Your Own Mini-Stalker 109
kashif.ahsan writes "A ComputerWorld article discusses the inherent privacy dangers of carrying around our ubiquitous technological assistants. They're like miniature stalkers, right there in your pocket. 'Camera phones contain all the necessary ingredients for completely invasive stalking: a microphone, camera, personal data on the user, location information, a chat and call history — you name it. And victims carry them everywhere they go. All that's missing is the software that lets stalkers take control ... new software, called snoopware, does just that.'"
If I've got stalkers... (Score:3, Funny)
My god...then it's true! I
Re:Personal infromation (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, it's possible. All you need, and this is really easy--trust me--all your need is to write an application that can run on any weird-endian processor, hundreds of different micro-oses, or in the case of java-supporting phones, break out of the java sandbox, or on brew phones just get yourself the developer certificate from qualcomm and then get the carrier to distribute your app to their customers.
This is going to be huge.
...
Well, there's always BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.
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For example, can you spell "Blackberry"?
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BlackBerry? No, never heard of it.
Re:Personal infromation (Score:4, Insightful)
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-news/?p=78
Given the Blackberry popularity among the "power tie" crowd and among their account managers, if I were a stock investor interested in gaining some nsider information, or a reporter willing to bend some laws, I'd be sitting at the booth at Infoworld or the Republican national convention monitoring as much data as possible.
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Well, there's always BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.
Dude, I know.
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Currently, cell phones can be used to spy, somewhat successfully, on people that carry them around. If I were to call 911 on my razr, or my old samsung a660 with the e911 activated, the dispatcher would in most cases know where the phone is based upon the built in GPS chip and hopefully send assistance in a more efficient manner.
Overall this is a good thing, there was that teen, I think last year, that used her cell phone to anonymously call 911
Ooooooh Kaaaaay.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Temporary fix (Score:3, Funny)
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THAT certainly scared me! (Score:5, Insightful)
- I'm already being spied on by close-circuit cameras planted everywhere short of the public toilet (may be wrong on that one as well)
- Government agencies and their friendly associates already have records of my name, sex, DOB, address, occupation, salary, and other "general statistics"
- Corporate spyware already records my keystrokes, browsing habits, shopping history, porn preferences, dubious sources of owned MP3s, financial credentials, political views, and probably things I don't even know about
And now you are trying to tell me I need to be scared of my 4x3 inch PDA? Right, because OBVIOUSLY that's the only thing threatening my privacy!
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thankyou.
Re:THAT certainly scared me! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course threats to privacy are multiple, but this issue has a very serious potential. It is good to educate people about this fact.
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Paranoid or rightfully wary?
(Or maybe just Russian?)
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If I owned a private company providing cellphones and cellphone service, I would surely investigate if I could not put some clients on the spy list.
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Add in the fact that you have (for the most part) no clue about the network protocols that make yo
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They can do whatever they want with that. The phone I have has a useless active vocal range anyway. Hold it six inches from your mouth, nobody will hear you on it.
My call history... Wow, they'd be thrilled. And my text messages. It's all to and from my wife.
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Privacy in a public space was always a bit of an illusion - the authorities can work out your position from the cell towers anyway, and how many people walk past you in a day, or follow you in their car for a few minutes? You could be being watched every minute of the day right now and you wouldn't know it.
I went the other way. Downloaded bliin and have it on when I'm out of the house. Wanna spy on me? I'm telling everyone where I am... but is anyone going to bother? Probably not.
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I am somewhat of a privacy fanatic which is probably a futile exercise in today's world. Here is what various on-line databases, shopping cards and cell phone tracking would probably show about my so called life:
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Re:THAT certainly scared me! (Score:5, Funny)
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One minor point... (Score:4, Insightful)
If someone is willing to violate my personal space and physically take my stuff, I might suggest stalking my filing cabinet instead.
It never moves and has way more juicy data than my latest vacation photos and lunch planning.
Re:One minor point... (Score:4, Funny)
FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
Given that all of these appliances are carried voluntarily and have an off switch, this story has no merit at all.
At best it's the basis for a (rather bad and technically unsound) horror story. At worst it helps spread fear and paranoia - as if we didn't have enough real problems to worry about.
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example: here [consumerist.com]
Re:FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
It's very likely the app didn't have a legit certificate so the phone said 'this application is untrusted. continue anyway?' and they said yes.
The app then installed itself.. now it has to send data to the internet. because it doesn't have a proper certificate every time it starts up it'll say 'allow access to the internet?' and each time they're *still* clicking 'yes'!!!
(examples taken from symbian.. messages on Windows mobile are probably different)
This isn't snoopware it's bloody stupidware.
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And I've never heard of anyone stupid enough to install that!
FBI Used this trick recently... (Score:2)
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Open it up.... (Score:3, Interesting)
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While she may feel empowered, I'm sure that with your 'two way street' she is also much more likely to end up dead.
Not only can her abuser track her, but so can the thugs he hires.
Bilateral empowerment tends to only benefit the powerful while giving the weak only the illusion of power.
Hillbilly (Score:3, Interesting)
I know what you're getting at with the tw
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Are you suggesting that if one of our loved ones is abused, we should go out and kill the abuser!?
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Nowadays I'd simply leave him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Luckily perhaps for both of us the likelyhood of me meeting him is very low.
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Yes the abuser
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I think this is the gap. Just look at spam as an example. Someone had your information, likely you knew who it was at the time. But THEN... someone else had access to your information who you did not know, and you got no additional information in return. Well, except for how to get \/|/\6R4 or some other substance.
Sure, "big Brother" or some other entity can easily track you and gather information about you. You may even
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Completely 180-degrees wrong. Privacy is not a myth; it's something you have to continually work at, but that doesn't stop it existing. Throwing privacy away is not the solution. You may not care about your own privacy but seeing as many other people do, it makes sense to protect their rights and you lose nothing, in
not that battering a women is wrong! (Score:2)
Tip: don't put raw eggs in the batter, because the woman will probably object to being deep fried. (it doesn't hurt to ask though)
Forget SnoopWare.... (Score:1)
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It's not down to the OS it's down to the design of the network. If that bothers you switch the mobile off and throw it in a river or something.
Don't need to be malicious to be dangerous (Score:2)
Their kids will have an amazing amount of data from 6 people. 10 generations in there will be a huge mass of mundane details for 2046 people just in their own family tree.
Hopefully someone will invent a better search engine because otherwise it's going to be impossible for them to find the interesting things without being overwhelmed by a tidal wave of rubbish blog posts and bad photos post
That's a feature (Score:5, Interesting)
Holy crap! People can see me? (Score:3, Insightful)
If I have:
A) No speeding tickets
B) No DUI convictions
C) No accidents
D) An eviction five years ago
E) A big student loan
then I will have higher insurance rates than an 18-year-old with no credit whatsoever. ZOMG the insurance company is in my credits powning my billz!
Furthermore, has anyone paid taxes lately? We carefully pen or key all of our vitals, all of our earnings and where we earned them, all of our expenditures and where we spent them, our political affiliations, our medical conditions, our contact info, our religion, our blood types, et cetera. Then what? We can but choose between the creepy old letter carrier, Chester, and the creepy old internet. Who gets all this juicy data next, we can only imagine. I promise, it is not good.
Here's a tasty one for you... Homeland security. Had to get that phrase in there for all the conspiracy types on Google. Tracking your library card? To hell with that lame crap... to hear them tell it they are in your fone processin your data anyway.
Speaking of Google... well... Google. Sign in to be mined^W Googled^w convenienced.
There are a Segan Billion Billion data leaks out there, and you and your data don't exactly get to choose where to leak.
So when I see these articles about **DIGITAL DEVICES CONTAIN DATA AND THEY CAN SEE MEEE ZOMG** I tend to seriously consider going back to lighting my farts, just to cover the evidence. Plus, it is truly entertaining when compared to sweating about the spy in my pocket. Fsck my own mini-stalker, where do I get a mini-hooker [wikipedia.org]?
Why bother being paranoid? They're going to get you anyway.
Re:Holy crap! People can see me? (Score:4, Insightful)
Way to contribute to the very same problem you are complaining of being treated with (prejudice and irrelevant facts being taken into account).
It's sick to see governments repeatedly marginalize young drivers' rights by blanket higher premiums, harder process to get a car, tougher fines for exactly the same offences, and restrictions which don't apply to older drivers. And I'm not talking about "novice" vs "veteran", I'm talking about real age being taken into account (and even if you are above the legal age of majority you still may be considered "young" for these purposes).
Look, just because there are SOME asshole teens who zip by your street in their pimped out Civic doing 160mph with music so loud you see the windshields vibrating, doesn't mean ALL young drives drive this way, and there should not be a blanket prejudice towards all younger drivers.
Seeing you whine for suffering the consequences of people with big loans being put in the same category as bad drivers for insurance purposes, while implying young drivers should get higher premiums just because they are young, is hypocritical at best.
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Someone mod this guy up. If I had mod points to give you...I would give you all of them because you just served the parent thread his ass on a silver platter.
I can't agree with you more. They also will give an 18 year old female cheaper insurance than an 18 year old male because studies show males are more likely to have wrecks and speed. Did they ever think that
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Insurance premiums are based on how much the insurance company is likely to pay out, that means higher premiums for groups that are likely to cost them more.
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You must live in a very stran
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People move around in the US, enough that it is almost impossible for the government to know your current address.
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The linked article is seems to be highly overrated (Score:3, Interesting)
May be the MMS or SMS they received with the "snoopware" had the title "P0rn"
Apart from this
Great for the press too (Score:1)
No good getting something on tape and having it 'dropped' in front of you.
One of the good examples of this was at the GOP debate with live net streaming.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=491685820
it's true already (Score:1)
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No, according to the article it's possible to program a mobile through air (as example they say that some providers do that for maintenance). So police and government can work with the provider to accomplish this.
Alternatively, you have Bluetooth, infrared, WLAN.
So from how i see it, it is technically possible that people can track my position (that's old), hear what i hear (hands-free-mode, article in
Camera? (Score:2)
Download my photos? (Score:1)
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Alternatively, you have Bluetooth, infrared, WLAN.
So from how i see it, it is technically possible that people can track my position (that's old), hear what i hear (hands-free-mode, article in german magazine "Spiegel 29/07"), see my contacts, my calendar, my photos, and activate my camera (tfa).
Th
in other news... (Score:1)
Correcting a misconception; CID != ANI (Score:2)
FTFA:
Most carriers offer a "skip passcode" feature that lets you turn off voice mail password-checking when you call from your cell phone. But because carriers use Caller ID to verify the phone, cell phones "spoofing" another phone's number can get in, enabling hackers to access your voice mail and other features without ever knowing the password.
If spoofed CID info allows access to YOUR mobile phone's voice mail, then (IMNSHO) it's time to change carriers!!!
Background: I worked for a specialized PBX company, hardware and software, in the late 1990's. Things may have changed since then, but I have no doubt I'll get educated quickly if that is the case! :-)
The quoted part from the article continues a common misconception. First, some definitions:
ANI can be spoofed (Score:2)
There are so many ways. Be government. Pay off a phone company insider. Set up your own phony phone company even.
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It's harder to aquire the needed control, but certainly not impossible. There are places that will help you.
There are so many ways. Be government. Pay off a phone company insider. Set up your own phony phone company even.
Thanks for the feedback! Your response got me to wondering, so I just did some googling. It appears from the first link I found: Automated Caller ID / ANI Spoofing [rootsecure.net] that it is relatively easy to spoof either of these, today, as long as one has access to a willing VOIP company. Didn't used to be so easy!
Already exist (Score:2)
Why shoud I care? (Score:2)
Pro Boner (Score:2)
Made me laugh anyway. . . . . .
Anyone can do this with Flexispy (Score:1)
Microphones in laptops.. (Score:2)
Ever since that, the first thing I do when I get a laptop is open it up and remove the built in microphone.
Will the iPhone bring the wonderful world (Score:2)
No. (Score:2)
The silver lining in the dark cloud of the iPhone's lack of a native API is that there's no mechanism to install any kind of worm, rootkit, or spyware on the device.
But of course it's silly to worry about the iPhone, not when there's so many REAL smartphones out there that actually have the technical capabiilty of supporting the kind of viral ecos
I already have a mini-stalker (Score:1)