Scary Big Brother factoid

[Seshmeister]

Just heard about this on the Penn Jillette show and it checks out.

http://www.dss.mil/training/csg/security/V2comint/Cellular.htm




A cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone. This is done by transmitting to the cell phone a maintenance command on the control channel. This command places the cellular telephone in the "diagnostic mode." When this is done, conversations in the immediate area of the telephone can be monitored over the voice channel.

The user doesn't know the telephone is in the diagnostic mode and transmitting all nearby sounds until he or she tries to place a call. Then, before the cellular telephone can be used to place calls, the unit has to be cycled off and then back on again. This threat is the reason why cellular telephones are often prohibited in areas where classified or sensitive discussions are held


Of course they also know where you are if you are carrying a cell phone.

[Seshmeister]

Ford just turned off his cell phone...:D

[FORD]

Originally posted by Seshmeister
Ford just turned off his cell phone...:D

Not yet, but there might well be times that I would do so, if that's the case. Of course the ability to track one's location by cell phone should be obvious enough. I figured that one out once I drove across the imaginary time zone "border" and the time on my phone instantly changed, which is something my digital watches never did.

My question would be ...... are these BCE "maintenance" calls coming from my goddamned daytime minutes, because if the BCE is going to spy on me, then they better not expect ME to fucking pay for it! :mad:

[Seshmeister]

There were 6 billion minutes of cell phone conversations in the US last year so the chances are they were not listening to your order to the local micro brewery...:)

[LoungeMachine]

And your cell phone can still be tracked while turned off, which is why CIA operaties are instructed to REMOVE the battery.......

Which they failed to do when they were in kidnap mode in Italy last year....

ooops.

[Seshmeister]

Is that the same case where the 4 operatives ran up expenses of a million bucks or so over a month staying at all the best hotels before kidnapping a guy so they could get him tortured?

It's not a good sign when an Italian government starts saying your people are corrupt and dodgy...:)

[ELVIS]

Hahahaha...

Interesting shit...

..and FORD's last comment was funny...:D

[FORD]

Well, considering what I just heard about Verizon, I'll probably be switching phone companies anyway. Seems their Vice President/Chief Counsel William P. Barr is an old BCE hack who was in Poppy's CIA and then followed him to the White House.

But it appears that Poppy's Carlyle Group owns Qwest, so what the fuck do you do now? :(

State run media, state run communications...... can we call it FASCISM yet??

[Seshmeister]

As I understand it Verizon and others have agreed to give their data over even though they didn't need to legally.

The technical shit on all of this is amazing. To record and store every phone call in the US compressed digitally takes 2.3 Exobytes. Thats 2.3 billion megabytes or in laymans terms 2.3 billion DVD quality porn films.

What's amazing about new technology is that to store that would cost the government just $500k a day which in the scheme of US defence spending is a tiny irrelevant amount of cash.

Cheers!

:gulp:

[ELVIS]

The U.S. military budget request by the Bush Administration for Fiscal Year 2007 is $462.7 (http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/archives/002238.php) billion...

[FORD]

You could feed every starving person in Africa AND provide health care for all of them with that kind of money.

Instead it goes to murder people.

God have mercy on us for allowing these bastards to exist :(

[DrMaddVibe]

Let Africa fend for themselves!

They don't need money.

[Seshmeister]

Originally posted by ELVIS
The U.S. military budget request by the Bush Administration for Fiscal Year 2007 is $462.7 (http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/archives/002238.php) billion...

That is just a stupid insane amount.

It's gonna end up fucking up your economy permanently.

[FORD]

Originally posted by DrMaddVibe
Let Africa fend for themselves!

They don't need money.

OK then..... you could provide health care for the 48% in THIS country who don't have it, with that money.

Now I suppose you'll find a reason to bitch about that too?

[Warham]

Originally posted by FORD
Well, considering what I just heard about Verizon, I'll probably be switching phone companies anyway. Seems their Vice President/Chief Counsel William P. Barr is an old BCE hack who was in Poppy's CIA and then followed him to the White House.

But it appears that Poppy's Carlyle Group owns Qwest, so what the fuck do you do now? :(

State run media, state run communications...... can we call it FASCISM yet??

Not yet. Bush still has to sign an executive order terminating the two-term limit for POTUS. THEN it'll be FASCISM! Oh yes, be afraid, my friend. Be VERY afraid.

[BigBadBrian]

Much ado about nothing.

Cell phones are RADIOS!!!!

Law enforcement has ALWAYS had the right to listen in on cell phone conversations.

Yes people, it's always been that way.

[FORD]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Much ado about nothing.

Cell phones are RADIOS!!!!

Law enforcement has ALWAYS had the right to listen in on cell phone conversations.

Yes people, it's always been that way.

They may have had the ability, but they do not have the RIGHT :mad:

[Seshmeister]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Much ado about nothing.

Cell phones are RADIOS!!!!

Law enforcement has ALWAYS had the right to listen in on cell phone conversations.

Yes people, it's always been that way.

My point was that they can listen in to any conversations you have in the area of your cell phone if it is switched on.

[Hardrock69]

One other thing...not all cell phones can be tracked location-wise....they only began building that technology into ALL cell phones a few years ago....early models from the late 90s do not have that "feature" built in...

[Seshmeister]

Who the fuck still has a late 90s cell phone?

I know you guys in the US have been a bit slow compared to Europe and Japan on this(we now have more cell phones than people), but surely everyone's phone is under 4 years old these days?

[Coyote]

Originally posted by Seshmeister
Who the fuck still has a late 90s cell phone?


ahem...

:o

[binnie]

They might as well just stick a barcode on our necks at birth.

That's a frightening picture.

And an unimaginable amount of money.

Maybe if the West didn't keep arming the rest of the world it wouldn't need to spend that kind of money "protecting" itself.