The tone of this message reminds me of the game Paranoia[0] [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game)
That reminded of a quote:
"Anyone in the United States today, who isn't paranoid, must be crazy"
“Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”
51–60 of 105 posts
Re: “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”
#52It'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.
Re: “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”
#53Earlier 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.
Can also go into recovery and nuke the baseband stack modem.img since wifi only needs the application OS kernel.
Re: “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I've not seen any evidence this is the case without explicit tampering with the phone (i.e. installing spyware which then fakes the 'off' state in software).
It's in the patriot act that the government is allowed to do it, so I'd imagine it is possible.
Re: “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”
#55Well at least they notify first. US police would just start beating you and throwing you into pens, if you are lucky you won't get coated in pepper spray or hit by a sound cannon. Watch the DNC and RNC conventions next year for examples with their multi-million dollar taxpayer funded "security". But I guess this indicates police everywhere can now just record the phone numbers of everyone in the area to mark people f…
Arresting everyone is expensive and requires lots of people on the ground. This is worse because it instantly marks every participant (that brought a cell phone), and there's no telling how those people will be discriminated against in the future. It allows consolidation of power in a smaller minority than physical responses and provides less visceral imagery for the populace to be outraged over.
Re: “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”
#56Earlier 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.
Flight mode does not make you untraceable - it just makes your phone less useful.
If you're doing something illegal, or talking to someone about something illegal, leave your phone at home, and use your $15 dumbphone with an unregistered throwaway sim.
Re: “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”
#57The tone of this message reminds me of the game Paranoia[0] [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game)
What is your level of clearance, citizen?
Re: “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”
#58Earlier 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.
It can be technical in nature, but the society needs to request it from the carriers and also the government to allow them to have such high security in place, and not allow them to wiretap and have access to everything. When the government says "but we need access to everything to catch a criminal". The society must respond "Oh yeah? Well screw you - I think my privacy is more important, and I want better end-to-end…
But "society must respond" is a political solution, not technical.
Re: “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”
#59Well at least they notify first. US police would just start beating you and throwing you into pens, if you are lucky you won't get coated in pepper spray or hit by a sound cannon. Watch the DNC and RNC conventions next year for examples with their multi-million dollar taxpayer funded "security". But I guess this indicates police everywhere can now just record the phone numbers of everyone in the area to mark people f…
I'm sorry, but it's cute when Americans think they have it worse.
It is not that they really think it is worse, it is just easy to get up votes by claiming they are.
Re: “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”
#60This makes me want to get my Mass Disturbance on.