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NSA and GCHQ Target "Leaky" Phone Apps To Scoop User Data
schwit1 writes "New leaked NSA documents shed a new light on the agency's assault on the data controls of smartphone apps. Using app data permissions as a jumping off point, the documents show agency staffers building huge quantities of data, including 'intercepting Google Maps queries made on smartphones, and using them to collect large volumes of location information.' One slide lists capabilities for 'hot mic' recording, high precision geotracking, and file retrieval which would reach any content stored locally on the phone, including text messages, emails and calendar entries. As the slide notes in a parenthetical aside, 'if it's on the phone, we can get it.'"
People seem to be freaking out that all these capabilities exist when anyone with half a wit or more knew that this was all possible.
The question is regarding the set of controls over how and when this is done.
I mean, by golly, did you know that 5 years ago they could listen in on your phone conversations and even determine where you were located when you were making the phone call?!
Carrying on about these capabilities (as opposed to the way they are used) is going to look as quaint to people in 20 years as the above concern about land-line phone calls looks now.
And a police officer has the technical capacity to walk into my house and shoot me dead. That I can appreciate his likely skill with a service revolver doesn't mean he gets to shoot me dead at a whim.
The same applies to the NSA. That it has some bright brains who have some impressive technical capabilities does not mean that they should be permitted to wantonly do it without proper civilian oversight, including the requirement that no US citizen's data be collected without an explicit and accurate warrant.
In other words; capacity is only part of the equation.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
To be clear, it's the Obama Administration that is doing this. After all, he is responsible for the actions of this and other Federal Agencies.
Correction: I'm on the side you *claim to be on*.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
What? GPS receivers don't transmit. How do you track a GPS receiver?
You don't(well, somebody with an indistinguishable-from-magic antenna array and a truck full of DSPs might be able to pick up some effect of your antenna and RF circuitry against background; but it'd be dubiously practical at best); but a great many GPS receivers are connected to cellphones that are delightfully cooperative about providing those data for you. Now, even without GPS, cell tower triangulation would provide rough data; but GPS neatens it up nicely.
That's a worthless comment.
While that's a bit of an exaggeration since NSA is only collecting (once the data comes up/who cares where the hammer falls down/it's not my department/says NSA von braun), it fits in a more worrisome pattern.
There was never a doubt in the European's mind that waterboarding is torture, because that's what was used by the Reich on the resistance. When you add a KGB/Stasi-on-steroids NSA, that makes for a nasty vibe.
Indeed, that's the difference. When they had to show up with a warrant for a specific individual and have agents sit and listen, they did that for high value suspects. Now it's all of us, all the time, who are the targets.
This is why the FIRMWARE of phone radio CPUs needs to be fully open-sourced. Until they are, there is no way to audit them for privacy concerns nor modify them to close such loopholes.
If you're rooted, encrypting does nothing but give a false sense of security.