Credo Mobile Releases Industry's First Transparency Report

memnock writes "Wired and The Washington Post both report that mobile service provider CREDO is the first telecom to release a report detailing requests from the government for customer information. From Wired: 'A small telecom believed to be at the center of a historic court battle over government surveillance published its first transparency report on Thursday, noting that it had received 16 government requests for customer data in 2013. But the report may be most significant for what it doesn't say.'"

Comments

CREDO is a left-leaning carrier

[damn_registrars]

For those not familiar with them, CREDO mobile is a carrier who donates some of their profits to left-leaning charities, causes, and social groups. They have often advertised their network on democratic underground, daily kos, and other democratic affiliated sites.

Re:CREDO is a left-leaning carrier

[ganjadude]

ok, and? They are actually fighting a good fight here. Lets try and look at it from that point of view. I dont really care what direction someone leans if they do what is right, and taking onthe government for its over reach of power is the right thing to do.

Re:CREDO is a left-leaning carrier

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad you let us know those facts.

Since I'm conservative, my brain is already making ad hominem attacks on them and discounting anything they stick up for or say - even if it's for my own God given rights and against government abuses of authority.

Re-reading that, I don't think anyone will get the satire.

So....who gives a rat's ass what their politics are if they are telling the truth?

One would have to be a fascist to have a problem with what this company publishing this information.

Re:CREDO is a left-leaning carrier

[damn_registrars]

One would have to be a fascist to have a problem with what this company publishing this information.

Which is exactly why many slashdot conservatives - many of whom are fascists under the guise of "ron paul libertarians" - would be against this company releasing this information. The partisan-driven world that many live in here on slashdot often boils down to "if the other guy supports it, it is evil no matter what", and by association "if someone who supports the other guy does it, I must oppose it and do the opposite".

Re:CREDO is a left-leaning carrier

[ganjadude]

corporations are a group of people, they should be treated as such. If anything we didnt go far enough with it, we dont hold the heads of the companies responsible for what the companies do like we would a parent to a child. Meaning if someone runs company X, they seem to get all the benifits of personhood, but none of the negatives, no one is ever held responsible criminally when their company does something criminal. Start holding the owners of these companies personally liable and stop letting them hide behind the corp and i think things would be better.

Re:CREDO is a left-leaning carrier

[Kjella]

If anything we didnt go far enough with it, we dont hold the heads of the companies responsible for what the companies do like we would a parent to a child.

Not sure how it is in the US system but here in Norway it's more like the corporate system than not. Parents can with certain limitations be found liable for their children's actions and be made to pay restitution, but we'd never put a parent in prison over something their child did.

If we were to try going after individuals criminally, why start at the top? Shouldn't it be the people who actually did something illegal? And the nearest manager who ordered it? Making the CEO the catch-all of every crook in the entire company will do very little to discourage others from resorting to illegal means, unless the illegal activity goes all the way to the top. The head of a business division can do lots without telling the CEO.

Except you'd really not like that, because you know how it is when your boss is ordering you around. If you say "I refuse to do X, it's not secure and I might end up getting fucked over for it" you're probably heading straight for the unemployment line. The SOX requirements do as I understand it make the CFO criminally responsible for the books being correct and everyone I've talked to says it created a massive reporting burden throughout the companies.

Going after the owners is even more hopeless, they're as often the victims as the victors. Should all the Enron investors go joins their bosses in jail because they share guilt? And what happens when you own 0.01% of a company, I'm just one person who is either 100% in jail or not. Do I get called in to serve a day in prison for the company's 100 year sentence? And good luck getting all foreign investors extradited.

Besides if you follow that logic then guilt should just flow through the investors of investors of investors to the actual people, like say your pension funds. Wouldn't it be great if you're the one being put in jail because your pension funds decided to invest in BP which was found guilty of a criminal oil spill screw-up? As opposed to the actual people inside BP who was responsble for the safety systems?

Mostly meaningless

[dalias]

CREDO Mobile is just a reseller of access to Sprint's mobile network. The backdoors for logging/intercepting/etc. call data are all going to be at the carrier level (Sprint), not the reseller, so there's no need for law enforcement/NSA/etc. to go through CREDO at all.

Credo unusable for work smartphones

[NoahsMyBro]

Several years ago I wanted to switch to Credo, but they had no Windows Phones & I needed a WP for work, so I couldn't use them. They eventually got Windows Phones, but their ToS prohibits using the data plan for business uses, or as a hotspot, or with Push-email (ActiveSync).

So as much as I'd like the money I'm spending already on mobile service to benefit Credo's causes, I can't use them. I routinely receive emails from them asking me to switch, and each time I wonder how much $ Credo is leaving on the table by forbidding these uses of their network.