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AT&T Is Spying on Americans For Profit, New Documents Reveal (thedailybeast.com)
AT&T has been secretly spying on its own customers, the Daily Beast reports. The revelation comes days after the top carrier announced plans to purchase Time Warner. The report claims that AT&T ran a program called Project Hemisphere through which it analyzed cellular data from the company's call records to determine where a given individual is located and with whom they are speaking. The New York Times reported about the program's existence in 2013, but it was described as a "partnership" between A&T and the government for fighting narcotics trafficking. But today's report, which cites several classifed documents, claims that AT&T used Hemisphere for a range of other functions -- and always without a warrant. From the report:Hemisphere is a secretive program run by AT&T that searches trillions of call records and analyzes cellular data to determine where a target is located, with whom he speaks, and potentially why. [...] Hemisphere isn't a "partnership" but rather a product AT&T developed, marketed, and sold at a cost of millions of dollars per year to taxpayers. No warrant is required to make use of the company's massive trove of data, according to AT&T documents, only a promise from law enforcement to not disclose Hemisphere if an investigation using it becomes public. These new revelations come as the company seeks to acquire Time Warner in the face of vocal opposition saying the deal would be bad for consumers. While telecommunications companies are legally obligated to hand over records, AT&T appears to have gone much further to make the enterprise profitable, according to ACLU technology policy analyst Christopher Soghoian. "Companies have to give this data to law enforcement upon request, if they have it. AT&T doesn't have to data-mine its database to help police come up with new numbers to investigate," Soghoian said. AT&T has a unique power to extract information from its metadata because it retains so much of it. The company owns more than three-quarters of U.S. landline switches, and the second largest share of the nation's wireless infrastructure and cellphone towers, behind Verizon. AT&T retains its cell tower data going back to July 2008, longer than other providers. Verizon holds records for a year and Sprint for 18 months, according to a 2011 retention schedule obtained by The Daily Beast.
I hope we get more Senators like Al Franken in our government. We really need to move more toward a culture that values privacy. Google and Facebook profits be damned, we need to be more like Germany and a majority of Europe.
I'm guessing too big to fail also means too big for jail.
Sometimes I just lose faith.
I'm sure this coming to light when it did has absolutely nothing to do with a merger on the horizon. Nope. None whatsoever.
The Phone Police have been watching us for many, many years. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTPzTG1Lx60
I sure wish Obama was actually going to stop this kind of thing like he promised long ago :(
It's time to add encryption to our ham radios, double down on the tin foil, and cut the cable.
If a tree falls in a forest, the government already knows before it hits the ground, especially if no one is around.
But what if you're not involved in narcotics trafficking? Why should you be spied on?
The proverbial chickens are coming home to roost, aren't they?
Memo to all of you who are saying they're tired of the 'conspiracy theory' nuts: It's not a 'conspiracy theory' anymore, now is it? Also, don't allow yourself to think for a single moment that they're not collecting more data than even this article reveals, or that they're not doing more with all that data than it reveals.
Also, Memo to the 'I'm not doing anything wrong, so I have nothing to fear' idiots: You helped create this dystopia we're living in, you sons of bitches!
Now, recriminations aside: How do we start reversing this? It's bullshit, it's completely unacceptable, and it has to STOP.
"only a promise from law enforcement to not disclose Hemisphere if an investigation using it becomes public."
Aren't they required to disclose this kind of thing in the discovery phase of the prosecution? Anything less would be blatantly unconstitutional.
AT&T spies on its customers: I don't care.
AT&T spies on everyone else: Now I'm OUTRAGED!
This is 2016, I would have thought the very fact our telecommunications companies (and everyone else who has the ability to) are spying on us should be common knowledge, not news.
Here's a quick flow chart that applies to all big companies and organisations that you associate with.
Can they spy on you ------No-------> They're buying data about you from someone who can.
.|..
.|..
.|..
Yes.
\./.
They are spying on you.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
"AT&T Is Spying on Americans For Fun and Profit." Fixed the headline.
Please use the SIgnal app instead of Whatsapp or the phone, then the morons will perhaps stop spying on us.
Lets say I want a list of all cell phone customers who regularly commute to a certain location in Langley, Virginia. And a list of the numbers that they call. And then I want a list of all of the phones worldwide that call these same numbers. I now have a pretty good list of all of your agents*. And if I am the FSB, it's a hell of a lot cheaper to buy that data from AT&T, Verizon and others than try to collect it myself. Thanks a lot, useful idiots.
*It's a bit more complicated than this. But link analysis tools can dig down through quite a few nodes to recover useful information.
Have gnu, will travel.
Since when is this NEW? All major telcos keeps records of activity by their own customers. How the hell do you think they even bill you in the first place? They just arbitrarily make up numbers!? (oh wait, we're not talking about Comcast here, are we)
For every single person I've had to help service and get into their phone information through their carrier, the carrier's web site for that account has a full detailed history of every single incoming call, outgoing call, time of call, duration of call, and other various tidbits of metadata.
Now, some want to scream "HOLYSHIT, MASS DATA TRACKING!!" - Now compare this to the DEFAULT configuration within Apache or Nginx, which literally logs every single web site request to itself, along with IP address of requester, time of day, URL of request, etc...
And also, about physical location information. How the hell do you think the cell phone network works in the first place? Your wireless phone isn't some magical device that works EVERYWHERE. It is highly regionalized for communication. It has to connect to a base station somewhere close by (sometimes smaller than a quarter mile within a big city, upwards of 10-20 miles out in the open country). Each of these stations has a unique ID to them, too. Why is that needed? So the damn phone company knows how to route a call to you when you receive it!
They followed the money http://www.phonearena.com/news/Wiretapping-is-common-practice-heres-how-much-carriers-charge-law-enforcement-agencies-for-it_id28755
I mean when I pick up the phone I already say hi to the NSA person, speak my location, who I am talking to, and the purpose of the call. Doesn't everybody do this?
What is NEW here is not that they could collect that metadata or that they let government benefit from it. What is new that this time it is a BUSINESS plan, a service for sale where they do the government's work for them and then sell the results to whomever they can find to sell the service to.
Assuming they follow the law (like anybody would go to jail) do we even have any laws that would apply to a private corporation data mining their customers and then selling the analysis?
REMEMBER after Snowden when the government said they'd change practices of spying on everybody? Remember how they said they'd work with businesses to have them do more instead of just hand over complete access thru a backdoor? This sure seems like the result of those changes to me! So instead of bright NSA contractors data mining our lives we outsourced it to the companies (plus probably still have back doors we will not know about until the next Snowden type risks his life.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
How is this not wiretapping... especially illegal wiretapping in a messload of states?
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Who am I, if I?
1. paid cash for a burner phone
2. paid cash for a sim card
3. use the phone for free until the sim card expires
4. repeat step 2 and buy another sim card
He's been saying for years that our phones are being used as spying devices. Most wrote it off as an extreme view, even those who are sympathetic to Stallman's causes. Turns out he's been right all along.
In case you thought you were safe, all of this is tied into the facial recognition systems.
Wear hoodies. Use reversible layered clothing with dazzle patterns.
Use burner phones.
Use a voice mod and talk in a different pitch and pattern than usual.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If people don't like it they'll move to a competitor who doesn't do it. That's the magic of the FREE market.
It's not like taxes which are literally stolen from your veins at gunpoint by jackbooted thugs who have a monopoly on the so-called "legal" use of force.
Should start a crowdsource fund to entice those who work with or have direct access to information like this to " leak " it out for all to see.
Put bounties out on secret hardware, manuals, source code, etc.
Nothing kills secrets faster than large amounts of cash. Once the rewards are large enough, nothing is safe.
AT&T can determine where you are, and who you are talking to, and all sorts of super-spy stuff like that. But they can't figure out where robocalls are coming from and stop those? AT&T can find me, but they can't find fucking Rachel from Card Member Services?
Make it make sense to me, AT&T. I challenge you.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Any device / service that CAN gather data about you IS gathering data about you. The profit motivation for doing so is just too high for any corporation to turn it down. Even if they aren't immediately monetizing is, they are gathering it. Doing so is like making a deposit into a bank account.
Seems like we just did this but in fact it was way back in 1984 that the US government broke up (the original) AT&T.
Then, like idiots, we allowed AT&T to gradually reconstruct itself. "It will be OK this time" we maybe thought. "They've learnt their lesson. No more abusing their position and size."
I believe the news is:
AT&T developed, marketed, and sold at a cost of millions of dollars per year to taxpayers. No warrant is required
Did you expect them to spy on us out of prurient interest? It's not like AT&T is an actual person...
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You must *assume* carriers aren't honest. You don't know everyone who has access to the data that profiles you. You don't know their intentions, their contacts, their back-room deals. Do you really *want* to know? Do you think it would make a bit of difference?
Use strong encryption wherever you can. Encrypt your phone storage. Use anonymous VPNs and Tor. Be vigilant. Do whatever defensive measures you can do to protect yourself and the privacy of you and those you care about. Laws are meant to be broken. They're broken much more often than technological defenses are.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
We learned this back in 2003 I think it was? When Wired magazine published the leaked and court ordered sealed documents detailing this practice.
Vote Hillary/Trump 2016
Get ready to really enjoy the corporate-government axis in places that will hurt a whole lot! And you will love it.
Because MURICA. FREEDOM. PATRIOTISM.
And if you don't love it, you're a dirrrrrty MURICA hating psychopath terrorist foaming at the mouth.
Outside dense urban areas, AT & T can't get a signal through to save its life. Now if Verizon spied on us, I would be concerned.
New laws like the USA Freedom Act ensure every telco will collect data and have it ready for the US government.
The color of law, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and past "partnerships" are back with new laws to get around the Fourth Amendment protections.
"NSA Can Access More Phone Data Than Ever" (Oct 20, 2016)
http://abcnews.go.com/US/nsa-p...
"The USA Freedom Act ended the NSA's bulk collection of metadata but charged the telecommunications companies with keeping the data on hand."
"... the percentage of available records has shot up from 30 percent to virtually 100."
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
all over again.
AT&T should not only be broken up, again, but disemboweled. They do not know how to do business other as a monopoly and being fascist.
Fuck em.
Living in Europe, and in a pro USA country, I'd argue that thanks to USA I am sort of disenfranchised from the whole "democracy" movement.
Nothing wrong with having a democracy but this shit with greed and war all over the place is bumming me out so to speak.
This can't be true... I mean... AT&T!
Most spying is done for profit. A small percentage is actually done for civilian protection.
By "small", you must mean "negligible". Spying justifies billions in government spending each year. You're going to have a hard time convincing me that the end goal isn't money.