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User: AHuxley

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  1. this might be another secret plan of #US govt. on Mysterious, Phony Cell Towers Found Throughout US · · Score: 1

    The other question is then what where telco teams and gov teams doing when they scan for allocated spectrum issues? Own tower, competitor networks, new interfering hardware to be located and that local 'fake' mobile tower should kind of show up on normal regional cell maintenance work. What do telco staff do? Just let the 'fake' mobile devices work alongside their own expensive networks 24/7 over years? Thats their brands network thats been used by some fake device...
    Are new staff instructed only to worry about hardware and consumer grade issues? Fake networks are to be left alone and not explored?

  2. Not towers on Mysterious, Phony Cell Towers Found Throughout US · · Score: 1

    Small cell hardware can be offered some concealment as signs, trees, big cactus, wider flag poles, bell towers, thin onto brick walls or fake wood sidings, water towers, added rooftop enclosures, fake tinted glass, in a new chimney box, fake dormers, cupola.
    It just depends on who is paying and what fits in with the surrounding area.

  3. Re:This does not bother me on Mysterious, Phony Cell Towers Found Throughout US · · Score: 1

    Good for tracking protesters in any city :)

  4. owner on Mysterious, Phony Cell Towers Found Throughout US · · Score: 2

    The price has dropped to city, state and federal budget level for some of the tower like products.
    The problem is more people now understand just how their low cost cell phone works as a gps becon, text, photo, calls list and voice, voice print collector.
    The costs for voice systems like this in Ireland, South America where mil only historically. Now any regional, city, gov with funding can have a go at years of "warrantless surveillance".
    The only issue is the upgrade to next gen costs and keeping details away from press with local FOIA like requests for city and state budgets.
    Forcing 2g only signal use was the old news, now the next gen is ready for todays cell users in real time (beyond location tracking).
    As 2g is removed in a few years, the new warrantless cell surveillance products are been made ready.

  5. Where did the linked to article go? on Mysterious, Phony Cell Towers Found Throughout US · · Score: 2

    A few news sites and tech sites have:
    "Android security mystery 'fake' cellphone towers found in U.S." (28 AUG 2014)
    http://www.welivesecurity.com/...
    Fake, phone-attacking cell-towers are all across America (Sep 1, 2014)
    http://boingboing.net/2014/09/...
    "The fake "interceptor" towers force your phone to back \\down to an easy-to-break 2G connection, then goes to work"
    "..the baseband firewall on the Cryptophone set off alerts showing that the phones encryption had been turned off, and that the cell tower had no name a telltale sign of a rogue base station."
    Fake cell phone towers may be spying on Americans calls, texts (September 03, 2014)
    http://rt.com/usa/184636-fake-...

  6. Why is this a military thing? on NATO Set To Ratify Joint Defense For Cyberattacks · · Score: 1

    It ensures a calm national press event. Lots of nice trusted people from the press interviewing trusted experts, some in trusted national uniforms offering details about the ip, time zones and code style all pointing to the bad nation and only the bad nation.
    Everybody is on message and on the same page, the press, sockpuppets and web 2.0 then carry the message out to the wider local community.
    At some later date real work is done on the code, ip's, origins, destination and the reality sets in that its just another well crafted global network doing what it was coded for.
    The blame is still with the original nation, reality months later gets a mention in the international tech press.

  7. What constitutes an attack? An aggressor? on NATO Set To Ratify Joint Defense For Cyberattacks · · Score: 1

    Re 'So what constitutes an attack or an aggressor?"
    Its just about spending, integration with US products and services. A new market place to ensure NATO buys up big on cyber products. Jets and rockets in the cold war past, digital services and long term contracts now.
    With the internet any outside party can make sure it is seen during and after an event as to have moved via any network it wants.
    Lots of nice ip numbers and perfect working hours in time zones, the use of a language and style, hints to the press.
    Even working out who paid for, made, networked and got results takes months. Whats at the end of all the hard work? Some bot network around the world that might have CCTV near them that was kept for months over a few random nations with cheap optical?
    A nation state who worked with other friendly nation states? Or an easy find days later code that 100% points to just one nation?
    Most smart nations will just go internal and buy/find real people to help locally. Other nations will just spin a random global network and try and shift the blame onto some 'expected' nation.
    The only winner is the sale and years of rent seeking maintenance contracts to NATO members. The rest is just networks that start and stop in random nations over hours, days, months that all seem to be coded by some really skilled county. Like other skilled experts cant offer the same code thats a bit too easy to find... as bait or a press event.
    All the good data would be air gapped after how many years of networking issues?

  8. Re:it's a great idea with one major flaw on Tox, a Skype Replacement Built On 'Privacy First' · · Score: 1

    AC the news is full of 'hints' like "FBI, Telecoms Teamed to Breach Wiretap Laws" ( 01.21.10)
    http://www.wired.com/2010/01/f...
    FBI Seeking to Pay Telecoms to Store Records for Years and Provide Instant Access (07.18.07)
    http://www.wired.com/2007/07/f...
    FBI pressures Internet providers to install surveillance software (August 2, 2013)
    http://www.cnet.com/news/fbi-p...
    Also recall Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
    ".... requiring that telecommunications carriers and manufacturers of telecommunications equipment modify and design their equipment, facilities, and services to ensure that they have built-in surveillance capabilities, allowing federal agencies to monitor all telephone, broadband internet, and VoIP traffic."
    Its the local laws where the handsets are to be sold that matters. If you want to sell in say the USA, your "designed" aspect will have to be US wiretapping law friendly.

  9. it's a great idea with one major flaw on Tox, a Skype Replacement Built On 'Privacy First' · · Score: 2

    Not much the average consumer can do about wire tap friendly products built into tame telco approved hardware and software as offered globally.
    You can code a software layer into your consumer device that offers really good quality encryption.
    The problem is not so much a back door, trap door, just that every letter and number entered on the device is open to hardware logging by default by a gov activated telco layer..
    A person is walking around with a gps becon, live mic, camera and plain text capturing device they 'trust' due to a thin top layer of very good code?
    A one time pad system, air gapped to get the message out? A user no longer has real time joy but is then only offering location, who made the message, where it went, when and all the details about the device that sent the message.

  10. Re:Back door on Tox, a Skype Replacement Built On 'Privacy First' · · Score: 4, Interesting

    AC the backdoor aspect is both national and international
    "FBI Wants Backdoors in Facebook, Skype and Instant Messaging"
    http://www.wired.com/2012/05/f...
    ".... drafted by the FBI, that would require social-networking sites and VoIP, instant messaging and e-mail providers to alter their code to make their products wiretap-friendly."
    Then the world was given more details "Encrypted or not, Skype communications prove Ãoevitalà to NSA surveillance" May 14 2014
    http://arstechnica.com/securit...
    As for the "nobody on the inside has ever leaked out." aspect try http://cryptome.org/2013-info/...
    The "inside" can now be understood by aspects like "Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.S.A.Ã(TM)s"
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09...
    ..."employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987."
    How past "parallel construction" and telco support will respond to any new "peer-to-peer and voice calling" will be interesting.
    How did the US and UK get to past bespoke crypto telco hardware in the 1950's and beyond? Plain text always seemed to emerge just in time.

  11. Re:My question on The Executive Order That Led To Mass Spying, As Told By NSA Alumni · · Score: 1

    It depends on why the data was collected.
    Globally the NSA and its friends collect it all.
    If your telephone number is of interest, email, net use or social media use is of interest then its sorted, indexed, voice print is kept.
    In the old days it was keywords, now its hops to people of interest and your own political, social activity and that of your friends or friends friends.
    Your camera sensor pattern noise/noise signature, cell tracking, car...
    Just the fact a person feels the need to use 'encrypted communications' found at a city, state, federal or international level makes them interesting.
    The 'encrypted communications' would be kept, noted and the password looked for in past communications hinted at in IM or email.
    if that fails and your still of interest - some form of key logger for the next time you encrypt or decrypt or open your application at keeps track of different passwords :)
    An easy pattern might drop out of years of easy to find past passwords use that could be tested.
    it really depends on who a person is, their friends, their friends of friends. Collect it all and sort is now the cheapest way of getting it all.

  12. Re:NSA was collecting data in the 1960s on The Executive Order That Led To Mass Spying, As Told By NSA Alumni · · Score: 1

    Yes some hints where given via the Martin and Mitchell defection in 1960 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... too
    "As we know from our previous experience working at N.S.A., the United States successfully reads the secure communications of more than forty nations, including its own allies."

  13. Re:Request: Do the math, please! on 850 Billion NSA Surveillance Records Searchable By Domestic Law Enforcement · · Score: 1

    Hi AC re "realistic hard number costs" would all be hidden over federal, gov and mil projects or just buying in bulk from the private sector.
    Water and power usage at one site thats in the news is about all that can be worked back from.
    "‘Black budget’ summary details U.S. spy network’s successes, failures and objectives" (August 29, 2013)
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
    hints at "$52.6 billion “black budget” for fiscal 2013" but that could be for very limited number for US internal consumption over a subset of mil/gov projects.
    ie the US gov gets all domestic data thanks to tame telcos. The costs of storing aspects of every call would be small over decades as the above linked DEA news showed.

  14. Re:But, but.. on 850 Billion NSA Surveillance Records Searchable By Domestic Law Enforcement · · Score: 1

    That local Fusion center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... will help move real world local private/public data up to the federal level :)

  15. Re:Request: Do the math, please! on 850 Billion NSA Surveillance Records Searchable By Domestic Law Enforcement · · Score: 4, Informative

    You saw the DEA do it with phone call records.
    http://arstechnica.com/tech-po... Sept 4 2013
    ".... to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987.""
    Thats just one tiny project with once set of data.
    Water news http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
    Power news http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
    Thats just for one classic storage site thats in the news a lot.
    Re So what would it really take to put this sort of thing together?
    "The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control" 11 July 2014
    http://www.theguardian.com/com...
    "At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US, says whistleblower William Binney – that's a 'totalitarian mentality'"
    Should give an average reader an idea of the US internal scale to store, track, index, search, voice print, call to, call from, other numbers, work back from hops surrounding people of interest.
    ie well funded, all of the USA, over years, aspects of calls stored for years ready to be found in storage if seen at a protest, near a protest or near a person who was near a person at a protest.
    ie you just need a lot of tame Room 641A like access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  16. Re:Working backwards from a "known" result on 850 Billion NSA Surveillance Records Searchable By Domestic Law Enforcement · · Score: 1

    It gets and keeps the funding. Binney: 'The NSA's main motives: power and money' (19.08.2014)
    http://www.dw.de/binney-the-ns...
    "When you do the things that they do - dictionary select, like a Google query, you throw a bunch of words in and get a return. And if you do that for terrorism, you get everything in the haystack that has those words. So now you're buried - by orders of magnitude worse than you used to be. So you don't find them."
    .... "Money. It takes a lot of money, you have to build up Bluffdale [the location of the NSA's data storage center, in Utah] to store all the data. If you collect all the data, you've got to store it, you have to hire more people to analyze it, you have to hire more contractors, managers to manage the flow. You have to start a big data initiative. It's an empire."
    William Binney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
    Its all about growing the NSA beyond its 1990's position in the US gov. No more just working to provide data to other mil and gov tasks.
    The NSA seeks to run its own missions and be seen getting results, more funding and more political access.

  17. Back to use once number pads, face to face and number stations. Takes a bit longer.

  18. Re:Watch Back on Systems That Can Secretly Track Where Cellphone Users Go Around the Globe · · Score: 1

    Also even if your phone cant get a good gps, it might get a location for other phones that can, in the area on the same networks.
    Global Wi-Fi, cell-id location databases, ambient signals, visitors use gets a gov/mil some nice indoor positioning.

  19. Re:That has been possible from the start of GSM on Systems That Can Secretly Track Where Cellphone Users Go Around the Globe · · Score: 1

    The UK made sure a kind of early tracking tech was ready for cell phones as a standard due to experiences in Ireland back in the day. Not unexpected news back then, a strange story to make Slashdot in 2014.

  20. Dont unpack and test your new phone near your everyday phone. If it is your home, hotel room or work, every phone that is was normally in the area is now of interest due to that one time test activation. Numbers called, callers and voice prints will find that new interesting phone later and allow a gov/mil to work back.
    If that does not work, just map an area where tow phones walk towards each other and turn/power off and turn on again walking away from each other.
    Any phone is a risk.

  21. Re:secrecy on NSA Agents Leak Tor Bugs To Developers · · Score: 1

    Dual missions and attracting the next generations to gov, mil work and onion routing.
    From collect it all reality to 'help' spread democracy branding.
    If US backed dissidents face a new range of telco tools that are just been sold to govs, better to help developers stay one step ahead.
    If a new range of telco tools used by the US govs to collect it all are just been upgraded, better to give developers some busy work for a few years.
    Both options need clean social engineering access to real people to shape software directions over decades.

  22. Re:Another Angle on NSA Agents Leak Tor Bugs To Developers · · Score: 1

    It depends on the US or UK mission. If the US gov wants to support some NGO doing a Colour revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... then the communications and support has to work well over years.
    For every other use of online anonymity the US and UK would like to have a way in as now understood with most of the tame telco and banking crypto over decades.
    e.g. NSA surveillance: A guide to staying secure http://www.theguardian.com/wor... (6 September 2013)
    the classic line "... have invested in enormous programs to automatically collect and analyse network traffic"
    The US gov and mil can afford do both and keep users guessing. Protect the very well supported "freedom fighters" just enough globally and still collect it all.

  23. Re:Did the fall of the Soviet Union on Would Scottish Independence Mean the End of UK's Nuclear Arsenal? · · Score: 1

    A few sites where final assembly locations. The warhead was Soviet ready as a designed device but the surrounding say 'torpedo' would be locally put together like a nuclear Knock-down kit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
    Vast local bases, parts storage, good jobs, nice pay, warm accommodation.

  24. Re:Here's the interesting paragraph on Would Scottish Independence Mean the End of UK's Nuclear Arsenal? · · Score: 1

    A sweetheart deal may not be something that Scotland wants. They may like the optics and tourist friendly branding of been nuclear weapon free.
    Like with the fall of the Soviet Union all the UK may be asked for is a totally decontaminated site, a museum.
    Why would Scotland risk a second much later negotiation as Scotland would then own a contaminated site that the UK had already negotiated over and risk the UK walking away from as is?
    Better to get the UK cleaning up once, totally moved out and all done while the UK can still afford to do so or can be asked to do so.
    Scotland would not want to end up with a base location thats part of Empire forever, like a few other nations got stuck with.

  25. Re:No it will not. on Would Scottish Independence Mean the End of UK's Nuclear Arsenal? · · Score: 1

    The real fun for that location up north is the clean up and long term care.
    Most nations keep their nuclear gems locked up at one site with experts, contamination and all the skills for the next generation upgrades.
    Moving all that in place equipment down south would not be very simple given funding and pension issues within the UK gov/mil. Where is the free cash going to come from for a massive reworking of very bespoke UK nuclear mil systems?