Cell Phone CEOs Marked For Phone Cloning

Saint Aardvark writes "When Sarah Drummond got back from Israel, she found a cell phone bill for more than $12,000. She contacted her cell phone provider to let them know that someone had stolen her phone, but they weren't interested in helping her and told her she'd have to pay. In preparing for small claims court, she and her partner found out that not only does her company have the ability to spot unusual activity on a cell phone account, the company executives' own phones have been targeted by a group linked to Hezbollah. From the article: 'They were using actually a pretty brilliant psychology. Nobody wants to cut off [CEO] Ted Rogers' phone or any people that are directly under Ted Rogers, so they took their scanners to our building, like our north building, where our senior top, top, top executives are. They took their scanners there and also to Yorkville, where there are a lot of high rollers and like it would be a major PR blunder to shoot first and ask questions later. . . . Nobody wants to shut off Ted. Even if he is calling Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Kuwait.'"

Comments

Rogers Wireless Customer

[Tiberius_Fel]

I'm a Rogers Wireless Customer (no, I won't tell you my phone number :P) and it's a scary thought to see that if somebody stole my phone and ran up a $12 000 bill, they would expect me to pay it. But what really makes me wonder is why they didn't stop to ask somebody! Sure, you don't want to cut off Ted Rogers' phone, but if you told him about it and said "this is unusual activity in your account - are you sure it's not fraud?" it would probably have been a good idea. Credit card companies (that I can recall) do just that.

Re:Rogers Wireless Customer

[toddbu]

they would expect me to pay it.

Cell phone companies are masters of telling you one thing but getting you to sign a contract that says something else. When I wanted to add my kid to my family share plan, I told my carrier (Verizon) that I wanted to limit the number of minutes that a phone could call in a month in case a friend stole the phone. They told me that they couldn't do that. Then, without asking, the rep said "but if your phone gets stolen then we'll waive the charges." I told her that I'd accept that if she's put it in writing, but she said she couldn't do that.

Here's my advice - never, ever, ever trust a cell phone company. Once they have your signed contract, they have no reason to let you off the hook. They love this kind of stuff because people often just pay the bill rather than taking on the expense of hiring a lawyer. In a case like this, I'd just threaten the cell phone company with a class action lawsuit on behalf of the thousands of people who have had this happen to them in the past. The cell phone company, if they are going to put you on the hook for the bill, then has a fiduciary obligation to protect your interests and do everything in their power to stop this kind of fraud. If they don't then they are negligent and share in responsibility to pay the bill.

If you're really worried about this, get a pay-as-you-go phone. There are plans out there today that compete very well with regular service and some even allow you to use your minutes for more than one or two months.

Re:Rogers Wireless Customer

[mi]

Then, without asking, the rep said "but if your phone gets stolen then we'll waive the charges." I told her that I'd accept that if she's put it in writing, but she said she couldn't do that.

Your story would've been a lot more interesting, if you still signed up, the phone got stolen and Verizon refused to waive the charges. Then, you'd have something to complain about.

She couldn't put it in writing, because the legal definitions alone would've taken several pages. Verizon does not want to give too much grief to honest customers, who lost their phones, but it does not want to get taken by those, who lie about it either.

They, probably, look at each case individually, and that is, what she was trying to say.

That said, your advice to not trust (or partially discount) verbal promises is perfectly sound, of course, and applies to all business dealings.

Re:This company should be charged...

[dadragon]

Sounds like just the sort of thing the USA PATRIOT Act was meant to stop, but somehow I doubt that the FBI is going to step in.

Well, considering the fact that Rogers Wireless is a Canadian company, and as far as I know, doesn't operate in the United States, I'd be deeply disturbed if the FBI stepped in.

Repeated problem?

[Darlantan]

I don't find the fact of who they're targetting, or the fact that they're cloning phones, all that shocking. I do, however, find it a bit fishy that these same (big) people have been _repeatedly_ targetted, and it has been noticed several times. You'd think that some sort of measure would have been put into place by now to at least curb the effectiveness of this tactic when used on these same people. I mean, after the first time my phone got cloned, I think I'd pass word down to the grunts to block calls to certain countries from that phone, as long as there wasn't a high "real" call volume there.

At any rate, after this being done several times, you'd think they would have some checks in place, but hey...when you own your own huge company, I guess paying your own bills isn't really an issue.

So don't pay!

[MLopat]

Here's a simple solution... don't pay your bill! Just because you receive an invoice from a company, it does not mean that you need to pay it. If you want to dispute the charge, switch providers and let things run their course.

Now some people worry about their credit ratings... well up here in Canada, our credit bureaus are private corporations with very little responsibility to anyone and in fact there are only two. The credibility of the credit system in this country is weak at best. For example, if I decide to invoice each and everyone of you, and do not receive payment, I simply send this information to the credit bureau and a black mark is added to your record. You will NOT be notified, and likely won't discover this until you need to apply for credit. When you discover this blackmark, your only recourse is to have a note amended to your file to explain the accusation. Unfortunately this does little, if anything at all.

That's why, for any significant purchases (i.e. a mortgage on a home, or large car loan) creditors look to our income to debt ration first, and weigh that heaviest.

Long story short: don't pay the bill, and in a few years when it finally reaches court (after the company makes several attempts to settle for significantly less), explain your situation and countersue for court fees.

I just love your attitude

[cdn-programmer]

Hey - lets do some biz. I'll pad the invoices for $20K and then offer to settle for $2K. This way you can feel oh so good as I shake you down for $2000 bux.

The jerks just love people like you. Over time they figure out where the highbar is and cheat and steal just below this level. Most people will pay rather than fight. I suppose traffic tickets fall into this area as well. But then that is instutionalized right?

Sounds Fishy I RTFA

[puto]

Ad nausea, I work for a large cell carrier.

I investigate these types of charges on a weekly basis. And when something like this happens, we investigate and write off all the charges no problem.

I am sure her phone was stolen. But where was it stolen from? Her house? Her car?

Note the article said her phone was STOLEN, not cloned, two very different actions.

More than likely she had it with her. It was stolen and she did not notice it gone. And when she got home she had a huge phone bill.

If the phone was stolen in her home country, she could have filed a police report, showed it to rogers and they would have written it off.

If the phone was stolen overseas, when she noticed it gone, should have immediately called and reported in.

As someone who travels internationally, I tend to keep the phone with me on trips. Most people do. The article is very light on these details.

If it was a GSM phone they generally need access to the phone and have to grab and clone the sim. So physical access is needed for the device.

The article mentions that the owners of rogers got scanned and cloned. When was it, soounds like they used TDMA phones, which was probably a few years back when it happened.

Rogers is GSM and I would imagine the pres and his execs would have using gsm for at least 2 if not three years for now.

I googled for info on this and could not find any article about the CEO of rogers being cloned.

A lot of times the maids in hotles, cruise ships, will use the customers phones when they are not around. That is why if you leave a phone in a room that is not your own, lock it, hide the sim. Battery in a different place. Little personal responsibility.

So I think before we pass judgment we should get the rest of the story.

Puto

Just a stolen phone..

[swmccracken]

Firstly, Rogers appears to be running a GSM network, so cloning the phone means NOTHING WHATSOEVER and is actually quite unnecessary -- any 'ol GSM phone will work.

What you need to clone is the SIM - the little chip that is associated with your number. Stick it in any GSM phone (more or less) and off you go, you have that subscriber's identity.

While it is possible to clone a SIM, you need access to the SIM and a smart card reader for several hours to crack the encryption. (At least in the earlier SIMs, they may have improved the situation since, I hope so.) This isn't a matter of reading an identification number off, you need to read off the private key from the SIM - something that was supposed to be imposssible but there are weaknesses in certain versions of the encyption algorithm.)

Anyway, this particular case is not about SIM cloning, merely boring old cellphone being stolen. (It's admitted as such when the article states, "Ms. Drummond quickly determined what had happened: Someone had stolen her phone while she was away. She called Rogers Wireless, which told her there was nothing it could do, and she would have to pay the entire amount".)

The whole misleading piece about phone cloneing is mostly sensational journalism - it seems some employees claimed that some terrorist groups cloned the CEO of the cellphone's company's cellphone. (And remember that the person at the centre of the story - one Ms Drummond - merely had her phone stolen, a much more boring case.)

Anyway, Ms Drummond failed to notify her cellphone provider that her cellphone was stolen and then complained that the theif used it. The fraud detection system didn't detect it and it seems she therefore argues that it's not her fault. Even though I'd guess the cellphone company doesn't owe you anything when it comes to detecting fraudlant use of your phone.

Moral of the story: As soon as you know your SIM is stolen, CONTACT YOUR CELLPHONE COMPANY! They can block outgoing calls on it saving you a lot of money.

(GSM cellphone companies can also block phone IMEI's - stopping a theif from using that phone in the future - but only do this once the phone is known stolen as it's a real pain to get that undone.)

If her phone/SIM had been cloned, then yes, the cellphone company would have an issue on its hands. As it is, all that's happened is silly girl didn't report a stolen phone. Happens all the time, nothing to see here, move along.

Oh, and it's easy for a cellphone company to transfer a number to a new SIM.

Reminds me of that Wired article

[TubeSteak]

on three blind Israeli Phreakers http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/phreaks_p r.html

Yekutiel "Kuty" Lavi, a security specialist at Bezeq International, Israel's largest telco and a frequent victim of the Badirs, angrily complains, "Every day people try to steal from us, but nobody has ever stolen from us the way the [three brothers] did. When they dial, they use the middle finger."

Isn't that just a great mental image?

Replay attacks don't work.

[swmccracken]

Yes, the phone does transmit some identifying information once authorised - but identification is not authentication!

To authenticate and authorise the phone/SIM pair to the network, the phone is just a go-between, shuttling information from over-the-air to the SIM and back again. (In case you're not aware, the SIM is a physical chip. In the old days, it was a smart card; these days it's just the chip of a smart card on a piece of plastic just a little larger than the chip.)

The network sends an unique challange to the SIM (via the phone) and the SIM has to respond approproately using shared-secrets and techniques not too dissimilar from private-key / public-key cryptography. Replaying this is of no value to you because next time you want to authenticate, the challange will be different! (And I believe the Network is also authenticated to the SIM as well - I don't know the details that well).

The theory is that the shared secret (Ki) is never transmitted over the air - it's known to the network and to your SIM and that is all - it was designed to it was impossible to retreive it directly from the SIM.

It is an active process involving bidirectional communication, not a passive "this is my number".