

Prices that AT&T, Verizon and Sprint Charge For Cellphone Wiretaps - pitdesi
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/04/03/these-are-the-prices-att-verizon-and-sprint-charge-for-cellphone-wiretaps/

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rdl
The most concerning thing to me is that "tower dumps" are routine enough to
have list pricing established. Any judge who would authorize that, in the
absence of a reasonable scheme to protect those other than the intended
target, has a different understanding of the Constitution than I do.

Presumably a tower dump is mainly to target the home/business premises of a
target who routinely uses multiple phones (throwaway burners, etc.). That is
maybe justifiable, but catching other people (who may or may not be related to
the target) merely for network proximity is pretty unreasonable. I could
totally see a fishing expedition where a crack spot is targeted.

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joshAg
depending on the wording of the warrant and previous case law, any information
found not directly relating to the specific target or anything found because
of that information could be inadmissible as evidence.

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read_wharf
Meanwhile there's the disruption to your life while you're being collaterally
investigated, until/if you _finally_ get a judge to say "Oh, right, we weren't
supposed to be investigating you. Our bad."

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joshAg
depending on how the warrant is worded and what specific law enforcement
branch and what specific division within that branch is doing the
investigation, there won't even be an investigation.

do you really think the white collar crimes unit for the fbi is really going
to even notice, let alone pass on info regarding a low level drug deal that
they catch as part of their multimillion dollar investigation?

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da02
An economist observed:

"If the U.S. Army cannot bring the Ft. Hood shooter to trial after 18 months,
you know the system is jammed already. Noise is your friend. The more data the
government collects, the more noise exists between you and an agency that
seeks convictions."

From: <http://lewrockwell.com/north/north1118.html>

~~~
evoxed
Interesting article. With access to a simply incredible amount of data, I
wonder exactly how many people are actually working to parse it for anything
other than specific inquiries...

Here is the reddit link for opting out of various people data aggregators
(after two clickthroughs/for anyone who skipped through the article):
[http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/j1mit/how_to_rem...](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/j1mit/how_to_remove_yourself_from_all_background_check/)

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pagekalisedown
I wonder what Google charges.

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evoxed
I'd like to know what the interaction is like and whether any of those
companies have an internal code to follow regarding who the "don't sell" their
services to. Given that there weren't any warrants, the must have something to
protect themselves or else I'm just lost.

(Aaand another reason I feel good about not having a cell phone.)

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mjwalshe
err as an ex phone company person this will be only for Law enforcement and
Security Services.

And if anyones trying to do a side deal floging data to crims,taboids FSB or
that cute Russian girl who befriended you in a bar the phone companies SD
division will come down on you lie a ton of bricks.

British Telecoms internal investigation division had a "Fearsome Reputation"
and I suspect ATT's is the same and I have certainly heard rumors about MCI
playing very hard ball.

~~~
rdl
The line between state security organs and "national champion corporations" or
government owned enterprises is pretty thin. There have been numerous cases of
government intelligence resources being used to spy on foreign business people
to help domestic businesses win deals.

The US is one of the new countries which doesn't do this (along with Canada
and the UK), at least to a great degree. In China, it is basically standard,
and even in France it has been widespread at least internationally.

~~~
mjwalshe
Yes there is that on the BBC there was a fascinating program about modern day
spying a couple of days ago they even had SIS and MI5 officers speaking abotu
their work.

I assume it might end up on BBC America saat some stage

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conductor
Knowing nothing about GSM internals, I wonder if it is possible to create an
application (Androind and/or IPhone) which will let you track the keys of the
GSM towers, whitelist them, and alert when they are changed/altered?

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peedy
There is something called a cellid which uniquely identifies a cellsite. Can
someone confirm if the Android/iPhone API tells you the current cellid ?

EDIT : Quick search indicates that the data is available.

~~~
stephengillie
Open Signal Maps allows you to find your cell tower on a Google Map. I believe
it gives you that information too.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.staircase3...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.staircase3.opensignal)

