The EFF has created an open-source hardware tool to detect IMSI catchers: fake cell phone towers that are used for mass surveillance of an area. It runs on a $20 mobile hotspot. Powered by WPeMatico
Category: cell phones
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After 175 million failed password guesses, a judge rules that the Canadian police must return a suspect’s phone. [Judge] Carter said the investigation can continue without the phones, and he noted that Ottawa police have made a formal request to obtain more data from Google. “This strikes me as a potentially more fruitful avenue of … Read More “Canadian Citizen Gets Phone Back from Police” »
Interesting forensics in connection with a serial killer arrest: Investigators went through phone records collected from both midtown Manhattan and the Massapequa Park area of Long Island—two areas connected to a “burner phone” they had tied to the killings. (In court, prosecutors later said the burner phone was identified via an email account used to … Read More “Tracking Down a Suspect through Cell Phone Records” »
The French police are getting new surveillance powers: French police should be able to spy on suspects by remotely activating the camera, microphone and GPS of their phones and other devices, lawmakers agreed late on Wednesday, July 5. […] Covering laptops, cars and other connected objects as well as phones, the measure would allow the … Read More “French Police Will Be Able to Spy on People through Their Cell Phones” »
The FBI is warning people against using public phone-charging stations, worrying that the combination power-data port can be used to inject malware onto the devices: Avoid using free charging stations in airports, hotels, or shopping centers. Bad actors have figured out ways to use public USB ports to introduce malware and monitoring software onto devices … Read More “FBI Advising People to Avoid Public Charging Stations” »
The two people who shut down four Washington power stations in December were arrested. This is the interesting part: Investigators identified Greenwood and Crahan almost immediately after the attacks took place by using cell phone data that allegedly showed both men in the vicinity of all four substations, according to court documents. Nowadays, it seems … Read More “Identifying People Using Cell Phone Location Data” »
They’re using commercial phones, which go through the Ukrainian telecom network: “You still have a lot of soldiers bringing cellphones to the frontline who want to talk to their families and they are either being intercepted as they go through a Ukrainian telecommunications provider or intercepted over the air,” said Alperovitch. “That doesn’t pose too … Read More “Ukraine Intercepting Russian Soldiers’ Cell Phone Calls” »
Everyone visiting Qatar for the World Cup needs to install spyware on their phone. Everyone travelling to Qatar during the football World Cup will be asked to download two apps called Ehteraz and Hayya. Briefly, Ehteraz is an covid-19 tracking app, while Hayya is an official World Cup app used to keep track of match … Read More “Qatar Spyware” »
The Washington Post is reporting that the US Customs and Border Protection agency is seizing and copying cell phone, tablet, and computer data from “as many as” 10,000 phones per year, including an unspecified number of American citizens. This is done without a warrant, because “…courts have long granted an exception to border authorities, allowing … Read More “Large-Scale Collection of Cell Phone Data at US Borders” »
A January 2021 FBI document outlines what types of data and metadata can be lawfully obtained by the FBI from messaging apps. Rolling Stone broke the story and it’s been written about elsewhere. I don’t see a lot of surprises in the document. Lots of apps leak all sorts of metadata: iMessage and WhatsApp seem … Read More “Law Enforcement Access to Chat Data and Metadata” »