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.

Comments

shocker!

[ideadman]

I'm shocked, shocked I say!

Re:shocker!

[shubus]

Yes, we're all shocked! What was everybody thinking? That they used Phones? These people are crazy, not stupid.

Re: shocker!

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly, neither should we, the people, be comfortable with the idea of people running around and dealing out their own lynch justice in secret and outside the control of the public judicial system. It may be the only way to deal with some powerful people, but only as a last resort.

Re:shocker!

[NokawNokaw]

Umm.I no recomment. http://www.olhon.org/

Re:shocker!

[TheCarp]

At BEST they are playing whack a mole with spies.

Spies do NOTHING to address the underlying causes that make choosing to follow terrorist leaders to ones own death looks reasonable. That is the real problem. Have you ever even taken 2 seconds to imagine yourself growing up under the threat of our bombs? Have you ever pondered what its like to live under the boot of a dictator who was installed and supported by foriegn governments, like ours? Have you ever thought about the generations of bad will we purchased with actions like using and protecting men like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ? Or Overthrowing democratically elected presidents in favor of a King (what do you think Sha means)?

There are a lot of points of view in this world from which terrorism looks like a not that insane option, especially if someone promises to pay your family. That isn't their fault; a lot of that is our own fault.

Re:shocker!

[lsatenstein]

I'm shocked, shocked I say!

why be shocked. An old Bourne Supremacy movie showed David slipping a "burn" phone to a newspaper reporter. He and the reporter communicated "off the network"

Throw-away (limited use prepaid) phones are hard to track.

So Let Up On Apple

[JimSadler]

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.

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[Firethorn]

I suspect it would be millions of dollars for every real terrorist we stop.

Indeed. Same as for drug lords and such. Is it worth it? Depends on the terrorist leader.

That being said, for the burner phones - it seems to me that extra monitoring on newly activated phones might be the solution.

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[Mr D from 63]

Sadly people in the US tend to picture the terrorists as being ignorant savages

Really? I think most view them as intelligent and resourceful savages.

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[ArsenneLupin]

They did do some mistakes though. Such as throwing those phones into the trash, where they were later found by police, complete with messages and call logs, pointing to their hideout in Saint Denis...

And some of them are cowards, discarding their explosive belt, rather than using it...

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[gstoddart]

but they also have some very intelligent and resourceful people who develop methods of attack and avoidance of detection

Honestly though, how much of a rocket scientist do you need to be use to a burner phone?

Anybody over the age of 13 who has watched any amount of TV knows you can walk into a store, buy a no-contract phone and a SIM, and register it with very little effort. Likely without any real ID or credit cards.

As I understand it, in Europe and elsewhere it's common to travel, buy a cheap local SIM, and just use that as your phone.

These days I figure if you have the sophistication to plan a bus or train trip between two cities and use an email account, you probably have all of the required "trade craft" to buy a damned burner phone and keep under the radar with it.

How many movies in the last decade have pretty much given the template for this? How easy is it to buy a cheap phone and a SIM card in almost any city in the world?

I'd be shocked if your average teenager, or even your average anybody, can't just set themselves up with a burner phone with minimal effort -- it's not like it's some super secret thing which can only be done by people with large amounts of money or technical backing.

This stuff is pretty much common knowledge these days, to pretty much everybody who lives in a country with cell phones and a reasonably big city.

I bet with a relatively small amount of resources you could get a bunch of teenagers/homeless people to buy you phones in a bunch of different places such that you didn't even appear on video buying them ... this really really is well and truly so widely known it's not funny.

It really doesn't take a criminal mastermind to do this. Not by a long shot.

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[tnk1]

They are ignorant savages. They're just not consistently ignorant about everything.

An important thing to remember about your adversaries. They may be simplistic philosophically, but that doesn't prevent them from knowing how to use basic operational security measures using technology which has been designed to be easy to use and portable. Especially when trained and veteran terrorists are making terrorism guides available on a plethora of sites created specifically for the purpose of making effective terrorists out of civilians for one big attack.

Terrorist attacks are hard to stop before they go off, particularly if you don't know who might actually execute one. So a first-time terrorist has a huge advantage if they have kept a relatively low profile. Even a person who is known to be radicalized by locals isn't going to come to the attention of a law enforcement agency unless the locals blow them in. And since most "locals" don't want to get involved, or may even be close to the terrorists or their families, they may be very disinclined, hoping that their friend or relative "would never do such a thing."

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Solution ?, hardly.

How many millions of cellphone get carried into a country by tourists, how many new cellphones are registered each day ?

Then they will simply encrypt their messages , how do you know which photo, which txt, which call from which number is related to which action ?

ANYTHING governments do will be ineffective in stopping people determined to commit any sort of crime you name.

The governments are lying to you to make you feel secure. So long as they "look" like they are doing something, no matter how ineffective and pointless it is the more secure people will feel.

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[rbrander]

If only it were that cheap.

It costs millions, not to *kill* each of the ISIS soldiers, but simply to confront them at all.

Do the math: about 20,000 ISIS. And the US military complex, which is already getting about $1T from the taxpayers every year (when you add all defense-related costs), was asked to attack them. They explained that for one thousand billion dollars per year, all they can do is sit at home, eat, and train. No fighting is affordable.

The additional bill for attacking ISIS is about $100B per year. For 20,000 men. That's $5M per ISIS member attacked for one year. With luck, a good many of them will be killed but probably barely 10% of them, and having spent $50M each to kill a few thousand...at least 2000 young boys will turn 17 or 18 and sign up with them during the year, leaving you in about the same strategic position.

Probably ISIS can be beaten - they are so little and weak and have so many enemies in the area besides the West. But that's why nothing ever got better in Afghanistan - it cost $100B a year to kill a few thousand Taliban who were easily replaced.

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

The additional bill for attacking ISIS is about $100B per year

What dollar figure are you attaching to the dead American soldiers? To the soldiers with limbs blown off? To the soldiers with PTSD who come home and start beating their children? The "bill" is dead boys and girls from all across America... Killed trying to defeat an enemy who, in the end, represents a very small threat to the USA. That price is a lot more than $100B.

That's a different question. Answered in the form of increased drone strikes so we don't "waste" soldiers lives. Not that it matters as we canit win this war with either a land based invasion ( We will NEVER be in there long enough to make the native government stable ) or with the drone strikes ( Like those are going to win the hearts and mind's of the people. ). The fact is, and always has been, that soldiers get a shit deal when they sign up with the Army. They know more than anyone that they fight on the whims of politics.

Also, lets take the other side. Afghanistan was considered "a small threat". A country to test some airstrikes on. If knowing what would happen AND given the choice, would the Army wipe out the Taliban before 9/11 at the cost of those solders? I doubt anyone in the military would say no. Its their job, its what they are trained to do. Its not their fault no one cares about them after they get out of the military.

I guess the ugly of all this is that I always thought it sad that we all sou-lute the current standing army. You never see any former military in parades unless a veteran organization trys to get it together. Thais sadder than anything else.

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[ATMAvatar]

What dollar figure are you attaching to the dead American soldiers? To the soldiers with limbs blown off? To the soldiers with PTSD who come home and start beating their children?

$182.3 Billion for 2017

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[penguinoid]

Especially when trained and veteran terrorists are making terrorism guides available on a plethora of sites created specifically for the purpose of making effective terrorists out of civilians for one big attack.

Who'd want to take advice from a veteran suicide bomber?

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[Hognoxious]

hearts and mind's

So the rule is that if the singular ends in a voiced consonant, the plural has an apostrophe?

I never knew that.

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[sociocapitalist]

They are ignorant savages.

Yeah they're actually often not at all ignorant :
http://www.economist.com/node/...
http://www.slate.com/articles/...

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[sociocapitalist]

If only it were that cheap.

It costs millions, not to *kill* each of the ISIS soldiers, but simply to confront them at all.

Do the math: about 20,000 ISIS. And the US military complex, which is already getting about $1T from the taxpayers every year (when you add all defense-related costs), was asked to attack them. They explained that for one thousand billion dollars per year, all they can do is sit at home, eat, and train. No fighting is affordable.

The additional bill for attacking ISIS is about $100B per year. For 20,000 men. That's $5M per ISIS member attacked for one year. With luck, a good many of them will be killed but probably barely 10% of them, and having spent $50M each to kill a few thousand...at least 2000 young boys will turn 17 or 18 and sign up with them during the year, leaving you in about the same strategic position.

Probably ISIS can be beaten - they are so little and weak and have so many enemies in the area besides the West. But that's why nothing ever got better in Afghanistan - it cost $100B a year to kill a few thousand Taliban who were easily replaced.

The cost to the taxpayer will be there whether or not there is Daesh to fight as this is just the US military baseline and most of that is spread around the world, not engaged in the middle east. The additional cost to actually fight the war there is relatively negligible.

The actual cost that the west isn't willing to pay is the political cost of the casualties involved in sending soldiers in to actually end the war - imagining for a moment that our leadership actually had a viable endgame in mind, which they don't because Assad is not politically acceptable and there just isn't anyone else to step up at this point - so the war will continue to be half fought until Assad wins without too much actual help from us (excepting the Russians who don't care if he's politically acceptable or not).

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[JaredOfEuropa]

And the most successful method of catching terrorists still seems to be them being ratted out by family and friends. Even in the thoroughly hard-core muslim borough of Molenwijk in Brussels, there are still decent people who report suspicious activity to the police. And in that neighborhood I would say that these people do so at considerable personal risk. Winning hearts and minds is still important.

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[cyberchondriac]

Sadly people in the US tend to picture the terrorists as being ignorant savages

Really? I think most view them as intelligent and resourceful savages.

This. Even immediately after 9-11 we acknowledged it as a "sophisticated" attack that took years in the planning, dry runs, etc..
Many of the lower level terrorists in the ground forces (like in Syria) might be simpletons, but we know they (ISIS, AQ) have seriously knowledgeable businessmen and scientists working for them too. That, combined with their unifying ideology and disciplined organization, is what makes modern terrorists so dangerous.

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[cyberchondriac]

Still think they're a "JV" team ?

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[tnk1]

I don't care if they have a Ph.D in physics, they're ignorant. You cannot argue that someone who fails to understand the value of life, both of others and their own, is not grossly ignorant.

If they execute these sorts of action and are not ignorant, then they are insane, and I have seen little evidence of their actual insanity. Ignorance is the only thing that remains. There is no action or cause that justifies random attacks on innocent civilians, especially if the cause they supposedly espouse is the ending of attacks on their own innocent compatriots.

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[sociocapitalist]

I don't care if they have a Ph.D in physics, they're ignorant. You cannot argue that someone who fails to understand the value of life, both of others and their own, is not grossly ignorant.

If they execute these sorts of action and are not ignorant, then they are insane, and I have seen little evidence of their actual insanity. Ignorance is the only thing that remains. There is no action or cause that justifies random attacks on innocent civilians, especially if the cause they supposedly espouse is the ending of attacks on their own innocent compatriots.

I think you are misusing the word ignorance. They may have a different opinion of the value of life than you do but this does not mean that they are ignorant of the value of life - on the contrary they are trying to hurt us by taking our lives from us which indicates that they are quite aware of the value of life.

My understanding is that those targeting civilians consider that these civilians have voted for the people in power making decisions. Although we may disagree with them, it cannot be said that the thought process itself is irrational and therefore the people following it are not necessarily insane. You should also keep in mind that in years of war our bombs have also killed many civilians who were just as innocent as our own civilians are (here we should particularly not forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki but it holds true as well for the recent years in the middle east).

You may consider them to be insane per your frame of reference, and some of the ones who blow themselves up may very well be insane. Others are not insane and have just chosen to spend their lives in such a way that they believe (rightly or wrongly) will make a difference in their war against us.

I'll point out that there are people in our culture who are willing to die for what they believe in as well - we call them soldiers and although they surely prefer to live through missions they are generally aware that they may very well die 'for the cause', whatever that cause may be. The Japanese used kamikaze pilots to effectuate maximum damage against us. Were they insane?

Re:So Let Up On Apple

[StikyPad]

There are two important factors when assessing the threat of any entity: Capability and Intent.

ISIS has the intent to end us, but not the capability. That would require a huge army, or WMDs, or a persistent threat, such as repeated successful attacks on critical infrastructure or government facilities. Killing a few civilians is, in relative terms, an annoyance. It's extremely harmful to the immediate family and friends of the victims, and somewhat harmful to society through empathy and fear, but not at all detrimental to the capability of the nation to continue to exist as it did before the attack.

Countries with nuclear stockpiles have the capability to end us, and one or two might have the latent desire, but none really have the intent anymore -- MAD proved to be an effective deterrent.

These days, without an enemy with both the capability and the intent to end us, we've expanded our threat model to encompass groups with just the intent, like ISIS or al Qaeda. If, tomorrow, Russia and China teamed up to roll across Europe and Asia, respectively, in a new world war, we'd forget about ISIS in a heartbeat, because that would be a formidable adversary, a threat to our allies in the immediate future, and a threat to us in the long term.

So yes, ISIS is a JV team. Why should we focus our national security apparatus on them so thoroughly, with all of the associated costs (and waste), when they can only pull off disruptive attacks at best? Terrorism is not even the largest human OR non-human risk factor in daily living. Our fellow non-terrorist countrymen (and women) are far more likely to kill us than a terrorist, whether deliberately or accidentally, and health issues are the cause of most of our demises.

To the extent that we focus on combating terrorist groups or defending against terrorist attacks, it should be done in proportion to the threat that it poses. We should have already learned -- from the war on drugs, or the Vietnam War, or the censorship efforts of the 80s and 90s -- that a disproportionate response is a "cure" that's usually worse than the disease. When it comes to national security, as with most things, the perfect is still the enemy of the good.

But if we don't spy on everyone 24/7/365

[WillAffleckUW]

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!

Re:But if we don't spy on everyone 24/7/365

[tnk1]

It is hard for the government, who everyone likes to turn to for solutions, to admit that the best solution is to mostly do nothing at all, aside from some common sense actions. It doesn't get people elected. It doesn't get big budget approved.

Ultimately, terrorists are hard to nab, especially radicalized first timers. To actually have a decent success rate requires expenditure or mobilization that costs a significant amount of money.

The government is best when it can dissuade attacks by threatening force or other sanctions. Unfortunately, these people don't care if they die, so it is hard to see what sort of sanction you could come up with, short of executing their families or something else they care about. Even then, these people are so messed up that they would think they are earning martyrdom for their families by getting them killed in such a way.

Of course, that said, the nice thing is that there aren't really that many suicidal bombers out there. They are a force to be reckoned with, but most humans, even radicals, are not *that* radical.

You know how to stop terrorism? Stop talking about it. Terrorist acts won't be stopped, but they will be rendered considerably less effective. Terrorism is useful because it causes fear and overreaction. That overreaction can radicalize people and wear down resistance to their aims. By themselves, the terrorists have killed a few thousand people and blown up a few buildings. That's peanuts in a country of 300 million people, so the only way they become powerful is when the media becomes their force multiplier.

There are thousands of people who die every day in the United States to gun violence due to gang killing, some of that is collateral damage where innocents get killed, so it isn't just "thugs".

We don't walk around really thinking about that too much, and consequently most of us don't live in fear of it unless we live up close to it. And why is that? Because it gets ignored in the media. We fear a once in every so-often elementary school shooting more than we fear something that happens multiple times every day, by organized criminal figures with teams of professional or semi-professional killers on their staff.

The catch is this... terrorists will kill people, but if you keep your measured responses targeted at the most effective programs that are aiming at things like education, outreach, and probably a few targeted teams of intelligence types, you decrease the odds of a terrorism death considerably, and without the rights violations. But it does require us to admit that *we cannot stop terrorists from killing some of us*, but also to understand that your risk of death is higher from just getting in a car to drive to work. You're just as likely to be accidentally killed by an gang war as collateral damage.

 

Re:But if we don't spy on everyone 24/7/365

[WillAffleckUW]

It's not the money, it's where you spend it.

Humint works. Most tech is easily defeated. Interrogation using friendly police methods works. Most stuff you see on TV or in movies doesn't work.

But you're right about the not talking about it part. Their objective is to instill Fear in the population. The problem is that the politicians want to manipulate the media to make it appear they're doing something, even if most of what they're doing is just helping create more Fear.

You're at more risk from a teen driving a car, or second hand cigarette smoke.

Technology only works in other places and only when limited to the useful methods. The key vectors are known, and yet we do absolutely nothing about them.

Re:But if we don't spy on everyone 24/7/365

[Kjella]

You talk as if terrorists were some kind of fixed number, like that some tiny fraction of the population will mentally snap and kill someone. That if we just don't draw attention to it, it won't really be much of an issue. And if they were so mostly lurking in the corners, extremists sharing their views with other extremists or lone wolves with twisted perceptions of reality I might be inclined to agree. But they've long since stepped out of the shadows, raised their flags and ceased vast areas with fucking armies. They recently stopped a shipment with 20000 uniforms for IS and terrorists are their "special forces".

At the risk of invoking Godwin, Nazi Germany didn't start out that way. It took years of radicalization, indoctrination, shaping a society around der Führer whose authority shall not be questioned. What Germany did in the 1930s is what IS is doing right now, in fact Hiterjugend was never this militant. Do you realize that IS controls Mosul, that originally had 1.8 million inhabitants and would be bigger than Philadelphia? Currently estimates are uncertain but it's probably roughly a million left which would put it around top 10 biggest cities in the US. They'll find collaborators and sympathizers, stomp out rebellion and dissent. People will hear propaganda, more propaganda and it will work.

The Nazis hid their torture and death camps, IS puts it on YouTube. And despite that, people keep joining their cause. If you don't find that freaking scary, you should. Sure it's far, far away on the other side of the globe right now. But if someone threatens to set the world on fire maybe it's not so good an idea to let them pour the gasoline? I'm sure it seemed Hitler was far away too, but do you really need another Pearl Harbor to see that it's not going to stay that way? Yes, it will get messy as they fight as dirty as they can but the alternatives are going to be even messier in the long run. Pretending there is no problem isn't going to solve it.

Re:But if we don't spy on everyone 24/7/365

[Anpatt7]

+1

Re:But if we don't spy on everyone 24/7/365

[ATMAvatar]

You're at more risk from a teen driving a car, or second hand cigarette smoke.

Or even furniture.

Re:But if we don't spy on everyone 24/7/365

[Anpatt7]

Correct, we shouldn't just ignore the problem. However, the entire point of terrorism is to cause fear. When we make a big deal of terrorism, and the government uses it as an excuse to increase powers that obliterate privacy rights, it is to some extent helping terrorism more than it hurts it. In the Middle East, yes, it is a problem, and trying to help end it there is a worthy goal, although active war is likely to increase terrorism via stronger dislike for the US and the rest of the 'western world', but terrorism is not a direct risk within the US, and certainly is not worth the NSA.

Re:But if we don't spy on everyone 24/7/365

[rtb61]

The 24/7 spying is not about terrorists, it is all about tracking peaceful political activists, those people who do actively effect political change. Also all potential politicians, union leaders, government officials, anyone who could be potentially extorted at a latter date to empower the espionage/military industrial complex. As for the terrorist seeming to be so smart and effectively neutralising the investigative techniques that are being kept secret from the majority, ever consider that they were being too smart, smarter than in fact they should, smarter than they would be without professional assistance and this professional assistance working with the full knowledge of the investigative techniques being applied. The global espionage/military industrial complex worth trillions desperately needs enemies to fight and we know full well they have been purposefully creating them for decades and this corrupt activity is escalating.

Re:But if we don't spy on everyone 24/7/365

[dave420]

I think you'll find most people aren't as scared of terrorism as you seem to assume they are. That says more about your fears than about those you wish you describe...

Re:But if we don't spy on everyone 24/7/365

[dave420]

The point of terrorism is to use fear to politically coerce a group of people. It's not just "fear", but specific fear guided to achieve a particular end.

Re:But if we don't spy on everyone 24/7/365

[thegarbz]

It is hard for the government

Don't be an apologist. Terrorism is the best thing to happen to any government. It has allowed governments throughout the world to perform an unprecedented power grab from the people, and the people go along with it.

Even when not grabbing power you can simply do a quick distraction when the political situation requires it. A minister was caught embezzling money? "Oh look over there we just arrested someone of suspected terrorism because terrorism is evil and we're here for your protection!" 4 weeks later when no one is watching, let them go without charge (or in the case of the Australian last year accused of rampant terrorism, a misdemeanor).

Re:But if we don't spy on everyone 24/7/365

[WillAffleckUW]

And, by making people line up before security, we are at even more danger.

Sigh. It's like all the current security is being run by people I washed out of CTO training.

Re:But if we don't spy on everyone 24/7/365

[orgelspieler]

Humint works.

Not against "lone wolf" attacks. But there's no SIGINT there either. Basically if I decide tomorrow to by myself blow up/shoot/knife a bunch of people, there's really not fuckall that can be done about it. The best protection against terrorism is to a) not get terrified, and b) make sure people have opportunities to live a meaningful life. You're a lot less likely to blow yourself up if you've got a wife and kids. [citation needed]

But I agree with the rest of your point. We're much more likely to die of the regular flu than the bird flu. But which one gets funding?

Re:But if we don't spy on everyone 24/7/365

[RandomExile]

Factual point of order: your gun deaths are off by two orders of magnitude.

There are thousands of people who die every day in the United States to gun violence due to gang killing, some of that is collateral damage where innocents get killed, so it isn't just "thugs".

Since the actual number of total gun deaths per day is about 34 this year according to the Gun Violence Archive, which aggregates data from around 1500 official, media, and other sources, it would be extremely difficult to identify "thousands" of additional gang-specific deaths per day among them.

Re:But if we don't spy on everyone 24/7/365

[tnk1]

I am not overly concerned about that. That is the sort of threat that our armed forces are actually good at dealing with. If they want to create a country, they have to set up logistics and stability. Those can be smashed and denied to them.

Yes, they have made inroads in a turbulent area where there is a weak government on one side and a civil war on the other. We can actually help Iraq and others sort that out with normal military assistance.

Of course, I am not suggesting that an ISIS regime is easy for the people over there, but to some degree they're going to have to figure this out for themselves (with our assistance where required) or they will keep falling down this well.

However, the terrorist angle is the one that is most threatening in the sense that it is more likely to drive internal policy and the rise of demagogues like Trump. I don't feel threatened by terrorists directly, but already I wait in lines for security theater when I get on a plane, and I have to listen to increasingly strident politicians try to scare me into voting for them. I'm not scared, but I know a lot of people are mad and/or scared and they want to feel safe.

And it's not just about terrorists, its about guns, and drugs, and illegal immigrants. It's getting to be so that I can't even figure out who to vote for any more.

Re:New rule

[Anonymous Coward]

Sssh, don't tell everyone or they'll invent a new technology to bypass your great plan: talking in person.

Re:New rule

[ArsenneLupin]

That's basically the rule that France (and various neighbouring countries) put into place since the attacks. You now need to show government issued id to buy a prepaid card. Previously sold cards must be registered now, or will be deactivated.

Doesn't matter

[AlphaBro]

Terrorism is just a scapegoat used to target encryption. The siege will continue unabated.

Re:Doesn't matter

[AlphaBro]

Why? That can be leveraged to extend the powers of the state. Sounds great!

Re:Doesn't matter

[dryeo]

Well, just illegalize divorce, illegalize sex without marriage and enlarge the State to spy on everyone full time in case someone has sex without being married to who ever they're having sex with. Of course we'll have to get rid of encryption as you might be using it to get laid.
Pretty quick marriage will come back to life and people will stay married no matter how much suffering it entails.

Needle in a haystack

[GrahamCox]

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.

Re:Needle in a haystack

[Qzukk]

Needle? What needle? Ol' Rumpelstiltskin will spin all this stuff into gold!

Re:Needle in a haystack

[Sique]

Yes, because they can't find the needle in the haystack, they ask for more hay.

Well no kidding

[Etherwalk]

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.

Re:Well no kidding

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch Drugs Inc, you'll see that is the only thing drug dealers use. They all use burner phones, some keeping them for a week, some up to a few months, but all use burner phones and not once has the word encryption ever been used on the show. Successful drug dealers do not do social media, period. They use the most successful marketing of all time to get their product out, word of mouth. They use burner phones to evade eavesdropping. Oh wait there may have been one episode about someone using the "dark net" to setup shop, but that may have been a bad movie I watched too.

I have serious doubts any terrorist uses much in terms of encryption either.

Re:Well no kidding

[0100010001010011]

I've ordered stuff on the Dark Nets and almost all dealers force you to use PGP.

Re:walki talki

[ickleberry]

I have a pair of DMR (Digital PMR446) ones, which use an evil proprietary codec (AMBE). Now these have been out for a while, so with a decent SDR board you could lash on a bit of gentle encryption and your chances of being spied upon approach 0

Re:What the fuck is a burner phone?

[R3d M3rcury]

...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.

Re:New rule

[Anonymous Coward]

that won't work and france knows it, they just want your data regardless. ordinary french citizens might still buy their phones and services in france and willingly cough-up their info, but you really think terrorists and crooks will? open borders and free travel in europe along with cooperative cellular networks across much of the continent means that the phone and prepaid sim you use in france need not be purchased in france.

Re:New rule

[PPH]

You now need to show government issued id

How fast does that data make it into the law enforcement system? Because if they all purchase cards hours before an attack and a flag doesn't pop up at that time, it's too late. Remember; these people are planning on blowing themselves up.

We may need a criminal background check done before authorizing a phone/SIM card sale.

Re:New rule

[WillAffleckUW]

Lol, you can buy passports for 20 euro

Like that's going to stop anyone

Re:New rule

[Anonymous Coward]

Already standard procedure in many European countries. No, what we need now is full recordings of all calls, voice recognition and automatic transcripts. Same voice appears to be using more than two phones? Arrest immediately.

Re:New rule

[Schmorgluck]

Too easy to work around. What we need is properly staffed security services. Enough workforce that the investigations can be efficient without throwing due process down the drain. You can't do that with mass surveillance. Almost all attackers in France had been on the radar of French services at some point. They went off the radar because they were considered less threatening, and France didn't have enough people to keep an eye on them while other individuals seemed more dangerous at the time.

DUH!

[Lumpy]

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.

Re:DUH!

[WillAffleckUW]

In related news, the DOJ admitted they already have access to the data in the phone, which means the FBI finally requested it through official channels as they should have done months ago.

Re:DUH!

[ShaunC]

WE have the FBI wasting resources to get Apple to decrypt a phone with NOTHING ON IT for data THEY ALREADY HAVE.

No, we have the FBI (hopefully) wasting resources to get Apple compelled to provide a phone-decryption service, which will then be used as a matter of course while investigating everything under the sun, to include jaywalking and barbering without a license. It isn't about this phone, it's about everyone else's.

Re:DUH!

[rahvin112]

They've never been interested in the what's on the phone because they know nothing is there. Many of the people involved in the investigation have admitted as such. This case was entirely about precedent and remains so. If the FBI can cement a court victory in this case requiring a private company to build something for the FBI then the FBI can request that of any company or person under threat of imprisonment for contempt of court (you can't appeal contempt of court). A win would grant them basically a gold plated weapon to request anything they want in a criminal case. They could compel any company to develop devices or software to let them do things they couldn't normally do.

And this is a perfect test case for the FBI, they've got a known terrorist here, a phone he didn't own and a bunch of dead civilians. They likely couldn't find a more sympathetic case and they know it, that's why they are using it to try to get the golden bullet. The FBI win's and anyone could be pressed into service of the FBI developing things for their use in investigations of any kind.

Re:DUH!

[Lumpy]

Then that means we have even less reasons to trust any police because at their core they are WORSE than criminals.

Thanks, now I need a drink.

Re:New rule

[Lumpy]

AS if you cant bribe a clerk to sell you 4 phones for 1500euro.

You make it sound like the police are the ones that sell the phones and cards.

Re: New rule

[Anonymous Coward]

Ten bucks says the NSA is wayyyyy ahead of you.

Told you so.

[kheldan]

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.

Re:New rule

[Eristone]

NSA is way ahead of you here, Sparky. See this article for details - note the article is 3 years old as of this posting...

Re:New rule

[Intron]

Already standard procedure in many European countries. No, what we need now is full recordings of all calls, voice recognition and automatic transcripts. Same voice appears to be using more than two phones? Arrest immediately.

I like this idea because everyone who works for a call center will be arrested. No more phone calls at dinner time!

Re:What the fuck is a burner phone?

[Bing Tsher E]

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.

Off the radar

[p51d007]

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.

Re:Off the radar

[Anonymice]

Is that you, Donald? *waves*

Re:Off the radar

[JaredOfEuropa]

Sadly, he is mostly right. There was absolutely no way to even begin screening refugees, what with immigration services in border countries being utterly overrun. For months, governments and politicians addressed the problem by vehemently denying that any terrorist would slip in with the refugees. In their actual words: "There are none", and anyone saying different was accused of playing into the hands of the political right wing at best, or called a goose-stepping foreigner hating racist sub-human at worst (similar terms have been used by normally polite politicians). The PC bug is more of a stick: there's even been a few proposed laws on the table in Brussels to outlaw criticism of islam.

Not that is makes much difference. We can't stop these fanatical idiots from coming in, even if we would build a wall and start screening the refugees. And despite our strict gun laws, it's ridiculously easy to obtain an illegal one. We can't stop all terrorism... but it doesn't mean we should do nothing. And like alcoholism, any cure starts with admitting that there is a problem. We're not there yet, here in Europe. And my fear is that when they do start taking measures, it will mostly be along the lines of more repression, surveillance and reduction of freedoms of ordinary citizens. Ineffective window-dressing that for some reason ticks their boxes.

Re:Off the radar

[Anonymice]

Except that, and this surprises me also, of the over 1.5 million refugees who have entered Europe since the crisis began, not one single threat or attack has been attributed to them. Every single member of these terrorist cells were born and bred in the very same country they committed the attacks. They didn't sneak in under the guise of refuge, they didn't lay hidden for years before pouncing their attack, they were citizens by birth and lived in these countries their entire lives.

And my fear is that when they do start taking measures, it will mostly be along the lines of more repression, surveillance and reduction of freedoms of ordinary citizens. Ineffective window-dressing that for some reason ticks their boxes.

You can't have it both ways. You start by complaining that governments are doing nothing, and then complain that they are! What would you rather they do, stick to scatter bombing anything in the desert that moves? That's done amazingly well for us.
And unfortunately, this whole situation is something of our own doing. The chickens are coming home to roost.

Re:Off the radar

[RockDoctor]

I bet most of these idiots that blow themselves up have been in France or Europe for months/years

You don't need to bet. It's a matter of record that many of the terrorists are from the second-generation of their families to live in Europe.

Re:New rule

[mikael]

The French do try. If you want a pay-as-you-go phone card (Mobicarte), you have to go to the shop and bring your passport or other ID card. They photocopy it, and bind your SIM card to that phone's IMEI.

Of course, you can just go abroad to the UK, go into any airport duty free and buy a pack of SIM cards there with roaming and data services enabled. Some hotels even sell them in vending machines. You used to get laptop PCMCIA cards for laptops that would let you surf the internet using a regular SIM card. These have been replaced with 3G/4G/5G network USB sticks or smartphones.

Re: New rule

[godel_56]

They do this in Australia. People buy phones and sims on the net to get around it. Except criminals who use fake id or get someone else to buy for them

You can buy phones and sims, but you have to provide some ID to register the sim, such as driver's license details. Of course for professional criminals who seem to have little trouble importing large quantities of drugs and weapons, this is not much of a hurdle.

microdots and film coiled in walking canes

[johnrpenner]

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...

WE MUST BAN TEH PREPAID PHONES!

[Paco103]

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.

Re:WE MUST BAN TEH PREPAID PHONES!

[thegarbz]

Too much effort, just ban terrorism instead.

Re:New rule

[rahvin112]

Yes, what we need is more Stasi, there is just not enough Stasi in the world.

Re:New rule

[worf_mo]

that won't work and france knows it, they just want your data regardless. ordinary french citizens might still buy their phones and services in france and willingly cough-up their info[...]

This has been the rule in Italy for many years: want a SIM card, show your passport or ID card, a photocopy of which will be kept with the registration information. All owners of previously bought SIM cards had to provide the required information to their providers or their cards were deactivated. Citizens have not "coughed-up their info willingly", they were forced to do so.

Unfortunately, organized crime, crooks and the shadier parts of society (including some politicians) don't have to play by these rules. They simply submit(ted) somebody else's ID, either with or without their knowledge.

Re:New rule

[Schmorgluck]

Idiotic strawman. More processing and more oversight don't mean more surveillance.

Australia versus NZ - major regulatory difference

[heretic108]

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.

Re: New rule

[snowsnoot]

I bought a Telstra prepaid SIM when I was in Australia recently and was required to provide a valid passport with a valid visa label which was magically verified by Telstra (I was somewhat surprised to learn they have full access to the passport database because it told me my passport wasn't valid when I accidentally put the wrong passport number). The coverage was so poor however, that I decided on my way home to give it to a terrorist at the airport who was flying in from Saudi Arabia to say G'day to the Australian parliament house.. Serves em right!

Re:New rule

[igny]

You now also need to show a government issued id when you steal a phone or apply for a fake id.

Prison is full of dumb criminals

[Archfeld]

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.

And here it is, I was right.. but it won't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Australia versus NZ - major regulatory differen

[TechyImmigrant]

I had to produce my passport in Malaysia.

I got lots of uniques in Ingress though.

Re: New rule

[Anonymous Coward]

You are behind the news. In EU each mobile company is required by law (yes that law is on in all the 27 states) to store 6 months of full recording of all the calls across the network in a secure location. I would not mind if they can send me a print of my calls toghether with the bill. They have all my calls anyway on record.

Re:Terrorism without Internet !

[Errol backfiring]

Well you are actually right. Terrorists want exposure. And the internet has greatly helped them. But that does not mean you have to use the internet in the preparations.

Apart from that, encryption used by terrorists would probably be dead simple, such as calling a bomb "the mailman", so they can say "The mailman has arrived".

Re:New rule

[sociocapitalist]

Too easy to work around. What we need is properly staffed security services. Enough workforce that the investigations can be efficient without throwing due process down the drain. You can't do that with mass surveillance. Almost all attackers in France had been on the radar of French services at some point. They went off the radar because they were considered less threatening, and France didn't have enough people to keep an eye on them while other individuals seemed more dangerous at the time.

What we 'need' to do is to wrap up the war in the middle east and build an infrastructure that gives the kids growing up there some hope for a future that compares favorably to blowing one's self up.

And as far as more security...there's plenty of security already in the airports in Europe - including Brussels - and it didn't do jack to stop the attack today.

We need a long term plan not just "more security forces" that aren't effective against people willing to blow themselves up to make a point.

Re:New rule

[sociocapitalist]

We may need a criminal background check done before authorizing a phone/SIM card sale.

Which would not be effective against terrorists and their supporters who haven't shown up on the radar yet, nor would it help when stolen phones are involved.

Re:New rule

[JaredOfEuropa]

A Dutch journalist had a genuine Syrian passport made with the image of the Dutch prime minister (under a different name). He paid a couple of hundred dollars, though. Problem is that several groups in Syria have seized machines and supplies used to make these passports, and they are selling them to anyone who wants one. The Belgian authorities reported many so-called refugees with genuine Syrian passports who all had suspiciously similar stories, and upon further questioning admitted to being from Iraq, Morocco and other places.

Re:Australia versus NZ - major regulatory differen

[sociocapitalist]

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?

Re:New rule

[johanw]

In that case, on;y the bribes become more expensive.

Re:New rule

[Eunuchswear]

All cell phones must be purchased with gov't issued ID and registered to a SSN at time of purchase.

Huh? That's already the case. (Minus te us-specific SSN nonsense -- what use is a non-unique personal identfier).

Re:New rule

[Eunuchswear]

That's basically the rule that France (and various neighbouring countries) put into place since the attacks.

When you say "since the attacks" you mean "since the Bombay terrorist attack in 2008".

Re:New rule

[Schmorgluck]

What you say is true on a larger scale, but several scales have to be considered in the mean time.

Burner phones are not perfect

[IlyaKutukov]

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.

Re:Australia versus NZ - major regulatory differen

[IlyaKutukov]

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.

Re:walki talki

[Phreakiture]

I have a set of radios that are spread-spectrum and operate in an ISM band. These aren't available in France though (the band in question is used for something else there) which . . . I'm not sure if that would improve or damage opsec.

Re:National Cell Phone/SIM Card Association

[PPH]

There, there Mr Baldwin. Please just turn off your phone and prepare for takeoff.

Re:Yes Hello

[cyberchondriac]

I'm buying them for my employees...

...of your bomb factory. ..in Yemen... ;)