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Smartphone Users Are Paying For Their Own Surveillance (truth-out.org)
Nicola Hahn writes: While top secret NSA documents continue to trickle into the public sphere, tech industry leaders have endeavored to reassure anxious users by extolling the benefits of strong encryption. Rising demand among users for better privacy protection signifies a growth market for the titans of Silicon Valley -- this results in a tendency to frame the issue of cybersecurity in terms of the latest mobile device. Yet whistleblowers from our intelligence services offer dire warnings that contrast sharply with feel good corporate talking points. Edward Snowden, for example, noted that under mass surveillance we're essentially "tagged animals" who pay for our own tags. There's an argument to be made that the vast majority of network-connected gadgets enable monitoring far more than they protect individual liberty. In some instances, the most secure option is to opt out.
Smartphone Users Are Paying For Their Own Safety
Even if a phone call is encrypted, the very act of making a call provides a wealth of data to spies.
implying you know what a phonecall looks like encrypted. TLS from services like signal on android look indistinguishable from any other VPN traffic you might see on the wire. Couple the phone with openvpn's client, and you have a phone that well, doesnt emit phonelike traffic at all.
non-smartphones can be viewed as superior to smartphones as they generate a smaller data footprint. Going a step further, a pager can be viewed as superior to a non-smartphone because communication on the user's end is further constrained, as well as not anchored to a particular phone line.
but that footprint is guaranteed to use public infrastructure that is readily intercepted by a malicious state actor. you no longer have a cryptographic option, or very much insight into what traffic is leaving the phone. A pager routinely hits a cell tower and emits user-identifiable data that will always be relayed through a carrier network that is part of the state apparatus for spycraft. Pagers havent been safe since the DEA realized they could intercept them during drug investigations.
Perhaps, in certain cases, the best solution is to follow the lead of Russian spymasters and simply opt out.
In some cases, yes. Do you absolutely need your cellphone on you at all times? you would be surprised how many events dont require it but its present anyhow; do an audit. For events that do require a cellphone, use your situational awareness to limit its emissions, and ensure the device as well as its traffic is encrypted. Check out Prism Break for more information on how to avoid state sponsored unlawful surveillance.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Your car, your phone, your tablet: all spying on you.
The tools are there now to allow engineers to start developing open hardware/software that would allow for true end-to-end security for LTE/GSM communications. The LimeSDR project that is almost fully funded now (23 hrs left), already has demonstrations for LTE and GSM communications and everything down to the schematics and FPGA code are freely available. Maybe the time is here to step up and create our own solutions for better security.
like if someone were to hit my car i can snap a location/date tagged photo after the event for evidence so the perp can't lie their way out of it. and my phone keeps a record of where i go, just in case the cops arrest me for something i didn't do like happened to a lot of people back in the good old days
Prominently displayed on the page linked last in TFS:
Ghostery blocks Facial Social Plugins, so you most certainly are being tracked on the site that baldly proclaims that you don't need an ad-blocker to view it. You do if you want any shred of privacy.
JS Blocker also picks up some "dingo.care2.com" trying to load something too. No clue what that is, and they don't need any clue about who I am either.
I find it absurd how easily people don't realize that if you have a family, you do have "something to hide".
yeah. but I can control what goes into the phone. and more importantly, I can control what doesn't. Everything interesting is off grid. they used to follow me in person, they will have to do that again if they are interested in something I don't want them to see. certainly I don't serve it up in the phone for them. life was so much simpler when they were just hacking my land line... hehe
the most secure option is to opt out.
I'd think that doing this would put a bigger target on you.
With facial recognition the way that it is now, the data gathered from these sources will carry a little more weight to compensate. Meta data collected from these sources would be analyzed a more thoroughly. Links to other data monitored more closely, bank accounts, utility usage, stores frequented, etc. This is likely already being done automatically.
You are going to be profiled whether you like it or not. We are long passed the time of being able to opt out and live a civilized life.
Really, the battle is long lost folks.
Not to mention your refrigerator.
The dangerous KITCHEN!!!!
Taxes pay for the NSA surveillance company. Hello. McFly.
No one is snooping on your private life, mostly because your private life is hella boring.
If you don't want to carry a cell phone then don't, but for the love of god please stop pretending that every three letter agency in the world is obsessed with seeing your lame dick picks. They really, really, don't care.
...and my phone keeps a record of where i go, just in case the cops arrest me for something i didn't do like happened to a lot of people back in the good old days
1) leave my phone at home on the kitchen counter ...
2) commit some act of larceny
3)
4) use my phone's location as an alibi
5) profit
Oh wait, maybe I need to rethink this.
... for making the comment that "smartphone users aren't smart," a few weeks ago. My arguments were the same.
The point of a network connected device is to, uh, network. To communicate with other endpoints. There is no security in a network. I don't know why people think networks are supposed to be secure. They aren't. They are supposed to facilitate communication, not hide it.
I'm not sure how this justifies the device being exploited for surveillance. May as well buy a cheap camera instead.
The kind of shit that goes on in the smartphone "sphere" makes me dread the day I have to buy one out of necessity.
Sounds like a good deal. I'm sure your car is getting hit all the time, probably at least as often as you're being surveilled.
My car can't spy on me; it was built before digital cell networks existed!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
A very useful tool in a society where you are assumed guilty and must prove your own innocence.
This signature is false.
Its about what I may want to keep to myself TOMORROW.
Nobody want your dick-pics....... until they make taking them a felony.... and then when you speak out against XYZ, you can be quietly dealt with, publicly shamed, and discredited.... all within the bounds of the law.
There was a time in my country when the people decided to make booze illegal. Maybe tomorrow some politic will make something *ELSE* I do every day illegal. See where I'm going with this? Nothing good will come of the vast stores of data we keep surrendering in exchange for pretty maps, trendy devices, and free email.
Ditch the smart-phone. Its not your ally. You don't really need it, and its making you less able. Its a crutch. Hell I know a guy who can't even drive home from work without a GPS system. I bet you know somebody like that too.
Buy yourself a dumb prepaid candybar (under your favorite cartoon characters name) if you REALLY feel you must have comms in your pocket, or your employment demands it you can make THEM buy it for you.
Your data has real VALUE. You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow, and maximize yesterdays ripoff today.
ZOMG GOVERNMENT is watching me! = sounds like crazy ravings on purpose.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
But if it's registered to you and you drive it on public roads then the opportunities for surveillance and tracking are not that difficult to comprehend. Indeed it happens with a lot of police vehicles, major arterials and certainly on toll roads.
In college we always joked that the most secure computer was the one that was unplugged an locked away. You couldn't do anything with it, but it was the most secure. The phone you never had is the most secure but also the least usable.
The decision we make is the balance of security and usability with the options available. Some options compromise less than others.
We all have differing priorities for the choice we make and the risks we are willing to accept.
Only evidence that can incriminate you will be of interest. Everything else will be dismissed.
Early and often.
Also, use codewords and code-sheets. Change those early and often.
Don"t be a sheep. Be a Lion !
Do they have an open source baseband controller ?
I do not think so. That is how they will hose your phone.
forget it at home often and early.
As soon as you will call them out for their crimes more than once (e.g. the Iraq war scam) - they will come for you and try to exert pressure.
Using their enormous database of ALL EMAILS, ALL SMS, ALL TEXT MESSAGES, they can crack down on you very forcefully.
They now want to have Kompromat Against Everybody.
That's why you and your colleagues should not be aided.
https://20committee.com/2016/06/11/edward-snowden-is-a-russian-agent/
Kinda like we are all paying for our inevitable incarceration with out taxes huh? I love going to work every day knowing that my taxes are fueling the surveillance efforts that have been ongoing for the past two years. Gotta love FBI/LEO corruption. Wonder what I'll get charged with. Over and out.
Good point. Still, that's not exactly the car's fault in the same way that it is with modern "infotainment"-infected ones (and especially things like Leafs, Teslas, and anything with a Progressive Insurance "snapshot" module plugged into it).
What we need is a license plate cover that allows the plate to be read by humans but masks it against being read by cameras (and to repeal the laws prohibiting its use). You could say we could prohibit the use of the tracking cameras instead, but we all know that wouldn't actually get rid of them.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
My car can't spy on me; it was built before digital cell networks existed!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition
If you know, or are reasonably certain, that you are being monitored via your smartphone, you have the potential ability to feed those doing the monitoring either misinformation or carefully chosen information. Want to get hammered at the bar? Leave your cellphone at home. Going to Christmas eve Mass? Take your cellphone with you. Want to buy some nice lingerie for your GF? Use your computer (assuming you trust your ISP, the on-line store, your credit card vendor...). Want to make a charitable donation? Use your smartphone. If I know you're listening, I can feed you what I want you to hear. This is not brain science.
linquendum tondere
Dr Fun was one of the first webcomics.
He posted this in 2006
Back in year 2000 some people i knew defaced AT&T billboards including tags about the NSA listening. This isn't all that new. Sadly, not a lot of pushback. When was the last time (or more likely, any time) you've talked about a stingray and your phone?
Now, suppose you are the privacy-conscious guy, who shies away from smartphones, who doesn't use credit and debit cards any more than absolutely necessary and prefers to pay cash as much as he can, and who in general keeps a low digital footprint. Now you're screwed, because you'll have a whole lot of red flags floating all around you. Not only can't you prove that you were not where your alter ego was, your disappearance from the surface makes you prime suspect and will have you listed on even more lists than ever before. Good luck cleaning your name and reputation after that! Maybe having carried your private portable Orwellian telescreen with you would have spared you all those troubles.
Yes, I know, that's not the world we would like to live in: being forced to accept surveillance as a way to prove one's innocence would have been considered a typical dystopia some 30-40 years ago, but sadly, that's where we're living in right now. We've allowed ourselves to fall into a collective panic, but that's how it is.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
That's not physically possible, since the human eye has a limited range of sensitivity and we have long had sensors that overlap that range of sensitivity. Anything that the human eye can read, those sensors can read ; anything image that can be read is an image that can be OCR'd and it's content extracted.
That is why ANPR is a commodity product, and barely regulated.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Still, that's not exactly the car's fault in the same way that it is with modern "infotainment"-infected ones (and especially things like Leafs, Teslas, and anything with a Progressive Insurance "snapshot" module plugged into it).
True, but even if you eliminate that it doesn't really matter whos fault the "spying" is, the end result is that it happens and is becoming more widespread as the cost of surviellance plummets.
What we need is a license plate cover that allows the plate to be read by humans but masks it against being read by cameras (and to repeal the laws prohibiting its use). You could say we could prohibit the use of the tracking cameras instead, but we all know that wouldn't actually get rid of them.
I'm not sure the human eye has a spectrum that we can't visualize with a camera, in fact it's actually the other way around. Like you say, prohibiting the use of cameras is unlikely to make it go away, this is also my argument against going to any effort for legislating for network privacy. Even if they say they aren't going to do it do you really trust them? And even if they are caught and then also by some miracle held to account that still doesn't fix the damage.
I was thinking more along the lines of a polarized filter or array of CCD-blinding infrared LEDs.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I was thinking more along the lines of a polarized filter
These have been debunked. It kind of worked for very specific angles against certain kinds of older cameras but in pretty much all practical circumstances is not going to work.
or array of CCD-blinding infrared LEDs.
That's easily overcome with an IR filter.
I see where you're going with this but surveillance is only one part of it, even if you can outlaw surveillance cameras you still need to get redlight/speed cameras removed because governments aren't going to allow devices that circumvent existing legal law enforcement mechanisms. While I'm skeptical that you could get traffic monitoring cameras outlawed I'm even more skeptical that you could get all remote law enforcement mechanisms outlawed, I'm certainly all for it but I don't see it happening. Then of course you also don't get the evidence that you have been stopped by police, if your plate is invisible to cameras it's your word against theirs and one of the reasons cameras have been deployed on police cars is to make sure there is evidence of a stop not just for the officer but for the public.