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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!
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.
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.
Yes, I recommend everyone to do this. I also recommend everyone to change the apperance of their face with plastic surgery once a year, just in case. Also, only use rental cars, and change these just as often. Only pay by cash, change what appartment you're living in as often as you can. Sleep with a gun underneath your pillow, have few friends, and don't tell them much about yourself. It's all about protecting yourself from the government, we're all suspects until proven guilty after all.
Life is Reality
It's easier said than done. There aren't as many payphones about as there used to be*, and a lot of those that are left require phone cards.
Then, when you do find a suitable one, how do you know it isn't bugged already?
Lastly, getting a roll of dimes from the just isn't that easy in most of the countries in the world. Of course, most of the world's payphones don't accept dimes either...
-- Steve
* The UK has a unique situation: while the number of payphones in the UK may have decreased, the number of British Telephone Boxes has remained about the same - they've just moved to more exotic locations in other countries. The same goes for British Police Boxes, except that their movements appear not to be limited to the first three dimensions.
"I am completely innocent. I have commited no crimes and am not suspected of committing any crimes."
I'm sorry, but I cannot accept that anyone can live in Britain today and not commit any crimes. You've never driven over 70mph on a motorway? You've never put recyclable waste in your dustbin?
There are so many laws in Britain today that you're pretty much a criminal the instant you get out of bed; in fact, you're probably a criminal if you stay in bed all day too. The real problem is _too many laws_, not too many criminals; if the cops stopped chasing people for bullshit crimes with high-tech gadgetry they could get all the real criminals off the streets.
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
thats why you need to keep the telemarketer counter script handy... http://www.xs4all.nl/~egbg/counterscript.html
ariven.com
No, radio does not behave like that.
The GSM radio wavelength is about 30cm which means that in effect all objects which affect the radio path, including the transmitter and LED receiver, are "blurry" in space to the scale of 30cm (this is an order of magnitude, not an exact value). The phone itself, and the distance from the LEDs, are much smaller than that. So the directionality of the radiation is nearly irrelevant to calculating how much is absorbed and transmitted.
In other words, contrary to the parent post, the LEDs attached to the phone will be effectively on the radio path to the base station, no matter where they are attached on the phone.
It's counterintuitive that you can have a radio signal between two small antennae at A and B, and something that's nearly in between but off by say 10cm affecting the signal between A and B, is though attracting the energy towards it (even bending the beam is possible). But that is exactly what happens. Waves are like that.
It's more complicated than that, however, because the LEDs are also in the "near field" - the region where there may be a non-radiating component to the oscillating EM field around the phone transmitter. In this region, the LEDs could, if they are constructed to do so, absorb energy from the near field, and, depending very much on the phone design, potentially do it without affecting the radiated signal.
Also, it is possible that they absorb some of the radiated energy but if they use very little power, not affect it very much.
So we can't easily say what effect the LEDs will have on the transmitted signal, but the parent's argument about having to be "exactly on the path" to the transmitter, as in a straight line, is not correct.
-- Jamie