Tracking Via Anonymous SIM Cards 426
Noryungi writes "The New York Times reports that Al Qaeda operatives were tracked using the ID of the GSM phone chips sold by a Swiss company named Swisscom. Very interesting."
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Tracking Via Anonymous SIM Cards
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Look at how fast they adapted (Score:-1, Insightful)
The lame excuse we are given is that we need to track cell phones for 911 purposes, but that needn't be mandated by the government. If you want a cell phone that can give your location to authorities, buy one with a built-in GPS receiver that transmits your location. There was never any legitimate need to upgrade the infrastructure to allow for tracking any cell user at will.
It's no different than what happened after TWA 800 was shot down by the Navy. They screamed "Terrorist! Terrorist!" and so they placed all these onerous security restrictions on the public (having to show your papers when travelling, for instance.) But once they agree on a cover story implicating the center fuel tank exploding (something that had never happened before and has never happened since), do they restore our privacy and our liberty?
Not on your life.
I don't get it.... (Score:5, Insightful)
There go your rights.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The terrorism investigation code-named Mont Blanc began almost by accident in April 2002, when authorities intercepted a cellphone call that lasted less than a minute and involved not a single word of conversation. Investigators, suspicious that the call was a signal between terrorists [...]
Read that again: investigators became suspicious after listening to the call. They basically admit to what people have suspected for years: that intelligence agencies cast a broad net to monitor all sorts of communications traffic with little regard to the law or your privacy.
Naturally, playing the Fear Card will let them justify their actions. "Fear" is government's best excuse for carte blanche destruction of your freedoms.
Routine Cellphone Monitoring (Score:2, Insightful)
I think what I find particularily frightening about that sentence from the article is the implication that this was initiated by what appears to be routine cellphone monitoring.
Is this kind of thing routine?
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Routine Cellphone Monitoring (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There go your rights.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It does say that the investigators became suspicious after listening to the call. It doesn't say why they were listening in the first place. They might have been investigating the guy for drug deals, heard the suspicious call, looked a little closer, and uncovered links to terrorism. The only evidence against that is the phrase "Investigators, suspicious that the call was a signal between terrorists", which implies that the suspicion caused the investigation. That could easily be written off as creativity on the part of the journalist.
Incredible claims require unquestionable proof, I think. Yes, there is clearly reason to be suspicious of how the government conducts these taps, but I disagree that you've found a clear admission of indiscriminate eavesdropping.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as I was aware, that infrastructure was in place from the very beginning.
In order for a cellphone company to properly give you service, they have to arrange for a series of cell towers over a wide range of space. These towers provide your signal. For uninterrupted service, the service-areas of each tower must overlap to a degree.
In order to bill you properly when you are roaming, the towers must be able to check your location against your home calling areas (for people with plans where this still exists). Which tower you're using at any given time is a matter of record.
If the argument is that they don't have your location down to a 10-meter square block, you might wanna guess again; by watching the way that your phone moves through the spheres of influence each tower generates it becomes mathematically trivial to triangulate your position with a precision that GPS would find envious.
If you're drudging out the `Navy shot down TWA 800` theory I'm tempted to classify you as a troll. Please don't bother frightening Slashdot with your Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt lines about the lack of privacy we now have post 9/11 -- you never had it to begin with.
Re:Routine Cellphone Monitoring (Score:5, Insightful)
What is that saying exactly? (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats all well and good, but calling it "one of the most successful investigations since Sept. 11, 2001" really cheapens what they have accomplished here, since the investigative bar was lowered so far pre-9/11.
So they are greatly sucessfull in relation to one of the most incredibly flawed and costly intelligence failures in recent times? Thats not saying too much IMHO
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:2, Insightful)
the only choice we have is whether the elite is right wing or left wing.
It is the inevitable consequence of power (power acretes power).
I could go on. But I won't.
get ready (Score:5, Insightful)
So now that technology has been shown succesfull in stopping "terrorists", and those "terrorists" have moved to email/VoIP, get ready for another push in legislature to regulate those mediums more tightly. It doesn't matter that the corporation put those chips in their products by their own will. Traditional phone companies will see a spot to shove their foot in the door and lobby their representatives to regulate the up and comming internet telephony industry in order to stiffle the competition. So there is "antiterrorism" working and corporate money working in the minds of the government. What else is new...
privacy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Al Qaedia and its operatives have been identified as enemy combatants. Effectively, there's already an international 'warrant for their arrest'.
This technology, if had to be used in the US, would require a judge to approve a warrant for this type of information gathering. There'd have to be specific evidence that the individual was commiting a crime or likely to. Al Qaedia already falls under this category, IMHO.
Even further, this was a COMBAT action. In other conflicts, (see: wars) this is the same as using radar to identify enemy positions based on the metal used in their vehicles, etc.
And EVEN FURTHER, knowing where you are is essential in a cellular phone network. To forward the voice packets, the phones have to know the signal strength from your phone to the nearest towers. it figures your motion and signal degradation to determine the most likely cells to send your data to. knowing your approximate location is just a function of cellular technology.
law & border (Score:5, Insightful)
i'd like to think i'm a decent pro-privacy civil libertarian, but i also admit getting a kick out of the law and order episodes when they so often trace someone's movements thanks to bridge tolls or telephone calls or ATM cameras or whatever. cool, hey presto and the bad guy is tagged. here, it's those bin laden cretins, no tears shed; and so it happens in real life). (the israelis once assassinated a man by detonating an explosive in his cellphone -- they waited to hear his voice and
now we have trackable cellphones (which are becoming ubiquitous), rfid chips, red-light cameras with OCR, etc. pretty easy and non-paranoid to imagine the automated abiity to track anyone anywhere.
there are so far as i know few constitutional problems if the data collected is publicly observable information, i.e., no expectation of privacy even if the sophistication of the technology to collect, process, and digest that information would astonish most of us (this does at least rule out Big Brother in your home). the old model was that evidence could be collected only with periodic intrusive methods like breaking down doors or inserting wiretaps, moderated by warrant and the exclusionary rule and so on. what no one expected, though, is the situation now where *unintrusive* methods continuously collect everything one might need. the fourth becomes an anachronism, and the patriot act seems quaint.
the only answer i see, or rather the inevitable path ahead, is to intelligently moderate access to and use of the data. the constitution is only the floor, congress went much farther with the anti-wiretap law. draw the "border" between leigt investigation and fishing expeditions. frankly i don't think we can do a good job of it, but it's the only route i see ahead. all these "public eyes" can not be shut, because we *like* too many of them and even a few innocuous steps may prove to open the door wide.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Insightful)
You are being labelled as a flamer for implying that the Navy is the responsible for that crash. However, as one might [twa800.com] notice [whatreallyhappened.com], there are some really serious reasons to believe it really happened.
What is really amazing is that those exactly same people that ask you to take your medicine are also flaming the Patriot Act, which is the very follow-up for such behavior...
But everyone is free to keep blinders, indeed.
And, BTW, I wanted to thank you for your sig link, I've been enjoying it for months.
Keep going !
Regards,
jdif
Re:So then the smart thing to do would be to ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh for the love of god. (Score:3, Insightful)
Geezuz. It's not like the Swiss sat down in a room and said, hey, in 2002 it will be reaaly useful to the Americans if we do this. Now, in 2004, they're not going to sit down and say, "right, mission accomplished, shut it down."
Those who desire a total lack of accoutability must live with a total lack of trust.
BAH.
What else does this say about the "war on terror" (Score:2, Insightful)
What I would be much more interested in would be - how many Americans of Arab decent happened to purchase the same phone? Just because an Arab decides to get a pre-paid phone with International capabilits - were they then automatically brought under suspicion. I'll put money on, yes. The sad part, and the reason the story is interesting to me, is the injustice caused by this sort of "investigative style".
What's to stop this conversation: We found that most terrorists choose to wear light colored cotton clothing, and they look like they are of Arab decent. Create a file for anybody you find that matches this profile. Look into their background. If they sell expensive rugs, this could be a front, investigate where they buy their rugs from.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Insightful)
Many people have implied that a US Navy cruiser fired the missle. Having spent many years in the Navy I can say that this is extremely unlikley. Why? Because someone would have said something by now.
A most of the crew on any ship is a bunch of young kids. A lot of them felt cheated by their recruiter and are not happy about their life of painting the ship and cleaning toilets. They'd sell out the story in a second. A missile launch from a ship is not a subtle thing. It burns the whole deck. Everyone on board knows a missile was launched.
Some have suggested a shoulder launched surface-to-air missile was fired from the area. I'll concede that this is certainly possible. A small group an keep quiet. It would explain the eyewitness accounts. My problem with this theory is that there is nothing else to support it.
Who did the firing? A terrorist group? Why didn't they claim responsibility? The US Government? To what end? The Patriot Act didn't come around for another five years and was a result of 9/11, not Flight 800.
phone "sex" (Score:2, Insightful)
Is it just me but .... (Score:3, Insightful)
such cards offer very good anonymity unless... (Score:2, Insightful)
are called by your known terrorist friend
call your known terrorist friend
known terrorist writes down your tel. number
In addition you may become suspect if you use a card marketed for swiss teenagers exclusively in rather unsafe parts of the world. You should also avoid using it too much near the place you live.
But if you treat it as a "disposable card for making that single important call" it should work quite well.
And I am not suprized they did not change cards. Card==tel number at which you are reachable.
BTW. I have bought mine at the flea market in Basel.
--
Tomek
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:4, Insightful)
Unique to this crash was the intense participation of the Navy, which immediately dispatched its best deep salvage vessels to the area, and kicked out the New York Police Department divers, who had legal jurisdiction in the area.
Who's better equiped to pull up large debris from the ocean floor? The NYPD, or the Navy?
Most unusually, the Navy searched out 20 miles to either side of the known debris field, even though the 747 could not have glided that distance from its altitude of 13,700 MSL even if left intact.
This is probably the most ignorant thing of what I've read so far. Read this again and see if this is some how conspiratorial. A 747 could easily glide 20 miles if it's engines went out at 13,700 feet. Whoever wrote this must be under the impression that if a plane's engines go out the plane just drops like a rock.
The Navy justified this extensive search by claiming that they could not locate the aircraft flight recorders, the "black boxes", even though numerous private boat owners reported hearing the locator pings on their sonar and fish finders
Great! Because we all know how easy it is to find something on the ocean floor. It's one thing to pick up a "ping" it's another thing to actually find something the size of a toolbox.
And really... linking to a conspiracy website to support your views adds tons of credibility.
Re:Follow the money... (somewhat OT) (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, it's real easy for us to criticize the Nazis or Al Queda as inept because they left paper trails. The fact is that they were not entirely stupid (just look at the horrible things they did manage to accomplish). They probably did a lot to cover their tracks, leaving a lot of investigators bashing their heads on their desks during the search. In the end, though, the good guys simply did a better job (and spent a lot more hours) uncovering the tracks than the perps did in hiding them.
Re:privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
And EVEN FURTHER FURTHER, you are not doing any good for a free society by parroting the right-wing "guilty until proven innocent" mentality.
You start from the presumption that the person they are tracking is an Al Qaedia member.
If this presumption turns out to be false, you just approved a warrent for arrest, tracked, classified as an enemy combatant, and (traveling further down your line of thought) imprisoned without trial, someone who is totally innocent.
Congratulations!!! America is now safe from another "middle-eastern guy".
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Insightful)
First, GPS only works with a clear view of the sky. Radiolocation works better in urban areas. Second, emergency services and QOS data are reasons enough to justify the system, and they're hardly nefarious in nature. The fact that tracking can be used against us now is an unfortunate additional effect. This is the way it is nowadays. You can't just move out west and change your name to re-acquire anonymity like you could 150 years ago. Welcome to the future.
Re:privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Enemy combatant? Sorry, Interpol has never heard of that term. Nor it is anywhere in the Geneva Convention. I don't think it carries much weigh outside of a government that wants to deny rights to a broad group of individuals because doing so is far more expedient than actually honoring the Constitutional right to due process.
Sorry, I'm not impressed by your phony rhetoric and fractured analogies.
By the way, have you ever heard of Joseph Padilla? He's a U.S. Citizen, like you and me, and he's also an "enemy combatant." Our government feels its perfectly fine to keep him in jail forever without even charging him with a crime. How do you feel about that?
I thought we were defending freedom, not totalitarianism.
Re:Al Queda's Dumbest Criminals (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the phone call that did them in was a minute of silence. That seems about as secure a conversation as you could have.
closed systems and privacy (Score:3, Insightful)
The loss of privacy in closed systems is very real. Most printers can be uniquely identified by certain features (invisible to the naked eye) that are created on the printouts. And I am not talking about the currency counterfeiting options. We can be sure that if email was implemented using appliances, every mail message would have a unique ID. Microsoft Office embedded a unique ID in every document it produced and that feature was only disabled due to a huge outcry by their customers. Has everyone forgotten the original P4 ID, and how it was to be used for tracking (called "authentication")? The only way to guarantee privacy is to have open systems which will ensure that a universal tracking system cannot be successfully implemented.
Re:I don't get it.... (Score:2, Insightful)
There should not be one without the other. I fail to see how you can say it is of no consequence.
Props to the Cops (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure that the investigators who uncovered this mistake by Al Queda spent a lot of time bashing their heads on their desks as they ran into dead ends. Like most police work, this "lucky break" probably only came to light after a lot of fruitless efforts. These investigators made their luck out of a lot of legwork and late nights.
We like to pretend that Al Queda is inept because it helps us sleep better at night. That fact is that in this case the good guys were simply better (and more persistent) at uncovering tracks than Al Queda was at concealing them.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Insightful)
If EMTs and police can't find you for a half an hour, that's taxing the system. If doctors spend an extra hour on your, that's taxing the system. Your telling me, I, as a taxpayer should pay for your privacy? If you want privacy, don't use a cell phone. If there are critical systems dependent (fire,police,med) on a private network, the government has every right to mandate how it's used. Or alternatively say that anybody who doesn't have GPS on their phone can't use/call emergency systems. And since that would never happen we are back at the first point.
Re:ignorant (Score:4, Insightful)
I knew what that link was going to be before I even clicked on it. That's a valid point but also a completely ignorant one.
There's a huge difference between a warship off the American coast and one in the Persian Gulf in the middle of a warzone with an unidentified aircraft approaching it and refusing communications. The crew of the USS Vincennes attempted several times to communicate with the "bogie" ("bogie" means unidentified air contact -- "bandit" is a confirmed hostile contact) but received no response on any of the standard guard frequencies. At that point the Captain had a decision to make -- wait for the contact to get close enough to identify visually (hint: if it's hostile by now it's already fired it's weapons and your fucked) or engage it. Considering that he was in the middle of a war zone (the Iranians had attacked US shipping and warships several times in the preceding weeks) he decided to engage it. I would have done the same in his shoes.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that a warship off the American coast would hardly be in the same situation. I can hear the conversation now in CIC:
Radar Guy: Captain, we have an unidentified contact that just appeared over JFK international airport. It is on a direct course for us sir.
Captain: Shit! It must be hostile. Go to battlestations and bring the weapons and radar online.
First Officer: Should we attempt to communicate with them sir? They are still 40 miles away.
Captain: No! There's no time for that! Weapons free! Engage the target at will!
Pa-leease.
Re:Look at how fast they adapted (Score:3, Insightful)
So if I don't pay several hundred dollars for a GPS receiver on the odd chance that I might be injured and not know where I am I'm not taking care of myself? What if I'm too injured to tell them where I am and all I can do before passing out is dial 911 on my cell? Ever think about that?
Using your logic we can conclude that the whole 911 system (landlines and cell phones) only exists because of the nanny state. After all if you can't memorize a seven digit emergency number for every location that you happen to go to then you are not taking care of yourself.
Stupid asshole.
what's the lesson here? (Score:4, Insightful)