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Analyzed from 3259 words in the discussion.

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#data#surveillance#phone#someone#location#access#government#privacy#world#telco

Discussion (104 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

DrewADesign•about 3 hours ago
I was training to be a 911 dispatcher a while ago. When they told us about getting someone’s location from the cell company outside of what was available automatically from e911 or whatever— which required them to be on the phone with you, so not useful if you get a text saying they just drove off a cliff in the middle of nowhere, or something— you had to sign an affidavit testifying that there were exigent circumstances, fax it to them, and then wait, sometimes for hours, until their legal department approved it. And you always risked being dragged to court if you made the wrong call. That’s the price of privacy, and the potential for abuse is rife, so it makes sense.

Yet these jackholes can just snag it whenever because, ya know, profit. That is obviously insane. Our corporate culture has driven our society insane with normalized greed. The unholy alliance of tech and marketing is largely to blame.

gruez•12 minutes ago
>Yet these jackholes can just snag it whenever because, ya know, profit. That is obviously insane. Our corporate culture has driven our society insane with normalized greed. The unholy alliance of tech and marketing is largely to blame.

Nothing in the article suggests the cause of this is "greed". The protocols are vulnerable and various shady companies have been set up to exploit it, but that has nothing to do with "greed", any more than the fact that there are shady hosters for spammers[1] are caused by "corporate culture has driven our society insane with normalized greed"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletproof_hosting

jbxntuehineoh•about 2 hours ago
> then wait, sometimes for hours

that just sounds pointless, won't they be dead by that point anyways?

pocksuppet•about 2 hours ago
IOW: We must end this "privacy" thing - think of people who might be dying!

It's all about power, anyway. The NSA doesn't need a warrant at all. When the police want to get an alleged criminal they can get a warrant in minutes. But when it's your life in danger, it takes hours. The purpose of a system is what it does.

DrewADesign•28 minutes ago
FWIW: At 911, we were the police, organizationally. Actual sworn cops didn’t have special access to phone companies that dispatchers didn’t— we’d probably be the ones making the request for them if it was that urgent. (In some places dispatchers are cops, but is very uncommon, and the distinction isn’t important in this respect.) Phone companies aren’t going to hire a bunch of specialized workers to comply with legal orders instantly instead of soon enough. And there surely needs to be a ticket made and such… it’s not like CS reps have that info.

The NSA doesn’t need warrants in many cases because they can get the information they need from the government’s own databases. I’m not an expert, but as far as I know, if they need someone’s location from a phone company they do need a warrant or to prove there were exigent circumstances, which is why they just get shit from data brokers. Some politicians want to close that loop hole but most either don’t, or don’t care enough. Some, shockingly, even want to reform FISA.

rdevilla•about 1 hour ago
In 2026, it's Israel. The NSA is so last decade, and isn't even mentioned in this article.

Silicon Valley and global communications infrastructure has been compromised by Israel. Quoting TFA:

> This analysis identified 4G infrastructure associated with operator networks based in Israel, the United Kingdom, and the Channel Islands. Notably, in prior public reporting these same countries have been linked to CSVs targeting mobile users.

> Israel has long been a focal point in the global surveillance industry, with multiple companies developing and exporting advanced spyware, cellular communications interception, and monitoring technologies.

DrewADesign•about 1 hour ago
It depends on the situation. If someone is on fire, yes, it’s pointless. If someone is lost without good reception, no. If someone is suffering from dementia and wandering aimlessly, no. If someone has been abducted and can’t use their phone but still has it with them, no. These things do happen.
areoform•about 3 hours ago
One of the biggest lies about the surveillance state is that it'll be professional.

NSA employees have used multi-billion dollar American surveillance assets to spy on women they're infatuated with. There's even a cute term for it, LOVEINT.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/loveint-nsa-letter-disclo...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nsa-staff-used-spy-tools-spouses-...

    In another instance, a foreign woman who was employed by the U.S. government suspected that her lover, an NSA civilian employee, was listening to her phone calls. She shared her suspicion with another government employee, who reported it. An investigation found the man abused NSA databases from 1998 to 2003 to snoop on nine phone numbers of foreign women and twice collected communications of an American, according to the inspector general's report.
People aren't able to imagine the ramifications of pervasive surveillance because there never has been such pervasive surveillance in human history. And humans are terrible at predicting how this is going to change things. Especially, with LLMs in the mix.

Unless a very strict line is maintained for privacy across the board; the world that's coming will be many, many custom, tailor-made hells co-existing as tumors off of the back of state and corporate surveillance infrastructure.

1a527dd5•about 2 hours ago
> She shared her suspicion with another government employee, who reported it.

And what pray tell do you do if you don't have anyone to report it to inside the government? Reports like that can easily get blackholed.

MisterTea•about 2 hours ago
> Unless a very strict line is maintained for privacy across the board; the world that's coming will be many, many custom, tailor-made hells co-existing as tumors off of the back of state and corporate surveillance infrastructure.

The future black markets are going to be filled with all sorts of illegal "private comms" devices to give us our privacy back. I am sure there are sci-fi novels with this theme.

pixl97•about 1 hour ago
Maybe, but they may very well stand out as the only 'unapproved' encryption on the wire and bring you more attention.
MisterTea•26 minutes ago
Who said anything about "wires"?
cedws•29 minutes ago
IIRC Snowden said the same in his biography - that the NSA had a bro culture and they abused their powers to obtain compromising images and texts (often sexual) and share them around.

If you're going to use technology to illegally spy on millions people, at least do it with some professionalism and restraint. Bastards.

intended•about 1 hour ago
> Unless a very strict line is maintained for privacy across the board;

> many, many custom, tailor-made hells co-existing as tumors off of the back of state and corporate surveillance infrastructure.

We already live in this world. Most of the conversations here on HN are naturally America centric, and the situation with the rest of the humans on the planet is secondary. The more distant, the less interest.

For most of that world, please for help are sent via stomach churning amounts of appeals on via WhatsApp. The hope is that someone knows someone at a platform to get them help.

Something like being having your non-consensual intimate imagery shared, means you are pretty much done. Since a majority of people live in nations with more conservative mores (on average) than the west, this means an absurd number of lives ruined.

Fraud, pig butchering scams, are examples of outright crimes. Tech isn’t much better when it comes to customer support. You want to recover your account, or reach a human? Good luck.

I’d love to hear a counter argument for this position: Tech platforms are as valuable as they are, because they do not pay the support costs they incur.

aetherspawn•about 4 hours ago
Yeah, a friend of mine was tracked by a stalker ex boyfriend who worked at a Telco.

It was irritatingly difficult to avoid because it seemed he could look up her SIM card by name and then get her location no matter what (new SIM, new phone)

Anyone who reports this kind of thing to the police just sounds irrational and crazy and gets ignored.

pigggg•about 2 hours ago
It's literally a known thing at telcos in various roles they find people looking up folks dox regularly. If someone registers a complaint that someone access their data they'll look it up and deal with them.

I once asked someone on the security /investigations side if you are logging what everyone is doing can't you easily find when folks are looking up stuff unrelated to their job? Their answer: we'd have to fire over half the people here - everyone is constantly looking up people's PII - celebrities, friends, enemies, etc. it's almost considered a unofficial perk of the job. This was from one of the largest US Telco carriers circa 2010. Maybe things have changed, hopefully.

pocksuppet•about 2 hours ago
In Western Europe they would get fired and go to jail. That's why Western Europe doxx information is considered the most valuable in the world. It wasn't complicated to create that situation. They can just fire a few, drag one to court, and rely on the chilling effect.
Padriac•about 4 hours ago
Sounds like something worth reporting as it is an offence in Australia at least. The police would certainly investigate such an allegation and charges could be laid if there was sufficient evidence and a conviction was possible.
joshstrange•about 4 hours ago
> The police would certainly investigate such an allegation and charges could be laid if there was sufficient evidence and a conviction was possible.

I'll let you know when I finish laughing.

This is 100% false. You can serve up all the evidence on a silver platter the the police will ignore it. I know, I've tried, specifically in a stalking case. They don't care.

Padriac•about 4 hours ago
Maybe where things are different where you live.
jimbo808•about 3 hours ago
Ha. That's what everyone thinks before they've needed the police.
aetherspawn•about 4 hours ago
Yeah it was reported, but the telcos systems were such a load of slop there wasn’t any specific evidence recorded (logs etc), and besides nobody knew what to ask for, so it couldn’t be taken seriously.

I don’t remember the exact circumstances of how they got a confession years later, I think bragging, but he did get convicted and the Telco eventually fired him, which stopped the stalking.

boringg•about 4 hours ago
What no log files of who's accessing records? That seems super sketch.
ImPostingOnHN•about 2 hours ago
You're referring to the police, who are also abusing these surveillance systems to stalk their exes?

Or maybe federal law enforcement, who are also abusing these surveillance systems to stalk their exes?

Or perhaps intelligence agencies, who are also abusing these surveillance systems to stalk their exes?

Did I mention they're all friends with each other and usually help each other and cover for each other?

throwawaysleep•about 3 hours ago
Cops are too dumb to comprehend that. They would proclaim it impossible and order more donuts.

Most simple criminals get away with their crimes. Anyone with any level of sophistication does as well.

wil421•about 2 hours ago
Scammy telcos in poorer countries sell SS7 data for a small fee. It will give you all the location data you need.
pocksuppet•about 2 hours ago
SS7 access - you still have to hack the system to acquire the data yourself, and I believe it creates a log that you roamed to that country, and briefly disconnects your cellphone from the network? It's far from invisible.
therobots927•about 4 hours ago
Assuming he had access to a database with (lat, long, SIM) data, if she got a new phone he could just use the known (lat, long pairs) from the old sim and lookup to get the new sim. Then bam, you can get all of the new lat longs.

It’s impossible to avoid unless you simultaneously move to a new house / apartment when you get your new phone, and never bring the new phone to any previous low-traffic location you brought the old phone to.

justinclift•about 4 hours ago
If the person was deep enough into the system to have access to location data, then they'd probably be able to just directly look up customer details (likely easier).
hocuspocus•about 3 hours ago
Absolutely not. I have access to geo-located network telemetry. CRM data is completely off limit to anyone on my team.
calvinmorrison•about 4 hours ago
it's impossible for your precise location to be tracked by anybody... wow thats crazy
kenjackson•about 4 hours ago
What does this mean?
tamimio•about 2 hours ago
Well, my privacy-o-meter made me have my phone with no sim card and always airplane mode, and the sim card is in a dumb phone in my house, that I also barely turn on unless needed. Not perfect, but still far better than being tracked with telecoms.
hocuspocus•about 3 hours ago
I'm sorry but this sounds like bullshit. As someone who has access to such data at a telco:

- Very few people have legit business cases requiring access to enriched network telemetry, at least non aggregated.

- Of which, only a handful have any reason to see the MSISDN in clear.

- Of which, none can get access to clear CRM data.

- Lawful interception and emergency services use completely separate paths, exposed via user interfaces that aren't available to employees.

And obviously, a simple email to the data governance and privacy office would be taken extremely seriously.

Also why not simply switch to a different phone operator?

aetherspawn•about 3 hours ago
So what you’re saying is if you were secretly a psycho and wanted to stalk your ex-girlfriend, you work at a Telco and basically have access to the tools to do it?

So putting aside the fact you’re a reasonable person, anyone who works themselves up to a similar seniority and job description in a Telco as you, could in fact do exactly what the article is saying is an issue for the victims.

hnthrow0287345•about 3 hours ago
I'm sure every single telco in the world is perfectly in line with this
lostlogin•27 minutes ago
Stalker terrorised woman, she reports it, nothing happens, stalker kills her. Queue hand wringing. It’s played out a lot of times, in a lot of places, I don’t know why everyone here is so cynical.
hocuspocus•about 3 hours ago
Even in pretty dysfunctional countries, or pro-business ones like the US, where nothing like the GDPR exists, telcos management have a strong interest in not letting just any rank and file employee spy on subscribers.
subscribed•about 2 hours ago
I'm glad to hear that your random telco's governance and influence has spread around the entire world to every other telco.

FYI: from the fact it's hard (not impossible) to see the data mentioned and it's possible (not guaranteed) that the caught offender would be punished is a VERY long way to "you lie".

Theirs was anecdata, yours is anecdata but you're additionally rude.

NitpickLawyer•about 1 hour ago
Ah, I remember back in the day when "trust me I work in a telco and this is just dumb" people were really really silent after the room 641a stuff got leaked.
hocuspocus•15 minutes ago
So now the random ex-boyfriend has access to the same tools as 3 letter agencies, got it.

If you live in a country where you cannot trust law enforcement then there isn't much your telco can do. But specifically, these surveillance tools are not available to us.

throwawaysleep•about 3 hours ago
> And obviously, a simple email to the data governance and privacy office would be taken extremely seriously.

What is this based on? I used to work for a data governance and privacy vendor that supplied data for audits. Tons and tons of customers asked us to fudge their data.

This is after the Delve scandal, where the hottest tech compliance company was completely fraudulent and numerous other hot tech companies also had completely fraudulent audits.

This is not a reasonable assumption.

mistrial9•about 3 hours ago
you are close to a system in a way that those guardrails are clear and present; the story is from the point of view of a victim, and it is possible that they were indeed a victim. Therefore the means of the stalking is not known at all via this story, but somehow, something did occur. It is not surprising on either side, and they do not necessarily contradict each other IMHO
hocuspocus•about 1 hour ago
I'm specifically talking about the technical aspect. Even with non-existent separation of concerns, and abysmal practices related to data governance which would be breaking the law in most of the developed world, the story sounds like bullshit. Extracting points of interest and reconstructing paths from raw network telemetry isn't trivial.

The likelihood a random employee could run a quick SQL join to stalk someone based on their name is zero.

Anonyneko•about 4 hours ago
This is just par for the course in Russia. Government has telcos track people, and that data ends up available on the black market for anyone to purchase, for a fairly modest fee. The government has been recently trying (with uncertain degree of success) to crack down on the latter, as this was frequently used by the opposition journalists and investigators to uncover the details of the government's own nefarious plots.

The data is cross-referenced with other telcos, other SIM cards, Wi-Fi hotspots (anonymous public hotspots are outlawed), street cams, and many other databases, so it's basically impossible to avoid being tracked.

Probably inevitable to become the norm everywhere in the world.

znort_•about 2 hours ago
> This is just par for the course in Russia

nice deflection there, ofc bad russia! you did surely notice that this article is about the uk? oh, and (big surprise!) israeli cell and surveillance companies ...

Anonyneko•about 1 hour ago
All I wanted to say is that things can get even worse if left uncontrolled.
jbxntuehineoh•about 1 hour ago
time to take the tedpill and leave your phone at home
aa-jv•about 1 hour ago
It is par for the course in the UK and Israel, too. Oh, also Australia.
betaby•about 3 hours ago
> Government has telcos track people

Yes

> and that data ends up available on the black market for anyone to purchase, for a fairly modest fee

Probably not. Those DBs are fake most ( all ? ) the time.

Anonyneko•about 1 hour ago
The Russian leaked ones have proven to be legit many times over by investigative journalists cross-referencing those with other databases (e.g. flight tracking or leaked food delivery databases).
bell-cot•about 1 hour ago
> ... as this was frequently used by the opposition journalists and investigators to uncover the details ...

Seems like Ukrainians assassins targeting Russian VIP's would be the most compelling motive for a crackdown.

Or perhaps Mr. Putin provides a feed of "currently in favor" VIP's to the black market folks, who know better than to sell intel on anyone on that list?

Anonyneko•about 1 hour ago
Yeah, that of course is a bigger concern for the government right now. I sometimes forget that it's neither 2019 nor even 2021 anymore.
mentalgear•about 4 hours ago
> Gary Miller, one of the researchers who investigated these attacks, told TechCrunch that some clues point to an “Israeli-based commercial geo-intelligence provider with specialized telecom capabilities,” but did not name the surveillance provider. Several Israeli companies are known to offer similar services, such as Circles (later acquired by spyware maker NSO Group), Cognyte, and Rayzone.
Rob_Polding•about 3 hours ago
In my country 95% of people don't mind Meta tracking their location with WhatsApp, so I think the days of people caring about tracking are long gone!

I am the exception and believe in privacy, and I've not used a Meta app since I tested Facebook/WhatsApp back in 2010 and soon uninstalled them as I don't want a digital portfolio to be developed on me for advertisers. Same with Google, they can whistle for my personal information, but they won't get it!

I'm sure surveillance companies have an even easier time buying data from Meta/WhatsApp so that's even more worrying as people use different ISPs so 95% of people won't be traced by any one ISP, but Meta and Google have the location information of anyone gullible enough to use their services.

gruez•7 minutes ago
>In my country 95% of people don't mind Meta tracking their location with WhatsApp

Source? Seems unlikely given that both android and ios has location permissions and keeps track of whether it's used. Non-consensual (ie. you're not specifically using some location sharing feature or whatever) is very likely to be caught and cause a publicity shitstorm.

woadwarrior01•about 3 hours ago
One of the first bits of infosec advice I give to my non-technical friends and family, when they ask for it, is to turn off background location access for all apps on their phones.

Needless to say, I know plenty of technical people who don't care about it.

forlorn_mammoth•about 2 hours ago
because someone made background location access a "necessary" part of the the bluetooth stack?

The cost of opting out is very high.

"Mark of the beast"-- you want to participate in society, you need it.

everdrive•41 minutes ago
Modern people seem to be incredibly weak and dependent. "I can't protect my freedom if it means giving up bluetooth!" It almost reads as satire.
gosub100•5 minutes ago
Off topic, but is there any black market way I can buy the personal data of the robodialers that flood my number 20x / day? I know they spoof caller ID, and I'm not referring to filing a costly civil suit and getting their names from discovery.
Barbing•30 minutes ago
Help our security if you can!—

“Contact Us

Do you have more information about surveillance vendors that exploit cellphone networks? From a non-work device, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or email[]”

throwaw12•about 4 hours ago
> ... Israeli-based commercial geo-intelligence provider with specialized telecom capabilities ...

why are they good at these kind of things - security, hacks, surveillance, 0-days?

bakugo•about 4 hours ago
When your goal is to covertly subvert and take control of foreign nations, these sorts of skills tend to come in handy.
morellt•about 3 hours ago
No clue why this is getting downvoted, this is literally the purpose.
pjc50•about 4 hours ago
They run a mass surveillance operation so they can target individual people with exploding pagers. It's just another aspect of the longstanding war between Israel and Iran (via Hezbollah etc).
jeroenhd•about 4 hours ago
They are a country surrounded by countries that either dislike them or want them wiped from the face of the earth. It only makes sense that they have a significant intelligence and spying industry.

The genocide they're undertaking does place that industry in a whole new light, of course.

subscribed•about 1 hour ago
We might run their history in a slow motion since the year of inception, and then see who is trying to do all the wiping.
goolz•about 2 hours ago
Worth note their leaders and allies are bereft of morality.
dfc•about 4 hours ago
I get a 404 when I try and view the CitizenLab report:

https://citizenlab.ca/research/uncovering-global-telecom-exp...

Danox•about 1 hour ago
Of course they are what could go wrong?
Advertisement
srameshc•about 2 hours ago
I was reading news this morning about Lebanese journalist killed in airstrike. I was thinking very likely she was tracked wherever she was taking shelter. These kind of surveillance probably helps track such people on large scale and we most of the time meh at such reports and think what have I to loose. But it is affecting everyone now, not some ambigious high profile targets, they are the people amongst us.
aa-jv•about 1 hour ago
Tracking wasn't necessary in her case, she was already talking to Israeli forces prior to being murdered. They knew where she was by direct personal observation, which was then used to target her.
therobots927•about 1 hour ago
Coming soon to a city near you.

The goal is dominance and control of the poor by the rich.

rurban•about 4 hours ago
They do have the death penalty now in Israel. So it might get interesting for those bosses
pprotas•about 4 hours ago
The death penalty was intended for Palestinians, not Israeli bosses
rurban•about 4 hours ago
sure, but when the tide switches to a far-left government they might use it against them.
tovej•about 3 hours ago
I do believe the law was specifically carved out so it could only be used against Palestinian prisoners. And there is no far-left in Israel, at least no far-left party that could ever be in government.
dewey•about 4 hours ago
You forgot one important detail there.
faxuss•about 3 hours ago
Everyone does it, they just got caught.
Fokamul•about 2 hours ago
I like I live in country where SIMs can be bought without any verification.

Cops and agencies trying to change this, (buuhuuu someone bought anonymous SIMs in bulk and sold them on darknet)

Surprisingly, there was major public pushback, pretty unlucky for cops.

walrus01•about 4 hours ago
Why is the citizen lab report URL suddenly a 404?
lbcadden3•about 3 hours ago
I’m shocked, shocked I say!
voxadam•about 3 hours ago
Well, not that shocked.
therobots927•about 4 hours ago
Oh would you look at that: “Israeli-based commercial geo-intelligence provider with specialized telecom capabilities.”

Make no mistake, the people of Gaza and Lebanon are being used as guinea pigs for highly invasive surveillance technology that could easily be pointed at any of us if we step out of line.

And yes I said people of Gaza, not tellhullists as they’re referred to in Zion.

thisislife2•about 2 hours ago
That Gaza, the world's largest open prison, is an experiment playground for Israeli surveillance and military tech is a popular theory online that is now finding space in mainstream media too:

1. Gaza: a testing ground for Israeli military technology - https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza-testing-ground-is...

2. Gaza “laboratory” boosts profits of Israel’s war industry - https://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-laboratory-boost...

3. Gaza Becomes Israel’s Testing Ground for Military Robots - https://archive.is/P6mAQ

fchicken•about 4 hours ago
Color me shocked
arjunthazhath•about 4 hours ago
jesus christ!