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Ukrainian Protesters Receive Mass Text Message Ordering Them To Disperse
schneidafunk writes " Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.' was the message sent to thousands of protesters as a new law prohibiting public demonstrations went into effect."
From NYTimes: "... Protesters were concerned that the government seemed to be using cutting-edge technology from the advertising industry to pinpoint people for political profiling. Three cellphone companies in Ukraine ... denied that they had provided the location data to the government or had sent the text messages, the newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda reported. Kyivstar suggested that it was instead the work of a 'pirate' cellphone tower set up in the area."
And.... here. we. go!
This chart has some interesting tidbits on laws that were just put in place in the Ukraine.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
The question is will they be able to use the data collected about protesters in the future for retribution?
Foolish Westerners, you have no idea how deep this rabbit hole goes.
So the moral of the story is that if you are protester, then you better drop your cell phone in the river.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
... Found in generations of SMS specs, some older than the people sensationalizing this story.
captcha: fleece
I've been following this stuff all day, because this just got seriously violent:
> Police authorized to use firearms, two dead from shooting already
> Ban on using fire hoses in sub-zero weather lifted
> Hospitals tending to wounded protesters have been attacked by police
> Snipers out in force
> Armored Personnel Carriers already deployed, an Army tank unit is being moved into the city
> Opposition members of government resigning en masse
> over 100,000 protesters in Kiev main square
Things are very bad for Ukraine right now. I don't fully understand the ideological issues they're fighting over, but I can certainly recognize the nature of the government's response.
Everybody should scan through this - the images alone are powerful: https://twitter.com/Euromaidan...
Every time advertising industry develops a new way to track you, every time you unquestionably surrender your data in exchange for some trendy app you invite and enable this kind of abuse. The only defense is strong privacy laws and consumer push-back against tracking.
Why this technology exists? Because people accepted invasion of privacy from pioneers like Foursquare, so it was feasible to commercially develop this technology to the point where any totalitarian government can purchase 'turnkey solution' for a couple millions. Now every Banana Republic dictator can deploy it against unwilling citizens.
Passing laws against protests is a good time for last revolution attempt. If not now, then the laws will just get stricter, increaing internal control, and bringing back all the CCCP mechanism of oppression.
TFA say:
The NY Times reports that the "Ukrainian government used telephone technology to pinpoint the locations of cell phones in use near clashes between riot police officers and protesters early on Tuesday."
The NY Times does not say that at all. It does say what the summary says. According to the NYT, The carriers claim that they did not give location data to the government, and that a "pirate cell tower" was used.
It's so sad. The only way to get a hipster's attention is through their phone.
Hipster Tip: put phone on vibrate, shove it down your pants. Then you'll enjoy it when the government is fucking you!
Someday I'm just going to buy a prepaid mobile phone. And register it to:
Joseph Biden
9800 Savage Road
Ft. George G. Meade, MD 20755-6623
[I'll save you the Google lookup - that's the NSA headquarters]
Did you know the USA was the FIRST nation on Earth that passed a law demanding that EVERY mobile phone sold in America would be constantly location tracked, multiple times a minute, if the phone had any capability of communicating with local cell towers? The excuse for this NSA demanded feature? Well the sheeple of the USA were told such functionality was essential in case a 911 caller used a mobile, but was unable, for any reason, to describe their current position.
The new law FORCED every phone company in the USA to provide direct connections from their computers to NSA facilities, so the NSA had complete access to the location of every mobile phone, in real-time.
Now, for a time, US movies and TV shows, aware of the implications of mobile phone tracking, used plots based around the fact that the ownership of a mobile phone was the same as having a location tracking bug on the person. Stories with hackers had their targets constantly pinpointed via their phone. Law enforcement drams, likewise, reminded viewers that a mobile phone would be the main downfall of the stupid criminal. Then everything changed.
The US government contacted every major entertainment and media outlet in the USA, and demanded that they no longer informed their viewers of the tracking features of mobile phones. The excuse was that real 'criminals' and 'terrorists' were covering their tracks more efficiently because they realised the vulnerability of mobile phones, and the reason for this caution was the constant dramatic reminders of cell phone location tracking.
During the last few years, films and TV shows made in the USA have SPECIFICALLY informed viewers that ordinary mobile phones do NOT location track the user- an out and out lie. In the US remake of 'Shameless', the ultra-intelligent 'hacker' kid is attempting to find the location of a person trapped in a shipping container on the back of a truck travelling in the USA. The 'hacker' has contact with the person via his mobile phone, but at no time does the hacker state the mobile phone can be used to identify the current location of the trapped person.
During the same year, there was a major Hollywood movie about a person kidnapped and held prisoner in the trunk of a moving car. She has a mobile phone and calls 911. Over and over, the film states that unless a mobile phone has a functioning GPS chip, its location cannot be found. The entire conceit of the movie revolves around the rescue, by the 911 operator, of the victim. The film, a major movie called "THE CALL", was specifically designed to mislead the average US viewer as to the location tracking capabilities of their mobile phone.
Now the suggestion that the 'location' of a mobile phone is enough for law enforcement to have evidence of a crime by the owner is EXACTLY THE SAME as US courts who permit prosecution of copyright infringements, because a given IP address has been recorded by an ISP as having been part of a BitTorrent. The USA, via monsters like Obama, set this precedent that Team Putin is taking advantage of in the Ukraine.
And by the way, the Ukraine will be traded for Syria. Team Obama will get their way, and will carry out a holocaust via the largest air bombardment seen in Human History, in Syria, and Putin will complete his recapture of the Ukraine. Putin's victory will cost thousands of lives at most. Obama will murder more than ONE MILLION Syrians within the first month of his air based holocaust.
I don't fully understand the ideological issues they're fighting over
A quick summary:
The protests started small and peaceful when president Yanukovich bowed to Russian pressure and reversed the political course away from signing the association agreement and trade deal with EU. Many people had high hopes for that and got disappointed. Still, the protests were in 10,000 people bracket, demanding to keep the EU course, and were almost dissolving in a few weeks, except for a few die-hard fans.
But then the rulers decided they could simply "clean up" the remaining protesters at night using riot police. They beat up the poor guys (mostly students) badly. Dozens of people were heavily injured and had to stay in hospital. A few have gone missing. Extreme unjustified brutality was filmed on multiple cameras.
That's when the protests scaled up to 500,000 people at some points. They also formed militia troops from ex-military to keep them safe. And the demands shifted from the EU topic to the replacement and punishment of the police minister, prime minister, and possibly the president. Still, the protests were largely peaceful, they were just not going to dissolve this time. And the president chose to ignore them completely and wait it out. It's winter, after all.
After two months of waiting, seeing people won't go home, they decided to criminalize the protests, free speech in press and social media, and a whole range of other common freedoms, giving more power to the police at the same time. Bypassing all due procedures (not even counting votes), a 10-pack of corresponding laws was passed. Then everyone with a brain saw it was sliding towards a dictatorship, and disagreements with the riot police got hotter and hotter, until it eventually came to tear gas on one side and Molotov cocktails on the other side, and now also bullets.
If you want more detail, browse the BBC new archives, their coverage is generally good. The only common mistake in Western press is that they still call these protests "pro-EU", when in fact now it's more "anti-Yanukovitch and his party". The most active protesters are from the nationalist right wing and are strongly against any union either with EU or with Russia. And the bigger, more peaceful crowd is also more concerned about overthrowing the oppressive government right now, and discuss the foreign policy later.
I've been many times to Ukraine, although the last time I went there was 8 years ago and I have no reason to return any time soon. I was actually in the country, by blind chance, during the Orange Revolution in 2004 and had a chance to see it first hand and talk to various Ukrainians at the time. Everybody knew the election results were crooked, even those who liked the original outcome, and the result was that when the army refused to intervene and the police decided to stay out too and the Ukrainian Supreme Court demanded another election, Viktor Yushchenko won.
Yushchenko was a friend of the West (EU and USA) and while as best I can tell he had served competently as Prime Minister in the past, he was as incompetent a man as could ever be put into the presidency. His incompetency led to Yulia Tymoshenko (the Sarah Palin of Ukraine) exploiting the situation and trying to grab power legally via the office of Prime Minister. Under enormous pressure and horrible circumstances she negotiated a truly horrible long term deal with Russia to pay historically high prices for natural gas. This deal quickly haunted Ukraine as natural gas market prices fell far below what Ukraine was now legally obligated to pay their "friends" in Russia. This deal has had a very large and very negative impact on the Ukrainian economy as they can't live without the natural gas and are still obligated to pay prices far above current market prices to Mother Russia for it.
Yushchenko made some feeble attempts to implement true reform and start cracking down on corruption, but when faced with opposition he quickly gave up and nothing really changed. Tymoshenko refused to cooperate with him, trying to position herself for a future run for president. The Sarah Palin link is pretty accurate with the exception that Palin probably knows on some level that she can't ever be president (too polarizing and even a majority of her own party don't back or respect her), Tymoshenko's ego refused to allow her to cooperate with Yushchenko, so they became bitter enemies and in fact Yushchenko was forced at one time to get his mortal electoral enemy, Viktor Yanukovych (the current president and loser of the 2004 re-vote), to serve as Prime Minister as working with him seemed better than working with the self-serving Tymoshenko.
Yushchenko ran for a 2nd term and since he and Tymoshenko hated each other so much, they split the anti-Yanukovych vote with Tymoshenko coming out on the better end of that split. The country is roughly half pro-Russian thanks to the Krushchev era decision to enlarge the Ukrainian SSR with what had always been Russian speaking and ethnically Russian lands. The half of the country that considers itself Ukrainian is pro-EU and very anti-Russia, remembering well how poorly Ukrainians were treated in the USSR days (even today most Russians think of them as being something like country bumpkins or rednecks). The country is roughly split 50-50 along those lines, so when the pro-EU side has no unified candidate (Yushchenko and Tymoshenko hated each other so much that neither would give up a run for the presidency to consolidate behind the other), the pro-Russia side wins. Yanukovych is fairly smart and devious but he fails to realize that the pro-EU half of Ukraine still has no unified candidate to oppose him (there are currently roughly 3 candidates splitting support), so while half the country hates him, they can't get enough votes to defeat him in the next presidential election (2015 I think). Unfortunately Yanukovych is an old school, Soviet era politician and he remembers the failure of the 2004 cheating to give him the handoff victory he expected (he was the handpicked choice of the outgoing president), so he is going to change the game where the opposition simply cannot legally mount the kind of protests they need to get rid of him. Since the various self-serving members of the pro-EU side refuse to unite behind a single candidate, the pro-EU opposition remains hopelessly split and unable to effect c
You gotta do it right its
DUDE!! Your getting a CELL!!
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Creating draconian laws to supress the right to peaceful assemble and protest is an increasing (and worrying) trend.
It happens all across the globe and it is mostly as a reactive mechanism from the governments against the number of massive popular protests facilitated (but not created or organized) by the social media.
Some examples of these protests (there are others, these are from the top of my head):
February 15, 2003 anti-war protest: The February 15, 2003 anti-war protest was a coordinated day of protests across the world in which people in more than 600 cities expressing opposition to the imminent Iraq War. (...) According to BBC News, between six and ten million people took part in protests in up to sixty countries over the weekend of the 15th and 16th; other estimates range from eight million to thirty million.
The 2011 Egyptian protests (better known by the "Tahrir Square" protests): In February 1st alone "[t]he BBC reported the number of protesters in Tahrir Square ranged from "more than 100,000 to some 250,000-the square's maximum capacity." Egyptian security forces stated that 500,000 people participated in the protests in Cairo alone."
2011-12 Spanish protests (The "indignados"): According to statistics published by RTVE, the Spanish public broadcasting company, between 6.5 and 8 million Spaniards have participated in these protests:
2013 protests in Brazil: In June 20 alone "Protests in over 100 cities around the country rallied over 2 million people."
2013 protests in Turkey: 3.5 million of Turkey's 80 million people are estimated to have taken part in almost 5000 demonstrations across Turkey connected with the original Gezi Park protest.
Some governments like the Syrian, the Bahraini and the new (same as old) Egyptian did not tolerate and supressed with enormous amount of brutality in the very beggining their (then) peaceful protests that were organized in a similar fashion than the ones mentioned above.
The rest of the world governments watched and understood that they cannot afford the risk to let some small local matter (like increasing the bus fare in some cities in Brasil, or cutting down some trees in Turkey) to become the catalyst to mass protests.
Measures like these in Ukraine will happen more and more and won't be limited to countries with nascent democracies (like Ukraine) or repressive dictactorships (like Syria). In Spain proposals were already made to criminalize and regulate forms of protest. Thailand invoked "security laws" to curb theirs.
And without a doubt most other countries, eastern and western alike, will change their legislations, enact new laws and enforce old ones to ensure one thing: that the massive indignation and lack of confidence in the democratic process won't become a full blown revolution.
Our chief weapons are Fear, Torture, and using mass media advertising beacon triangulation software to categorize you "shoppers" for mass extermination - um "reeducation" - in concentration camps - um, "citizenship experience chambers".
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Police do this all the time. Set up a strong fake cell transmitter, reap the phones of everyone nearby, identify their numbers.
Sure you could leave the phone turned off or at home if attending a demonstration, but the point of bringing it is for emergency communication and photographic documentation. The only option for would-be anonymous users is to get a cheap temporary card - and hope that the phone doesn't secretly transmit hardware IDs.
It is interesting how "piracy" originally indicated a company (group of private individuals acting cooperatively) taking property or resources a government felt belonged to it or its citizens. Now it has come to mean a government or its citizens taking what a company considers its property or resources.
Message from 2810:
"It appear you are proliferating with people that go against the government you implicitly support by being a citizen, please vacate the area or your will be arrested as the vermine you are"
Sent:
"UR NOT THE BOZ OF M3 3"
"gib monay nao"
"And the fact that the NSA is, on pro rata of the population, 20 times smaller than the Stasi."
How can a shill get away with saying this crap on a site for techies? This argument is so fucking weak: "don't worry about our totalitarian powers, we don't have enough manpower to really look at your data if you are not an imminent threat." Hello? Has anyone heard of these nifty devices called computers?
No doubt, I question the morality and justness of the men and women who have assumed such insane levels of power over us, but I am even more in doubt of the algorithms that will (are?) be used to make lists.
Here you go
How do you know? How can any ordinary person possibly know, given the level of secrecy and volume of lies coming out of the government and their corporate sponsors?
Secrecy, especially the level of secrecy our current overlords require, is simply incompatible with democracy.
This is a basic axiom of political science.
Until we fix the secrecy and lack of accountability for lies that supports the secrecy, any other discussion is mostly meaningless and entirely theoretical.
On three everyone, reply with "Get stuffed!", one, two, three!
Seriously though, how many SMS's would it take at once to mess with the phone infrastructure?
And Syria for the Sirians!
... back in 2004, at the time of the Orange Revolution, American agents were giving out free cellphones to demonstrators to help them co-ordinate their efforts.
Ten years later, the regime has worked out how to use the same level of technology.
Nice going. Also an illustration in the futility of messing with other countries' internal politics.
at least it wasn't mass child naked events...
The ability to broadcast an SMS to all mobiles connected to a cell is in the GSM standard. Who knows if Ukraine deployed their own rouge cell or they had access to cells around the area but it's not difficult for a call to broadcast to all mobiles.
From Wikipedia:
"Cell Broadcast/Cell Information (CB) messaging is a mobile technology feature defined by the ETSI’s GSM committee and is part of the GSM standard. It is also known as Short Message Service-Cell Broadcast (SMS-CB).
Cell Broadcast is designed for simultaneous delivery to multiple users in a specified area. Whereas the Short Message Service-Point to Point (SMS-PP) is a one-to-one and one-to-a-few service (requires multiple SMS messages, as each message can only carry one phone number), Cell Broadcast is a one-to-many geographically focused messaging service. Cell Broadcast messaging is also supported by UMTS."
http://flackelf.livejournal.com/365386.html