Slashdot Mirror
How To Tell If Your Cell Phone Is Bugged
Lauren Weinstein writes to point us to his essay on the realities of using an idle cell phone as a bug, as a recent story indicated the FBI may have done in a Mafia case. From the essay: "There is no magic in cell phones. From a transmitting standpoint, they are either on or off... It is also true that some phones can be remotely programmed by the carrier to mask or otherwise change their display and other behaviors in ways that could be used to fool the unwary user. However, this level of remote programmability is another feature that is not universal... But remember — no magic! When cell phones are transmitting — even as bugs — certain things are going to happen every time that the alert phone user can often notice."
You could check the old fashioned way - slide off the back cover if an insect falls out you can be sure it is bugged.
liqbase
It's not a bug, it's a feature!
Wow, this is really a huge problem that has been bugging me for some time...
Just use a pay as you go phone, and get a new one every month or so.
When cell phones are transmitting -- even as bugs -- certain things are going to happen every time that the alert phone user can often notice.
For example, when using a Palm Treo 650, the phone will crash and reset often, and without notice.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
Like a poster on the earlier story commented, why not simply connect one of those flashy LED thingies to your phone? My mom has them, and every time she's on a call, or even on an incoming SMS, the LEDs go berserk!! They don't even need batteries and power themselves off the cellphone radiation. Pretty foolproof method, IMHO.
Bip-b-b-bip. B-b-bip. B-b-bip. B-b-bip. B-b-bip. B-b-bip. Bip-biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip.
Yeah. You're being bugged.
The "essay" is nothing but speculation with a few facts, no references, and no actual testing or experience. I'm sure this is an amusing blog entry, but why is it on Slashdot? There's nothing to discuss.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Be alert, but not alarmed.
As a spokes person of the Mobsters Who Read Slashdot club, I'd like to offer my gratitude for bring this guide to our attention.
In return I offer 3 cheap bug puns for you to enjoy:
It's a feature, not a bug!
My phone isn't bugged, but I'm bugged by my phone.
If insects fall out of your phone, it's bugged!
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Good night.
I have a pay-as-go phone they are not anonymous. In many places (e.g. Germany), you have to register your details to get it, in other places your purchase details are used from the credit card to register it.
When I bought one with cash, just after I bought it, I received wrong number calls, but the people involved didn't seem to want to hang up like normal wrong number calls.
Them: "Is Mark there?"
Me: "I'm sorry, there's no Mark here, you must have a wrong number."
Them: "I'm sorry, are you sure you're not mark"
Me: "you have a wrong number"
Them: "Oh my mistake, thanks again erm Mr erm...." pauses to see if you'll complete the sentence.
This happened again and again and again, different scripts, but always a wrong number guy who just wouldn't go away. Until one day my wife answered and said my name.
Her: "No this is ???????'s phone"
After that I never received another wrong number call.
Now I put that down to random chance, since I'm not worth spying on. But then my wife got a new pre-pay mobile, again she paid cash, and sure enough she got the same pattern of calls. We were talking about it yesterday, when the phone rang, and it was woman this time, who again was a wrong number, but didn't seem to want to hang up.
Many different phone numbers used each time, we're building a list.
Put your cell phone next to your computer speakers. If it's transmitting you'll know it.
Sorry FBI for killing your wiretap program.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
this blog entry has no useful content. READY OK
... It's when your girlfriend, for no apparent reason, says: "who is nikki and why is she telling you to get tested for syphilis?"
God Be Gone
Slightly off-topic:
An easy way to warn you that your GSM phone call may be intercepted: look for the cipher indicator icon. It typically looks like an open lock. If your phone displays this icon, the base station has turned encryption off for this call.
This typically happens when the They have ordered the phone company to spy on you, or when reception is low.
I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.
This has always stood as one of those easily reinterpreted components of the constitution -- just look at the way the US Supreme Court enjoys reinterpreting it. And, to some degree, I do see why this should be interpreted in a somewhat fluid way. There are terrorists/freedom fighters out there, and governments should be capable of protecting their citizens-- that is what they're ultimately designed to do.
However, the egregious trampling of our right to privacy, as outlined in the US constitution, starts moving us very quickly in the direction of fascism. And people tend to use the term fascism lightly, but you have to ask yourself how a state can move from one type of government to another? History has shown that this happens everywhere -- just look at history
So, why would I take a break from my ultimate presentation on latency markers in tuberculosis? Well, I feel strongly that you (the person reading this, not just the general "you") should take it upon yourself to encourage those people that you vote for to stand up and strengthen the first levee against tyranny -- our right to privacy. The FBI may, at this point, consider using your cell phone to track you as a legitimate means to and end, but when the FBI cycles through it's current leadership/membership then we can only hope that these means lead to good ends.
And the hope that people mean well is not something I am willing to risk.
It would seem to be much easier to have the phone record to its internal memory and then transmit later. Transmitting needs a fair bit of power (while recording to memory from the microphone doesn't take much and can be compressed) and I would think people would start to notice that their phone would be dead after powering it off for several hours.
The amount of memory and processors in some modern phones makes this a possibility...
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
> First, when the phone is operating as a bug, regular calls can't be taking place in almost all cases
This is often not true in the case of GSM phones - particularly those models targetted at business.
GSM is capable of making two calls at once:- the other typically goes on hold and you switch between them, but hosting of conference calls is also possible.
This is true of every Nokia I've owned over the the last 8 years and also the high-end Motorola I owned for a month before it was stolen.
The RISKS digest carried this news a few years ago.
It's been long known that;
1. some providers can download arbitrary software to some phones
2. a phone can be running that software while appearing not to be making a call
The potential for abuse is obvious.
I gave up my mobile phone about a month ago now. I read through a full list of the ways in which the British State monitors me. When you read them all at once, it has quite an impact. The simple question I have is this: I am completely innocent. I have commited no crimes and am not suspected of committing any crimes.
SO WHY AM I BEING WATCHED?
Hello,
Just as an experiment, I tried placing my cell phone into an anti-static mylar baggy and the signal went from 100% to 40% (or five bars to two). Repeating this with tin foil with a small opening to see the LCD (about 1cm^2) reduced the signal to 20% (or one bar).
I am wondering that if someone wants to have a private verbal conversation sans listeners on the cell phone, all they have to do is place their cell phone in metal box?
This would seem much more convenient than having to pull the battery out, as well as reduce wear and tear on the contacts or thin plastics of today's cell phones.
Perhaps someone who is a bit more familiar with electronics could explain whether or not a "tin foil hat" (or a metal box or foil bag, ala Enemy of the State) for a cell phone would work?
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Dexter is a good dog.
You could tell that your phone was bugged, because you had an extra wardrobe in your room.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Gangster 1. OK, so I'll just phone [insert non-ethnocentric name here] to confirm the date of the shipment. How many kilos again?
Gangster 2. NO! Shh! Keep your voice down until you dial out — that thing could be bugged.
Phone. "This phone is not being used as a covert surveillance device. Please continue to arrange your morally and/or legally questionable activities as normal."
Gangster 1. Muh?!
Phone. "Please ignore this message."
All current laptops have microphones and some have built in cameras. Desktops also usually have microphones and often have cameras. Many have continuous internet access. Computers are ubiquitous and they are often left on. It is not hard to imagine infecting a vulnerable computer with a small program to send back continuous audio and an occasional picture. With reasonable bit rates and good encoding, it would not use much bandwidth.
Does anyone else worry about such things? Has this been done already? If it has, would you know about it? (pull foil hat on tighter)
The first time it happened, I did what you were saying and write it off to chance. That was after 8 of these odd conversations in the first 2 months, by about the 5th I noticed they all were trying to talk me round into giving my name, so I was really angry when my wife answered my phone and gave my name.
After that it has so far been 10 months of no wrong calls.
I asked her why she told a total stranger my full name, and she said it was the way he persisted in talking, the conversation naturally led to a point where my full name was the gap in the conversation.
Then when *she* got a prepay and it started with her, the very first call she got was in front of me, she said you have a wrong number and when he didn't hang up the penny dropped. I signaled to her remind her about the previous time she'd handed out my name.
I put my head up to listen in, and it is totally clear to me that he was trying to talk her into revealing information. If her phone supports recording, I'll try and record some of these calls and put them up on the web so you can hear for yourself. She's had 10 so far in her first 2 months of having the phone.
I also have a phone for work calls only, but I signed a service contract when I bought it and haven't made any international calls on it, it's never had a wrong number in the 12 months I've had it.
Is there any evidence that such features are implemented in (GSM) phones? Because to me it looks more like an urban legend than anything else. Such a feature should have to have some traces: like being part of the GSM specifications, for one. Also, programmers working on cell phones should also be aware of such functionality (when I was working on conventional telephone switches I had - not too deep, since I was uninterested - knowledge of the wiretapping features).
But, it seems, all this craze comes from some over-paranoid tinhats and has no grounding in reality.
Real life is overrated.
Have you done anything to warrant surveillance from the FBI?
:-) goes here, but more like 3/4 of a :-(
Yes) Consider it bugged
No) Why would they bother?
1/2
How to tell if you're a paranoid loony. Yes, Lauren, the government is /very/ interested in what you talk about when you're sitting on the loo.
Honestly...
The article tell you absolutly nothing about How To Tell If Your Cell Phone Is Bugged
Locksmith
Use their own designed encrypted systems, or buy $5000 comms talkies from the russians.
They use high tech RF mapping signature maps to see where there are dark spots
in the FBis monitoring systems.
If your making billions in profit each year, you can afford to spend $5-10m in custom design hardware from china
or fly 1000s of flights to map the intercepts.
Only part time low lifes use mobiles, because they cannot afford anything greater than $200USD, which means they must
be very small time crooks.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I did have a friend who was worried he was being bugged by his mobile, it seems to made a buzzing noise from the speaker, I checked mine and it appears to do the same thing so probably nothing to worry about.
;)
I'm far too boring to be bugged anyway.
Anyone else have a razor that buzzes all the time?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire
Sounds like just another ploy of the Technocracy to keep the Virtual Adepts down.
His place is "virtually fullproof". He's got the feds there. Yutz.
My life is so boring, spying on me is its own punishment.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
"Nice conspiracy theory, but you do realize that you're identifiable without your cooperation if you have a cellphone, don't you?"
I don't think they are interested in me or my wife, (not that they know she's my wife). I think they are profiling all telephone calls for patterns of interconnection.
We both make international calls to the far east, and I think we score highly on some equation in a computer somewhere. International calls from prepay phones in foreign languages where the phones were paid for in cash and the extended guarantee wasn't accepted and the top up cards are all paid for with cash.
If you only know us from our mobile phone logs we must look very suspicious if you were a spy agency involved in call profiling.
In theory in the USA they need a warent to listen in on your phone (I live in Israel, I have no idea what the local laws are). But to be honest if you are that worried about somone listening in on your phone then don't pass sensative information over the phone lines.
Could someone listen in on my cell phone? Maybe I don't know. To be honest if they did most of what they are going to hear is my calling neighbors to arange a lift home after work or me talking to my wife about important things like does she want me to pick up something at the store. I don't think the local cops care enough about this type of thing to make listening in important (At least I can't figure why they would). If I was aranging drug deals I would not use my cell phone, or even my home phone.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
You already have one of these: Optoelectronics Scout
Now, if your communications were encrypted end-end with hard encryption with keys you control, this would be a moot point. Coming soon to a VOIP / programmable cell phone near you.
..don't panic
OK, this has come up a lot in many conversations.
First off, cell phones have batteries internally, much like the battery your mobo has to keep it's settings.
Why would cell phones differ? Take your main battery out, the time/alarm/etc settings are saved, doesn't that give you any clues?
The phone is powered at any given time, it's not a matter of whether the screen is lit or not...
They could, and can, and do, use cell phones as bugs, there's nothing new to that.
There's nothing in this "article" that the discussion related to the original bugging story did not already cover in much greater detail. No news is better than crappy news, slashdot.
If we are concerned with the ability of somebody to alter the phone's behavior sufficiently to initiate a call without your intervention, then we shouldn't assume too much about what other things can or cannot be done.
For example, not being able to make a call when a call is in progress. In time division multiplexing, you're taking one or two timeslots out of eight or sixteen. However, it's pretty clear that if we have modified the phone ostensible behavior enough to use it as a bug, it could also take more than one half channel at a time.
Checking the warmth of the phone is good idea, but not perfect either. The assumption is that the phone is transmitting your words live. What if the phone recorded your conversations at a reduced bit rate, say 3kb/sec, using voice activiation. It could the be stored and dribbled out intermittently, particularly when close to a cell tower. This would reduce telltale power effects. This might not be enough to monitor your every waking moment, but it could be used to monitor snatches of your conversation, particularly as part of a surveillance program.
Even if the phone doesn't transmit your speech, it could use the signally channel to record that you are talking, combined with the GPS or wi-fi snooping, over time the network of people you talk to could be recontructed.
It's a bit paranoid to worry about these things, unless you think the government has a compelling reason to snoop on you. But if you do have such a reason, then you shouldn't make too many assumptions about what they could do with a phone, particularly a "smart" phone which might have megabytes of storage. A simpler phone with a removable battery would be a good choice.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I know the article doesn't say what the subject suggests, but there is a simple solution to tell if it is being bugged live. Simply get one of those antennas that flash when the phone is transmitting. If it is flashing when the phone is "off" you know it is bugged. Just remember that phones normally will transmit about every 15 minutes to check in with the network.
BAN BPL! Keep the radio spectrum free fro
Personally I wonder if it's not just a case of Hanlon's Razor: never attribute to malice, that which is adequately explained by stupidity. It could be that someone just wrote down the wrong phone number for someone named Mark, and your obstinacy to not give any detail tripped _their_ paranoia.
I'm saying it because something similar happened on my normal (non-mobile) phone line. And the Deutsche Telekom certainly had all my data there, so there would have been no need for such a masquerade.
Anyway, someone with an extra-thick arabic or maybe turkish accent repeatedly called, first to ask to talk to Achmed or something like that, then gradually after a few calls (spaced a couple of weeks apart) it turned into trying to bully me into "admitting" that I'm Achmed. (Dunno what gave him _that_ stupid idea.) And, yeah, demanding to know who I am, if not Achmed. By the time it turned into screaming at me in his weird language, I told him I'll call the police if he doesn't leave me alone.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Cell phones get warm when they are transmitting. This is actually a great topic starter for my first year Electrical Fundamentals class. Any device that uses energy gets warm. How warm? How much energy is going into heat? Is there an Ohm's Law equivalent for heat? Why does the battery get warm?
(Similar question: How do you tell the difference between a black box voltage source and its current source equivalent? Answer: The internal resistance of the current source always dissipates heat when the source isn't short circuited. In other words, the current source will be warm.)
Another topic starter: Speakers are linear; how do they demodulate RF energy so it can be heard? In other words, why can you hear cell phone induced noise in a speaker?
You can run down the article if you wish but there's nothing wrong with the author's approach. I've known many brilliant and not so brilliant scientists and engineers and one thing stands out. The really brilliant people almost always notice the simple, obvious-after-the-fact stuff and the third rate hacks don't. In that regard the author of the story probably rates closer to the high end of the scale.
You don't have to buy the phone/sim card with a credit/debit card,
you don't have to top it up with a credit/debit card, just buy top-up cards at the news agent/tobacconist,
you can easily pretend you don't speak the language, I'm sure they'll hang up pretty quick if you start babbling in a foreign (made up?) language.
If your phone is warm to the touch even when not in use, is that an indication of bugging or a battery designed by Sony?
How can I help you?
Those callers are bill collectors. Mark was (and likely is) a deadbeat (not that there is anything wrong with that :]). By law, or convention (I'm not really sure) they don't talk about Mark's financial problem with anyone else but Mark. The next round of creditors will start automated messages "I have an important message for Mark (his last name), call...", and this will repeat 4 or more times a day. Get rid of that number now, it won't stop.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
A 2003 lawsuit revealed that the FBI was able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors' OnStar to snoop on passengers' conversations. When FBI agents remotely activated the system and were listening in, passengers in the vehicle could not tell that their conversations were being monitored.
I missed this when it happened, but I always suspected as much. Imagine this...
Driver: Hand me another brewski.
Passenger: Here you go.
...Police cruiser shows up in rearview mirror.
There is another approach - take off the cover which protects the battery. Underneath the battery, you will see how two wires are connected. If the color of the wires is green, then you're bugged. Otherwise, if the wires are red - it's a bomb.
Other colors are not defined by the standards, so if your phone has wires which are not green, nor red - you have a counterfeit phone.
The saddest poem
I can attribute every single crash/reset of my phone within the past six months to a year to particular apps on my phone. In this case, it's GNU Keyring. Keyring really likes to crash my phone if I haven't used Keyring in a while. It's Keyring's way of telling me it wants more love. :)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
is to see if it is getting warm, and is the little light (on some) blinking. I guess the really OBVIOUS way is to look at the display.
You know, no offense meant, but it's sorta funny to hear that coming from the _USA_.
What you have over there is some vague principle, that, as you say, is constantly being reinterpreted to mean, "yeah, well, it says we can't search your papers, but your computer's files are still fair game" or "yeah, well, once you gave that info to someone else, or it passed through someone else's servers/wires/whatever, then you have no more claim to privacy" or other such.
What we have in the EU, on the other hand, are very precise laws saying what can you do with other people's data (very little without their consent), what you _can't_ do with it, and what kind of data you're not even supposed to be collecting at all. And not just for government agencies. Your bank or phone company also can't just sell your information to everyone for an extra buck, for example.
So maybe, dunno, maybe you could include _that_ idea in your body of laws?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
While this is an interesting article, I have a problem with several of the indicated "clues that your phone is bugged." First, as the author points out, short-lasting batteries in the vast majority of cases, also as the author points out, simply means either (1) the battery is old and should be replaced, since it is having trouble holding a charge or (2) the battery life indicator on your phone is malfunctioning. Second, an unexpectedly warm phone, particularly when you're in an area where the reception is weak, could simply mean that the phone is continuously searching for a signal. To reduce the overheating and increase battery life, most cell phone services have a number you can dial to update your phone's repository of cell phone towers. Third, when the phone is transmitting or receiving information while you're not making a call, in the vast majority of cases, it's going to be either (1) syncing with the time server to keep your phone's clock accurate, (2) updating cell tower information, (3) updating some other bit of information (weather, stock quotes) continuosly displayed on your phone, or (4) you are currently receiving or sending a text message. The author points out that the vast majority of phones are not bugged, so none of the criterion mentioned in the article are "strong" indicators of bugging, and since the criterion mentioned are not independent, observing all symptoms does not indicate stronger evidence.
(( (CRAYON) )) >
...and the instant the phone starts communication, the CRT image will be affected. It's a bulletproof way to detect communication.
Just phone your own land-line and then say, "Binladenbinladenbinladen" 10 times.
Wait 30 minutes.
If there are no black helicopters after 30 minutes then you probably aren't being bugged.
This is all just my personal opinion.
When we were in Crawford, Texas, both my, and my friend's phones were 'malfunctioning'. Some mess about the network being unavaliable. I took the battery out of mine... Well... because I'm just paranoid like that, my friend didn't. Ultimately, he had to buy a new phone when we left because his old one just wouldn't turn on anymore after the battery died. Also... Mine phone is prepay, and I pay with cash... It's actually cheaper than other subscriber calling plans, no long distance, etc... For the record... We both were using Tmobile and the same model phone... Just one of those cheap silver Nokias...
But yea... anyone who thinks the feds can't and doesn't do this is just plain ignorant.
You should assume that your cell phone is bugged, at least in the sense that the "proper authorities" have access to any conversations you've had and where you were at the time. Maybe they're not always paying attention, but they can always listen if they choose.
Perhaps I'm wrong, just being paranoid, but I'd say it's utterly foolish to assume you have any privacy by default these days. If you're not taking active measures to ensure privacy, you don't have it.
- Brain.
"Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching." - Dogbert.
Look yourself in the mirror. If you look like this, there's a great chance you're bugged.
I've considered this possibility for a while, but with the twist that the camera could remotely be set to a capture mode and images transmitted via the cell/data network. Anyone know how feasible this aspect would be?
You can buy them fairly cheaply. The are known as "Ghost Phones". They normally seem to be a software hacked version of an early 2000s mobile that looks a bit out of place among the modern fancy phones. You can probably get more modern versions too though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question
Those were questions, arising from the article, that could be used to promote discussion and thought in first year engineering students.
They're not necessarily bill collectors.
I'm currently stationed overseas, and I got into a car accident while on leave in the States. The other party decided to sue for damages (I love living in America) and my insurance company played the "he's overseas serving the country, are you honestly going to force him to come back to deal with this?" card, the judge agreed, and delayed the trial until my tour's up, which at the time was more than two years.
My wife has been getting calls on her cell phone (she's still in the states) that go like this:
"Is binarytoaster there?" "...No, he's overseas." *click*
It's honestly that fast from the way she puts it - they just ask if I'm there, and upon getting that answer they just hang up. Never say who they are, never leave a number, nothing. Been going on for at least a few months now.
She was completely confused by why anyone would do this, as was I, until I remembered the lawsuit. So they might not be collectors, but they're still just as annoying.
The what now? I love it when people talk about mythical non existant things..... Liberal Media... what next Unicorns!!?!?!
Yeah, ditto comment. When I moved into my new place 2 years ago and got a land line, someone kept calling for "Natasha". I tried hanging up, I tried calling back the number they gave, I even said "yes" (or pressed 2 for "yes") and took the (computerized) message. It never stopped. I moved out of that place and no longer have the same number, but I bet they're still calling the poor chump who got that number after me.
-- "This world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel."
I fashioned a fancy tin foil holster for my phone. I just keep it wrapped in tin foil when I'm not using it. Problem is, I used the tin foil from my hat to make it...
-whoa, I'm jones'ing for a sig right about now...
People do have to worry about their own cell phones being bugged, but there is also another concern of using cell phones as bugs. These are called ghost phones. How they work is that when they are called, they simply pick up without ringing and operates as a normal cell phone, letting the caller listen to whatever is going on in the vicinity. These are relatively easy to make, as you can purchase phones from Ebay and then all it takes is a little bit of soldering to turn a standard phone into a ghost phone.
I used to know a guy who designed and built phones. He stated that NOBODY was allowed to build a phone unless it had 2 communications chips (one that you use for calls and one the government can turn on remotely anytime they want). This is apparently FCC law and there's no getting around it. So I suppose the only way I can be sure of this is to build my own phone and try to get someone to activate it. Who here actually thinks any carrier would activate a phone YOU built that doesn't have the spy chip?
If you're really worried, get a hex die from a gaming store. Then get
8-16 *different* friends to each buy you a prepaid phone. Number them.
When you need to make a call, roll the die, use the phone, toss it in
the trash or better, give it to a random teenager to use up the minutes.
...if these LED flashy things interfere with reception? I mean, if they draw energy from surrounding radiation, surely that must dull the signal somewhat.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I once mentioned to a friend over the phone that I was watching a TV show about Echelon and my phone went all staticy for a second. Thats how I know if I'm being bugged. :)
This will also work with most car stereos if the phone is placed close enough
FTA: "But if your battery seems to be running out of juice far too early (despite what the battery status display might claim), that might be an indication that your phone is being used to transmit behind your back (or it might be a worn out battery and a typically inaccurate battery status display)."
Looks like my iPod mini has been talking to the Feds too!
What, did you sleep through elementary physics and the principles of EM radiation?
A cell phone is nothing more than a fancy radio with an omnidirectional antenna. That antenna, per its name, is going to radiate a certian amount of RF energy in all directions. RF that is radiated in the direction of the cell tower will be recieved by the antennas on the tower. RF that is radiated in any other direction will gradually be absorbed by the surrounding environment to no practical effect. So if your LED RF detector happens to be in the close vicinity of your cell phone when the phone is transmitting, it's going to be hit with RF that wouldn't have hit the cell tower anyway!
The only possibly conceivable way that the LED RF detector could have any impact on the signal strength between the cell phone and the cell tower is if it was exactly in the path between the cell phone antenna and the cell tower antenna. The probability that this would occur is so small as to be trivial, and with the wide angle of radiation on most cell phone tower antennas, and the fact that there is usually more than one antenna for any direction, reduces the probability effectively to zero.
A bunch of fluff to make people paranoid. I work for one of these trackers. You want to know if you're being tracked? Check you damn bill or call your damn cell carrier. If it's your phone, it can't be tracked without your consent, so if you find/think you are being tracked, you're probably also the one paying for it, and therefore it's pretty easy to find out if they've done this without resorting to seeing if your phone is warm.
If you act too sketchy then the bill collector type of calls will never stop. Simply tell them "I'm sorry you have the wrong number, this is [made up name]." They will chalk it up as a genuine wrong number and stop calling after a few attempts.
On a side note, this also works on bill collectors who are actually looking for you and in fact have the right number.
Hm, and all this time I thought it was other people's cell phones that were bugging me. I never even stopped to think it could be my own. Thanks Slashdot!
Yeah, but some aren't. I had an interesting run in with some credit card scammers earlier this year. I got a call from my credit card company about 10 minutes after I bought lunch one day. It was from the fraud early warning system, which I'd gotten a few times now. These were usually due to me flying around the country, or taking extended road trips, or making very large purchases ($900 in appliances, $1500 in furniture, etc.). I wasn't too worried about it.
.com that was based in the same state as this old address, and donations to a charity of a few cents.
This time, though, I it asked if I could verify a purchase for "theme park tickets," "appliances," and some other things. I told it no, and an amazingly easy 15 minutes later, my account was frozen, all the obvious charges were rolled back, and a new card was on the way, along with some paperwork for me to flag other charges that the CC company missed.
The scammers had my old address apparently. I knew this because they tried to order a convection oven (who'd have figured?) and have it shipped to my old address. My guess is that this is the address in whatever database that got cracked. When I did get my next statement, I noticed a few charges to some random "music store"
It turns out that credit card company had cancelled far more of these "song" purchases, and "donations." The thieves had made, over a few weeks, donations of varying amounts from a few cents to about $2, and random song purchases of about $1. It seems that they were trying to establish that I was "normally" spending money in the area where I used to live, and also verifying that my card was still legit.
So yeah, some criminals are dumb. Others are not. The fraud detection systems we have are pretty good though.
Michael C. Hollinger
One correction to the article: WCDMA definitely is used as a primary voice channel. It's not data-only like EVDO technology. That's why WCDMA phone specs often have separate talk times listed for GSM vs. WCDMA modes.
I for a number of months heard computer speakers popping and buzzing away, even if no one was in the nearby cube. I suppose someone COULD have left their phone in the cube while at lunch or a meeting, but... now I am wondering if it was MY phone. Might not have been. But, for shits and giggles, I sometimes just turn off my phone, or leave it "somewhere" for a few hours, then retrieve it.
What's REALLY weird, is during November, on no fewer than THREE outbound calls, I got cross-connected with OTHER people who were NOT even IN my contact list, and were NOT the people I was trying to reach. One acted like she was already talking to someone as if in another conversation. Another I think didn't quite want to hang up, either. Then, I've gotten the "wrong number" call where they caller asked for "Mo", and despite my saying I'm not "Mo", he didn't want to hang up. My friend standing next to me noted my time with this caller and then told me "You're very nice, patient...I would have just hung up..." Truth is, if I could reach through the phone, I'd probably tear the jaw off that caller, even if it were an agent just doing his/her job. Or, euphemistically, I'd deal with that situation.
(I could also go on about my website having been experiencing WEIRD stuff, like my updates not going through, the server crashing on the ISP side (I asked them, "Don't you have fail-overs or redundancy to cover this stuff?" The rep didn't answer. Thing is, I don't know about outtages of my site when I'm NOT on my site, but at least 3 times over the past few months, my site croaked while I was updating pages. Not doing anything special. Just using THE (major Host)-provided tool, just text, a few pics and some flash-based image presenters... And, on my log stats, there are sometimes more "unresolved IP" sites than normal IPs/geography. Some are from overseas as I expect/presume, but some go to the US east coast, and have weird names, making me think a front company for some agency is periodically checking my site. Go ahead. look all you want. I wish I had friends all over the world and could reach them anonymously; I could have them report to me their successes and failures to see my site to once and for all put my mind at rest over possible disruptions and plain old blocking of my site. http://www.otanashide.com/ is one of them. I suppose some bastard will try to throw the 2006 military commissions act against me, retroactively...)
I also, notice that my inbound calls' timestamps are set for the east coast. I called my carrier and the CSR told me I had to go to a landline phone, call them, then he would give me a sequence of codes to reset the phone. I told him I don't HAVE a landline phone, and that he could help me by giving me the sequence. He said he couldn't do that. He suggested I go to the local authorized retailer and have them punch the code into my keypad.
Sheesh.
Then, there are times when I have had my phone turned off, and not just by my OWN hand. When I turn it on, it tells me "Updating Contacts". This is MetroPCS, for shit's sake. It's a cheap, lousy, S14 from 2004, and they can "update" my contact list? Hell, I've for some time been thinking they or some agency is lifting my contacts. Fine, go ahead. But when/IF I enter a contact "bomb local FBI office" I'm SURE they'll REALLY up the ante, like knock down my door, confiscate my shit, and ship me off to Guantanamo. Could probably happen to ANYONE, if you become a person of interest. Might be safer to just stick with "Fuck you through and through" as a contact name...
Yep, my phone mysteriously and occasionally TURNS ITSELF OFF, even when the battery is fully charged. I COULD be a bad battery, as only one of the two regularly does it, but I think they both will or have. So, I suspect someone is trying to test whether I am monitoring my phone, or maybe trying to reinitialize some soft-feature in the phone. Maybe I'll just give up cell phones all together. Could save me $55 per month, anyway.
When
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Lauren ..... His ..... WTF ?!
I know Americans have a weird habit of giving girls "boys' names", although I have no idea why. (Suggestions?) Also of calling actresses "actors".
But what's the deal with using the masculine pronoun now to refer to women? Or is this just the reverse case, a bloke with a woman's name? (Johnny Cash record anyone?)
makes when I'm at the desk at work that drives everyone crazy... I used to think it was my phone sync'ing up or receivng a text message or something. Lately I've noticed that it's making the sound on a daily basis and at times when I'm not receiving anything. I'm not talking like 5-10 seconds here - last night it lasted a full on 45 seconds. Maybe a minute. I had to pull it away from the speaker before I lost my mind. Stupid Razr. Guess I know the cause of that now...
If you were offended by anything I said... No, I'm not sorry. Please lighten up.
Using prepaid cell phones seems like a fantastic way to gain anonymity, but at at least here in teh US, pre-paid phones are considered a 'red flag' for evil doing. Remember those poor guys in Minnesota a few months ago? They purchased a hundred or so pre-paid phones, for legitimate sale on Ebay, and were arrested. The logic was pre-paid phones are only used by terrorists and drug dealers. In a way, using a pre-paid phone may attract more attention than just using a standard phone. Very sad, but very true. The reality of the situation is there are only a few thousand bugs/line taps performed by intelligence services each year. They just don't have enough 'listeners' to do all the spying the like. Thankfully we haven't gotten to the point where there is an individual 'listener' for each man woman and child. It probably isn't far off. I'm glad teh article mentioned the 'buzzing speaker test', that was my first thought also, as I've noticed all my phones over the years have created that buzzing sound when they ring or transmit.
Et In Arcadia Ego
Americans always give girl's mens names. I suspect they just lack all clue. Ashley first and foremost, Lesley, Bailey, Lindsey, Morgan, Taylor and Jordan and on and on. All were originally men's names, but now are almost always given to women. Of course this is why the Yanks think the Brits are all queer; all the men have girls names :)
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
It's not a bug, it's a feature, hmmm, it's a creature!!!
I pity anyone who tries to bug my phone like that. Most of my intentional calls sound like: "Blah blah blah <DROP> curse curse curse. <REDIAL> Blah blah blah <DROP> Fuck you, SprintPCS!!"
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
So instead of pulling out the batteries taking a stroll while talking to your fellow political activists, you now bring a metal case and explain everyone about the experiments you did at home. Makes for great conversation, and you can take turns carrying the box.
Take off every 'ZIG' !!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Ponies!!!
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
You can probibly tell the bill collectors that you are not that person and ask them to stop calling you and they will. Another route is to tell them that you are not that person and that the phone they are calling is a business phone, that might work better.
Another route is to tell them that you are a government worker and that the phone they are calling is your government issued cell phone. I did this with the intention of telling them that if they called again I would refer the matter to the State Attorney General's office but it never came to that as they quite ready to take my number off the list at once.
No matter where you go, there you are.
There are better ways to hijack someone's phone than to big the physical phone. There are backpack devices that act as miniature cell phone towers you can use. Cell Phone users can dial out on them and see service on their phone, they just won't receive incoming calls. The hijacker can then listen in while they think they are on their carrier's network. I believe the range to be a few hundred feet on these devices. Seems much easier than gaining access to someone's phone.
why not simply connect one of those flashy LED thingies to your phone?
Because newer phones can act as voice recorders and transmit the data later. You don't really think that an ordinary cell phone connection would have sufficient quality do you? It would be much better to make a high quality voice recording and transmit it as a file late at night or while the target is actually using the phone to talk or upload their favorite pictures to Photobucket. Internet capable phones can do all sorts of things regardless of your subscriber allowing you to benefit or not. They are computers with a good chunk of flash memory.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Anyone remember how the cell phone calls from people on the hijacked planes appeared following 9/11? I think this goes to show that EVERY cell phone call is ALWAYS recorded and stored someplace for future investigation. Why this didn't come up as a privacy concern at the time makes no sense to me.
If you have a conversation that you would like to keep private, using a telephone is probably the worst way to go about it. If you're a privacy freak or need to have a private conversation, you probably shouldn't carry a cell phone around with you or hang out with other people who are carrying one.
The LED thingys replace the antenna. Since it takes 10 or 20 mW to light up a LED that's a pretty good fraction of the phone power. If you're near a tower, you phone might operate at only 100 or 200 mW, unmolested.
If you're paranoid enough to suspect your cell phone is bugged, then someone in your organization probbaly knows how to sweep for this kind of thing. If you're operating alone, go accidentally blow yourself up already.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
On no less than three stereo systems and three phones, I've been able to hear when my phone's communicating with the tower, so for me that would be the first sign.
... (updating with tower)
Motorola StarTac (AMPS?)
*pop-pop* *pop* (before any connection)
Nokia.... impossible to remember serial number 65xx? (CDMA)
*low BUZZZZZZZZZZZZ*
Nokia 3220 (GSM)
*bip* *bip-bip* *bip-bip* *bip-bip* *bip-bip* *bzzzzzzzzzzzzz....* (receiving a call)
*bip* *bip-bip* *bip-bip* *bip-bip* *bip-bip* *bip-bip*
I can tell you, with absolute certainly, whether your phone is transmitting or not. I can do it without breaking open any device, and without having to touch you or your phone. I can do it for $50, provided there's an AC power source nearby.
How? Two words: baby monitor.
Go pick up a Sony cordless rechargeable baby monitor. Plug in the transmitter, set the receiver to the same channel, and turn it on. Lots of electronic devices pick up interference, but the Sony baby monitor (and probably most others, but Sony is the kind I happen to have) makes noise when a nearby phone is transmitting, whether it's just checking in for your voicemail, telling the tower that it's ready to accept a call, or actually transmitting.
Different phones make different amounts of noise, and what they're doing matters; my Nokia 6101 needs to be within three feet, but my wife's Blackberry can make noise from five feet away. They both make the most noise if they're sending pictures, but they make noise if there's any transmitting activity whatsoever.
These are T-Mobile phones, so the carrier you use may produce different results, but this is a simple and valid way -- if you're in a meeting and are really paranoid -- to guarantee nobody's phone is transmitting. Make it a small room, randomly place multiple receivers around the room, etc. -- you only need one transmitter so that there's silence on the line, but you can use as many receivers as you need to cover the area, and the Sony comes in a convenient pack with two rechargeable receivers.
Do I do this? No, not a tinfoil type here. However, my wife and I have to go out of our way to keep our phones away from the monitor, however, because the noise is annoying -- so you shouldn't have any trouble making this work.
Himsa is a pretty big metal band - does your brother know he's going up against guys that will beat the crap out of him for using a name that means 'non-violence'?
They chose Himsa because it means the opposite of Ahymsa.
I'm sure Lauren appreciates having his email address linked on the front page of Slashdot. All the spammers appreciate it too.
The Splintered Mind - Overcoming
Simply put your cellphone in a ziplock bag and put it in the dishwasher, washing machine, or dryer (on low) for the duration of your sensitive conversation.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Soon they'll have people actively monitoring your cell phone's microphone so they can tell you to stop doing what you are doing as you do it.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
If you can write software to detect voice, you can probably write software to detect GSM interference with speakers. It might not be fool-proof, but it can conceivably prevent detection to a degree.
FYI your insurance company didn't play a "card" and the judge had no choice in the matter (except to agree to delay without forcing you to actually go through the simple steps of forcing the judge to agree to delay). Servicemembers Civil Relief Act of 2003 aka The Act formally known as Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act of 1940. Check it out. Some very valuable information in there in regards to many things even beyond civil court proceedings.
See...everyone now n then those worthless congress critters do something good for us...granted it was mostly done in 1940 and only updated in 2003. And now they are back to stripping our benefits, taking our pay, cutting back the force while increasing the force commitments abroad... I find it entertaining that they pander to so many lobbyists and special interests to get voted in while totally forgetting the fact that the job only exists so long as the military is there to protect it.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
OMG!
"I'm in it to win it, and no limit is my home." - Snoop Dog c/o PvP Online (July 12th, 2006)
I think that counts as a card.
A darkroom is the same problem at a different wavelength. Small flaws let small amounts of radiation inside. Get too close to a crack, and there's a fair amount of light: get too close to an opening in your mesh bag or a seam in your metal box and there's signal. The phone has to work over a wide range of signal strengths to begin with. At least it would be easy to test your work.
>alter the phone's behavior sufficiently to initiate a call without your intervention
All the phone has to do in order to be a bug is to answer an incoming call automatically and without ringing. Small software change.
Many recent phones/PDAs have a flight mode so that you can use the music/PDA functionality of the device while on a plane that doesn't allow cell phone use.
Wouldn't allowing remote circumvention of this flight mode be a safety risk in some cases, and if evidence of this kind were brought out in court, couldn't the defendant charge the law enforcement agency for reckless endangerment (or something similar) for making use of a device that had the potential to interfere with the navigation/takeoff/landing electronics of the aircraft.
Similarly, if the flight mode directly turned off the transmitter/receiver, unless the firmware had a built in time delay switch on or something like that, how would you remotely re-activate the phone?
"Compare with, say, AM radio which has wavelengths up to 2km at the extreme."
540kHz, the bottom of the AM radio dial = 555 meters not 2 km!
My point is he shouldn't view it as a special "card" that helped him out because a clever insurance company convinced a judge to help him. Its a hefty sledgehammer to be dropped on people trying to jerk service members around, and his insurance company was good enough to break out the hammer and say "Don't make me use this". Every service member should know about it, unfortunately many are never told about it and believe things like this to be fortunate circumstance and never realize they have this tool to protect themselves.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Just think what the government has been doing with all those video phones we all have. All you most private and intimate moments are now recorded and saved!!!
'scuse me, but what if it isn't the government spying on you but are private companies? Say, mobile providers could download software on some VIP's cellphone (I mean real VIPs, not stars..) and listen for what they say: money transactions, bank accounts, stock buying...
remember echelon? it was designed as a government spying device, it turned up to be something that private companies used to spy other companies in europe (boing vs. airbus).
why does it always have to be the government?
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
540kHz is the bottom end of medium wave (MW). Other AM radio sets, especially older or more "international" sets include long wave (LW), which goes down to about 150kHz.
News to me.
I know a girl named Scott, and a guy named Stacy...
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com