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2013-08-12
, 11:35
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Posts: 6,445 |
Thanked: 20,981 times |
Joined on Sep 2012
@ UK
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#2
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The phone may have been off-hook. It is not that uncommon that people do not replace the receiver correctly, causing the line to be still active. The other alternative was that Security broke into her flat first, replaced the phone with a hacked one and tapped her line before it reached the exchange. It is inconceivable that a communist country with public exchanges working with step switches and relays could have targeted a random telephone number this way.
Today's technology is miles away from that. Everything is digital, so listening in on random (or, indeed, all) telephone calls is a doddle. Storage is not a consideration either: nothing is on tapes anymore, everything is in massive disk arrays. So they do not have to care about pressing the record button, they can just record everything and retrieve the info retroactively as and when they decide to focus on you. It is better to assume that they do and not use your phone - mobile or stationary - for anything sensitive.
Whether there are any backdoors in mobile phones that allow the authorities to monitor your audio while the phone is seemingly idle - I don't know. Could that be why my N900's battery runs dry after two days? Anyway, I wish them good luck with that. It must be terribly boring to listen to my phone.
Today's technology is miles away from that. Everything is digital, so listening in on random (or, indeed, all) telephone calls is a doddle. Storage is not a consideration either: nothing is on tapes anymore, everything is in massive disk arrays. So they do not have to care about pressing the record button, they can just record everything and retrieve the info retroactively as and when they decide to focus on you. It is better to assume that they do and not use your phone - mobile or stationary - for anything sensitive.
Whether there are any backdoors in mobile phones that allow the authorities to monitor your audio while the phone is seemingly idle - I don't know. Could that be why my N900's battery runs dry after two days? Anyway, I wish them good luck with that. It must be terribly boring to listen to my phone.
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2013-08-12
, 12:40
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Banned |
Posts: 280 |
Thanked: 295 times |
Joined on Apr 2013
@ Romania
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#3
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Originally Posted by pichlo
Interesting, I didn't think of that variant with switching with a dummy phone before. They did not choose a random number, as I said, this woman's son was wanted by this "security" and that phone was under surveillance.
The phone may have been off-hook. It is not that uncommon that people do not replace the receiver correctly, causing the line to be still active. The other alternative was that Security broke into her flat first, replaced the phone with a hacked one and tapped her line before it reached the exchange. It is inconceivable that a communist country with public exchanges working with step switches and relays could have targeted a random telephone number this way.
Today's technology is miles away from that. Everything is digital, so listening in on random (or, indeed, all) telephone calls is a doddle. Storage is not a consideration either: nothing is on tapes anymore, everything is in massive disk arrays. So they do not have to care about pressing the record button, they can just record everything and retrieve the info retroactively as and when they decide to focus on you. It is better to assume that they do and not use your phone - mobile or stationary - for anything sensitive.
Whether there are any backdoors in mobile phones that allow the authorities to monitor your audio while the phone is seemingly idle - I don't know. Could that be why my N900's battery runs dry after two days? Anyway, I wish them good luck with that. It must be terribly boring to listen to my phone.
As I said, I presume that the technology these days is far more advanced. I even saw a thread here announcing the users that on Android device the mic can be remotely stealth activated.
We are even warned that here, in my country my ISP is keeping a log for 6mo with all my internet activity, but I am not sure if the mobile operator does the same thing.
Now a question unanswered. What are they doing with those logs? I ask this question because, after my previous SIM got burned out, I changed my number and got a new contract with my mobile operator. I have chosen a number never used and never registered that number anywhere (the number is 1mo old), none of my friends have it (since it's my seconday phone), I don't even know that number, I can find it out if I read the contract, and I mainly use that sim just for internet access, but after all that I still get calls from diverse companies asking me if I am interested in selling or buying gold, or if I am interested in investments, or if I have the time to take a survey and so on. How did this companies get hold of my number?
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2013-08-12
, 12:48
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Posts: 383 |
Thanked: 344 times |
Joined on Jun 2013
@ Greece, Athens
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#4
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Originally Posted by PurpleXS8
I am not really sure, but I think that many operators sell their phone numbers and some of your info to other companies(such as the one that called you) and this is how they know your number...
Interesting, I didn't think of that variant with switching with a dummy phone before. They did not choose a random number, as I said, this woman's son was wanted by this "security" and that phone was under surveillance.
As I said, I presume that the technology these days is far more advanced. I even saw a thread here announcing the users that on Android device the mic can be remotely stealth activated.
We are even warned that here, in my country my ISP is keeping a log for 6mo with all my internet activity, but I am not sure if the mobile operator does the same thing.
Now a question unanswered. What are they doing with those logs? I ask this question because, after my previous SIM got burned out, I changed my number and got a new contract with my mobile operator. I have chosen a number never used and never registered that number anywhere (the number is 1mo old), none of my friends have it (since it's my seconday phone), I don't even know that number, I can find it out if I read the contract, and I mainly use that sim just for internet access, but after all that I still get calls from diverse companies asking me if I am interested in selling or buying gold, or if I am interested in investments, or if I have the time to take a survey and so on. How did this companies get hold of my number?
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2013-08-12
, 16:39
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Banned |
Posts: 280 |
Thanked: 295 times |
Joined on Apr 2013
@ Romania
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#5
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Originally Posted by bill_klpd
So... then where is my privacy that i've signed about when applying for my contract? Are you sure it's the big network provider company, or just some 3rd party affiliated companies?
I am not really sure, but I think that many operators sell their phone numbers and some of your info to other companies(such as the one that called you) and this is how they know your number...
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2013-08-12
, 20:19
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Posts: 330 |
Thanked: 556 times |
Joined on Oct 2012
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#6
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Like Deep Throat once told Fox Mulder: "Trust no one, Mr. Mulder". That seems to be like good advice 25 years ago or today.
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2013-08-13
, 07:52
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Posts: 1,808 |
Thanked: 4,272 times |
Joined on Feb 2011
@ Germany
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#7
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Originally Posted by PurpleXS8
They are not necessarly interested in YOU or YOUR number. They just call A number. There are not so many of them, and spammers have time, and no real-time requirements (best effort does the job).
... I don't even know that number, I can find it out if I read the contract, and I mainly use that sim just for internet access, but after all that I still get calls from diverse companies asking me if I am interested in selling or buying gold, or if I am interested in investments, or if I have the time to take a survey and so on. How did this companies get hold of my number?
When somebody knocks on my door and wants to sell me apples (yes, they do), they don't want to sell ME apples, they want to sell SOMEBODY apples. That makes a huge difference.
The topic of this thread will be online/phone/life privacy.
I just stumbled across a news article in a local newspaper that presented an interview with a former member of the "security" and explaining how were the phones listened before '89.
To give you a background on this. Before '89, my country was a communist country, and the leader, to be sure everything was working exactly as he planned he had some kind of secret services called the "security". The point of this "security" was to maintain the order and to reduce to silence whoever was against the "great leader".
Okay, and he started saying how they would listen and record some of the telephone conversations. They also mentioned that they needed warranty to listen, and they would not record anything, because they would record on tapes, and whenever the operator thought it was something important they would press record.
Okay this sounded so rightful and correct until he told a story that he tought it was funny, intentionally or not, giving away some vital information that contradicted everything that he said before. Until this moment he said that he would only listen if that person was connected with another person, and it wouldn't record only important stuff. He said that he received a warranty to follow a woman that was supposed to get in contact with a man that was marked as a threat. This man was this woman's son. And they said that they heard on the line something like this "Oh my son, you came home!". The "security" was alerted and when they broke in that woman's home they saw that the woman was sleeping and sleep talking.
What's the conclusion. Before and in '89 they had the technology to listen and record a phone without being connected.
Today it's 2013, the technology we use is very advanced and I am afraid to think what kind of tech does this kind of "security" around the world, in every state. Today we are a democratic state, but we still have some sort of "security" that we are conscious that they are constantly monitoring everything we do, from wired home phones to cell phones and internet.
Now, set of question is:
What are they doing with the stored information?
How are they filtering various persons (let's say that these persons are actually bad guise and they have a warrant to follow them, and this other bunch of people are just a probem for the president, because we all know the power of politics, even in a democratic state)?
Are there devices out there that can't be remotely activated?
Are there devices untraceable?
As a final note, I think you probably all heard that US secret agencies managed to break into TOR and completely compromise it. The administrator of the biggest TOR hosting server was arrested. TOR was supposed to be unbreakable and completely private to our current tech, and yet they managed to break it.