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Leave Your Cellphone At Home, Says Jacob Appelbaum
An anonymous reader writes "N+1 has an interview with Jacob Appelbaum (who is part of the Tor project) titled 'Leave Your Cellphone at Home.'" Jacob has a lot to say about privacy, data security, and surveillance. He ought to know. Among other things, he's had his email seized, been relieved of his phone, been the subject of a National Security Letter (video) and generally had his travel disrupted.
There, fixed that for ya. Amazing how they managed to get darned near 100% of the population to agree to carry around a tracking device with nary a peep. All it took was to be very careful to NOT talk about the tracking ability, keep news accounts of the police using the cell data off the front page and make the tracker shiny and useful enough. Do those things and not only will everyone carry one they will pay an average of $50/mo for the privledge. Land of the Free indeed.
Won't be long now before they decide they have the hook set deep enough they can start making more overt use of the location/activity data without many people ditching their tracker.
The carriers WILL start renting out access to track data for advertising purposes. They know where and when you are. They will be able to link that beyond your phone. Won't take much computation to get that localized enough to have a good idea which PC you use and then tie it to doubleclick and google's cookies. Then they know EVERYTHING. Combine a tracking cookie to hard billing quality identification data and the possibilities are truly limitless. Sure they COULD do that with Amazon but there is too great a chance of a user revolt. But people won't/can't give up their iShiny.
What law enforcement will do with the data is so obvious and so dark there isn't much point in hammering it again really. Especially combined with security cameras everywhere. Who cares if the image quality isn't good enough for a positive id or you were wearing a hoodie. It gives a time/location and the tracker gives them who was at that spot in spacetime.
Bust a drug dealer and you have probable cause to grab a trace on everyone who came in contact with that person for the last month. Crunch the numbers enough and lots of patterns emerge. Not quite precrime but close enough. You show up as having been in the room with a number of dealers and that will be your ass. Or be around a few people who later get busted for burgulary and how soon until that is cause for a search warrant on your place? Being able to effortlessly work backwards from a bust and turn up clues like that will change the law enforcement game entirely.
And now you see why AT&T yanked all their payphones and for some reason simply refuses to compete in the landline business, even with billions and billions in sunk costs for all that wire going everywhere. Eliminate hardlines and everyone MUST buy a cell. It is already sorta odd to encounter someone who doesn't carry one, eventually it will be reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Wouldn't suprise me if they become the preferred physical identifier, i.e. 'your papers.'
Democrat delenda est
If todays phones are nothing more than tracking devices for the government and anybody with the right tools to know where we are at all times, then why are we paying for this?
I mean facebook is free and collects tons of information, yet we pay to use our phones and it collects our information the same way...
He sounds like a threat to someone.
This isn't just with phones. Did you know that law enforcement agencies can see what you're doing when you're on the internet?? You should stop using the internet. But it's probably too late, anyway, because they've probably infected your computer with a program that monitors your every keystroke!
And that's not all! Did you know there're identifying numbers on your car, too? Law enforcement can track you and indict you simply because of a number on the backside of your car! You should probably just leave your car at home.
And don't even get me started about how unsecure your fingertips are.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Isn't the whole point of a cell phone to take it with you? If you're going to buy one to leave at home, just get a land line.
Problem
"And don't even get me started about how unsecure your fingertips are."
Solution:
Hot irons
Bye!
The font they use is atrocious, I can't read the article at all.
I starting reading this article, and five minutes later my Google Mail connection goes out with Temporary Error (500). I understand I can't come to any conclusions without reproducibility, so please post below if you experience something similar.
Got a mobile phone for one reason, to be able to communicate when necessary in a hurry. I don't gab, I don't purchase, I don't bank, I don't web surf, I don't do anything to compromise any data by my phone. I generally have the ringer off to preserve battery (it's a stupid phone which will run the battery down notifying me the battery is getting low), but it's a basic phone for one use and that use only. I'll keep taking it with me.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
1. AT&T ditched their pay phones because they didn't make any money.
2 . hardlines - they WANT you to keep them! Really! Case in point: when I called to drop my hardline ATT immediately, without asking, cut roughly 40% off of my bill to keep me on ($95 [with internet] down to $60). Reason given by customer retention person - "We DON'T want you to give up your landline!".
Sunk costs indeed.
After hearing that they could have reduced my bill at anytime, I told them that I was not interested. Cancel immediately. Thank you.
Firm and cold stops all salespeople in their tracks - no emotion is the key.
Having recently had a work issued cell phone and a work issued computer confiscated at the border, I completely agree.
Keep your phone on you, powered down. Or powered up in airplane mode (cell, gps, wifi turned off) if the phone has it. (Advantage is that "airplane mode" is usually instant on.)
This is assuming that you're carrying a phone that can be powered down. If not, I agree; leave it at home. Or get a different phone.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
And please let us not forget one of the overriding stories against free speech and transparency:
http://www.nnn.se/nordic/assange/suspicious.pdf
http://www.whale.to/b/gelbspan_b.html
And blessings on Jacob for everything he's done and is still doing.
Or, put your phone in a RF-blocking container like a Faraday mesh sleeve (not expensive) and then if you do want to use it, pull it out and use it. That's obviously superior to leaving it at home. You could just pull the battery too.
Put your device into wifi mode, only use open access points and communicate over tor?
More people should leave their access points open for the greater good. Or have one open and one closed for their personal use.
Too bad that's not the case =p
Whew, thanks! If it wasn't for your sarcastic dismissal of the police state, I'd STILL be thinking I live in one, and I'd STILL assume that government is untrustworthy by default. I'm a changed man, thanks to you!
Sometimes it almost seems like the complacent have more hatred for the paranoid than the authorities who conduct the actual oppression. Here's some food for thought: the usual difference between a complacent and a paranoid is that the paranoid has first-hand experience.
Anyone who thinks leaving a cell phone at home, powered off, or in airplane mode is an option obviously doesn't have a wife.
haha! he posts as anon coward.
(oh, wait...)
Nah just too lazy to register.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Bamford projects that its processing-capacity may aspire to yottabytes, or 10^24 bytes"
Let's do some math here.. a 100,000 square-foot room with (let's be generous) 10 meter ceilings has a volume of 9.3e13 mm^3.
At 1YB, the average data density in the room would be 10 GB/mm^3, with no room left for racks, walking space, ventilation, etc.
Let's just guess that, optimistically, we can occupy about 1/10th of the total space with storage devices. Then the peak data density is 100GB/mm^3.
So a storage device with a volume of 2000 cm^3 (roughly the size of a standard hard drive) would have to hold 200 PB each. That exceeds our current capabilities by something like 10,000.
How should one never attract the interest of law enforcement while, for example, law enforcement officers continue to practice unofficial racial profiling?
It's been ten years since I owned and used a cell phone. At times its awkward when you're being asked for contact information, but I really don't care. Occasionally it makes life a bit more difficult as one has to plan and can't exactly be spontaneous. But pressure keeps building to get one.
I see it also as sort of a zen thing. No electronic leash or Pavlov bell sort of thing. Just peace and serenity. If you want to contact me, send an email and I'lll respond at some later point.
The wi-fi capability is all you need to maintain communications with the outside world in most urban environments
But not for seeking roadside assistance, in my experience (Fort Wayne, Indiana). And even once at the destination, there are still lots of places where Wi-Fi is explicitly for employees only.
...would only be possible if you were a hermit, living in the basement, and having no contact with society.
All the time we get "Why the hell is this posted on slashdot?" Here, it seems, is an article aimed directly at the core demographic.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
You are just trying to trick into leaving an easily trackable trace of my blood rich in succelent DNA everywhere I go... granted not very far with me spurting blood from where once my fingers were but still, police could track me to my corpse!!!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If you're using the internet, this is the material you must read!
Yeah, but... a PDF? C'mooooooon.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The whole point of a cell phone is to, oh, i don't know, be a cell phone?
If you're only going to use it at home, get a land line. They're cheaper.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
We interrupt this program with a special bulletin:
America is now under martial law.
All constitutional rights have been suspended.
Stay in your homes.
Do not attempt to contact loved ones, insurance agents or attorneys.
Shut up.
Do not attempt to think or depression may occur.
Stay in your homes.
Curfew is at 7 PM sharp after work.
Anyone caught outside the gates of their subdivision sectors after curfew
will be shot.
Remain calm, do not panic.
Your neighborhood watch officer will be by to collect urine samples in
the morning.
Anyone caught interfering with the collection of urine examples will be
shot.
Stay in your homes, remain calm.
The number one enemy of progress is questions.
National security is more important than individual will.
All sports broadcasts will proceed as normal.
No more than two people may gather anywhere without permission.
Use only the drugs prescribed by your boss or supervisor.
Shut up, be happy.
Obey all orders without question.
The comfort you've demanded is now mandatory.
Be happy.
At last everything is done for you.
Just like with credit cards, it's inherent in the system that phones have to be tracked, so that calls and data can be routed to the right tower. Mobile phones provide a lot of benefit, and there is no credible alternative, so people will use them.
...and it didn't work out so well for him in the long run.
There's a black guy I know who drives in a normal, non-showoff manner without weaving in and out of traffic or doing U-turns when leaving the kerb. He has a clean driver license. Yes, he drives a BMW. No, he does not get stopped by the police. I wonder why that is?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Can I watch you have sex then?
I've got 30 seconds to kill.
And that all everyone fears about government monitoring is true.
- They (the government) actively track your mobile device, and watch what you do online and other transmitted means
- They see where you've been, and where you are now via GPS / cell tower triangulation
- The read through your emails, text messages, all other personal information.
What then?
For the average person on the street; not someone who's involved with anything high profile that has the name "hacker" in it, or "wikileaks" or some other thing that may be construed as a potential legal issue (regardless of whether or not you agree with the legality of such activities. It's the state that matters most in terms of caring about laws... If they care about it, then you'd better too) what are the possible outcomes?
Gestapo showing up to your door to haul you off to prison for mouthing your anti-government rants online or to your friends? Let's just say you were doing something you -knew- was illegal and was actively caught and recorded by "the system" (again, regardless of whether or not you think such an action is legal or not is irrelevant). Assuming it wasn't large scale enough to be noticed by a large group of people (ie. wikileaks) or infringes upon another person (ie. theft), do you really think the cops are going to come storming to your door? No. Even assuming what you did was blatantly illegal and was perfectly recorded for posterity, you have probably a near zero chance of a cop showing up at your door.
Why? Nobody cares. There aren't enough cops. There aren't enough FBI, NSA, CIA, whatever acronym you want to give. There aren't enough black helicopters and MiB. There are bigger fish to fry then you out there. A lot bigger fish. Fish that actually are trying to do harm to other people, either through direct theft, or indirectly. Wikileaks could very well put real people in danger. Ever think of that? Do you want to be the guy working in the consulate in some tinpot country when its found out you ratted on your boss' murdering of its citizens to another nation?
Face it, even if 'they' (for whatever value of 'they' you wish to give) had perfect information on you, for 99.9% of the people out there, it wouldn't matter. Police, gov't officials, etc. They're all just people too, and frankly, they have as little interest in finding issues with people who don't need issues found then you do.
If you think otherwise, I would suggest you go hang out at a police station, get to know your local policemen, CIA folk, etc. Find out what law enforcement and "snooping" is really like, who actually does it, and why. Sadly, you'll probably find that the world just doesn't give a damn enough about you for you to worry about encrypting all your communication from "them."
..of the Soviet Republic of America|Russia|England|........
..should do the trick. And no, I am not an anarchist, I am not a commie, but I am really pissed off.
Indeed TOR is not 100% watertight, but it does indeed require the capabilities of national intelligence to de-anonymize TOR reliably. Are they "law enforcement" ? I would call them "military".
Your post opens a new angle on the current push to remove the need for Flight Mode.
I've been tin-foil oriented since first meeting relational databases with good old dBase. It's not a heavy paranoia, just a practiced caution about leaving minimum data trails. Having a pre-paid phone that turns off, and defaults to Flight Mode has been one aspect of the lifestyle. Looks like that option is one more that's about to be cut off.
Everything else, is begging for a collar that does not chafe as much.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
Why on earth should I inconvenience myself and leave my means of communication for work and personal requirements at home because I am afraid of the government tracking me? I really don't care if they want to do that and I only feel sorry for the loss of time and resources spent tracking others for no reason and with no benefit whatsoever to national security. Blatant abuse of these capabilities by the authorities might change my opinion but for the moment, it is a non-issue and more like a nagging annoyance than anything else. It's like terrorism, the terrorists only win when YOU are terrorised and inconvenienced.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. - Albert Einstein
If you are doing something to become a target of investigation, then yes, leave your cellphone at home.
However a very large percentage of people generally can go about their day without being accosted by lawyers, cops, and surveillance in general.
Bottom line is you have to be living some kind of "lifestyle" to warrant surveillance or investigation. Obviously volunteering with wikiLeaks is one of those lifestyle choices that would involve the general annoyances associated with criminal investigation.
The better advice would be stop volunteering for wikiLeaks and enjoy your cellphone wherever you are.
I find it ridiculous when people operate on the fringe of the law and assume they are entitled to anonymity and privacy and then offer advice that doesn't apply to the rest of us.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
1) You are correct in that Joe Sixpack probably has little to fear. Not nothing, but not much*. If you are likely to be 'up to' something, you know who you are. And you are in the minority.
2) The something that you might be 'up to' does not necessarily have to be criminal or terrorist. Local LE, the FBI (and very probably the CIA, NSA and othet TLAs) are perfectly willing to sell information about VIPs to competitors or investors wishing to get inside information on business deals.
If I'm going to the movies or the store, I'll bring my cell phone with me. No problem if you want to know what show I'm watching. But if I'm going to meet with some start up business about venture capital funding, the phone stays home. And the cars stay home. I don't need the local busybodies knowing what I'm up to or who I'm speaking to. And local/federal LE agencies are well known for their people moonlighting and feeding their pals intelligence on who's up to what.
* All you Joe Sixpacks need to worry about your insurance company counting the number of times you visit the liquor store in the event they want to jack up your rates.
Have gnu, will travel.
Gosh, I thought most people understood this by now. Phones in the OFF state still 'wake up' every now and then and phone home to the cell towers. Which allows your movements to be tracked. 'Off' is NOT really OFF. The only way to make a phone truly OFF is to pull out the battery.
The phone could theoretically be set up with a back door to periodically wake up and ping the tower.
Jacob gets hassled because he has the gonads to publicly associate with, and represent, Wikileaks. He mostly gets harassed at the US border.
SMS was available long before email on a phone. It required development to route all the messages (of course that has long since been recouped and now it's a profit center).
These days if you have a smartphone with a data plan there is very little need for SMS--unless you need to message someone like my dad who doesn't have a smartphone but does have ulimited SMS.
and it's if the wife is in labour. Any other time it should be possible for messages to wait until it is convenient to check them.
We did manage to make do for hundreds of thousands of years without being on-call at all times.
The pager she used to have would go weeks on a set of batteries. Now it's an iphone and she needs to constantly check whether someone called while she was away from the phone, and it needs charging almost every day. (This sounds silly, but when you can be on duty for 30hrs straight a phone that needs charging after 24hrs can be a real problem.)
I seem to recall that cell phones work harder to establish a connection with a local tower when they're out of range and it wears down the battery faster-- I've noticed this effect myself. Best turn it off and save the battery charge instead of shielding it.
Around here cell phone are still not ubiquitous in elementary schools. Popular certainly, but not *everywhere*.
Around here a basic landline runs at least $25/month. I can get a really basic cell plan for $15.
He's on the Julian Assange show which may just be on Youtube. Cool show.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
Well, if you're a political activist then by all means leave your cell phone at home. If you're not who cares?
There's more than one way to skin a cat, but if you go head to head with the government they will mess with you. You could always be subversive is much subtler arguably more effective ways, but not everyone is here to employ soft methods.
Especially when you're a guy like Jake...
Does anyone else ever suspect that Applebaum is part of Anonymous or AntiSec? Some of his rants online sound a whole lot like some of the rants from Anonymous on pastebin. And he is known to be pretty much a radical politically. Just sayin'.
But for an entirely different reason. I simply like not having it around sometimes. It forces me to have a distinct plan when I leave the house. I must know exactly where I am going, who I am meeting, what I am buying from the store, etc. Minor issues, for sure, but the psychological impact is important. I immediately feel "off the grid" somewhat, and it provides a nice freedom. Never had an "emergency" that was so important it didn't wait till I got back.
Security/privacy is a real issue, but I don't see how taking it to the store/not taking it to the store makes any real difference. So they know you went to the store/movies? I'm not really okay with that, but stop and think about it for a moment. Whether or not you took it with you, they could probably gather most of the same info from your texts and phone calls anyhow. So unless you never use your cell phone to make any plans, and never take it with you anywhere, they can pretty well figure out what you are up to. If you are that paranoid, you should be primarily communicating by carrier pigeon. As a corollary, if you use your cell phone to make plans to do something illegal, you're an idiot.
That's too extreme. Just leave all your microwave-transmitting information devices inside the microwave oven, which wil probably be the "deadest" spot inside your house. If your microwave is safe enough to bake a potato, it won't leak enough microwaves for you or the FBI to use YOUR cellphone.
Incidentally, texting or calling a cellphone placed inside a hopefully inactive microwave oven is a crude way to test for possible leaks in the oven's protective coating.
Don't get involved in leaking government secrets in the first place.
Seriously. The last airline trip that I went on, I forgot that I had a loaded pistol magazine in one compartment of my backpack. Other than some questions and paperwork, it resulted in nothing.
This guy didn't get picked out at random. He got picked out because he has been tied up with an organization that involved itself in illegal activity. Work for a criminal organization, the government comes after you. Imagine that!
How about I stop pretending I'm important in any way, take my cellphone with my like a normal person, and live a life free of fear and paranoia?
They can't track a phone with no battery. If you can't remove the battery wrap it in foil - they can't track a phone that has no signal.
We must read different journals. Well before it was implemented, the tracking ability was hyped as a safety issue for 911 calls as well as fire and police. They claimed they would be able to track a phone to not only geographic coordinates, but to the floor as well in an apartment building. They neglected to say that anyone with access or the equipment (Like divorce lawyers, police, government, terrorists...etc) can track a particular phone in real time. People don't realize that as long as the phone is on it is transmitting to the towers as well as listening. You can turn the things off which I do in the car or plane, or pull the battery if you are paranoid. Remember that most of the population is completely clueless about anything technical. When cell phones came out most though of them as just another telephone, not a radio transceiver than anyone with a receiver that covered those frequencies could hear. Instead of encryption, the FCC made it illegal to sell receivers that covered those frequencies (cellular blocked) once again protecting ignorance.