Document shows how phone cos. treat private data

[hue]

Source: Atlanta Business News

NEW YORK — A document obtained by the ACLU shows for the first time how the four largest cellphone companies in the U.S. treat data about their subscribers' calls, text messages, Web surfing and approximate locations.


The one-page document from the Justice Department's cybercrime division shows, for instance, that Verizon Wireless keeps, for a year, information about which cell towers subscriber phones connect to. That data that can be used to figure out where the phone has been, down to the level of a neighborhood. AT&T has kept the same data since July 2008.

The sheet is a guide for law enforcement, which can request the information from the carriers through legal channels. The North Carolina section of the American Civil Liberties Union obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act request, the ACLU said. Wired.com reported earlier about the document, which is dated Aug. 2010.

The document was released by the ACLU Wednesday, but has been hiding in plain sight on the website of the Vermont public defender's office. It can be found there through a Google search, but only if the searcher knows the exact title of the document.

Online:

ACLU's posting of the sheet: http://bit.ly/q6g9Xu

Read more: http://www.ajc.com/business/document-shows-how-phone-1191519.html

[Scuba]

1. Any gearheads able to speak to the issue of phone on/off? Chip removal strategies?

[leveymg]

2. If you take the battery out, it can't track you or transmit.

No need to pull out the SIM card, I would think. Not an expert on this part, though.

[_aust]

3. Not happy answers.

With CDMA phones (VZW, Sprint, Virgin, Cricket, etc), there's nothing physical to remove. There is something called an ESN (electronic serial number) that is written in the "ROM" memory of the phone. In the case of most of many of these, e.g. the Droid line from Motorola, access to changing this code is limited by an encryption strength that is currently not practical to break. This is a relatively recent development; this was considered more plausible with older Windows Mobile phones, especially those made by HTC, earlier in the smartphone era.

Why do the carriers do this? The ESN is the number used to keep track of activation (something the carriers charge for), and whether or not the phone was given to a user under some kind of Early Termination Fee (ETF)-encumbered "subsidy" price. They also use it to track the transfer of phones, and to keep from re-activating phones by third parties when a customer has reported the phone lost or stolen. Unfortunately, they won't let you activate a phone without this number, as we simply do not have open access to use our own devices, despite some weak attempts to open things up by the FCC.

I don't really know about GSM (AT&T and T-Mobile) phones, but suspect it is just the number from the SIM card, which they no doubt have associated to your name and SS#, etc.

[stockholmer]

6. buy a retro phone from Lekki (French firm) they are old school tech, with updated looks

no GPS tracking, etc

http://www.lekki.fr/

[harmonicon]

8. awesome...

but I somehow doubt my Orange "phone fund" will chip in towards it.

[LiberalFighter]

4. The only issue I would have is how long they keep the actual content.

Otherwise, there would be no difference between what had been done when only land lines existed except with the addition of the locality the phone call was made. Authorities had the ability to retrieve phone records of suspects years in the past. Right? And had date and time, phone number called, length of call.

The only issues I would have concern would be content of call and whether record request was proper and legal.

[stockholmer]

Apple’s iPhone Keeps A Secret Record Of Everywhere You Go, Your Permission Is Not Required

http://theoldspeakjournal.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/apples-iphone-keeps-a-secret-record-of-everywhere-you-go-your-permission-is-not-required/


http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tracking-prompts-privacy-fears

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https://ssd.eff.org/wire/protect/cell-tracking

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[Downwinder]

5. Anybody have an app to put the GPS 180 degrees out of phase?

[toopers]

7. As info . . .

This technology is also used by 911 services to locate a distress call from a cell phone. The government is requiring the phone companies to be able to identify the location of a 911 call within 10ft of the phone.