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Paris Terrorists Used Burner Phones, Not Encryption, To Evade Detection (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes from an article on Ars Technica: New details of the Paris attacks carried out last November reveal that it was the consistent use of prepaid burner phones, not encryption, that helped keep the terrorists off the radar of the intelligence services. As an article in The New York Times reports: "the three teams in Paris were comparatively disciplined. They used only new phones that they would then discard, including several activated minutes before the attacks, or phones seized from their victims." The article goes on to give more details of how some phones were used only very briefly in the hours leading up to the attacks. "Everywhere they went, the attackers left behind their throwaway phones, including in Bobigny, at a villa rented in the name of Ibrahim Abdeslam. When the brigade charged with sweeping the location arrived, it found two unused cellphones still inside their boxes." At another location used by one of the terrorists, the police found dozens of unused burner phones "still in their wrappers." As The New York Times says, one of the most striking aspects of the phones is that not a single e-mail or online chat message from the attackers was found on them. But rather than trying to avoid discovery by using encryption -- which would in itself have drawn attention to their accounts -- they seem to have stopped using the internet as a communication channel altogether, and turned to standard cellular network calls on burner phones.
I'm shocked, shocked I say!
All cell phones must be purchased with gov't issued ID and registered to a SSN at time of purchase.
I would even guess that using unencrypted walki talkies is a better idea than sending whatsapp, email or whatever. Less latency.
Sadly people in the US tend to picture the terrorists as being ignorant savages and maybe some of them are but they also have some very intelligent and resourceful people who develop methods of attack and avoidance of detection. I would hate to know how many dollars it takes to bag and tag just one terrorist, other than the ones at the lowest levels of their organizations. I suspect it would be millions of dollars for every real terrorist we stop.
Innocent people killed during the process of finding and killing that terrorist. We don't like to see that one though.. which is why anyone in the process is called a "Combatant".
But if we don't accept airport scanning which doesn't detect 98 percent of usable devices, and 24/7 information on every citizen which provides zero usable intel on anyone with a World War I level of training in spycraft, how can we all Live In Fear?
Do you want to let the terrorists win?
The terrorists want us to Live In Fear!
So we must all Live In Fear to protect ourselves with useless actions that are not helpful in any way!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Terrorism is just a scapegoat used to target encryption. The siege will continue unabated.
So, not only do "they" want to add as much hay as possible while they search for the needle, turns out they're not even looking at the right haystack.
What, you didn't notice every drug dealer in the developed world uses these things?
Disclaimer: I don't know what I'm talking about, but if the last guy I saw buy a burner phone was up to something non-shady I'll eat my hat.
Information being released to undermine the relative anonymity of yet another communication method? You don't say.
...or a phone whose battery gets so hot it starts a fire?
Just in case you're not being facetious, a "burner phone" is a phone that you might only use once or a few times before switching to another one. The idea is that by the time the good guys figure out the number you're using and get a warrant to listen to those calls, you've already switched to a different phone and they have to start the whole process all over again.
...or a phone whose battery gets so hot it starts a fire?
Wait, didn't that happen to iPhones at some point? Mmmmh, Apple is definitely up to something... /facetious
There's nothing like $HOME
You can have my cell phone/SIM call when you pry it from my dead, cold hand.
Honestly the leaders of the world are drooling fucking morons.
we are all lucky that terrorists and thieves are as stupid as our leaders and police are. WE have the FBI wasting resources to get Apple to decrypt a phone with NOTHING ON IT for data THEY ALREADY HAVE. No wonder anyone with any brain cells does not trust police in any way. They are utterly incompetent.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Is it related to the Bunsen Burner? Or is Burning Man becoming more radical?
A "burner phone" IRL is something you google to not look like an idiot. A "burner phone" on playa is probably the telephone on front of the suspicious british police box. If you check a real phone on playa (more than about once a day) it is a sign that you are doing it wrong. Checking it once a day is still a bit much, but it's a decent way to be sure you don't miss someone's funeral because you were at burning man.
At least we see that wrecking encryption won't help matters before they managed to ram wrecking encryption down everyones' throats. It's like I said, criminals and terrorists will find other ways to do what they're going to do. Wrecking everyone elses' data security and privacy just makes crimes against non-criminals and non-terrorists easier to accomplish. Anal-retentive authoritarian power-grabbing government and law-enforcement types need to back the hell off and keep their noses out of peoples' business.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I'd like to buy mobile phones. Ten, no twenty of them. Thank you very much, praise be upon you.
Nothing suspicious about anyone with 35 unboxed phones.
And of course those thefts of several hundred burner phones around the globe? Oh, that was just a coincident of course. Nothing to see here...move along.
And the 'solution' to the burner phone problem is for us all to buy expensive Apple phones. Or other brands, as long as they're expensive and we have to sign a mandatory contract for some significant term of time,
I use a month-at-a-time phone from Virgin Mobile just because I don't like the commitment. I've had the same number on it for years now. But if I try to do things like use it to 'validate' my Battle.net account, they refuse, because it's not 'under contract.' I haven't tried using it to 'secure' my Google account, because I'm not that thrilled about giving Google another data point on me, but I'm pretty sure they'd refuse to use it for that, either.
The worst thing that could come of this phenomenon would be for nerds and the populace at large to decide 'burner phones should just be illegal.' No thanks, Apple. My Android 5.1 smartphone cost $40, and there are cheaper smartphones than it.
I bet most of these idiots that blow themselves up have been in France or Europe for months/years just waiting for someone to call them and say "hey achmed! time to strap on a bomb & go blow up some people". And these brain dead morons say Hot d*mn! Now I get all my virgins...or is it Virginians? Europe is so distracted with the flood of NEW islamic would be terrorists (mostly men of "army" age) they haven't time to police any of them that have been in country for years, not that they would anyway do to the global political correctness bug floating around.
How can anyone ever imagine terrorism without internet ?
Doesn't make sense !!
danger man — a precursor to james bond —used all sorts of clever not-digital methods of subterfuge — which were decidedly 'low tech'. John Drake does not employ cutting edge gadgets, relying instead on his wits. The most 'advanced' device used, is a closed circuit television and a tape recorder. Messages are passed in matchboxes and folded newspapers with photographic microdots. He would use the spy's own bugs against him by feeding it false information — check out Danger Man in action — https://youtu.be/6brtYw3s7_0?t...
ZOMG, can you imagine the threat? Why, I just returned from the UK, and when I landed there was a vending machine just FULL of SIM cards. I got a phone number and full service without ANY question, and I don't even have any of the terrorist training. I was just, able to buy something normal without ANY background check or inquiry into my plans. When I came back to the US, I saw another machine offering similar things. This is the way the world ends, not with world war 3, but with anonymous, prepaid cell phone service.
I've used my boost mobile number to validate Google and other services, so I guess not all pay as you go numbers are equal.
In Australia, burner phones are illegal. You can't even buy a prepaid SIM card without producing and linking it to a government-issued ID. But in New Zealand, you can buy as many burner phones as you want - they're next to the chocolate bars in the supermarket check-outs and cost as little as $10. This makes the Australian rules ridiculous given that actual terrorists and criminals could just visit NZ and post the burners back over to Australia, and use them in roaming mode.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
There is a common saying amongst law enforcement, to the effect that prisons are full of dumb criminals, the cops are chasing the mediocre ones and the smart ones a never even get suspected, let alone caught.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I've never had to show ID when buying a SIM card in Perth, and they're also for sale alongside groceries at the local supermarket for cash. I can't speak for the eastern states.
You can buy sim cards in Aus without ID, but to activate the card you have to provide ID.
Because reasons..
The terrorists didn't use encryption, but this won't stop the people who want access to everything you do in your life from saying encryption will put us all at risk.
This is just like the idiotic crap about us invading Iraq over weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist, when the real reason was that Iraq refused to bow to the central banking governance that devalued it's oil because the US banks wanted it that way. (Documented fact!)
It is time for the American people to stop buying into all the lies.
All the while, like I said in the first sentence of this post, The NSA and FBI types are going to keep trying to prove that Apple is un-American for wanting to keep strong encryption as a standard for it's customers sake and because it is the right thing to do. The major takeaway here is this, those that don't want the people to be able to have the right to privacy are those in favor of a police state where the government has absolute power over the people. They want a corporaocracy not a democracy.
I had to produce my passport in Malaysia.
I got lots of uniques in Ingress though.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
All the bad terrirists need to do is emulate what the spam call centers do. Obviously, the Feds are completely powerless to catch them, so whatever they are doing must be effective.
In Australia, burner phones are illegal. You can't even buy a prepaid SIM card without producing and linking it to a government-issued ID. But in New Zealand, you can buy as many burner phones as you want - they're next to the chocolate bars in the supermarket check-outs and cost as little as $10. This makes the
Australian rules ridiculous given that actual terrorists and criminals could just visit NZ and post the burners back over to Australia, and use them in roaming mode.
Is travel between NZ and Australia easy if one doesn't want to pass border control?
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
The Mossad aren't THAT stupid.
But, they could have used encryption. Ergo, we need "protection" from encryption.
This is literally the position of people that I encounter all day long. When I counter that I could use their table knife to kill them and that we need protection from table knives, they say I'm being ridiculous.
We are drowning in utter morons.
As far as i understand phones was burned after some time frame, not even after single call. But i think tracking events like "First call from a new IMSI" with geo-linking could reveal some patterns that breaking even single-call-then-trash schema. If you could track facts of selling prepaid phones - there is even more data whatever is it many phones was bought at once or on-demand purchases has place.
I think in every country you could give 5$ to a bum asking to buy a phone. In Russia burner phones is also kinda illegal. But in idiotic form. There is a lag about a week long between moment you starting using a phone and the moment when MNO is deactivating your number because it was not linked with ID (passport No). So you could buy a sim-card, but you should activate it in a week. So the funny moment have place, this week is enough for any kind of criminal activity, but if you are planning to use number for a long time it should be personalised. Also there is a huge black market of sim cards, the sweetest ones is without time limit and leaking from the business/enterprise MNO plans, it's supposed that the company is responsible for how numbers related to the corporate plan is used.
.... in 3 ... 2 ... 1...
There, there Mr Baldwin. Please just turn off your phone and prepare for takeoff.
Have gnu, will travel.
Another probably obvious question about "burner phones" How do they know which phone number to call if they are constantly changing phones and throwing away them? I don't understand how that would be possible. Am i missing something or is the story fishy?
So they will no doubtingly make a law that will make you show your ID before you buy one of these phones. Kind of like what they did for cold medicine.