61–70 of 105 posts
Consequence 1: Protesters believe they are marked for the gulags, and must go "all the way".
Option 2: Don't tell the protesters, but mark them for the gulags. Round them up at night when they are less likely to mount a response.
It's amazing people don't understand this is an elaborate mass prank. Pirate base stations have been present in the area since the disturbances began, already being used for nefarious purposes before (SMS/money transfer fraud and so on). Whoever operates these is a petty criminal, not a nefarious government – if I'd have an opportunity to send thousands of protesters anything I want, I'm sure I'd pull a prank like th…
Base stations aren't cheap. I guess it's possible that some reasonably well-funded and very sophisticated criminals have one lying around, but it really seems like a stretch.
The reddit thread has a lot of good comments actually: http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1vtpa8/dear_subsc...
It's amazing people don't understand this is an elaborate mass prank. Pirate base stations have been present in the area since the disturbances began, already being used for nefarious purposes before (SMS/money transfer fraud and so on). Whoever operates these is a petty criminal, not a nefarious government – if I'd have an opportunity to send thousands of protesters anything I want, I'm sure I'd pull a prank like th…
A healthy sense of skepticism is helpful in cases like this (both ways). Do you have a source to share to show how this specific instance was a prank? I wouldn't put anything past the Ukranian government now, and they could have just as easily sent the message themselves.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. When they use a megaphone they don't know who the people are, as they are telling them to disperse. Now they have exact lists of who participated. Every person's name is in that list. They can target them individually one by one, home by home, if the revolution fails to overthrow the government, now. Also, when you build authoritarian systems, they are going to be used by authoritarians, sooner or later.…
When they use a megaphone they don't know who the people are Of course they do. Communists had been kicking people out of universities, withholding passports from protesters, and organizing mass internments back in the 80s and before. They'd take pictures and ask around the opposition circles. Or arrest a few people and make them give up the rest. Not to mention willing, paid, or coerced informers planted in the invi…
It's amazing people don't understand this is an elaborate mass prank. Pirate base stations have been present in the area since the disturbances began, already being used for nefarious purposes before (SMS/money transfer fraud and so on). Whoever operates these is a petty criminal, not a nefarious government – if I'd have an opportunity to send thousands of protesters anything I want, I'm sure I'd pull a prank like th…
The fatal flaw is that you have to believe they would stop trying to make money in order to partake in a profitless operation that has military attention. Aside from that, sure why not? Prank.
It's amazing people don't understand this is an elaborate mass prank. Pirate base stations have been present in the area since the disturbances began, already being used for nefarious purposes before (SMS/money transfer fraud and so on). Whoever operates these is a petty criminal, not a nefarious government – if I'd have an opportunity to send thousands of protesters anything I want, I'm sure I'd pull a prank like th…
Base stations aren't cheap. I guess it's possible that some reasonably well-funded and very sophisticated criminals have one lying around, but it really seems like a stretch.
The government could as well, of course, but I'm going by an Occam razor here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is only 1 real solution: Put your cell phone in flight mode and use it exclusively as a PDA/music player/etc. Let people contact you on a landline and email - more than enough.
I'm pretty sure this doesn't work. i.e. even in flight mode, the baseband processor is still powered and will passively listen for cell-tower requests, so presumably it can still be told to wake up? I know its true of phones that are "off" without the battery removed - stands to reason it applies in flight mode too.
Since the power button is a 'soft' switch, controlled by the phones operating system, it's possible that a phone can be compromised so that even if it appears to be 'off' it is actually still powered up and listening to the cell network, but this is in no way a 'standard' feature. The same attack vector/vulnerability is present for flight mode, a compromised phone can lie and report that the radio is off when malicious software is using it.
Removing the battery is a mechanism to preclude any possibility of your phone being exploited, and may be appropriate depending on your risk tolerance and/or threat model.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> police everywhere can now just record the phone numbers I remember that the dutch police some years ago already used so called "sms-bombs" to contact mobile phone subscribers that were around a crime scene months before. It is simply inherent in the technology. You wear a mobile phone? (not even smart ) So you are traceable with all consequences. The solution? In any case not technical in nature. We will see.
There is only 1 real solution: Put your cell phone in flight mode and use it exclusively as a PDA/music player/etc. Let people contact you on a landline and email - more than enough.