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AT&T Is Spying on Americans For Profit, New Documents Reveal (thedailybeast.com)

Posted by msmash on from the hold-the-phone dept.

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.

12 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. It'll only get worse by ausekilis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  2. too big? by TimothyHollins · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm guessing too big to fail also means too big for jail.

    Sometimes I just lose faith.

    1. Re:too big? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most spying is done for profit. A small percentage is actually done for civilian protection.

      The only reason you want to "lose faith" is because you aren't thinking objectively. You believe that the government should be full of true statesmen, who have the best interest of the majority at heart. As nice as that would be, there is no rational reason to expect that it would be so, nor does it doom us when this is not so.

      In order to attain power, one must defeat rivals who want that same power. The most effective means of doing this is to lie to the public. Therefore, those who lie effectively and trenchantly are the ones that win elections. Most true statesmen who run are filtered out by this alone.

      After that, in order to execute on a political agenda, one must co-operate with other politicians. Our government was designed to make it impossible for a rogue politician acting alone to accomplish much of anything (see: dictatorship). Politicians learn very quickly (really, they already knew) that co-operation requires compromise. No one will work with an absolutist who refuses to yield to their concerns. Furthermore, the people with whom they must co-operate are people who have the moral rectitude and mental disposition to be masterful liars (see above). The end result is simple: one must sell one's soul to the devil in order to get anything done.

      We will never "fix" this by encouraging people to vote. Nor by writing letters. Nor should this be a problem for us.

      If we are truly devoted to putting statesmen in office, we will need to fundamentally boost the intelligence of the general public (so they can smell the lies, and reject them). There is no practical means to do this in the short run, so we should stop crying about it and move on.

      In the real world, we can recognize the following facts:

      1) An evil governor still has the interests of the state at heart, inasmuch as his level of power is a function of the prosperity of the state.
      2) All politicians are ultimately still held accountable to the court of public opinion, so the more we can keep visibility on their actions, the more beneficial to us those actions will be.
      3) All politicians are for sale (see above): so the next most effective means of getting them to act as desired is to fund the appropriate lobby.

      It has always been this way. The only difference now is greater awareness of it. And the world is better now than it has ever been before, because of this.

      We can use evil men to good ends, if we try.

    2. Re: too big? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't worry, if anyone does come forward with details of wrongdoing, they'll be prosecuted like the rest of the whistle-blowers.

  3. Companies keeping records... by darkain · · Score: 1, Insightful

    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!

    1. Re:Companies keeping records... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What's new is that they're selling the data to law enforcement you ridiculous twat.

  4. Re:Profit? Who is paying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But, but, but... according to the occupants of a certain location in Langley, Virginia, it's only meta-data and therefore harmless, does not require warrants to obtain, and is so innocuous that really, it tells them nothing. And despite telling them nothing, they are willing to work really hard and spend a lot of money to get it!

  5. Stallman right yet again by JoeyRox · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  6. So, let me get this straight... by Weaselmancer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:So, let me get this straight... by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's actually very simple: They're getting paid in both cases you mention. The government is paying them to violate our rights and our privacy, and robocall companies are paying them to look the other way. AT&T is a bunch of assholes, and this surprises you why, exactly?

  7. Re:burner phone with no plan by mdm-adph · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Cross-check the IMEI of the phone against store inventories for when it was sold; pull CCTV camera footage for the store; put your face through face-recognition

    --
    It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
  8. Re:Why is this a problem? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Except AT&T uses corruption to push the competitors out of the so-called "free" market.