Slashdot Mirror
Buggy Bugging Backfires On German Police
Alethes writes "The BBC is reporting that German police have been caught bugging cellphones at the expense of criminal suspects who found a unknown and inaccessible voicemail number listed on their bills that was being used to record calls. Telecommunications authorities said that nearly 20,000 lines were currently being tapped."
what's the German translation for "Do'h!"
Fo shizzle my nizzle yo!
Ve have vays of making you talk.
How in the hell do you manage to do this? I can understand if it was done by a hacker or novice phone tapper. These guys are supposed to be pros. I guess you could say that their cover is blown. Funny Germans.
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
that they got caught. German laws allow for this, Sloppy work on the part of either the telecom company or the police (or both). If its one thing American Inteligence ( homebound anyway) is good at is keeping the public unaware of these types of things. Is that a good thing? Thats an agrument for another post.
This headline is almost good enough to be a contender in the Favorite Past Slashdot Headline.... poll!
Buggy bugging, ha!
As with the sun's light
My mom was magnificent
Unquestionable
Now they've given Ashcroft an idea to both monitor possible terrorists AND increase revenue for the US govertment...
:)
Record all of their conversations in voicemails, then charge them for the priviledge. Go Patriot Act!
It's listed on their bills... I just hope they weren't charged for it.
what exactly is a mud-person?
Hacking most voicemail boxes is so simple because of the simple password.
Not to mention war-dialing the number trying all possible passwords from a land line.
Not surprising. I saw a program that said before the wall came down East Germany had something like 80 - 85% of the population under surveillance.
Here's a something related to chew on . . . especially after last nights election results.
"A little-known amendment in the Senate version of the bill makes it much easier for ISPs to disclose e-mail communications without being served with a warrant, which had been prohibited before the Patriot Act of 2001." - wired
Check it here
If it had happened in England the subject could have been, "Buggy Bugging Backfires On British Bobbies."
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
How many people are concerned that German police MAY have been involved in illegal wiretapping?
Now, ask yourself if your concerned with the quality of the software doing your billing at any number of companies..
"Whoops, we didn't intend to share your personal data with 'Spammers-R-Us', it was a technical glitch during an upgrade. Sorry."
Maybe if the German police can levy some damages on the phone company, we can feel better about other companies making sure that what they say is private, stays private.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
schizz it.
/.ing)
(patience, it's slow even before
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
no wonder the germans were dumb enough to get caught doing this...i mean, c'mon, they never caught onto the old radio transister in the coffee pot routine...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Giving Germany's extremely liberal immigration laws, Al-Qaeda has established quite a foothold in the country.
The German police aren't trying to listen in on private phone calls -- they're trying to snatch terrorists who are plotting attacks against Americans. Al-Qaeda cells coordinating international terrorism is an everyday occurence in many German cities, and the police should do everything they can to save lives from murderous attacks.
Remember: Mohammed Atta and his crew of butchers, who murdered 3000 Americans on 9/11/01, plotted the entire scheme in Germany. The fact that the tapping showed up on the phone bills is not a good thing -- it's sloppy work, and it could mean lives lost to terrorism.
I seem to remember something about this on Yahoo, the link is here, the article is a bit dated I believe but is still relative to this case. What a gross injustice to humanity. It seems that no matter where we are in the world, the government is watching us...
They should have read that SP3 EULA more carefully.
"...GIVES US THE RIGHT TO BLOW ALL CURRENT AND FUTURE INVESTIGATIONS"
"The technical fault arose when we were installing new software," a spokesman for the mobile phone company O2 said"
Any idea what Service Pack it was?
What he meant to say was "Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers" ten times fast.
The software errors/stupidity that let the alleged criminals find out they were being tapped, or the fact that we don't have those errors here in the US. Not that I do anything wrong, but I'd still prefer not to be monitored by the government. This reminds me of a /. article a while back about the US taking bids for a central repository of personal information. It may sound like a great idea to the politicians, but after a while they're going to need money, and guess what?... Then everyone's personal information is up for sale. Telcos have been doing this for a while, even my university (UCF) does this, and I get a few dozen porn/marketing spams a day, just because they have my email address in their records.
And you thought spam was a problem now....
--That's the point of being root, you can do anything you want, even if it's stupid.
This would have never happened back in the good old days of Hitler!
Very funny. My grandfather died in Auschwitz.
He got drunk and fell out of his guard tower.
If it had happened in England the subject could have been, "Buggy Bugging Backfires On British Bobbies."
If it happened in Bavaria, we could say it backfired on Bavarian Bundespolizei..
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Most of the paswords are simple, such as "1-2-3-4-5"
That's the same combination I have on my luggage!
"You get what you pay for after all." --
"The technical fault arose when we were installing new software," a spokesman for the mobile phone company O2 said.
Don't you just have to sit and listen somewhere to tap mobile phones? You should be able to discretely listen to mobile phones(with the blessing of the teleco's) easily. The bug must have been somewhere in the overhead of logging thousands of calls.
Since the bug is probably in the overhead and not the actual tap itself, the teleco would probably be the party at fault.
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
what exactly is a mud-person?
A person of colour. Otherwise known as Spook, Nigger, Porch Monkey or Obsolete Farm Machinery.
STOP MODDING THIS FREAK UP! Have a look at her Journal and Bio and you will see that this Karma Whore doesn't have anything of any importance to say. SHE IS A TROLL!!!!!! I don't have to make this up, read the BIO and Journal, its all there!
Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb! - Dark Helmet
TODO: Something witty here...
Read the rest here. Now, I consider this worse - you can expect policy to breach privacy - but you are not supposed to expect that from a major telco....or...actually...are you?
The German police believe that over 20,000 people need to have active wiretaps on their phones?
German authorities can only use wiretapping in serious cases such as murder, money laundering, kidnapping or treason.
I think that when there are this many people who are being monitored, there's a problem. Just take a moment and think about the number of people it takes to monitor and administrate that level of surveillance!
Why should I argue rationally with someone being irrational? I'll just mock them instead.
The Gestapo'd be embarrassed by these lightweights....
... 'HoooGAAAAAANN!'
I bet Hogan is behind it all!
I can hear it now
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
How so? Even in the US it would be legal if the police had the proper warrants.
Best Slashdot Co
Unfortunately, no
It is illegal for the UK media to report on incidents that involve national security.
Yeah, yeah, laugh as you want, you can even claim that it's rediculeus to claim it has anything to do with national security, laugh while you still have the right..
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Slashdot has made an unauthorized copy of a previous post. The RIAA will prosecute to the fullest extent the DMCA provides...
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
A couple of things seem rather odd to me, 1) Why do you need a voicemail to track callers (I do not profess to understand the underlying workings of cell-phone infrastructure). 2) They installed new software that cause the problem, but it really only showed up on the invoicing system? So did the install a new invoicing system? Sounds like they don't have their hacking all that together over there....but just my gut instinct. Maybe someone could shed some greater light on the subject...
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
if this software had spyware?
So is your statement a condemnation of Germany's poor immigration policies? Or an advocacy of Germany's poor civil right's record? Remember ANYTHING can be justified by those magic words "In the name of..." Just ask Ashcroft.
The charge had been listed as a phone sex number, there wouldn't have been a problem.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Expect more back firing
linux ist nicht gut fur die welt
The German translation of the Simpsons ist very sitty, that's a well-known problem.
Futurama is even worse.
"Remember: Mohammed Atta and his crew of butchers, who murdered 3000 Americans on 9/11/01, plotted the entire scheme in Germany."
Where the hell are you getting this? One of Mohammed Atta's possible places of residnece was Hamburg, Germany. But so was florida. In fact, Florida was one for Waleed Alshehri, Wail Alshehri and Abdulaziz Alomari. Who *all* happened to be on AA #11 Boeing 767.
The police ARE trying to listen in on private phone calls, in the hopes of finding something there. Would you say police seaching private homes was OK simply because they're only looking for criminals? Not if you believe in any form of privacy.
"Al-Qaeda cells coordinating international terrorism is an everyday occurence in many German cities" -- you have direct knowledge of this? I haven't seen it reported anywhere. Maybe we suspect it is "an everyday occurrence" but suspicion without evidence is nothing, and acting on that to monitor 20,000 numbers would be harassment. Police doing "everything they can" would logically include what besides phone taps? Fighting terrorism is a worthy cause, but trashing everything we believe in to do it is not.
Give blame where blame is due, but nothing is gained by mindlessly rounding up the usual suspects. Al Queda is evil, and so is an authoritarian police state.
The problem was they were billing the "suspects" not the criminals in jail with phat bank accounts!
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Now here's something to think about: These German police who conducted this were up so sloppy that the bugging information showed up on phone bills. So: how many governments are doing this the right way (i.e. without the public's knowledge?)
... it could have made for a better headline.
People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
Um.......i guess we have no rights online or on the phone, at least they don't.
You live under a bridge and have a thing for billy goats.
Bravo. Quite a good troll.
Perhaps this can be employed by your local librarian as well:
"Oh, that's a not a late fee, that's the 'records retrieval' charge... Gee, I'm sorry, that should have been billed to the FBI, let me take that off of your account. Now, do you still want me to fetch that Civil Engineering book on demolition explosives?"
The New York office of the FBI was wiretapping various Mafia types (with some success; they eventually broke the New York Mafia). The taps were done by New York Telephone, and were implemented by ordering a remote extension from the circuit to be tapped to an FBI office. This was a billable service, and it wasn't cheap; the total costs of all those circuits were a strain on the FBI budget.
One month, the FBI didn't pay the bill for one of their "extensions". The billing software then started billing the other party on the line, the person being wiretapped. Big embarassment.
This was part of the motivation behind CALEA. Not only did it hurt the investigation, but it embarassed the FBI. (The FBI is very thin-skinned. "Don't embarass the Bureau" started with Hoover and lives on.)
All this is in one of the books about how the FBI took down the New York Mafia, but I don't have the cite.
From Germans to everyone:
All your calls are belong to us.
Its funny how in Germany they seem to want to charge the customer were in the UK all the mobile teco's got pissed off with requests for duplicate bill's from the police (which have all call's made and when) that they started charging them.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
"Buggy Bugging By British Bobbies Backfires"
OK, one more...
If this happened in Amish country, it could read, "Buggy buggy bugging backfires in bucolic backwoods blunder".
I promise not to post for the rest of the day.
He's psychic! Or psycho? Well, socially challenged or "troll".
... and in England ... in that hotbed of insurrection, Florida ... and my neighbor's garage (oops, shouldn't've said that). Remember how they used public internet terminals in libraries to communicate godknowswhat? Communication is so easy now that location barely matters.
Seriously, a significant amount of 9/11 planning took place in Germany (Hamburg?)
Will someone please mod parent down below a threshold of 0.
If you need a reason other than the crap ass post itself, read the replies to it and then read SexyKellyOsbourne's Bio and journal!
how about this as a title...
Buggy Bugging Backfires on Bavarian Bureau!
Sure let the f-ing govt take away all our liberties, under the "I have nothing to hide" moniker. Well, you DO have something to hide, YOUR PRIVACY. They can sieze property w/o cause, tap your phone, spy on you, hell even get your library habits WITHOUT CAUSE. I'm sorry to say, but idiots like you who want security over freedom don't seem to understand that without freedom, who cares about security?
Now that the dumbass republicans control both houses, i'm sure we'll lose more of our rights, multinational corporations will gain a bigger foothold in world domination, and you will be arrested for "looking" at a cop wrong.
DONT SAY I DIDNT TELL YOU
(see that small camera in your bathroom?)
Loads more info straight from the Horse's mouth.
Incidentally, these websites are extraordinarily helpful. Now that the government has effectively scared serious criminals away from using the phone, we're free to spend much more time spying on political "agitators" and minor drug dealers :)
Say that 5 times fast:
Buggy Bugging Backfires
Buggy Bugging Backfires
Buggy Fuggy Fackbires
Fuggy Fugging FUCK!
Maybe the German police would say something like:
"Das cellphones ist nicht usen fur trakken das badfolken. Das policen ist nicht snoopen das folken a la 3rd Reich. Relaxen und watchen das bills increasen. And Kwitchurbelliaken."
Zey have vays ov making you pay forr it!
RMN
~~~
Anyone who isn't white.
-Please enter your 10 digits prime number combination to open your luggage.
-1627600127.
-Thank you.
-Linux is SO fast it does an infinite loop in 5 seconds.
This is the same country that outlawed red blood in video games. Well, if the those violent video games and nazi symbols aren't getting through, how is there crime to even wiretap? *couch* sorry, choked on my own sarcasm.
Is /. English? If not then it wouldn't be illegal, but thanks for the tip anyhow.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
you mean Destroyee, don't you?
Even assuming the remaining 15% were all agents of the secret police, how could they keep up with everyone else? Each agent would have to tap, monitor and follow six people.
RMN
~~~
And those awful communist Bad Guys are gone and the Good Guys won. Everything's all better now.
Or even better:
Buggy Bugging by British Bobbies Backfires ?
You post that every day. Does the man resurrect or something?
RMN
~~~
Start the sentence with "Bugger!"
RMN
~~~
The US government/law enforcement/intelligence agencies would never use their powers to spy on people. Aren't you a PATRIOT?
-Puk
If they were charged, will they get a refund?
Well, Bundespolizei means Federal Police, so it wouldn't make sense to put a state together with it.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
I think it's someone who makes pottery.
Try saying that ten times fast!
Sounds to me like the Germans just sent the bill a bit early; they should have sent it after the investigation was complete.
1984 came late it seems...
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"First ontopic comment I've read so far and some stupid moderator marks it off-topic...I guess they got distracted by the shiny objects and forgot that the thread was about misbilling...
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
Or: Blatant Buggy Bugging Botched, Backfires: British Bobbies Buggered, Baffled. Boffins Blamed.
No, Slashdot isn't, but the British Broadcasting Corporation (aka The BBC) who's coverage of this story Slashdot has linked to is.
"Big Brother's Biggest Blunder: Bad buggy bugs beget big bill-related bungle. Backlash begins."
Wow... I didn't realize that "rediculeus" one of those strange words that's spelled differently here in the US. I'm going to have to start slinging it around... "Take a look at the rediculeus colour they painted that alarum box!"
Telecommunications authorities said that nearly 20,000 lines were currently being tapped."
Is it just me, or is anyone else thinking: "Holy Cow! 20 *thousand* people with their phones being tapped?"
A few hundred, sure. That's probably the day-to-day level for their current crime investigations. But 20,000 in a country with a population of 82.5 million is a lot, IMO. The equivalent number for the US would be 67,100 persons with their phonelines being tapped. That's a city the size of Yakima, Washington that is under investigation of committing crimes.
Nur wenn man seine Nachbarn hasst.
Und wer nicht?
if(!toilet_paper) roll.replace(new roll);
Schadenfreud, or shameful joy. When you are laughing at the misfortune of others.
Yes, indeed -- they were even charged for it.
Why should they have rights? Why should people who want to destroy us, and take away our livihood, and remove our liberties have any right? I don't understand why anyone would want them to have rights. Let's support everything we can to stop them.
Am I to presume that you can decide precisely whose rights are to be ignored, just by looking at them? In order for you to discern who should be tapped and who should not be tapped, you must first understand that probable cause is required in order to obtain a warrant.
So does that make the choice:
- tap us all or
- tap us at random or
- tap us because we're different,
instead of
- tap us upon the basis of a sworn affidavit showing probable cause?
When you can tell the difference between friend and foe on sight, let us all know. It will make this war far easier.
But that should not deter us from violating a "few" people's rights under the rule of necessity to impose peace and order under law martial rule, should it?
Until it is your rights that have been violated.
Or do you presume to sacrifice your essential liberty in exchange for some unattainable temporary safety?
In that case, you deserve neither liberty nor safety, and that is what you will get.
Feel free to mod me way, way down.
Liberty is not a concept... Liberty is a way of life!!!
That depends on the legality of the revolution. After the fiasco in Florida a couple of years ago, the Queen is reported to be seriously considering revoking the declaration of independence.
=o)
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
A VIRUS IS A DISEASE
TERRORISM IS A TRANSGRESSION
PIRACY IS A CRIME
THIS IS THE CURE
BGS9 BUNDESGRENZSCHUTZ ABT. 9
Such as just last month, when they gagged the press from reporting allegations that the UK govenment contracted Al Qaeda to assassinate Gaddafi.
Not only did they gag reporting the story, they also demanded that the media can't even report (or protest) the fact that they have been gagged!
Welcome to the free world. Leave your brains and integrity at the door please...
Bosch
Dur
And Kwitchurbelliaken.
:-)
I understood the joke in every fake german word, but what you mean with "And Kwitchurbelliaken." I really couldn't figure out.
Could you get closer to real german spelling or give a translation of what's that suposed to mean?
Thanks.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Well, Bundespolizei means Federal Police, so it wouldn't make sense to put a state together with it.
I don't speak German, I just got Bundes from Bundespost and Bundesliga. But how about "Buggy bugging backfires on battalion of burly blond Bundespolizei battling baddies based in Bavaria"?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I just metamoded up the person who modded you down, cause I'm sick of fucking hearing this shit
Cram it, tosser.