ago by the Feds in response to popular protests in the South.

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