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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."
Maclean's Magazine did a story on this in November. The magazine purchased the Canadian privacy minister's phone records.
Beautiful way to make a point.
http://request-header.info
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.
"Her mouth hangs open, and she appears near tears. 'Oh my God," she says finally. "I didn't realize this was possible. This is really alarming.'"
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
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.
Maybe because for someone working undercover, who assumes that only the police (meaning, them) have access to cell phone call logs, this could easily get them killed.
Just think: you're a gang leader and suspect that someone in your organization is a narc. You have all of their cell phone numbers, because that's how you communicate, so you call up Locatecell and get the logs. The one who has the local PD in their logs gets a pair of cement shoes for Christmas.
While the rest of us could certainly be inconvenienced, or perhaps lose our jobs / marriages / etc., because of this, probably we won't have the same risk of ending up dead.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
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.
I was just thinking that it might be a worthwhile investment to buy a copy of my Senators' phone records and mail it to them. It might be the best way to make a point about privacy.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.