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!"
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.
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!
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.
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.
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." --
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.
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
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?)
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.
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."
Funny Germans.
Indeed. My wife is half German and half Mexican. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I never realized how quickly I'd get tired of sauerkraut tacos.
The US government/law enforcement/intelligence agencies would never use their powers to spy on people. Aren't you a PATRIOT?
-Puk