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Your Cell Records For Sale Online, Cheap
AviN456 writes "The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that your phone records are for sale online to the general public. From the article 'The Chicago Police Department is warning officers their cell phone records are available to anyone -- for a price. Dozens of online services are selling lists of cell phone calls, raising security concerns among law enforcement and privacy experts.' One of these sites is selling cell phone records for $110 for a month's worth of calls. No court order needed, no credentials required. If they want your records and have the money, they get 'em."
I'm sure its on Google for free somewhere.
Of course anythings available for the right price...
Unfortunately, this issue is nothing new.
Lots of good info on this problem can be found here, courtesy of the good folks at EPIC.
And finally, you can choose to opt-out of the releasing of your phone data here (at least you can try...opt-out information isn't listed for many of the companies). Also, many of these data brokers employ less-than-legal means to obtain the phone data anyway.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I bet the NSA might be able offer a reduced price on these kinds of lists.
One of these sites is selling cell phone records for $110 for a month's worth of calls. No court order needed, no credentials required.
That's absolutely stalk-tastic. So, in addition to being able to buy SS#, satellite images of their house, and public property information, we can get phone records now. Sweet.
Anyone want to see what 1-900 numbers Jack Thompson's been calling?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
My civil rights are being taken away!!!! My .. my right to .. er .. PRIVACY! My .. um, (no?) my right to not .. have any personal information about me .. uh .. don't I have a civil right to keep my phone records private or something? Bush lied .. NSA .. spying .. erk! (spastic twitch)
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
So, the NSA doesn't have to do this.
Chief Wiggum: Did you trace the phone number?
Lou: Sure did, chief.
Chief Wiggum: 555... aww, it's gotta be phony.
Both TFA and the /. post are slanted towards law enforcement agencies. There is nothing about the service or warning that shouldn't apply to everyone.
Depending on how paranoid you are, this information could be interesting. Worried about a partner cheating? Worried about your partner finding out? Worried your boss will find out you have frequent calls to your Cylon agent (or is she just in your head?) (Okay, the last one was a joke.)
But I wanted to make sure it was clear, this applies to everyone. Not just police.
So what? Phone records have long been a way to track unorganized, unplanned crimes. Like shooting fish in a barrel. Cell phones have made it soooo tempting to make all your calls (legal, and possibly illegal) whenever you fancy, that it is certainly scary to unorganized, undiciplined criminals. Why would this even be an issue with the Patriot Act still out there? Obviously mere phone records aren't enough to catch Al Qaeda, so what do you have to worry about? Just run down to a different payphone, at different times, in disguise from the traffic cameras.
7h3$3 4r3n'7 7h3 Ðr01Ð$ ¥0 4r3 £00|{1n9 f0r. M0v3 4£0n9. --OB1
To test the service, the FBI paid Locatecell.com $160 to buy the records for an agent's cell phone and received the list within three hours, the police bulletin said....
Frank Bochte, a spokesman for the FBI in Chicago, said he was aware of the Web site.
"Not only in Chicago, but nationwide, the FBI notified its field offices of this potential threat to the security of our agents, and especially our undercover agents," Bochte said. "We need to educate our personnel about the dangers posed by individuals using this site and others like it. We are stressing that they should be careful in their cellular use."
Who needs snitches when the phone companies kill your undercover agents for a fast buck? This is verging on leaking sensitive information. If the FBI can come up with data on agents, then other departments, hell, even important people could be at risk, which is a scary thing. I'm all for the freedom of information, but not when it could potentially cause harm to another person who is just doing their job (in the case of undercover agents). Sure you need the phone number first, but that's not all that hard to get these days...
I have no fixed line. I only use cash cards for mobile. I haven't received a spam e-mail message in 8 years.
I mean, what the fuck is wrong with me? Why doesn't the corporate oligarchy like me? Why haven't I been offered to enlarge my reproductive tool, invest in Nigerian projects, or enroll in the US Gubmint Green Card lottery?
It is so fucking unfair.
My records show 400+ late night calls to Cowboy Neal...now he'll never answer!
If there is a market for it, then why not let the phone companies make some bucks out of it? There is little information to be gained from the meta information of my phonecalls. But you would want some ways to opt out of it so persons and companies concerned about it could have the call to and from their number not listed.
The downside is offcourse that if this will be allowed, every phone company will make it their standard, and if you want out of it you have to pay more for the priviledge. So maybe restricting them from both ways (the info only goes out with a search warrant) is a better solution.
And now on to RTFA...
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
I personally don't care who knows who I am calling -- in fact I openly release my cell phone data to all my customers as I bill them by the minute when they call me (plus they can see who else calls me which helps when someone says I might have overcharged them).
My bigger concern has always been who could have the content of any calls recorded. I know the phone companies "don't" and I doubt government has any concern for what I talk about, but there is proprietary information we all discuss on the phone (nothing illegal, just ideas and other information I'd rather not share). Digital cell transmissions are already nicely compressed for transmission and those data streams are just perfect to stick on a huge hard drive and use in the future.
I have no political aspirations, so I guess my information would be totally useless in order to try to hurt me publicly, but for those who do think about the future -- is the cell phone a safe way to communicate?
I don't get it; don't cell phone companies make too much money as it is? Now they're selling personal information for a little extra profit on the side. Doesn't privacy mean anything anymore? It makes me sick to think how some people make money.
When I signed up for the account I just called them and they said they can also stop sharing information within Sprint themselves, and I did that too.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
its part of the price you pay for convenience. things are no better in the uk. i used to pay cash for my groceries because I resented having my purchases monitored. now i buy my groceries online and everyone knows my business. all the conveniences we enjoy have a price. welcome to the real world. to be totally safe. walk everywhere and conduct all business face to face and keep nothing written down. Don't forget to wear your tinfoil hat.
Two months ago, Macleans (Canadian magazine) ran a story on this, but they took it one step further: they bought the cell phone records of Canada's Privacy Commisssioner, Jennifer Stoddart. It was remarkably embarassing. Reading the Maclean's article was entertaining, so if any Canadian's missed it, check it out.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
Nextel says they do not participate and that this activity is illegal.. something tells me nextel is feeding me a line of shit.
So, what would happen if you called them up and said you wanted to buy the phone records of the person who answered the phone at the company (the one you're talking to)?
Now the playing field is level. In the US, we have lost our rights to due process, and provided you are not detained without a lawyer and without a charge, anyone with a few grand can get any charge dropped after finding out the secrets of the prosecutors, judges, and police officers that are involved with your case.
I'm immediately going to purchase Paris Hilton's phone records ... be back soon ... got stuff to do now.
Do I get the GPS coordinates with that? I want to know where they are at when they call. I can get a small cheap GPS phone and stick it to the bumper of her car. With wireless web and laptop, I can track her everywhere. I am BATMAN!
Once news of this hits the mainstream television media, I imagine the public outcry and following legislation will put the kaibosh on it.
Still, the underlying problem is far deeper than many will admit. I believe that we in the United States have a certain right to an expectation of privacy, but at the same time we cannot rely on that expectation to safeguard information regarding ourselves. Information exists beyond the scope of your personal effects, and you cannot reasonably expect others to protect it for you.
The problem is that most financial and personal transactions here rely almost entirely on security through obscurity: the identity thief can't steal your identity... until he gets ahold of your (trivial to obtain) SSN, and so forth. We rely on hiding information about ourselves as a means of securing our effects, despite the fact that such information is all but unprotectable in the face of modern technology.
No amount of legislation is going to stop people from uncovering information: the only way to mitigate this is to make the information on its own worthless.
A social security number should be useless to anyone but me. Same with a bank account number. The security needs to be seperate from the identification.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
that is, set up my phone so it always calls the prox phone number and the the proxy dials the phone number I enter on my keyset?
This must be possible to N levels, but is there such a commercial system available?
Is it legal and technically feasible to use such a proxy?
Well there'll always be people needed to dig ditches Seriously I felt the same way for a long time but the practical benefits of the mobile makes it difficult to live without once you get used to having one.
This seems very interesting to me, can someone shed some light on where exactly theses sites are getting the logs from. Are cell phone service providers selling their customers logs to these sites?
I tend to avoid fatty foods.
Why would this even be an issue with the Patriot Act still out there?
I'm one of those people that doesn't have too much trouble with the Patriot act's purpose and typical use. But I think I do have trouble with my customers, suppliers, or competition being able to see who I'm talking to. In a competitive industry (I don't know, say wholesaling wine to restaurants in a busy city), being able to look over which restaurants of "yours" that a rival wine rep has suddenly been making a lot of calls to would be seriously helpful/evil business intel.
On a more serious note, say a foreign or criminal entity was shopping around for people to blackmail/extort. Just the ability to use evidence of a stock broker's calls to his mistress as a way to get him to distort the value of some penny stock, etc... well, it's all bad movie-type stuff, except it's real. And real cheap.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
If there is a genuine demand for it, then you can be sure it will be sold. If you outlaw it it will just not be the providers themselves but these shady types calling themselves 'brokers'. Allow it and you stop a black market from developing.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Ok, I read the article -- where's the "remarkably embarrassing" part?
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
So who is selling the logs and how do they get them? Can they be sued for privacy infringement?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Well this is disturbing news indeed. As long ago as July this issue had been raised. Wish I knew about it sooner.
Where do these people come from? Whatever happens to these people that's bad, I hope it happens soon because they definitely deserve it... those people, and people who operate tow services with questionable tactics... these kinda people just get under my skin. If wishin' were killin' I'd be among America's most wanted right now.
On the one hand, I am appalled at the erosion of our civil liberties and the almost-sedated non-response from the public. It reminds me of the way in which cancer kills you (the body ignores it when it's small, and as it only grows a little bit each day, the problem is put off until it's too late; a tumor that would have been actively fought if implanted full grown kills an otherwise health person because it's never that much worse than it was the day before).
But on the other hand, I'd love to see someone try to decipher my cell phone calls:
Me: Could you repeat that? ...other...erver room...ception in here...od damn fans...!
Them:If...the...ine when I...ick.
Me: No! Don't click on that! We need to log the error message.
Them:Hog...any..sausage?
Me:Not sausage. Message. Error message. Error message. Error message.
Them:...ot an err...hat about...age?
Me:Write it down. Write it down. Write it down.
Them:Could you...that?
Me:Write it down. Write it down. Write it down.
Them:...I just read...you? Zero zero...eff as in...apple, zero, ze...two. Got that?
Hey, maybe I could just ask the NSA for a cleaned up transcript!
--MarkusQ
At this point, having a cell phone is not just a matter of convenience for the owner, it's a matter of consideration for the owner's friends (assuming he has any). It's much easier to meet up with people, much more convenient to know when to expect an arriving friend, etc. when all parties involved have cell phones.
My girlfriend refused to have one for the longest time, and I got really tired of waiting on her to meet me for dinner with no way to find out where she was or why she was late, really tired of trying to give her directions from random gas station pay phones to places, etc.
It's entirely possible to have and use a cell phone and not be a jerk about it, but I firmly believe that obstinately refusing to have one is just rude.
JRjr
I dont , and wont carry one, I am 34, and went throught pay phone era just fine.
When pagers came out i was in the building trades, (with a crazy wife at the time), she paged me so many times one day I flushed the pager in the toilet.
another time I was so fed up trying to concentrated I dropped it in a nearby storm drain.
Instead of simply replacing it they wanted me to carry the first model Motorolla Mobile phone (kinda like a brick with buttons) I refused and have not been leashed since.
I will sell my phone records for $110.
So cause your GF can't show up on time, you need to call her to check up on her?
Typical Cell Phone Conversation:
HI. Yeah, what are you doing.
Oh, I'm in the store.
Really, wow, that's interesting. What are you gonna do after?
Blah Blah Blah....
Nobody is that important to use the obnoxious cell phone. Don't get me started on you morons that drive and use one at the same time.
This is the end result of a free market: nothing is off limits, everything has a price.
Market-based approaches to everything subvert democracy (obviously). Laws against pollution? Lets just charge expensive "pollution credits". Constitutional right to privacy? Let the market find an acceptable price to get around it.
This shit is like the matrix. There is no public square to communicate, only corporate owned venues - Verizon cells, AT&T telephones, AOL instant messenger, Google email, Comcast internet, MSN groups - it makes sense that they would govern themselves with business practices instead of Law.
Preemptive strike
I sleep well at night not worrying about privacy concerns or any of the other issues that are out there, and it helps me live in the modern age.
The first is to live an exceedingly dull life. My cell phone records, if anyone bothered to pay for them, would provide a list of short calls to other dull people, usually to arrange meetings to do dull things such as 'play skee ball' or 'watch star trek'. If someone wanted to invade my privacy, the would end up spending hours on end trying to figure out what I was hiding, because nobody's life is that boring. The jokes on them, because mine is.
The second is to have an abysmal credit rating. Go ahead and steal my identify. Trust me, you won't be getting any credit cards using *my* name.
The third is to have completely bizar purchasing habits. If you want to collect market data on me, fine. You'll think your computers, which approximate consumer behavior are broken with me. It's not that I try hard to be weird, it's just that, well, I'm going to purchase a DVD of Bergman's 'Wild Strawberries' in the same order as 'Dude, Where's My Car', and you'll jut have to live with it.
So go ahead, steal my data. Take my information. I'm just going to make your magin of error bigger.
The Internet is generally stupid
Go pay to get Jose Padilla's phone records this way. There's a story there no matter what you find.
In the past, just the privileged few could obtain phone records. Politically connected or wealthy people could bribe the right people and obtain anything they wanted.
Now, anyone can do it. Turnabout's fair play - as far as I'm concerned. I like seeing rich pols exposed.
I've been busy lobbying to get the video archives of the New York Police made public as well.
Why should the police be the only ones with access to this footage? (I'll tell you why... if enough of it was made public, lots of NY's finest them would wind up fired or in jail.)
Maybe I'm better off starting a data broker business overseas and publishing it myself.
This would be a good idea for a honeynet. You could figure out a mathematical way for a bunch of dummy phones (or dummy cards/requests) to spider-web to each other and figure out who exactly is doing the looking-up...
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
As far as I know we here in Canada don't sell records, Atleast the cell phone company that I work for doesn't. Plus with the new privatcy act this isn't going to happen.
None the less I'm quite appalled this can be legal or, even worse, common in any developed country.
OK, maybe it's a little (hidden) check box on the contract that makes it possible but such an option should be off by default.
After all, it's not just the phone's owners information that is disclosed but as well info on the innocent people he talked with.
I could imagine that people from countries where privacy is of higher value (and legally protected) could sue when their information is publicised in the US...
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Most europeans won't ever have this kind of problem with privacy and information selling. In Europe you can just go to the kiosk, buy a sim chip, buy some prepaid sim minutes, all without ID or a credit card. Use the phone for a few days, then toss the sim chip and put in a new one if you're paranoid. Thanks to our greedy, monopolistic telecom corporations over here, you get locked into 2-year contracts and have to give the company all kinds of private information upon sign-up including social security number.
And this has a score of 2 because it's somehow on topic and not an obvious flame?
What a fucking waste of space.
There is an important issue being glossed over here: is the release of this information illegal or not?
The top article implies that it is illegal for the phone companies to share this data. They point to unscrupulous insiders, and acts of fraud on the part of private investigators and data miners.
But the information from EPIC and the FCC suggests a very different situation. According to these sites it is perfectly legal to share this data if the company adopts an "opt-out" policy and if the consumer has not exercised his right to opt-out. Well, of course most people have never heard of this and so they have not opted-out. Therefore it is completely legal for the companies to share your phone call lists!
I'm annoyed and frustrated that the press reports are getting this so wrong (as usual). By implying that the problem is a few illegal acts, necessarily commited furtively and relatively rarely, they hide the fact that this is a perfectly legal, above-board business which is presumably going along at a brisk rate selling everyone's call info!
Here here!! I wish more people were like you. I don't own a cell phone, and plan to never own one in the future.
Too many news stories these days are causing me to say "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?"
For The Best Jazz/Hip-hop fusion > COlD DUCK
invasion of privacy anyone?
not odd at all.s toned.com
Thought records have been availible online for as long as i can remember.
Slashdot has been purchasing your thought records so they can do articles.
It called targeted publishing.
For the rest of your targeted publishing goto
www.womenwithreallyhugebreaststhatlikeguysthatare
Calling people for no reason is rude too. I do not desire to be at anyones fingertips at any time; Somehow we survived before cellphones.
When I meet a friend I am there at the time I said I would be-- cellphones are just a symptom of sloppy living and thinking.
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
Well I dont see a problem with it :P
:)
But then again I paied 19$ cash for my Cell phone and buy 25$ (cash) worth of minuets each month. Untracable, Anonymous, and Desposable, Just the way a cell phone should be. I can drop the phone in the trash every 90 to 120 days and get a clean phone that is untracable.
Learn the system, learn ways around it, and you can remain anonymous as well.
Just because the current administation (and to be fair, many past administrations) has wiped their collective asses with the 4th Amendment doesn't mean that it no longer applies
How about the fact that this has NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH GEORGE BUSH? Private enterprises are selling data acquired from other private enterprises to third parties. The government is not involved in this transaction at all, with the possible exception of state and local governments collecting sales tax. The fourth amendment does not apply in this situation any more than it keeps me from looking through your window whilst you bugger little boys.
...using web pages and links you can form a 'person rank' from the calls people make. This has many applications. For example if you want to figure out how to influence the most people with the least money these may be the people whose opinions are the most widely sought and hence the people for you to call.
-- SIGFPE
Nowhere! They are busy front lining their far leftist ideals!
They should be on this like flies to shit!
But another person's records of your uses of their property are hardly exclusively your personal effects.
The real issue here is the lack of choice in a market that's theoretically free, but practically under the exclusive control of a very few. If customers had the reasonable choice to hold companies accountable when they had been wronged, out of necessity those companies would change. Short of a state attorney general, for a powerful state where companies need the market too much to be chased out, dragging the companies into court over every excess it's not going to happen. In the new american dream, your rights are guaranteed through exclusive contracts with would be robber barons, who won't even be offering free libraries when they're no longer long for this world.
I have seen the bulletin. In it they indicate that they conducted a test and placed an order to get the records of one of the agency's own cell phones. A little while later an unknown person called that cell number and said they worked for the cell phone provider. The person then asked for some information about the subscriber. Some time later they got an email with "call records".
A little social engineering can go a long way. If a "service technician" calls asking me for information, I'm going to tell him I'm George W. Bush.
Heck is a place for people that don't believe in gosh.
dupe
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
And block by block searches of residences has long been a way to round up criminals and malcontents. Planting of evidence has long been a way to insure convictions when those criminals and malcontents are too clever to leave traces of their deeds. Work camps have long been a way to seperate those bad elements from the law abiding citizens. Only the guilty need worry about their phone records being viewed. If you have done nothing wrong then you will never be charged.
He, all we're talking about here is open source communications right? A great many people (and probably a higher percentage of /.ers) feel that copyright laws are crap and have no problem thumbing their noses at them while they P2P copyrited works to their hearts content. But now they are having cow (and it aint because the information should be free). Now the "content" is something that has impact on their lives, and now their not happy. Well, what is it? Should we focus on laws to protect content, or do we want all data (whether it be music, video, phone rcords) to be free?
A cell phone is for convenience. The fact that I can be reached and reach all of my friends from wherever I am (and extremely valuable for emergencies) is an obvious benefit that I find amazing people like you can't see any value in.
I also can't stand those who are obnoxious with their phones (driving with one, talking loudly, etc), but that's more of a function of the user than the tool.
Your post screams of bitterness. Get over it.
Good for you, I don't bother to get one either...
I don't want to look like people I hate in the first place with their pathetic nothingness talking bullshit over the phone too hard...
Do you think that if I contacted one of the firms that actually buys a months worth of records for $110, and told them that they are more than welcome to my records if they pay my $110/ month phone bill, they would?
For another $120 + $12.95(TIVO)/month, they can pay my cable/tivo bill for me and I'll tell them everything I watched on all my TVs.
For about $320 I'll detail for them every Kw/h of power I used in a month.
Kick in a final $400 amonth for gasoline, and I'll gladly catalogue everywhere I've driven.
As an added bonus, if they go with the whole package, I'll include at no additional charge a catalogue of everyone who uses my pool in the summers. This is a $75/month (pool guy + chemicals) savings!
Deal or No Deal?
It's embarrassing that the big-time U.S. media can't even copy an article originally written in our native tongue. I guess they're too busy proving that the CIA and the NSA have spies.
You've got it backwards. If you're doing something criminal and suspect someone you're dealing with *might* be an undercover agent then you use this to get their cellphone records (and possibly the cell phone records of people you already know they're close to and whose phone they might have borrowed) and see if they've called anyone with open connections to law enforcement.
And that's why it's threat to the safety of undercover agents.
Must be the /. effect. ;)
I don't agree that it HAS to be this way. It only *tends* to be this way, because convenience often goes along with laziness. People tend to willingly give up a freedom or right if they're made to believe it's a requirement of gaining something useful that makes their life easier.
If the general public got irritated enough with tracking of their spending habits when using credit cards, for example, they could boycott their use and cause a change. But the convenience vs. perceived threat doesn't motivate most people to take action.
One of the features of a 5ESS or DMS-100 is that they keep nice tidy records of who called who for how many minutes.
Law enforcement has almost always had back doors into both the wired and wireless systems in the United States. They are the only entity I know of authorized to see this data.
So what we have here is either a) The cell carriers which are pretty much wholly owned by Bell Co's selling this info
or
b) Someone illegaly getting the data and selling it.
I'd lay my money on b.
In Europe this is virtually impossible; the guys operating those websites would get prison time for doing this.
In France this government commission is responsible for overseeing such rules. Everybody listed in any (government or otherwise) name database has a right to read his entry and modify or delete it.
He is absolutely correct. The 4th amendment only protects you from the federal government (and by the 10th(?) amendment, state goverments). That means your city or your neighbor can poke around your house or cell phone records without violating the constitution. Other laws would certainly be violated in some cases though.
Again, in those parts of world, that take right of privacy seriously that kind of business is not possible without risking 2-4 years jail time.
Now, if quaint, olde worlde countries like Britain can succeed in offering a high level of information privacy, then modern, advanced, sophisticated countries like the United States should have exactly the same ability.
If the population in said olde worlde country can produce a well-known figure like the comedian Steven Fry and yet have such a major celebrity able to simply "vanish" for weeks on end, so that he could spend time chilling out without the usual pressure from the press...
If the population can even produce a mysterious piano-playing genius - discovered much later to have been from East Germany - despite every effort by police, the medical profession, the entire British media, etc, to be the first to get a name and place of origin... (Despite the glare of attention, it took over two months for the mystery to be solved.)
If you start by knowing all of that, AND you know that the information being traded in the States is just a bunch of statistics that have no actual meaning anyway, then why CAN'T we expect the US to follow suit, with strong privacy laws from above and strong privacy respect from the grassroots?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I don't mean trust as in believing in someones goodness. I mean trust as in a business entity. I registered a consulting business simply for the purpose of obtaining privacy. This can be done in many states and localities for less than $100. I got my Cellphone and put it in the name of my business. No Tax ID or "Social Security" number was needed. Other ways include going prepaid or even putting out false information. Just make sure you write down whatever information you give just in case you have problems with your service.
I think there is a problem if only the government has access to cell phone records. If it becomes easy for everybody to get access, then the market will create mechanisms by which it becomes easy for people to regain their privacy (e.g., through disposable numbers, cash-based cell phone purchases, call routing, etc.).
I'm wondering how many of these people will get a cell phone after there aren't any pay phones anymore. It seems inevitable that phone companies won't want to spend the money on pay phones when 90% of people have a cell phone and the pay phones would sit unused. And as the older generation dies out (sorry to sound insensitive) penetration rates will reach that level and maybe higher.
If they are doing nothing wrong, then they have nothing to worry about. Isn't that the tired old argument the governments give the people? It also applies to the police, politicians, judges, corporate officer, and any other official. I have long stated that every bit of information on these folks should be publically posted where anyone can have ready access to it. This information should incluse all licence numbers, SSN's, medical information, and so on. This is what they do to us so it should also be done to them.
use the service at: http://locatecell.com/land.html or
:)
http://locatecell.com/gpage.html to
reverse lookup the owner and address of this number:
Phone: 8663767730 source: http://locatecell.com/contact.html
its purely free if they are hiding, as stated, no data returned = free
and guaranteed accurate = false
a whois shows address in Virginia. though no Langley
fuck that.
I don't think he's bitter, I think he's just curious. Curious as to why nobody has any faith in anybody or anything these days. Why everybody is worried about where every one else is and what they are doing. Why nobody feels secure unless they can wirelessly harrass people at other places.
I wonder the same things.
I trust my friends to take care of themselves, and to be where they say they will be, and to come and find me (or someone else) if they need help with something. Its why they're my friends. Nobody needs a cellphone because everybody is competent at living and nobody requires a constant electric lifeline to another person. Communication and planning is done when we are together, and the long gaps when we aren't together, those give us something to talk about the next time we are. There's a lot to be said for asynchronous communication as well, leaving objects or messages at the places where friends will be (this board is a good, though essentially useless, example).
And as for emergencies, a knife will serve you far better than a cellphone.
Look at the bottom of this: http://onlinestorez.cingular.com/privacy/consumer_ opt.jsp
"Additionally, if you do not want to receive e-mail communications from us, you must provide us with the e-mail address we should not contact."
Maybe I should give them all my credit card numbers as well so they know not to charge them?
Better flight searching coming soon.
Even a decade ago pay phones were becoming scarce in many parts of the USA and Canada. They were frequently vandalized and the repairs seemed to take forever.
nope. and you just described one of the many real hacker tools from the 80's.
Set up boxes with modems back to back in some unsuspecting Office's phone closet in a telephone service box. you want to hack company XYZ and not get traced? call your box issue the ATDT18105551212 to connect to the company XYZ and hack away.
if you set up several of these you can really obfuscate your whereabouts.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
GF is late and called. Hi where are you? Oh I missed the train and had to wait 15 minutes for the next one. I'll be there shortly. Or calling him directly for directions rather than stopping at random gas stations.
I'd recommend you try one before bashing it, but it sounds like you've already made up or mind anyways. Then again you need friends who would want to talk to you, and I'm not talking about all of those virtual ones in WoW.
Something tells me there's another set of Bobby's DVDs out there. Bobby sure was good with databases and phones.
-k
I think there are two good ways to help mitigate at least the pretexting aspect, if not teh outright insider-fraud aspect: a challenge-response mechanism. When changing my address with my cellphone carrier yesterday, they asked me all kinds of personal information, all of which could be easily located by the determined, and then finally they asked me for two pieces of information that are not readinly available: a pin number that I supposedly specified 6 years ago (and never used since) and the 3 digit number on my credit card that I started the account with. Of course, I didn't know the pin and I don't have that credit card anymore so they were happy with my mother's maiden name (which fortunately, no one else knows due to a series of nuances in my life and, the fact, that, I made one up that is only in my head)... and my social.
That said, if a secret PIN was required before such information can be divuldged, under any circumstance, except a search-warrant, then there wouldn't be such a problem. Perhaps, on certain types of information, such as previous or current phone records, they would actually initiate a phone call a phone number on your record (word, home, cell, other) and when you answer it would have to approve the transaction before it could be divulged.
Of course, the problem is deeper, we probly agreed to allow our information to be shared with any other business even if we opt-out, the data belongs to that company and there must be a million ways to skirt your opt-out option. Of course, the information is naturally, it appears, more easily available to all parties but yourself. Such is life.
A simple challenge responce and authentication-required via some very secret information (such as a PIN) would help a lot. Also, if every made up their mothers maiden name, that would help out, too, since no one else would be able to discover it unless they overheard you speak it in a public place while authenticating for some other reason, for that reason, I rarely make such phone calls in public. But even my vehicle and house can be bugged, so you're really not "safe".
Thanks,
Leabre
Where my cell phone records would include friends, customers, and vendors which might prove very interesting to a competitor.
The second is to have an abysmal credit rating.
Again, I'm not that lucky to live a dull, uninteresting life coupled with a crappy credit rating. That's why no one would likely pay for your phone records.
I'll bet we could get this outlawed really fast. See if you could buy the cell phone records of some our elected officials and their staff. Hey, Senator, I couldn't help noticing this number here on your aide's cell phone records which is the number of an escort service across town. And hey, look! First a call to the escort service, then the aide calls this number...that's you right? What a coincidence! Every single time he calls the escort service, he calls you.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It's entirely possible to have and use a cell phone and not be a jerk about it, but I firmly believe that obstinately refusing to have one is just rude.
I don't think it's rude for me to refuse to get a cell. Sure it might make me easier to reach, but they cost a lot. My wife and I can share a land line for just under $22 a month, including taxes. I figure that's about $11 apiece.
I'll admit I haven't looked much, but I haven't seen a cell phone plan that could come anywhere near that. Also, call me bitter, but I've dealt with enough sleazy companies and service agreements to know that it's not worth the hassle except for internet access. From what I've heard, cell providers are somewhere near the worst.
Maybe these seem like silly reasons to you, but I think they are legitimate. And, it seems rude to call me rude for simply not having a cell.
After reading the SunTimes article I decided to call Sprint (my cell phone company). The people I talked to had never heard of this service. They told me that I needed to speak to fraud. After many attempts to get someone to listen I finally got a supervisor on the line. I explained that I did not authorize Sprint to disclose my address, name, and/or phone records with a third party. The supervisor opened the site and was shocked at what was available. I was transferred to a tech support person that I again explained the information release problem to. The technician told me he would get a phone from their stock of phones they use for testing and put the information from that phone into the website. After the technician verified the ability to gather information about a phone I was transferred to Sprint corporate security. Sprint corporate security was shocked that this type of service was available without a court order. I was assured that Sprint would not sell my information to a third party. The information about the site and news article was forwarded to the fraud and legal departments.
EPIC has a website about this, too. Not much can be done about it on the consumer end, except setting a password that's not your mother's maiden name or any of the other standard identifying info available to marketers.
-Esme
I'm sure that's doable, but I can't imagine that "most europeans" do this. I'd be surprised if it's more than 0.1%.
Spam, in general, doesn't come from large corporations.
Surely you can charge the phone companies with a breach of the Data Protection Act? What does the Information Commissioner say about this?
To go further, the SSN should be equated to a "public key". Since it's so screwed off by the oligarchy, wealthy, and corporations, the SSN needs to be fully publicised, but...
ONLY AFTER the SSA, the banks, schools/colleges, past, present and future employers, medical and life insurers, and a whole HOST of others strip out the personal information.
THEN, the SSA needs to issue to all eligible persons a "private key", so to speak. It needs to only be a new SSN-level-II (or, SSN-ULTRA, to get all "markety"), which is used ONLY by the SSA, and possibly DMV, Department of State/INS, and agencies that are going to get it one way or another anyway.
But, corporations of all commercial and non-government kind need to be deprived of this new SSN. Its use would be for retirement benefits as tracked by the government, driver's permits/state or national IDs, and related stuff. It would only be sort of a "drop bucket" into which the SSA, for example would have read and write privileges, to administer its programs. When I or you call the SSA or some cognizant government office, we would (hopefully over a secure line or in person and not aloud in the service counter line) provide our "private SSN" to the clerk. We get our service (well, not as in the latex arm up the crack with the impregnation syringe).
When we go to get hired, the company would get to use the SSN-old/corporately-screwed-WITH/screwed-UP number and could share THAT number and a narrowly-defined (as by some part of government and some part of ACLU/privacy watchdogs...) and then those companies would have to operate from a master lookup table (they could keep their own for hire/rehire/transfer/retire purposes) that gives out a uniform set of information that is not more informative than it already is by the school and corporate abuse of the existing SSN.
I realize that SOME campuses will let you NOT put your SSN on your student ID card (I had to battle a bit with a student operating the registration desk so that my SSN would not be on my card... "Hey, what if I lose or drop this card... why SHOULD you or another student or employee on the campus have my SSN? It's NOT supposed to be a form of "ID", only for tracking BENEFITS and narrowly-defined uses....")
All it would take--if the SSA could finally fix their database problems (I listened to an NPR interview a few years back where it would cost the SSA an astronomical amount of dollars just to fix ONE of their several systems... purportedly it would take years and annually cost more than the budget they receive---JUST for ONE system...), then this new SSN-ULTRA/OVERLAY NUMBER could become a privacy reality.
Someone please help me refine this idea...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Try this one on for size...
Like it or not, usually what is inflicted on the citizens of the U.S. of A. by business folks also happens to canadaians. I never understood why some canadians thought it would be any different than that.... Business is pretty much multinational now and the governments of the world are becoming more more under the influence of the big multinationals...
Basically all these folks at macleans did was call a US company that got the records directly from Bell Canada, Telus Mobility, and Fido/Rodgers...
So which cell phone company in canada do you work for again?
I found this sentence from the article very interesting:
Late last month, the department sent a warning to officers about Locatecell.com, which sells lists of calls made on cell phones and land lines.
According to that sentence, it isn't just cell phone records they're selling. It could well be your home phone line's records. I don't see why they'd only steal or buy the information from cell companies...
So, don't assume you're safe just because you don't use one.
If you had RTFA, you'd see:
"In some cases, telephone company insiders secretly sell customers' phone-call lists to online brokers, despite strict telephone company rules against such deals, according to Schumer.
"And some online brokers have used deception to get the lists from the phone companies, he said."
Your opting out won't do a damn thing to stop this.
But can you start with a name, or do you have to have the cell phone number?
But employers need the SSN to pay into those retirement accounts, to find out if your wages need to be garnished, and to report your income to the IRS (Filled out a W2 or I9 lately?).
And whatever number can be used to do that needs to be protected. But can't be because the companies need it, and need it correlated with your personal information.
"You have no privacy anyway, get over it." And that's been 1995...
- Hanno
The Supreme Court has ruled that your rights aren't "rights" at all, as your only protection is against the official US governments (local, state, and federal) and nobody else.
The fourth amendment protects you against police searches, but does nothing to protect you against your employer's searches.
Since your employer has paid off both major political parties, they can get any legislation passed and enforced that they want (see DMCA, etc).
Your rights were gone before either of us was born.
I don't know about you, but I miss mine.
-mcgrew
Almost MRC="transit")
They are worried about their officers' safety and privacy being violated. But what about the civilians, the non-policemen? Oh fuck them, who cares, after all it's just civilians, right?
The issue I see arrising is more of a police officer who uses his phone to contact a 'source' for information and then the source gets 'outted' and killed as a result of the phone call being released to the public.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
If your interesed in how this is done (pretexting *hint*, *hint*) and how you can prevent yourself, you can check out my blog entry that I just posted about this article at http://www.dailyphreak.com/?p=51
The snooper will just then pay anothe $150 to get all the numbers which called the proxy.
"I'm one of those people that doesn't have too much trouble with the Patriot act's purpose and typical use"
I have a problem in that it was sold to the congress as a way of fighting terrorism, but in fact is used as an excuse to do warrentless wiretaps domestically without judicial oversight.
In fact, as it turns out, the "Patriot" act has nothing to do with terrorism.
I have a problem with any law that mentions that you can be subject to investigation *and not be allowed tell anyone about it*. It flies directly in the face of a founding principle of this country, which is the right to face your accuser in a public forum.
All the government has to do is say "terrorism" and everybody falls all over themselves to give up hard fought civil rights.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
That is most disturbing. I'm vaguely disturbed by the NSA listening to me, but not all that much, since they probably don't give a shit about pr0n and my shopping profile (they might, thoughomfg!).
However. This is a private corporation we're talking about. They pay cash to senators, the senators make whatever-in-the-fuck-they're-doing legal.
This is highly disturbing. I don't have much to hide from the FBI or the CIA or the DIA or DHS etc. But I've got plenty of shit to hide from Citibank, Microsoft, Intel, AMD, Compaq, Dell, fucking Choicepoint , Monsanto, Audi, Ford, General Motors, Whirlpool, ET CETRA UNTO INFINITY .
I want this kind of shit to be made illegal, and I want everyone at that company executed. I can't believe they're selling this...
The main issue here is not law enforcement, but stalkers.
The Patriot Act has many flaws, but enabling stalking is not one of them.
Put the prepaid phone up for sale. Let the marketeers try to figure out who made what calls
Dear Friend,
I have vast interest in acquiring your phone data for the bargain price of $110 that you quoted. I will be happy to transfer you the money. I employ you to offer 5 minutes of your time to dedicate to this highly important nature of the matter.
Please provide your bank account information that I may promptly deposit the funds.
It may also be of interest to you that it has been revealed to me through my team of lawyers and financial advisors that I have inherited large money. I would beg you to consider helping me to recover the money - your loyalty will not go unrewarded.
There may be a delay in our communication, as I have to bypass the security spies of our Nigerian government.
I trust you will reply to this matter in good faith.
[Royal] Prince
Mustapha Abadallah
I think you mean authenticaton needs to be separate from identification, and I agree with you 100%. The SSN was never designed to be an authenticator, it was designed to be an identifier (not that it gets that right). The problem lies with those who chose to use it as an authenticator.
Unfortunately is there is no universal authenticator that you can use for remote transactions. Up close and in person you can use your drivers license or passport, but how do you do that on the web or phone. Early on, the SSN was probably private enough to use, but those days are long gone.
- 1. Opt out (http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs1aplus-cpni.ht
m )
- 2. Emails/call your local phone companies, and scream about it.
- 3. Ditto locateacell (http://locatecell.com/contact.html)
- 4. Complain to FCC (http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/complaints.html)
- 5. Write to your representative (http://www.house.gov/writerep/. I'm sure *they* wouldn't want to see their records out in the public either!
- ...
- n. And we all profit from increased privacy
If we make enough noise about it, something might be done. Squeaky wheel etc etc.don't give us away!
In Germany there was already an era with exactly that attitude and a whole culture forming from that (long before Hitler was even born) 1815-1848:
Biedermeier.
The Biedermeier era is famous for its dullness - in fact the name "Biedermeier" exactly means that: Dull-Boring!
A Quote:
"The second trend is the growing political oppression following the end of the Napoleonic Wars prompting people to concentrate on the domestic and (at least in public) the non-political. Due to the strict publication rules and the censorship had the consequence, that the main topics written about were unpolitical, eg Historical Fiction or Books about the quiet life in the countryside. This does not mean, that there was not a lot of political discussion going on, but it happened at home and in the presence of close friends. This situation finally lead to the revolutions in Europe in the year 1848."
Will we fall back into such dark times? This time not only restricting the private political life, but any suspicious private life, be it personal, economical or political?
--- censored
Exactly the need for the OLD SSN to exist: It's the PUBLIC key to the new number, but they DON'T get the new number. You still have to present your credentials to get paid, but the employer cannot look up or "do stuff" with the new number. They don't NEED to know if you've previously been on disability, unemployment, etc, unless they're trying to determine if you're a risk to them as a repeat claimant who can damage their "unemployment experience rating" as determined by the state/s in which the company operates.
But, to have access to the New SSN just for "looking stuff up", NO they don't deserve nor need access to it. This new SSN is to provide anti-abuse security layers, not significantly change the existing system.
Put another way, imagine you apply to a number of jobs, you open a bank account, you start a small company, rent a few cars, publish some not-so-warmly-received rants, and do other things. Now, an employer who has your SSN these days can "lend" that number to some outside agency that specializes in investigating and posing as people. Imagine the things your SSN ISN'T needed for just to exploit you. Now, imagine the things your SSN --if abused-- can get you.
The NEW SSN wouldn't be allowed to be used with credit cards, gym memberships, car rentals and other "purchases". It would be to protect your benefits from boilerplate shops that prey upon the elderly, students who don't NEED umpteen numbers of credit card debts on top of their loans and what not.
Now, imagine all the benefits and possibilities that can be had by isolating your new, shiny "private" SSN from your current, corporation-raped, OLD SSN.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
That sound was the funny flying, at breakneck speed, several feet above your head.
People like you remind me why we have moderation tags. Did you look at this one?
You know, it's good you have a professional life. Now get a sense of humor, please.
This was right after they let their officers know they could now get your cell phone records without a warrant, right?
Liberty in your lifetime
And as for emergencies, a knife will serve you far better than a cellphone.
What if your vehicle breaks down and you have no way to repair it? I think that's the sort of emergency the grandparent is talking about.
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
That is quite possibly the most absurd thing I have ever read. Your girlfriend, by refusing to use a cell phone (for whatever reason), is being rude because she is inconsiderate to your need to know her whereabouts at any time? Frankly, I think YOU are the one being rude and inconsiderate to her desire NOT to use a cell phone. I understand the logic behind your argument, but I don't buy it. "It would make my life easier if she would just use a cell phone even though she doesn't want to." I'm sorry, but if you don't respect her reasons and decisions not to use a cell phone then you are being a jerk.
I hope I never have to own a cell phone. Once you have a cell phone your life is altered. You are on-call to everybody who has your number. Because they know you have a cell phone, if you don't answer you are just being a jerk. Of course you can just turn it off and let your voice mail fill up, but then you are a jerk for turning it off. Almost everybody I know who has a cell phone has become a slave to it. Some people do handle it well of course, but in my experience most do not. I don't know what it is, but cell phones seem to turn otherwise normal people into inconsiderate jerks. The absolute worst are the walkie-talkie cell phones. Most people don't hold them as they do on a normal phone call, so the volume is jacked up and I can hear everything. Then there are all the beeps when connecting and hitting interference and the alerts, OH MY GOD THE ALERTS MAKE THEM STOP.
Having a cell phone does not automatically put you at the fingertips of others. Cell phones have the following convenient features: silent mode, call ignore, and most importantly, the ability to be left at home or in the car. As long as I pay my cell phone bill, I see no reason why my having a phone should empower anyone buy myself and others I select. I consider it rude when others use their cell phones when we're getting together, but they are convenient to have around when you need to get some information (from a person or a business) and you are not at home or wanting to use a pay phone.
I still see many pay phones around around stores, but I haven't seen even one of the once-ubiquitous phone booths in quite a while.
You could probe a famous person's agent and get all his clients numbers. Then probe the celebrity to get all their friends numbers. You could probe a CEO's phone and find out who he is talking to. Of course probe a spouses phone to see if they are cheating. Probe someone harrassing you's number to prove they called you to get a restraining order or to prove they broke a restraining order. The list goes on and on. I think it would be better for humanity for phone records to be 100% private. Prepaid cellular should advertise that their services are 100% anonymous by buying prepaid cards in cash.
The McCain-Feingold bill (a.k.a. Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2001) did impose some limitations that might be fairly said to be limitations on political speech. Specifically, there is a provision that prevents other political groups (e.g. 527 committees) from airing "issue ads" around election time. From the Brookings institution analysis:
Now, of course, it doesn't actually prevent people from voicing their views, but it does in theory make it harder for citizens to have their voices heard during the most crucial time (usually FEC restrictions are put on candidates, not all citizens). It's debatable whether this is limiting money or limiting speech, but it sure looks uncomfortably close to effectively limiting political speech to those of us concerned with protecting the 1st amendment. One instance in which this came up was in 2004, when the conservative group Citizens United tried to get the FEC to stop Michael Moore from running adds for his movie Fahrenheit 9/11, claiming it was clearly political content covered under McCain-Feingold.
All that being said, Russ Feingold was the only person in the U.S. Senate to have the balls to vote against the USA PATRIOT act. In a time when other politicians were pandering to hystaria and rushing to take what they knew would be (at least in the near term) a popular position, he stood up for principle; he stood for liberty. So, yeah, I don't think I agree with that part of McCain-Feingold, but it's just foolishness to suggest that Feingold has not been a defender of liberty.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
Land of the Free, innit? You can do whatever you like to make money, it's your constitutional right, nobody can stop you, and if they do you're free to buy a gun and do something about it.
Only in nasty commie left-wing socialist places like Red Europe is this sort of thing seriously illegal.
I wonder if the writers of "National Lampoon's Animal House" were thinking of that when they came up with the the name for the character Doug Neidermeyer
There is an important issue being glossed over here: is the release of this information illegal or not?
The top article [suntimes.com] implies that it is illegal for the phone companies to share this data.
But the information from EPIC [epic.org] and the FCC [fcc.gov] suggests a very different situation. According to these sites it is perfectly legal to share this data if the company adopts an "opt-out" policy and if the consumer has not exercised his right to opt-out.
Maybe the point the article is trying to make is this shouldn't be something you have to opt-out of to start with. What's next? My checking account history is available to any joe-schmoe who goes to the bank and pays $10 for the document becuase I didn't opt-out when I got my account?
In a society where people get annoyed about there being cameras installed in PUBLIC places and feel their "privacy" is being invaded, what makes these companies think they should be doing this to begin with? Is it not common sense most people don't want their buying habits, phone records, financial history, ect shared with anyone to start with? These should all be things kept private by default and you opt-INto if you wish. But becuase companies want to make money every way they can, and politicans will be bought and sold, I have yet to see a bill before the house saying that companies have to obtain permission before they do anything, just that they send a small leaflet telling they are and how to get out of it.
We could add an additional layer of security to the SSN-ULTRA in the form of a time-based component. Say that we issue as a social security card a thin keyfob with a 20-digit LCD screen. The screen would have a number that changes every 12 hours in a sequence governed by the proper polynomial. That polynomial is your REAL social security number. So we have a bank of 9 shift registers, each containing a sequential-XOR chain 10 gates long. Basically, this keyfob generates and displays a different number every 12 hours based on a seed number which is kept secret. This displayed number is the one you use for gym memberships, credit cards, cell phones, and the like. All different, depending when you signed up. And each one is only good for 12 hours. In other words, if someone wants to check your police record with the government, they can do so for 12 hours, then the number that indicates you changes simultaneously in both your card and the government computer. If they want to check you again, they have to ask you for your number again.
A simple transaction with a government computer would verify that the 20-digit one links to you and whether you had any felonies. In other words, big important data. However, all of these different corporate scum wouldn't be able to sell data between themselves about your adult-toy buying habits based on SSN, because all of the numbers that describe you are different and unique.
Lastly, the interesting part is that you could see who queried your data and when, based on what numbers were given.
This concept is based on the RSA SecurID, a keyfob that does something very similar.
'Be always mindful, even when ditch-digging.' --D. T. Suzuki
So, is it possible to (legally) get a working cell phone without ever giving out personal information?
Of course, then again, a P.I. would probably just use his mobile phone to call his own secretary, and have her place any calls he'd need from the office land-line. If he had to make the call himself, he'd wait until he could get to a land-line.
Someone familiar with how easy this info is to get would know how to avoid leaving a trail of it.
~
DIGG had this a few hours before this site. How about a little credit, cowards?
Dude, you stole my identity!
For N-dollars they could sell us a list of all the emails/credit card numbers who bought our phone information from them.
:)
Or maybe even a protection plan. $50 to join. Someone buys your info, you get a call notifying you that happened. Then for $100 more they tell you who.
-- 3 events that reshaped the world in the 20th century: WW1, WW2, and WWW
Why wouldn't services like this not be available for land-lines (at least to PI's)? See also this comment.
The telephone companies could take a hint from the IRS. The IRS was having problems with employees looking up the tax returns of famous people for reasons other than official business. They squashed this by putting audit trails on the retrieval of tax returns. They flagged the tax returns of people likely to be targets of abuse, and fired anyone caught looking up a tax return for non-official reasons.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Congress passed it because they were fearful of being painted soft on terrorists. None of them read the act prior to its passage.
Most of the more draconian parts of it, the parts that erode our rights, have been attempted legislation in the past. But without a national crisis such as 9/11 it wasn't going to pass. Why do you think that is?
WRT investigations - the concern is a military tribunal can seize you, try you, and execute you, without telling anyone they've even taken you. Keeping an ongoing investigation secret isn't the purpose of the act; that's already adequately covered.
And finally - the whole PATRIOT apologetic behavior is old as hell. The 9/11 commission conclusions were that we are woefully underprepared to defend against another attack, and the organizational issues still exist. PATRIOT has not made an appreciable difference in this, while at the same time it has severely curtailed our rights and laid the baseline for a police state of horrifying power.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Now THAT'S the kind of thinking I like to see. Sharper than the bare solutions I suggested. Only (or, one) problem is to make sure your key fobs don't get exposed to certain security scanners, microwave ovens (if it got mixed in your lunch bag), and the like.
This kind of device would be useful for preventing improper access to ships, stations, buildings, offices, vehicles and more.
Imagine if such a device required you do every 15 seconds enter 2 or 3 pre-designated numbers for your car's ignition system. It would allay your fears of having your vehicle commandeered by someone in a "uniform" presenting a "badge" and spouting state law and your driver's license issuance having been contingent upon your consent to search and seizure, vehicle subject to lawful commandeering by peace officers....
I suppose anyone installing and then bragging about such a device would have their license suspended or revoked and then only find out by letter or by an at-first innocent "pull-over" or when the plates are randomly run in any state you drive the car.
Imagine tho, the key fob acting as a new ID to replace the standard card ID. Most of the time, clubs and bars and other places don't even scrutinize them, making their intended use questionable at times. But, the scary thing about the fob is that without our knowledge, backdoors could be installed at clubs and bars and payment stations so that wherever you go (but don't take your cell phone to) that requires ID for entry could also disclose your location.
OTOH, a keyfob misused by the abductor or murderer of a victim could be traced if they enter the victim's pre-assigned "I've been kidnapped/I'm a potential murder victim..." THAT could be really useful for certain situations when the person with the gun demanding the money or vehicle chooses to off the victim rather than let the victim enter the code him/herself.
I'd like to order the keyfob that explodes in the hand of the mis-user. Might be called booby-trapping, but hey, just universally announce the purpose. Any fool then using a fob not his or her own (or suffers dementia, or memory loss, I suppose) will come unglued... OK, make it just hot enough to fuse their hand so they'll be identifiable by appearance and the act of wailing.
(OK, I'm going into la-la land a bit there, but the possible outcomes and uses are numerous...)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Prepaid phone cards are the best ways to go. No attachments and you can control your expenses.
I get mine at Nobelcom.com, though there are others as well.
Walk to the nearest service station or building with a landline and call a tow truck?
Wave down another vehicle and get a ride to a service station to do the same?
If I'm somewhere desolate enough to have no habitation in walking distance and no other traffic, odds are there's no cellular service there anyway. Most of the rural areas where I've lived have had fairly poor cellular service (likely related to my past/present reluctance to carry a cellphone; they're not reliable at all in my experience). And I probably wouldn't be driving in an area like that alone or without spare parts. Again, planning. A bit of forethought can save you from many would-be emergencies.
You have to know where you are to know who you are. And you have to know where you are going to know who you will be when you get there.
The cellphone may be convenient, but left unchecked it can be a weakness. It can change you so that you always react to events, instead of anticipating them. Constantly reacting can wear you down, make you feel like prey, make you worry and fear. The cellphone's promise of independence from landlines and freedom to contact anyone from any location can actually make you more dependent, instead of more independent.
Not saying that you in particular suffer that, but its what I see in far too many people who cling to the things.
Myself, I suffer from seeing too many things as symbols. The cellphone has come to symbolize to me all that I have just mentioned. I don't think I could bring myself to carry one, despite its potential use, unless experience radically changed my mind, changed the cellphone's symbol within.
Anyway, that's enough ranting for a week, so I've had it.
Yeah, and this story gives you a great idea: Make friends with certain police officers and buy lists from them!! Then you show up at the policeman's ball all ready to schmooze just to find out your competitor, who has the uncanny ability to beat your ass to practically every customer, has been hosting the thing for years.
If you haven't already, you can set a password with your provider which people will have to provide before they can access your information. They will NOT let you reset it unless you call from your cell phone. It's not perfect, but it can prevent the casual prying eyes from calling up the cell phone company with your name, bday and last 4 digits....
In addition, make sure you set up your online account, because the first time you use it, it's very insecure. Once you set up a password, you're a lot more secure.
Another thing you can do is not use your cell phone for calls you want kept anonymous. The cell phone has ALWAYS been one of the best ways to get information on people. It's easy to intercept your conversations and almost as easy to track your physical location.
If you want to be anonymous, make friends with one of those local cell phone shops. They get dozens of phones per day for returns, insurance claims, etc. Slap in a new SIM, use it to make your 10 calls and toss it in the river/fire/whatever. Beware of payphones also, as most of them (the few that remain) are watched by hidden cameras since late 2001.....
I'm an author so this is of course a fictional example and pure speculation I'm releasing to the public domain that you're free to use if you ever make a movie or write a novel. I'm not saying you should do this nor am I saying I would and I'm not saying this is true.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Telephones (of any kind) are not a secure means of communication.
"Too bad it takes so many deaths to make preventing more a reasonable pursuit. It's going to take time to sort out the nuances, but if we waited until some universally acceptable bit of legislative perfection (never happen!) were crafted, we'd never get around to any of the plainly obvious necessities that are included in the Act."
You're missing the elephant in the room... The government had enough information to act before 9/11 but chose not to do anything about it. We can pass a million laws, and that won't help. The issue isn't that government doesn't have enough information, the problem is that terrorist by definition can't be tracked. So government's thoughts are "Ah ha! we'll track everybody. Then we'll catch the terrorists amongst us. Which maybe they feel that way. But then then next yahoo gets in office and he says "Disagreeing with the president on this war is supporting terror!". Oh wait. They *already* say that. So I guess we're all terrorist. Shoot us all now before we kill.
Your thoughts that somehow I'm not allowed to tell anybody about being investigated is a new power. Don't paint this as less than it is. You can now be taken into custody with no charges, without access to a lawyer and without access to a speedy trial because you're called a terrorist (a.k.a. enemy combatent). Are you being serious that you don't see an issue with this? You don't have a problem that the FBI tells you that you're the subject of an investigation and you can't tell anyone about it? Not even a lawyer? Really? Seriously? THat's okay as long as we catch "the terrorist". You don't have a problem that police can poke around in your records without a warrant because "you might be a terrorist?". I think Patrick Henry was thinking of you. I know he's rolling over in his grave right now.
Look, 9/11 was a terrible thing. But that still doesn't excuse giving up civil liberties in the name of preventing things that can't be stopped. Look at airport security. Do you realize airports are no more safe than they were before 9/11? The increased security was meant to make *paying passengers feel safer*. It was about commercial interests of airlines.
If you want to make commercial flights safer, here's what you do. You put a wall up to the cockpit that can't be breached. And then you put a sky marshall on every plane. That would work a lot better than the joke we have now. But that doesn't make passengers feel better because it's admitting that true security is a mirage, an illusion. But people are like children. They want to be looked after. And I guess some people (hint, look in mirror) think that's a great idea.
I hope your world doesn't come to pass. Its a scary one.
Subject says it all.
my orignal Social Security card said in nice red letters across the top of the card "Not for Identification Purposes"
(-hrair-)
Beware of the shining wires...
If you are concerned that a call might end up in your cell phone log, why not call one of the calling card services (I've been pretty happy with Onesuite.com) from your cell? This way the only thing showing up in your cell-log would be the dial-in number for that service. This is also a useful tool if you have to call somebody back from your cell who doesn't accept blocked number calls and you don't want to disclose your cell #. Examples might be you have to call a customer/one of your sales folks back from your personal cell phone...
Heiko
Heh, obviously neither of you actually looked up this company - they do offer landline services...
In Russia, pretty much any government information can be had for a very low price.
In the local CD markets, where you can buy for 60 rubles (about $2) CDs with the latest and often unreleased pirated software, you can buy government tax record database, cell phone user databases (including home telephone and credit card information) and telephone directories with names, addresses and passport information. No big deal.
It seems the US is starting to catch up -- someone on the inside working a deal with a publisher.
In fact, the US was one of the FIRST countries where this kind of thing started happening in a big way -- how do you think the satellite TV decoder EPROMS, codes and hacks have been coming out within days or even hours of being changed?
altough I understand what you are trying to say, tha cancer analogy is wrong: It is your own cells that are turning cancerous. your body already has learned to ignore those. If you implant ones own cancer, your body still wont recognize it as foreign, because it is not. If you implant somebody else's cancer, your body will recognise it as foreign and fight it. You have to actually trick the immune system to get it to attack tumors. (one experimental method I know of involves isolating heat shock proteins from a tumor, adding bacterial toxins that trigger a immune response and injecting the mix several weeks apart).
But to get back on topic: boiling a frog would be a beter analogy. They get out of the hot water but stay in the water that gets slowly warmed up to a boil. (or at least that is what the rural legend says, never tried it myself)
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Why would you want to impose a restriction on phone operators' property? You made the phone calls, they are free to make records about them. This information was your property, but since they can observe it, it is now their property. They can do whatever they want with it.
This is a similar situation than file sharing MP3 files ripped from copyrighted music CDs. Large number of Slashdot readers consider the data on purchased CDs their property and believe they are free to duplicate or share it. The publishing companies and musicians believe this is their private data and not to be disclosed to third persons (i.e. people that didn't purchase the CD).