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Verizon Wireless Opt-Out Plan For Customer Records
An anonymous reader writes to let us know that Verizon Wireless is planning to share its customers' calling records (called CPNI) with "our affiliates, agents and parent companies (including Vodafone) and their subsidiaries." The article explains that CPNI "includes the numbers of incoming and outgoing calls and time spent on each call, among other data." Some subscribers, it's not known if it's all of them, received a letter in the mail giving them 30 days to opt out of this sharing by calling 1-800-333-9956. Skydeck, a mobile and wireless services company, seems to have been the first to call attention to the Verizon initiative on their blog; they also posted a scan of the letter (sideways PDF) from Verizon.
When I hear things like that I always wonder how they handle past customer data. Those folks are not being given any "opt out" provision. Same as when companies get bought or sold off for parts. Current customers of course are respected since they have value but past customers are only worth the data you can mine out of them.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I got one of those letters several weeks ago, and immediately called the 800-333-9956 number listed to opt out.
Dog is my co-pilot.
It's pretty painless to do. You need to have your account details, and you have to jump through a separate hoop for each number, but at least they retain your context from hoop to hoop. Saves you from having to enter your SSN every time.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I'm trying to understand this. Although it is painted as a marketing arrangement, does this provide them the immunity (going forward) that Congree would not grant retroactively?
Indeed. I left Verizon years ago (used to have them for landline and DSL), and haven't looked back. They were horrible then, and have clearly only gotten worse. Not that the other phone companies are saints, but Verizon just sucks.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
I can't believe the shit companies can get away with over here. Call me paranoid, but I think my next cellphone will be another pay-as-you-go under someone else's name.
Actually. Maybe that would be a good business idea. Buy a PAYG phone and swap SIMS with someone at random. Maybe make it so you mail them on every few months. For the truly paranoid...
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
...of corporate (a)merica truly getting out of hand.
This scenario is much like a criminal going to commit a crime no matter what, but he won't if you get his letter in the mail and then take steps and waste your time to tell him not too. Just so many things wrong with this story, but unfortunately not shocking and of course NO ONE will do anything to stop this trend in the country other than bitch and moan.
I guess they want to follow the gmail model for advertising, etc.
Unfortunately, while many people have several e-mail accounts, you cannot
switch so easily between different phones. Moreover, gmail is nearly anonymous, while you
cell phone is anything but.
Incoming phone numbers? Not sure what Verizon does with those, but I don't even get those numbers from Sprint on my bill.
Opt-out for this kind of thing should be illegal. I should have to opt-in to allow this, but of course few people would so it might not be worth it to the companies. Which is why they use opt-out.
Because an OPT IN would be the right thing to do, but that would require morals wouldn't it.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
I know this is common practice, but I'd still like to believe that this would be a non-binding contract. Especially since there's no mutual consideration. Here's an excerpt from the Michigan Law Review regarding Silence as Acceptance of an Offer:
It is generally held that an offeree has a right to make no reply to offers, and that his silence and inaction cannot be construed as an assent to the offer. This is true even though the offer states that silence will be taken as consent, for the offeror cannot prescribe conditions of rejections so as to turn silence on the part of the offeree into acceptance.The Virginia Law Review continues to talk about when silence is binding:
Where the offeror acts to his detriment in reasonable reliance on the offeree's conduct, the offeree's inaction, will be deemed an acceptance after he has remained silent for a reasonable length of time.The difference here, though is that Verizon isn't acting to its detriment, they're going to be getting a big fat cheque out of this from a 3rd party. So, once again, it goes back to mutual consideration.
Yeah, just switch to the phone company that spies for the NSA.
I've always found it at least mildly disturbing that Verizon makes AT&T look good. I mean... this is Death-star-logo-sells-your-conversations-to-the-NSA AT&T we're talking about.
I was actually on with AT&T Wireless before they were Cingular, and they actually were *very* nice to us. Even once they were Cingular, their customer service was great even though they did sort of alienate their former AT&T customers. A few of the price plans that the old AT&T had right before being absorbed into Cingular were far better then anything Cingular or Verizon have ever offered. If you wanted to modify your plan, however, you had to switch to a Cingular plan which would inevitably cost you more money. There were a few tricks for getting new phones out of the deal as well, although it got a lot harder over time. Still.... you have to give them major props for honoring the plan -- I held onto it for a few years after the merger. You also didn't have to pay for incoming text messages on any plan, something that no other US carrier does to my knowledge (most European countries have legislation which forces the caller to pay for both sides of the conversation, making incoming calls and SMS free)
However, as time went on, Verizon improved its coverage in my area, while there were no improvements in GSM service. Frustrated by not being able to get a signal at home, I switched to Verizon. A year and a half down the road, and I'm fed up to the point where I'm switching back the day my contract runs out. I've been overbilled, had my service disconnected, had my plan changed without my consent, and Verizon gave my old number to somebody else after they "lost" it while porting. And of course, in order to resolve any of this, you either have to call them and wait on hold for hours on end, or visit one of their stores -- which are more and more resembling the DMV these days (I've seen actual fights break out on more than one occasion).
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
A clue ?
"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa
I'm not grasping something here. On your analysis, the government is your enemy, and your only enemy?
In the preferred embodiment a method of fucking over customers is described whereby private customer data is disclosed to third parties for profit.
Corporations, like governments, are amoral by definition. Opt-in would require business ethic, of which Verizon has repeatedly shown it has little. To be fair, the same applies to AT&T/SBC, Comcast, AOL, and any of the other big boys.
The people who consume the goods and services provided by the likes of Verizon have become less important than the companies willing to pay to mine customer databases. There's a lot of money in that, which means quality-of-service levels (and corresponding expenses) can be reduced while maintaining profitability. If that kind of information-sharing were simply illegal, perhaps our communications providers would have to get back to worrying themselves about what their customers want.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
something else? I'd think that a corporation helping its government spy illegally is bad. If the spying is done in a legal, constitutional way, with a judge overseeing the procedures, I don't think most people would object.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
It seems that Verizon is trying to sidestep the 12/2/07 deadline for new rules regarding CPNI, however, I don't see how exactly this accomplishes that goal. Earlier this year, the FCC decided to change the CPNI rules for carriers (both wireless and wireline) to try and beef-up the security around the call details that these carriers handle: http://www.ipbusinessmag.com/departments.php?department_id=6&article_id=23
One thing that is clear from the FCC ruling is that "The FCC changed this requirement to mandate that customers obtain "opt-in" approval from their customers prior to sharing CPNI with their joint venture partners and independent contractors for marketing purposes only." Verizon shouldn't be able to have a global "opt-in" through silence, unless they're trying to get that recorded before the more stringent policy goes into affect in December.
We need the Mutt Telco. "All telcos suck, mutt telco sucks less."
There's more to it than this.
Don't normally agree with AC trolls, but this is truly the dumbest thing I've heard in a while. Perhaps you're not aware that the only thing that makes a SIM interesting to phone companies is the number its attached to? Swapping SIMs == swapping phone numbers. If you're paranoid enough to randomly get a new phone number every few months, perhaps you shouldn't own a phone?
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
It seems that Verizon is trying to sidestep the 12/2/07 deadline for new rules regarding CPNI. Earlier this year, the FCC decided to change the CPNI rules for carriers (both wireless and wireline) to try and beef-up the security around the call details that these carriers handle: http://www.ipbusinessmag.com/departments.php?department_id=6&article_id=23
One thing that is clear from the FCC ruling is that "The FCC changed this requirement to mandate that customers obtain "opt-in" approval from their customers prior to sharing CPNI with their joint venture partners and independent contractors for marketing purposes only." Verizon shouldn't be able to have a global "opt-in" through silence, unless they're trying to get that recorded before the more stringent policy goes into effect in December.
After dialing 800-333-9956, you need to enter your Verizon mobile number, your billing zip code, your account password (if configured), and press '9' to confirm opt-out. If you have another mobile number you wish to opt-out, press '2' then repeat the above process. The first two tidbits of info could easily be obtained from public searches, the last maybe not so easily. And kudos to Verizon for not forcing me to make a phone call for each number to be opted out. In any case, I'm okay with opting out, though I'm not okay with the fact that I have to opt out.
There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
I'm guessing that the NSA/FBI/CIA/[insert TLA here] will be considered an affiliate?
The government is not my enemy (in this blessed country), but I can see, how it can overstep.
None of my (other) enemies can harm me, though. It is not obvious, that the dangers outweight the benefits here — yet the poster calling me clueless is currently basking in "5 Insightful" — Verizon's decision's evilness must be obvious to all, except me, but nobody can outline, what it is, exactly...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Meaning: In order to increase our revenue and profit margins ...
I guess it could be worse, they could be sharing your data with the NSA. Oh wait...damn.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
It was one of those bill-stuffers that people tend to ignore.
hey people... *whoosh*
don't you get it? OP is dropping one telco thats sells your personal data for another that just outright spies on you...
sheesh
man, I feel like mold.
Yes, Sprint never provided incoming call number info on its past bills, because its billing software was too stupid.
But Sprint is right now in the process of converting ALL customers over to Nextel's billing software (ENSEMBLE) and that software *will* provide you with incoming number info.
In the process of this conversion, it is also likely that many perks and discounts that you may have received from Sprint will be stripped off...
Target for total conversion is early 2008, about 30-40% of the conversion is complete now.
Is "sideways PDF" another way of saying that the submitter didn't know how to use the rotate button in the Acrobat viewer?
First of all, let's clear a few things out of this — you would not approve of anyone helping anyone doing anything illegal, would you? Spying, growing weed, downloading music without permission, having an abortion (illegal in many countries)?..
Because if, in your opinion, some things just "ought to be legal" (and thus it is Ok to do them, even if they aren't), then, certainly, it can be argued, that NSA's spying on strongly suspected enemies (abroad) is not particularly wrong. And, of course, any body helping their government defeat the enemies is a good and upstanding citizen (or corporation).
Unlike with music downloads and other matters of entertainment, waiting for the due course of legalization to run just may not be an option in the matters of terrorism (or, indeed, abortion).
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Of course the smart-ass response is, do you trust Google more than Verizon?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Sounds like absolutely nothing prevents some "affliate" from gathering up the CPNI and using it for all sorts of damaging stuff... like tracking how many elected officials call 1-800-HOT-GIRL, or married men who call single women's numbers often, and at nights and on weekends. The data mining-for-no-good possibilities are endless.
There, fixed that for you.
You're naive if you think AT&T is the only carrier assisting various TLAs.
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
This is so much bullshit. This should be opt-in.
Actually, it should just be illegal.
Why? At least Verizon has an opt-out policy. Does AT&T let you opt-out of their handing the exact same information to the federal government without a warrant?
I'll take Verizon and their set of anti-customer policies in a second. AT&T actively ignored my complaints about dead cells and dropped calls right up to the time I stopped using their service.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Both — the diminishing of privacy and the abundance of misdirected advertising — are bad, and it is not at all obvious (to me), which is worse.
And the expectation of privacy of cellular calls (it is Verizon Wireless we are talking about) is unfounded. The calls aren't encrypted and, AFAIK, it would not be illegal to build and install devices collecting the dialed numbers and the durations of calls. Eavesdropping on the actual calls may be illegal (although still possible), but not collecting (and selling) the end-points' numbers and call-durations...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The government breaking the law and private citizens breaking the law are radically different things. The government is an artificial structure defined by the law - if it breaks that law, then it can no longer be trusted to serve it's intended purpose rather than some unwanted purpose. And when a government is serving unwanted and unintended purposes that's a very bad thing.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
And let's not forget they've got much worse coverage (in most areas) and a much worse data network than Verizon.
I wouldn't switch to AT&T just for the iPhone - there will be plenty of non-AT&T iPhone competition in 1Q2008. I'm especially interested in what Google may be doing. My Verizon contract was up last month, so it's just a waiting game for me for now...
Oh, BS. If you'd actually read any history you'd know that the point of legal overview is to prevent abuse, and government are run by people who love to abuse their power. Also terrorism is a rather minor threat except that it's a great way for politicians to get more power and votes.
I take it you also find the revolutionary war to be a horrible thing, after all the British were the government and it's utterly evil to not bow down to the government.
I am from Europe and I don't like the way the governments here have chosen to protect our data. In the US the government doesn't care much (in theory - in practice it actively collects your data) and so you are responsible for protecting your own data, but here in Europe the government acts as a nanny to the point that it is very difficult even to keep an address book, and there are not good definitions explaining what personal data are. At least, that's how I see the situation. I think the best thing would be to have the government just assist citizens in protecting their data, without becoming a nanny and making life difficult for everyone. The funny thing is that all these data protection laws here in Europe only obstruct the small buys, because the big multinationals always find ways to bypass most restrictions, and actually these data protection laws create many problems to small businesses. I wouldn't be surprised if many people from the US would prefer to not startup a company in EU upon seeing EU's data protection laws. While I understand that the lack of data protection laws in the US is misused by many companies, I personally prefer to be responsible for protecting my data, rather than have a large bureaucracy trying to be everyone's nanny. Data protection laws should exist, but they shouldn't be so bureaucratic and expensive for small guys to implement as they are now in EU. Many people see the EU as more democratic, and in many ways it is, but it is still based on the old European concept of nanny states. I personally think the American political traditions are more sensible from a theoretical point of view (and in many cases also from a practical point of view as well), even though in practice they unfortunately didn't work too well in the last few decades.
I'm a disgruntled didn't-choose-to-be-AT&T-customer due to the cingular buyout and can't wait to get out... tick tick tick goes the contract. The sad thing is I don't there's any real choice for services in my market. They all seem to be just slightly less-crappy than each other. Not sure how that really works out in the end.
man, I feel like mold.
Where is our desperately needed "-1, Godwin" moderation?
hmmm... I don't disagree. But that leads me to this head asploding conclusion:
AT&T admits they're spying. Does that make them more desirable than the others? The enemy you know is better than the enemy you don't know, sort of thing?
I have to admit, the more I think about it, I'd rather go with a carrier that I *know* is spying on me because they've admitted it than with one I also more or less *know* is spying but won't admit it. It's all too much. Back to tin cans and strings. At least then you can see the other string knotted on there and follow it to that dork down the street and pound him for it.
man, I feel like mold.
I was a former AT&T customer, as well, and switched to Sprint initially. It worked well when it worked, but all to often, I couldn't get a signal, or got dropped calls, so I switched to Verizon, and haven't had many problems since (I also have a much better phone now). I want my next phone to be a data phone, so I'm waiting for the next crop to drop.
I'm also waiting to see how the Google phone thing goes. Apparently they acquired GrandCentral.com, so I'd say they're looking into doing some interesting things. I just hope they put out a phone with a nice qwerty keypad (to me a 'nice' one means having keys that have some space between them). A open Linux-based phone would be pretty great if it was of a good design. I wouldn't mind creating some Flex-based stuff on a platform like that, if it had enough horsepower to handle it.
Ah yes. Changing from a company that gives other companies your data to a company that gives the US Government your data. Brilliant!
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
I have had no issue with Verizon for the 5 years I have had them. I had a 2-year contract with them through work, which expired in 2002. I have changed my plan, changed my minutes, and even bought new phones without having a any contracts put onto my account.
I don't know why people don't like them, but I must be the exception. That, or I care about not dropping calls when I am downtown.
GSM is a great idea, but in the USA CDMA has better coverage.
>but nobody can outline, what it is, exactly.
They are selling your confidential information without your permission. Easy enough?
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Basically every single person in the country trusts their private conversations to telecom companies. If a telecom company breaks that trust and shares those conversations with a government agency (without a court-issued warrant), they damn well deserve to lose business over it.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
That's probably why they have retroactive warrants.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
The option for these kinds of schemes is always to "opt out" of the data sharing. Since I expect that the overwhelming majority of users would want to keep their calling records and data private, shouldn't the option be to "opt in" to the data sharing?
I called the customer service number (*611) and talked to a rep for 20 minutes asking every conceivable question about this policy change. I put her on speakerphone and continued reading slashdot while we chatted. If a lot of people called them like this, their call center costs will rise. I don't see really any other way of letting them know my discontent.
:)
+1 mod for screwing the big guy.
Yes, T-Mobile does this. And text messages cost more than a phone call to express the same info. Obviously a text message is 1000s of times less data.
It is fully answered to be fully illegal.
There are many ways the NSA could abuse the information - one is by building contact lists of who calls who. This is precisely what they want to do in the name of fighting terror, but they get the same lists of people in various political parties, with ties to groups that expose various embarassing things about political leaders, have viewpoints that differ from their own or those in power (i.e. that the Iraq war is a total clusterf#ck waste of money and lives), whatever.
From there it is easy to decide who to focus on more closely to try to find anything else they want for use now or in the future.
You do remember that the Nixon administration had its famous "enemies list" that it used to target people for various forms of harassment - IRS audits, FBI investigations, etc. So don't tell me it can't happen. It already has. And I can guarantee you that an administration that implemented NSA spying - AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION OF THE USA - 7 months BEFORE 9/11 - would be more than happy to misuse that information.
Go ahead and say it's tinfoil hat time, but this administration (they ARE the ones pushing the NSA to help fight terra') has done more to spy on the American public wholesale than any other. Bar none. They have done more that is contrary to the Constitution and have by many Constitutional scholar's violated more than any other administration in history.
One day, you might realize that this administration is not a democracy and doesn't really want a democracy. They just want power to run their games.
Oh yeah - and Verizon and AT&T both handed over their call records to the NSA without blinking an eye. Qwest refused and was the subject of cancelled government contracts for doing it. But I dropped my cell phone service with Verizon immediately, told them why, switched to Qwest, and told them why as well.
Which makes "spam texts" even more enjoyable.
I should add an epilogue to the story. I moved to the UK, and gave my phone to a family member who's using it until the contract runs out.
I'm quite amused by the fact that my new provider's primary business is selling groceries (Tesco), and that they're better than AT&T and Verizon by a long shot. Prepay is absolutely the way to go, especially when their rates rival the big US carriers' monthly rates. (My per-minute rates are a bit higher than what I was paying Verizon before until you consider that I'm no longer paying for incoming calls, I'm only paying for what I use each month, not locked into a contract, and the dismal value of the US dollar, making all goods in Britain appear horrendously expensive)
I'm sure their customer support is absolutely abysmal, but so far I haven't had to use it for anything, nor do I see myself doing so due to the dead-on simplicity of the prepay scheme. If I actually do have a big enough problem to warrant switching to a new carrier, I buy a new SIM from another provider (usually free if you top it up right away), have my number ported, and that's it. You can also top up at most grocery stores, most ATMs, and over the phone with a Credit card.
Sorry America. Europe definitely got this one right.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Ok, since you gave your permission to quote
Do quote me on saying "it's utterly evil to not bow down to the government". I dare you...
Let's see. I suffer from a terrible disease of one type or another (My daughter thinks Mesothelioma is cool. I think she watches too much TV). Anyhow, I call several specialists to schedule appointments for treatment and then I call a lawyer to put the smack down on those nasty Asbestos peeps. An infomercial low-life who sells Mesothelioma snake oil buys my phone records, scans it for all the doctor records (umm... duh... they are online) connects the dots and then starts calling my number which is also on the DNC registery. Last time I checked, there were Federal laws against sharing medical information without express written permission.
Some of the more interesting uses are against perfectly legal opponents of the current government and it's policies. For example democrats, peace protectors, socialists, proponents of socialized medicine and so on. There is a history for such abuses of power by presidents in the past. If you don't realize the uses of knowing what your political rivals plan to do then you are an idiot. Sure -- abortions kill far more, for example. About a million every year in US alone, you know... Mmm, what a flamebait... Sure and exterminators kill billions of mice, rats and insects every year. Doctors kill trillions of cancer cells every year. Nonetheless there is nothing wrong with it, after all murder and killing are very different things. Abortion is not murder in the same way that killing an isect or removing some cancer cells isn't murder.
Verizon is not alone in this. The companies (and even some DMV's and banks) are collecing and selling out their customer's data with complete disregard to the risks involved from privacy to identity theft. I went to CompUSA a few weeks ago to buy a Nokia N800 wifi internet tablet. At the checkout register, when the lady scanned it, a window popped up on her screen. She said I had to give my phone number, name and address to buy it. I asked why and she called her manager who said I have to provide this information otherwise they can't sell it to me. I explained that it is not a mobile phone but no luck. I left it at their checkout register and walked out. I came home and emailed the customer service who never responded. I also called the store manager on the phone and he explained that they build a profile of people buying computers so that they can provide service later if needed and it is NOT optional. Touch luck. I had to buy it from a different retailer because I felt that they had absolutely no need to collect my personal data.
When I signed up for Wall Street Journal print subscription, I used my abbreviated name in the mailing address in case they decide to print it and throw it out in the yard. Surprise surprise, within about 6 weeks, I started getting offers from other print media and magazines such as businessweek and economist with the exact same variation in my mailing address confirming that Wall Street Journal had already sold that data!!
It is sad that you have to opt out (they make it as difficult as possible) instead of opting in. And with acquisition of companies like Doubleclick, it seems that our darling Google is headed the same way!!
... an all phone calls made by US citizens to suspected terrorists abroad ...
There, fixed that for you... Surely, a malignant government can declare anyone to be a terrorist, but to also place them abroad and cause them to call into US and talk of anything "interesting" is far more difficult.
Of course. But that's not what is even alleged to has happened in the "Phone companies helping NSA" scandal, so let's not go off tangent, shall we?..
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
No. First, it is not really confidential — cellular calls aren't encrypted. I doubt, it would be illegal to build and use a device, which would collect information about the calls from all phones within range — and to sell the information. Therefore, I don't think, there is a reasonable expectation of privacy anyway.
Eavesdropping on the contents of the calls would be illegal, but the fact of the call is not a secret.
We went through this in the previous era, when the information on the envelopes was found admissible by courts, even if obtained without a warrant... Police can't look inside without the warrant, but they can look at it, weight it, etc.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Is this letter from Verizon Wireless, or from a phisher? Is the phone number real? I called up Verizon Wirelss (using 611 from my phone -- not at the number on the letter) but they were unwilling to confirm or deny that they are doing this, or that 800-333-9956 is the correct phone number to opt out. After a few tries, I was able to explain to the customer service representative that anyone can send out letters claiming that they're Verizon, telling people to call and provide their SSNs. She agreed to file a complaint that will be reviewed by their marketing department. She noted in my complaint that I have no intention of doing any further business with Verizon Wireless, as a result of this stunt.
I am not a Verizon customer, but have made calls to many Verizon customers, and have received calls from many Verizon customers. Using only Verizon data, one would be able to reconstruct quite a bit of my calling patterns. Can I call Verizon, and have them withhold calls involving my phone number(s) ?
10b||~10b -- aah, what a question!
If Sprint does this, I'll be really upset. I can't even get that information for my own phone. My statements contain only "incoming" for incoming calls, so I can't see who all called me. I have even asked customer service, and they say they cannot provide that information.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
I think, the blogger, whom you copy-pasted here, got confused and confused you...
...
CC.
All those blogs, oh dear, how this confuses my simple mind
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
GSM calls are, as a rule, encrypted. It is very unusual to see otherwise. In places where the telco has it switched off, your GSM phone will pop a message on screen letting you know. Once your call hits the cell site, it is decrypted, multiplexed with a bunch of other calls, and sent off to the exchange in the clear. The cell sites are usually linked via radio to other cell sites, or directly to the exchange. Any 3 letter agency worth a damn is going to intercept the unencrypted part of the link, or even better, just stick a box in every major exchange.
I don't class GSM as 'not really confidential' at all given the expense and effort one need go to in order to get voice from a speaker. Your average radio-shack scanner is not going to cut it. Also the signaling system is one complex and time consuming beast if you're just a simple man in the middle.
If you manage to crack the GSM encryption before the call is dropped (not likely), you aren't going to know very much other than what you pick up in conversation. The alternative in this situation is to record the chunks of the radio spectrum you *think* might have an interesting target, then replay through your capture systems with appropriate keys - time consuming and a waste of effort. Logically the best place to go is direct to the telco or some place where the encryption no longer exists.
The problems then become matching up the signaling system info (which is not only out of band, but often completely not even in the same trunk) with the caller and receiver. I guess this is where companies like AT&T have been ~really~ helpful.
Glad I don't live in the US, but then again, where I do live now, most of the systems are installed by foreign companies, so I'm sure there are more than one or two little mystery boxes in place.
Why should it be illegal to voluntarily give a cell phone company your SSN? Is someone forcing you to use their service?
Yep, the FCC has auctioned off the public airwaves to them. So, if you want cell service, that is precisely what has going on.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
What cell service do you use that didn't require your SSN so they could do a credit check when you signed up?
Unless you're using a prepaid service, you almost certainly gave your cell provider your SSN.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Verizon is following rule #1 Opt-Out. Though I find the way they do it unethical.
Several posters have remarked that there is a new rule for Dec 07: It seems that Verizon is trying to sidestep the 12/2/07 deadline for new rules regarding CPNI. Earlier this year, the FCC decided to change the CPNI rules for carriers (both wireless and wireline) to try and beef-up the security around the call details that these carriers handle: http://www.ipbusinessmag.com/departments.php?department_id=6&article_id=23 [ipbusinessmag.com] I read this from the link above to ipbusinessmag.com and looks like if it is different, it still reeks of loopholes. Joint Venture and Independent Contractor Use of CPNI: Under previous FCC CPNI rules, carriers were permitted to share information with joint venture partners and independent contractors if they obtained "opt-out" approval from their customers. The FCC changed this requirement to mandate that customers obtain "opt-in" approval from their customers prior to sharing CPNI with their joint venture partners and independent contractors for marketing purposes only. This opt-in requirement does not apply to the permissible disclosures of CPNI, such as sharing CPNI for billing purposes or to render services to the customer The part about the 'permitted to share information with joint venture partners and independent contractors if they obtained "opt-out" approval from their customers.' looks like a typo, shouldn't that be opt-in. Then the rest of it just looks like the same thing as they are doing. Can someone find something better from the FCC, I can't. Otherwise it looks like my first link, that you can do EXACTLY what Verizon is doing Now!
or the NSA, or whoever... Obiously, in these critical times of terrorist threats, anyone who opts out MUST have something to hide... What a great way to get a list of potential wiretap suspects !
/end sarcasm
Let's just face the facts, we have no privacy, no lawmakers actually care about privacy, they just promise things that will take as long to go into effect as it will for them to get out of office so they don't have to deal with it again.
I've got a plan though.
If enough of us forward calls from suspeted telemarketer numbers to suspected terrorists, we may be able to get rid of two turds, err I mean birds, with one stone.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
To answer your question in general, your cell company needs your SSN so they can check your credit. Unless you use pre-paid service, they're essentially lending you money which you pay back monthly.
In this case, they use the last four digits of your SSN as a password to authenticate you. Any time you call Verizon to change anything on your account, they ask you for those digits as authentication. It's a very weak authentication, sure, but it has the advantages that it's better than nothing, and it's a value that you and they already know, and that you aren't going to forget.
If you don't like using your SSN as a password (I don't, I think it's a terrible idea), you can set a password on your account, and then they'll use that one to authenticate you when you call in. I just called into the opt-out number and they asked me for my password, not my SSN.
This is so much bullshit. This should be opt-in.This I agree with.
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I have tried to use the number to opt-out but it keeps asking for a "password" that I never setup. I guess they don't necessarily want me to be successful at opting-out.
-- Posted from my parent's basement
Those steaming sacks of shit are requiring that I opt out by calling an automated system and entering my phone number, billing zip code, and last four digits of my social security number. However, because I don't remember the random number I would have given any phone company who asked for my SSN, I can't enter it!
no, they aren't. Verizon Wireless doesn't use GSM
"Hello 911? I just tried to toast some bread, and the toaster grew an arm and stabbed me in the face!"
Aside from utilities which apply to a particular location, what other bills do you have that don't require a credit check? Pretty much any situation where you use first and pay days or weeks later involves a credit check. Services that are tied to a location and for which the provider has a local monopoly are a bit different, but I think that's mostly because (a) you're probably not going to move to escape the bill and (b) you're probably not going to be willing to go without the service. Of course, there are some people for which (a) and/or (b) are not true, but the numbers are apparently low enough that it's not an issue.
If they insist on it, the SSN should be used for the credit check and nothing else. And purged from the system when that is done.That would be good, but if you don't pay your bill, and they don't have your SSN, how would they report your failure to pay to the credit bureaus? I can think of ways to accomplish this, but they mostly involve breaking the link between SSN and credit, which would be great, but isn't likely to happen.
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This is why I find it important to distinguish from consumer and customer. The customer is always right. The consumer is just a resource. Problem is, we are the consumer. The corporation on the other end of the data-mining business is the customer.
[
Flamebait? How does referencing a science-fiction book earn one a flamebait mod?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Yes, good point.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I think that is a very good question / observation and someone should mod you up.
Well, yes and no. Granted I find the US system hellish at times (I moved here about 10 months ago from Australia), but realistically, you can pay $20 for unlimited texting for 'families' (read, all lines under one account), and most reasonable plans by default offer unlimited calling/messaging to other lines on account.
I know you said 'essentially', but not really, they're giving you a service and allowing you to pay in arrears.
A comparison would be any restaurant where you pay your bill at the end of the meal. Many people I know have larger individual restaurant bills than monthly cellular bills, but no credit check there...
The U.S. system seems screwy for text messages, but it makes sense for voice calls. The caller pays for the cost of the call on the POTS system to whatever exchange the cellular number is in. Then the person with the cellphone pays for the airtime to transmit that call over the cellular network to their handset. (And they pay for the airtime whether the call is outgoing or incoming; what they're paying for is the circuit, not really the 'call.') This means, if the call originates from the same area that the cellphone's number is in, the caller pays next to nothing, since it's a local call. In fact, they have no way of knowing, just by looking at the number, whether it's a cell or landline. There's no difference in the U.S. between a "cellular number" and a "regular number."
It doesn't strike me as illogical. If it cost people more to call cellphones than landlines, the uptake of cellphones would have been a lot slower. I certainly wouldn't be able to use a cellphone as my primary business line, since it would be obnoxious to charge people more (and, hence, discourage them from calling me) because I want the ability to take calls on the road.
The U.S. pricing structure means that text messages are a bad deal (which is why they're little used here compared to in Europe), but it also sped the adoption of cell phones to many people who wouldn't have bought them otherwise, particularly business users, and it prevented people from consciously avoiding making calls to cell phones because of the expense. It puts the expense of owning a cellphone on the person who wants the convenience of being mobile, rather than on the caller.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Because this mod-up/down thing gives people a lever. People, in general, don't have much power much less the ability to actually wield it. So its very much like giving a crack-whore a $1,000 rock and telling her to hand it out in small doses to all the other crack-whores...
Well, you get the picture. It ain't pretty.
But if you ask that same crack-whore what she thinks about the new Verizon Wireless policy she'd probably tell you she traded her cellphone for some rocks. Because in her world, she needs those crack-rocks a lot more thann she needs Verizon Wireless.
Come to think of it, that might be true in our world too.
But it is also true that Verizon Wireless is very much like that crack-whore. Under all that garish make-up and $10 dollar pumps, they're the same. Except, of course, that the crack-whore has a shot at redemption and Verizon Wireless doesn't. Because unlike Verizon Wireless, the crack-whore never forgets that her real mission is to please her customers. Imagine the uproar if she started selling your personal information... I think it would be about the same.
The advertising you're getting? Since when is Verizon one of the parties that directs advertising at you?
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
Swapping SIMs == swapping phone numbers.
Not in Finland at least. Operators are legally required to support transfer of phone numbers, so you don't have any artificial barrier preventing you from switching to the cheapest provider.
They aren't lending you money at all. Ever notice how your phone bill the first month you sign up is double-ish? Thats because they charge you the pro-rated amount for the remaining billing period, and then next months charge. In reality, you are giving them money for future airtime.
GSM is not a CDMA analog. (pun not intended.)
The underlying multiplexing sceme of GSM could be compared to CDMA. Which is.. CDMA... sort of. But not in a way that lets the phones be easily compatible.
GSM standardizes more than just the multiplexing scheme, which is why european phones are so interchangeable.
US phones are incompatible because they're incompatible. Not because of some deficiency of the multiplexing method.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
When I was a kid living in Santa Cruz, Ca., the local Baskin Robbins (an ice cream eatery) had this program where you filled in a card with some basic information, including your birthdate. A few weeks before your birthday they would mail you a coupon for a free sundae(or something) redeemable on your birthday.
Some local guy used the same method mentioned above. He used a slightly wonky spelling of his name. He got his sundae on his birthday, but he also received a letter from the selective service stating that since it was his 18th birthday, he now needed to register with the them. The name on the envelope had the same wonky spelling he had provided to Baskin Robbins. After it hit the local newspaper, LOTS of people stepped forward with tales of the same thing. Turns out Baskin Robbins had been doing it for years.
And this was almost 30 years ago.
How can you expect the government to regulate this kind of stuff when they are one of the biggest consumers of such data?
The only thing that was in my maiden name the last time this happened was the Verizon land line bill. So if it isn't Verizon that is sharing the data, then who else could it possibly be?
I'm glad we ditched them finally, the old prepaid phone we have ended up being cheaper in the long run.
If the spying is done in a legal, constitutional way, with a judge overseeing the procedures, I don't think most people would object.
So, basically, as long as someone writes down somewhere that it's okay to do something, that thing is always okay to do?
Governments, on the other hand, are by definition representative of the people of NAME YOUR COUNTRY and should therefore work in their best interests. That they usually don't is a separate problem..
Yup, I'm sure all those folks that use their verizon cells for business are just thrilled about this. Just thrilled.
As long as you can verify that someone relatively neutral is overseeing the procedure, and that it targets specific individuals, instead of being overbroad. The lack of judicial review in this case is the major issue.
The FBI does wiretaps every day across the US, as do other police forces across the world, to catch criminals. Except that in most countries they need warrants to do so. Are you objecting to such?
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
Actually, yes, certain things that are illegal in the US should certainly be legal in my opinion. Heck, many of the things you mentioned are legal in Canada, luckily!
But what you are proposing the NSA ought to be able to do is NOT what they are currently doing at all, is it? They are broadly spying on anyone and everyone, without any warrant, outside of the bonds of the US' constitution. That is unconscionable. The NSA already had the rights and ability to spy on the US' enemies abroad before. This program, OTOH, is about spying on everyone and everything, which isn't quite the same thing. And no, I don't think helping your government do anything to "defeat" their "enemies" is a good thing. There are rights which should not be violated whatever the enemies, and I believe that those rights should apply to every human being, not just citizens of your own country.
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
- Benjamin Franklin
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
No; I'm not opposed to spying on principle (I am opposed to being personally caught for crimes, but, that's a practical concern and not a philosophical one). I was just nitpicking, and wanted to point out that maybe we should consider more than simple legality when deciding whether or not we agree with a practice.
After all, everything the Third Reich did was legal, wasn't it?
This is mandated by an FCC regulation. As soon as I read through the teeny-tiny 11 point type, I realized that they were hiding the opt-out provision in a bunch of legal gobbledygook. I am sure that 99% of the people who received this threw it away without a second thought.
The details of this opt-out provision are buried about halfway through the document. It took longer to find the information in the document than to actually opt out.
Ask Me About... The 80's!
What you are missing is the Verizon is taking no responsibility whatsoever to any downstream misuse of your data, whether that is stalking, identity theft, or being irreversibly thrown into some giant terrorist watch list because you dialed a pizza parlor that has a number that used to belong to Ahmed the Bomber.
Like many other privacy problems, it's not the intended use you have to worry about. It's the other uses.
This stems from US privacy law, which relies too heavily on a public/private dichotomy. When it comes to information, privacy is like virginity: once information loses its private status, there is no middle ground.
This reflects a normally healthy libertarian streak in US privacy thought. With a few statutory exceptions, once a party has acquired a piece of information, they can do anything they want with it unless they have a direct contractual or professional obligation to you. The government is not going to interfere with somebody's use of information they have a right to have, and frankly you have no real practical course of action until it is too late. In fact in most cases you have no practical course of action after information that you reasonably assume is private is misused. Which means if you are smart, you're default stance is to keep private data about yourself private unless you can determine you will remain in control over that data.
It's not hard to give practical examples of why you don't want to carelessly let private information about your calling habits lose their private status. Once somebody buys your call records, they can turn around and resell them to your currrent or prospective employer. So if you're talking to your old school buddy who happens to work for a competitor, you may find yourself being investigated by your employer for industrial espionage. Or if you are applying for a job, the interviewer knows what other companies you've been interviewing at. Hey, this guy has been interviewing for six months, there must be something wrong with him. Oh, look he likes to call phone sex services, he's too creepy for me.
No, Verizon is not really doing this to benefit you, no matter what they say. But you knew that. What you might not know is that they are doing this to their customers despite the fact that the damage done to their privacy and freedom far outweighs the purported benefits of receiving accurately targeted advertising. I'd go so far as to say it is grossly irresponsible, althought sadly not more irresponsible than many other things that have been done in the name of targeted marketing.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Yarr, I just did this. Verizon's reception is better, but the iPhone is slick and the AT&T bills are really quite good. I can finally split the bill with my brother (family plan) in a way that makes sense for both of us because we both get an itemized bill for our number. Just no talking in the elevator or parking garage of my building anymore.
None of the companies I've used have done that. The first bill is typically a bit larger, but that's because it's typically for a bit more than a month.
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Yes, but few restaurants allow you to pay weeks after you eat.
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By letter, template below. Usually, only a letter is legalling binding.
YOUR ADDRESS HERE
DATE
A/C Number: aaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing to close my ISSUING COMPANY NAME Visa/Mastercard credit card account aaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd. I enclose the one/two issued card(s), cut into pieces.
I have sent a check separately to pay the $$$$.cc balance outstanding on the current statement. I agree to pay for any transactions authorized by me that I have missed in my calculations as soon as you advise me of them.
Any further transactions to the credit card account aaaa-bbbb-cccc-dddd are not authorised by me, and I instruct you not to accept any further purchases or other debits to the account.
I also request that you remove me from your direct mail marketing lists and do not share my name, address, telephone, transaction, and other personal details with ISSUING COMPANY NAME's marketing affiliates or other organisations.
Yours faithfully,
YOUR FULL NAME
No, they just shouldn't do it. Because to make it illegal, we have to involve hundreds of lawyers, and waste everyone's time and taxpayer dollars to get some 1000 page document passed into law that some other lawyer at some point in time will "interpret" differently and allow some company to get away with something shady. Then we can start the lawsuit process, and get more lawyers involved. Our legal system is a quagmire.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
As a non VZW customer, how do I opt out of their sharing of my CPNI? When a VZW customer calls my cell phone, the CPNI for that call is shared by both VZW and my carrier. Without my express permission, I don't understand how VZW could share my CPNI which they have been ordered to protect by the FCC. They are essentially leaking my carrier's CPNI information in the process. Could there be any grounds here for a Class-Action to limit this? Until such time, I can at least try and ensure I do not take calls from VZW customers. Is there a way to prevent a VZW customer from calling my cell or home number? Is there any information in ANI or elsewhere that would allow me to configure my Asterisk server to reroute all VZW calls to a message announcing that I no longer accept calls from VZW customers due to VZW policy?
NATP450RUMM5KNW 05/23-05/28 8.00 8.00
NATP450RUMM5KNW 05/29-06/28 39.99 39.99
Would it be possible to copyright my personal information such that providing that information without my express permission would constitute copyright infringement?
I don't really like my current Samsung PocketPC phone, and I don't like Apple's current policy with regard to software development for the iPhone. I'm hoping that things go well with OpenMoko and the Neo phone; I'd love a totally open Linux-based phone myself.
Both — the diminishing of privacy and the abundance of misdirected advertising — are bad, and it is not at all obvious (to me), which is worse.
Remove the word 'misdirected' and I can agree.Why the fuck should the act of paying for cell phone service result in an increased amount of advertising junk mail being sent to you, "well-targeted" or not?
NATP450RUMM5KNW 05/29-06/28 39.99 39.99
And when did this bill come? This looks like the bill for the end of the cycle, 6/28. So you paid this in early July, right? Or did you pay it when you opened the account, and then didn't get another bill until the end of July (so you started in advance, then ended up in arrears)? If you paid it when you opened the account, and paid another bill the beginning of July, August, September and October, then you are paying in advance. I've never seen that happen with any of the services I've used (and I've had a cellphone continuously since 1994, from several different providers), but if you are doing that, you should be careful to make sure you get a refund when you finally terminate your service.
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The last prompt in the flow is "Press nine to opt out, or hang up now and no changes will be made."
Tricksy little bastards. Just another reason to change providers, on top of their spectrum lawsuit and the NARAL text message mess.
What you all think is about advertising and marketing couldn't be further from the truth. This program, and others like it, are stop-loss mechanisms to prevent legal liability by Verizon for handing this information over to the FBI, NSA, etc. *without* a warrant. Believe me, if you were a business looking at possible class-action damages on a scale that most of these Ma-Bell types are looking at-especially when courts are finding their information disclosures as unconstitutional-you'd find a way to trick people into implicit permission.
Thank you for reading One Man's Opinion. No participation necessary. Offer void where deemed by law or PATRIOT Act.
suckage, n. - see "Verizon Wireless"
I am a former Verizon victim of six years. In the beginning, they were pretty good, but with each year, things got worse and worse. By year four (the end of two contract periods) I was ready to jump ship, but I wasn't able to convince everyone else on my family plan to do so. After six years I finally escaped and went to Cincinnati Bell. Now I have a very reasonable unlimited regional calling plan, and outside of the tri-state area they use AT&T's network, so the coverage and service is as good as AT&T. They are by no means perfect, but they seem to be the least evil in the dark world of US wireless phone service providers.
Oh, and Cincinnati Bell has free incoming text messages.
No. I don't know, where you are getting this accusation, but the recent scandal involved NSA listening on phone conversations, where one of the parties was outside of the US.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
GSM standardizes everything. From the wireless signal from your phone, to the way that the towers communicate with each other.
That is a good thing, to be sure. However, the area where I live and the area where I work have very poor GSM coverage. high-density population areas are terrible for GSM. They have a much wider coverage area (good for tower building, as it requires less towers to be built) but it sucks for people, because once a lot of people get on a tower it starts to get overloaded and then your call quality suffers (they switch to a lower-quality codec) and then your calls will start to drop.
CDMA is much smaller radiation of signal, and therefore requires more towers. More towers mean more more people can use the phone. More towers also means better signal coverage. I can look out my window at work, and see 7 mobile phone cells. My coworker has AT&T and I have VZW. If I hold both phones next to eachother I have full bars, and he has 2.
More bars in more places? Hardly.
I don't care what works, only that it works. Standards are great, but if my un-standard protocol works better for me then I am going to use it. I could care less what Europe has, or what Cupertino has (check out the coverage map of Apple's office for AT&T.) or what anybody else has. I want my phone to work. Verizon has worked for me, with no issues.
I could care less, too. But I was under the impression that the problem you state was part of the older GSM standard whose multiplexing scheme was TDMA (time division multiplex), and that the current version of GSM specifies a form of CDMA (code division multiplex).
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
And Verizon is better how?
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
As opposed to the one that spies for all levels of government? I don't see the difference...
Don't underestimate the power of The Source