Just wait until people realize it can track human bodies too.
New 5G flaws can track phone locations and spoof emergency alerts
21–27 of 27 posts
Re: New 5G flaws can track phone locations and spoof emergency alerts
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
US, Europe and almost any country have police using fake cell-site, some also have mass surveillance program. Why blame only the Chinese when "3-letter agency" might be as happy to have possibility to snoop on 5G traffic?
Since it's Chinese vendors such as Huawei pushing their implementation. Supposedly it's resistant to such interference, now it turns out it's not. Surprise surprise.
They are protocol vulnerabilities, not implementation vulnerabilities.
I also tend to think the evidence suggests being wary of nation-state intelligence influence on networking systems - the only ones who haven't done it are the ones who lack the capabilities.
Cisco's apparent inability to stop its code base from constantly regrowing backdoors will compromise you just as quickly as whatever Huawei may be up to.
Re: New 5G flaws can track phone locations and spoof emergency alerts
#23Spoofed phone alerts are the new leaflet propaganda. They will be used to generate a significant amount of confusion and some terror abroad by whoever just decides to do it first: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_leaflet_propaganda
The same vulnerability has existed a long time in the possibility of broadcasting over FM/AM stations too.
Re: New 5G flaws can track phone locations and spoof emergency alerts
#24Was there a need for 5G? Or is this akin to the ever-increasing TV sizes?
Re: New 5G flaws can track phone locations and spoof emergency alerts
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Anyone doing this would of course risk jail time I think the folks who would be most likely to be be using these exploits are the last people who would ever face fail time for it: folks working for some three letter agency. They're not going to go to jail for their government-sanctioned abuse of these flaws.
Maybe I expressed myself poorly but I think you missed my point. My point was that the only way to force people to fix the issues is if ordinary hackers who are not working for any three latter agency start attacking the infrastructure too. And if you do that you risk prison time, even if you only do harmless exploits to highlight weaknesses.
As an individualist nation, there's little likelihood anyone will throw themselves away for the collective. Doubly so because the collective is super fucking thankless and turns everything it gets into garbage.
I've really been debating the idea if there's any point of trying to help at all at this point, and my current conclusion is: we're already wayyyy down the dystopia line. The only hope at this point is AI which will either save us or (hopefully) bring the great filter sooner (which means less suffering). But I no longer believe in protest.
Re: New 5G flaws can track phone locations and spoof emergency alerts
#26Was there a need for 5G? Or is this akin to the ever-increasing TV sizes?
The "need" for 5G was so the govt-backdoored telecom companies can put wireless transmitters in every single neighborhood, to achieve more granular control in mass surveillance for profit and for targeted harassment. The FCC-sponsored transmitters are interacting with every "smart" device they can reach and reporting everything back to HQ. They're probably busy brute-forcing everyone's wifi passwords while they're at it, because why wouldn't they? But maybe that's just crazy. Maybe in reality they're just the good guys who care about streamlining our movie watching experiences.
Re: New 5G flaws can track phone locations and spoof emergency alerts
#27Just wait until people realize it can track human bodies too.
Are you referring to the MIT studies using wifi signals to track people through walls? https://people.csail.mit.edu/fadel/wivi/
I'm pretty sure I first read about that on HN, and was immediately reminded of the govt plan to cover the country in wireless transmitters.