How To Compete With NSA By Hacking a Verizon Network Extender

New submitter Anita Hunt (lissnup) writes "This snooping hack-in-a-backpack could become a hot Summer accessory, since Reuters reported that 'researchers at iSec hacked into a Verizon network extender, which anyone can buy online, and turned it into a cell phone tower (video interview) small enough to fit inside a backpack capable of capturing and intercepting all calls, text messages and data sent by mobile devices within range.'"

Power to the people

[vikingpower]

"This is ordinary people intercepting... ordinary people". A nice,, bitter subversion of the "power to the people" concept ?

Re:Encryption? What Encryption?

[mi]

What this means is that your comm supplier is the one who also does the decryption, so they have complete access to everything. The recent stories about the close ties between government security agencies and the comm companies show that this would be no security at all.

Actually, there would be quite a bit of security against non-governmental attackers and those working for foreign governments.

And while it is the governmental ones that scare us for having a potential for abuse, it is those others that have done actual damage to millions of computers and hurt millions of people already — through spamming, identity theft, and spying.

I, for one, would've been glad to be rid of those, even if Uncle Sam's fishing expeditions remain a threat.