
“Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.” - f_salmon
http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/blog/maybe-the-most-orwellian-text-message-ever-sent
======
kybernetyk
German police have been doing this for some time already with anti-nazi
protesters: [https://www.eff.org/issues/mandatory-data-
retention/germany](https://www.eff.org/issues/mandatory-data-
retention/germany) (search for dresden)

And in a case of luxury car arsons: [http://www.businessinsider.com/berlin-
arson-cell-phones-2012...](http://www.businessinsider.com/berlin-arson-cell-
phones-2012-1)

So the only new thing here is that the protesters got notified.

~~~
ItendToDisagree
Anti-Nazi protestors? Or Nazi protestors? I'm confused by this, it was my
impressing that being a nazi (neo-nazi) sympathizer in Germany was illegal in
the first place. Seems like a weird group to be angry about if they are Anti-
Nazi protestors as the page claims.

Is that incorrect?

~~~
kybernetyk
Anti-Nazi.

There's some light(?) political right bias in some parts of the German police.

I'm not saying that german cops generally are nazi sympathisers but you're
more likely to meet a right leaning cop than a leftist one.

------
vitalique
That happened yesterday, and at least two major Ukrainian mobile operators
stated [1,2] that they have nothing to do with these SMS broadcasts and that
pirate base stations were probably used in the area of the disturbance.

[1] Kyivstar FB page:
[https://www.facebook.com/kyivstar](https://www.facebook.com/kyivstar)
(Ukrainian) [2] MTS Ukraine FB page:
[https://www.facebook.com/MTSUkraine](https://www.facebook.com/MTSUkraine)
(Ukrainian)

------
nodata
"Always leave a way out, unless you really want to find out how hard a man can
fight when he's nothing to lose." (The Wheel of Time)

The reddit thread has a lot of good comments actually:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1vtpa8/dear_subsc...](http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1vtpa8/dear_subscriber_you_are_registered_as_a/)

~~~
mrev19
that idea comes from art of war

~~~
micheljansen
Yep, from Sun Tzu's Art of War:

"When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe
too hard."

\--
[http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html](http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html)

I think this is also the first time I've heard it quoted in an appropriate
context, as opposed to business blabla.

~~~
hga
Also comes up in discussing the types of ground. "Death" or "desperate" ground
is where you fight at all costs, since otherwise the cost is death.

~~~
mrev19
unless you get saved by eagles

------
apostlion
It's amazing people don't understand this is an elaborate mass prank. Pirate
base stations have been present in the area since the disturbances began,
already being used for nefarious purposes before (SMS/money transfer fraud and
so on). Whoever operates these is a petty criminal, not a nefarious government
– if I'd have an opportunity to send thousands of protesters anything I want,
I'm sure I'd pull a prank like this as well.

~~~
eli
Base stations aren't cheap. I guess it's possible that some reasonably well-
funded and very sophisticated criminals have one lying around, but it really
seems like a stretch.

~~~
apostlion
The pirate station equipment is not so expensive, and in fact, petty phreakers
use it pretty frequently to do basic SMS frauds in heavily populated areas.
Maidan protesters have found themselves on a receiving end of false-station
SMS frauds since November, so we know for a _fact_ that criminals do operate
them.

The government could as well, of course, but I'm going by an Occam razor here.

------
gtaylor
Setting aside the validity debate for a moment, this is unsettling to me (as a
US citizen) in that we all know the US has the ability to use their monitoring
data to do this very thing (and much more), so should they choose. The big
difference is that the Ukranian government yanked too many civil liberties and
rights too soon instead of the gradual removal that we've got going on over
here.

As you watch this unfold (fellow US citizens), remember that we are not so far
removed from what you are seeing streamed your way. I hope that spooks you as
much as it spooks me.

------
ck2
Well at least they notify first.

US police would just start beating you and throwing you into pens, if you are
lucky you won't get coated in pepper spray or hit by a sound cannon.

Watch the DNC and RNC conventions next year for examples with their multi-
million dollar taxpayer funded "security".

But I guess this indicates police everywhere can now just record the phone
numbers of everyone in the area to mark people for "watching".

~~~
route66
> police everywhere can now just record the phone numbers

I remember that the dutch police some years ago already used so called "sms-
bombs" to contact mobile phone subscribers that were around a crime scene
months before.

It is simply inherent in the technology. You wear a mobile phone? (not even
_smart_ ) So you are traceable with all consequences.

The solution? In any case not technical in nature. We will see.

~~~
f_salmon
There is only 1 real solution:

Put your cell phone in flight mode and use it exclusively as a PDA/music
player/etc.

Let people contact you on a landline and email - more than enough.

~~~
XorNot
I'm pretty sure this doesn't work. i.e. even in flight mode, the baseband
processor is still powered and will passively listen for cell-tower requests,
so presumably it can still be told to wake up?

I know its true of phones that are "off" without the battery removed - stands
to reason it applies in flight mode too.

~~~
rcxdude
I've not seen any evidence this is the case without explicit tampering with
the phone (i.e. installing spyware which then fakes the 'off' state in
software).

~~~
3pt14159
It's in the patriot act that the government is allowed to do it, so I'd
imagine it is possible.

------
malka
The tone of this message reminds me of the game Paranoia[0]

[0][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-
playing_game)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_\(role-playing_game\))

~~~
VLM
The only thing that sucks about Paranoia isn't even the games fault, as the
wikipedia claims, when written in the 80s it was full of dark humor and tongue
in cheek jokes, but American culture has changed so much since the game was
invented that it now reads more like a DHS employee manual or Fatherland
Security mission statement or whatever.

It should be required reading for kids, maybe college kids. See kids, this RPG
is how things are now WRT security, but a generation or two ago, it was merely
a punchline. Americans haven't always been cowards.

~~~
midas007
Jim Morrison said it best (screaming):

"You're all a bunch of fucking slaves." ...

"Maybe you like being pushed around." ...

"Maybe you love getting your face stuck in the shit." ...

"How long is it going to last?"

~~~
digitalengineer
If we're going in that direction, how about Rage Against the Machine?
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWXazVhlyxQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWXazVhlyxQ)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Or to pivot a bit toward the current state of affairs worldwide, Random is
Resistance - War on Error.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE6RtzwVdHI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE6RtzwVdHI)

------
calgoo
We have similar anti demonstration laws in Spain. We have to ask for
permission from the government to demonstrate against the government. If you
don't have the signed paper, you can be thrown in jail or get huge fines. This
shit is getting scary, as they are slowly removing our rights. Only difference
now is that they don't really hide it anymore as they don't care.

------
f_salmon
Combine this story with this one [0] and guess what that means for the future
of the US.

[0] [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/04/nsa-storing-
cel...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/04/nsa-storing-cell-phone-
records-daily-snowden)

------
sdfjkl
I wonder if this doesn't encourage people. I mean, they're unhappy with an
increasingly oppressive government - won't showing them just how oppressive it
can be just tell them they're doing the right thing here?

This would be doubly interesting if the message really came from spoofed base
stations as apostlion claims.

~~~
weland
It will show them just how oppressive it is. After enough killings and
beatings, however, they will not be so sure they're doing the right thing
here.

Source: lived in a totalitarian state. The guys who can kill and maim without
being held responsible have little reason to fear the masses, as long as they
can put up enough violence to contain them.

------
spindritf
This is just a cellular version of a guy with a megaphone calling on people to
disperse. BTS is the megaphone.

The problem is not in the technology. It isn't even all that useful to the
regime. They already know where the protesters are. The problem, as always, is
in the baton they hold in the other hand.

~~~
higherpurpose
I disagree. When they use a megaphone they don't _know_ who the people are, as
they are telling them to disperse. Now they have exact lists of who
participated. Every person's _name_ is in that list. They can target them
individually one by one, home by home, if the revolution fails to overthrow
the government, now.

Also, when you build authoritarian systems, they are going to be used by
authoritarians, sooner or later. It's like saying it's ok to have a censorship
infrastructure, like the Great Firewall, as long as it's not owned by the
people with "batons in their hands", sort of speak.

Yeah, except that once you have a system that is an authoritarian's dream, it
seems pretty damn hard to stop people like that from abusing it. And
ultimately, you can only stop them with revolutions - _violent_ revolutions,
in most cases. I'd rather people wouldn't have to go that far to _not be
oppressed by their government_.

~~~
spindritf
_When they use a megaphone they don 't know who the people are_

Of course they do. Communists had been kicking people out of universities,
withholding passports from protesters, and organizing mass internments back in
the 80s and before.

They'd take pictures and ask around the opposition circles. Or arrest a few
people and make them give up the rest. Not to mention willing, paid, or
coerced informers planted in the invigilated organizations. And you can bet
many people working for security forces in Ukraine today remember those times
and techniques well.

There have been authoritarian regimes as far back as written history goes. We
here like the tech angle, but let's not attach too much weight to it. It's a
great story, I upvoted, but technology is not crucial.

~~~
ctdonath
That something is possible does not detract from the weight of making it
orders of magnitude easier. Noting participants and tracking them down later
has always worked ... but tech verging on applying those actions classic
actions automatically and instantly is very significant. Used to be it could
take days/weeks/months to "get" some of the participants; now we're not far
(if not already there) from correlating cellphone tracking, face recognition,
etc to automatically freeze their funds (credit/debit included), suspend
driver's licenses, issue arrest or "person of interest" warrants, and
otherwise disrupt & hinder the bulk of participants before they even leave the
protest site ... maybe not outright arrest & prosecution, but pushing back
hard with little/no human involvement.

------
dzhiurgis
It would be interesting to conduct a survey whether people agree to 'dissent
detection by use of technology'.

I wonder how opinions between laymen, politicians or religious people would
differ. I think the toughest part would be ensuring survey is not too
suggestive and respondents are not lying.

------
optimiz3
Does this make sense tactically?

Consequence 1: Protesters believe they are marked for the gulags, and must go
"all the way".

Option 2: Don't tell the protesters, but mark them for the gulags. Round them
up at night when they are less likely to mount a response.

------
genericuser
So basically leave your cell phone at home, if you plan on being near a
protest especially if you are going to be participating?

Cameras that are not attached to phones I suppose will become more popular at
protests anywhere such a system is in place.

------
gerbal
_" To a surrounded enemy, you must leave a way of escape"_

* Sun Tzu(544-496 BC), The art of war.

>This does not mean that the enemy is to be allowed to escape. The object, as
Tu Mu puts it, is "to make him believe that there is a road to safety, and
thus prevent his fighting with the courage of despair." Tu Mu adds pleasantly:
"After that, you may crush him."

------
ilbe
Ukraine is a democracy. Why not vote for the other guy next time? How does it
make sense to go out and burn and break things instead.

~~~
eswat
Because it isn’t really a democracy; the amount of corruption hasn’t really
changed at all since The Orange Revolution[1].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Revolution](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Revolution)

~~~
ilbe
From that very article, "Yushchenko was declared the official winner and with
his inauguration on 23 January 2005 in Kiev, the Orange Revolution ended."
Democracy worked.

~~~
crpatino
I suppose you must come from a country where rampant corruption is the norm to
understand what "declared the official winner" actually means.

------
hawkharris
For those who want to learn about this issue through an investigative news
story instead of one of Vice's opinion pieces:

[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/21/ukraine-
prot...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/21/ukraine-protesters-
being-spied-on-cell-phones/)

------
film42
Not to take away from the story, because it's downright awful, but in Ukraine,
most phones use pay as you go burner sims. That's what I used when I went
there. I picked a sim card up for $1.

My point is that fortunately, most of those phones are not tied to you and
your social security number like phones in America.

~~~
slug
Changing SIMs might be useless, since the carrier can track phones by their
unique IMEI (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imei](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imei) ) and
when you use another SIM on the same phone to talk/chat to your friends, 'gov
sigint' can use that information to get to you.

------
swombat
... coming to a united kingdom or state near you soon!

Edited: so soon that it's already happened:
[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/12/massive-domestic-
mo...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/12/massive-domestic-monitorning/)

------
hidden-markov
Hey guys. For those concerned, please support ukrainians, Euromaidan is in
strong need for financial donations
[http://www.helpeuromaidan.info/donate](http://www.helpeuromaidan.info/donate)

------
sveme
There is an upshot to this and the (over-)reliance of the surveillance state
on technology - leave your cell phone at home when going to a protest or riot
and never be suspected of being a participant in the first place.

------
overhope
Isn't some of the tracking of cellphone tower data part of the reason how
Adrian Hernandez was caught?

------
beaker52
This makes me want to get my Mass Disturbance on.

