Your iPhone works for the secret police

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/06/your_iphone_works_for_the_secret_police.html

by hype7 • 13 years ago

46 30 13 years ago

blogs.hbr.org

tswartz• 13 years ago

Comparing what the NSA is currently doing in the USA to what was going on in East Germany is a stretch. I hope we learn more about how the NSA is scaling their operation due to the absurd amount of data they have. In East Germany they had to use lots of people listening to every phone and apartment bugged conversation. That doesn't seem realistic for the NSA. Do they have software that is processing the data looking for keywords or phrases? That seems useless because an actual terrorist probably doesn't say 'bomb' on the phone.

hype72• 13 years ago

I think it might be helpful to read the article: "But as any internet entrepreneur will tell you, relying entirely on people makes scaling difficult. Technology, on the other hand, makes it much easier. And that means that in many respects, what has emerged today is almost more pernicious; because that same technology has effectively turned not just some, but every single person you communicate with using technology — your acquaintances, your colleagues, your family and your friends — into those equivalent informants."

alive-or-not• 13 years ago

Right, because the people in today USA are completely different then the people in East Germany 25 years ago. Information today is literally the ultimate power. "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely"

pessimizer• 13 years ago

Something devised 50 years ago might have looked for the word "bomb." These days, it would be self-training systems that even the operators would have little idea of what it was recognizing.

hga5• 13 years ago

These are indeed the end times; I quote, with approval, The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/06/civil-li...):

"Few Americans believe that they live in a police state; indeed many would be outraged at the suggestion. Yet the everyday fact that the police have the right to monitor the communications of all its citizens – in secret – is a classic hallmark of a state that fears freedom as well as championing it. Ironically, the Guardian's revelations were published 69 years to the day since US and British soldiers launched the D-day invasion of Europe. The young Americans who fought their way up the Normandy beaches rightly believed they were helping free the world from a tyranny. They did not think that they were making it safe for their own rulers to take such sweeping powers as these over their descendants."

Or in the acid wit of Iowahawk (https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/342683624216330242):

"I'm grateful to the American heroes who stormed Normandy and made NSA monitoring of this tweet possible."

youngerdryas4• 13 years ago

I am not sure you realize that UK citizens go to jail if they express unpopular opinions on twitter.

betterunix• 13 years ago

"Comparing what the NSA is currently doing in the USA to what was going on in East Germany is a stretch."

Well, let's try this: which agency, the NSA or the Stasi, does the following describe:

* Keeps records of who talks to whom

* Knows personal details of most citizens' lives

* Monitors the personal, business, and political communications of large numbers of citizens

* Operates in secrecy

* Has the cooperation of the nation's industry

* Collects more information that it can possibly process

* Claims to be working to protect the public

No, the NSA is not kidnapping people; that's the CIA's job. The NSA is a signals intelligence service. The Stasi's signals intelligence/surveillance system is what is relevant to conversations about the NSA, and there is nothing wrong or stretched about the comparison. Where the Stasi had informants, the NSA has Facebook. Where the Stasi had wiretaps, the NSA has room 641A.

youngerdryas4• 13 years ago

We need to teach more history to the youngsters.

rdegges6• 13 years ago

I never thought I'd end up pitching something I worked on in a Hacker News thread, but here it goes anyway:

I actually just finished building an MVP of a product business with a friend that we're launching later today: https://www.burnerphone.us

Essentially, we sell these pre-paid disposable cell phone kits that 'expire' after 30 days of usage (and come with unlimited talk and text, nationwide US coverage).

We actually built the thing with security in mind, specifically because of the incredible amount of information that's now gathered not only by phone companies, but by the government as well. Want to make a phone call that won't be personally associated with you, from telephone company phone records? If so -- you really need to use a separate device (a Burner Phone).

Anyhow, sorry for the plug in this thread, but thought it could lead to an interesting converstation.

awayand• 13 years ago

GREAT idea! I ordered 5 of these with my credit card...

rdegges6• 13 years ago

We're currently adding in BitCoin / PayPal support right now -- nothing is perfect, but this is sort of a MVP.

After payment is accepted, we wipe our database columns with any user information as well, basically making it as hard as possible to identify users.

dkroy• 13 years ago

That made me laugh, I didn't even think of the fact that you needed to use a credit card. I suppose you could get a prepaid card.

hga5• 13 years ago

We laugh, but from The Wall Street Journal today (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732429910457852...):

"U.S. Collects Vast Data Trove

"By SIOBHAN GORMAN, EVAN PEREZ and JANET HOOK

"WASHINGTON—The National Security Agency's monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency's activities."

hga5• 13 years ago

Errr, this sounds great as long as you limit your use to only one phone call or text message. Not long after that traffic analysis (what's enabled by capture of what sounds like the vast majority of the nation's telephone metadata as we gather is happening) will connect you to those you phone, making the apparent gains illusory.

rdegges6• 13 years ago

So, since the government is indeed collecting an enormous amount of data -- it definitely makes it 'harder' to stay truly anonymous -- but this is a much more anonymous solution than anything else as you are making it as difficult as possible:

- New phone numbers. - Different cell signal piggyback depending on where you're located. - 30 day cell tower location tracking / SMS storage / phone call storage -- so in the worst case scenario you've got 30 days of conversation / messages stored.

If an entity wanted to track YOU, they'd have to do voice analysis of every call in the country / region, look for specific writing patterns / keywords in your sms messages, and then try to match things up (this would be really difficult, even with lots of information to go from).

Anyhow, it's definitely not a perfect solution, but one that really helps protect privacy.

greenyoda2• 13 years ago

If you keep the phone turned off when you're not making calls and call from random locations in some big city, the GPS location data won't be very useful. For example, "this phone was used to make calls from a few scattered parks in Washington DC" doesn't really help to track down who leaked some item of classified information. Using the phone from your house or workplace even once could be a dead giveaway, so if you're security-conscious enough to want to have an untraceable phone, you would have to use it in the way I described.

footoverhand• 13 years ago

Your Burnerphone is an interesting idea, but how does it compare to buying a prepaid wireless phone from a brick and morter store with cash?

Can your phones be recycled? What carrier are you using?

rdegges6• 13 years ago

We're basically trying to compete with the prepaid wireless phones from physical locations. We think we're better because:

- You can order the product online without making a physical appearance anywhere.

- Many of the prepaid cell phones in physical stores come with the SIM chips activated -- so the phone's location has already been broadcasted to cell towers and is pre-registered, making it slightly less anonymous for the end user.

- We're going to be accepting bitcoin in the near future (we're finishing that integration now), so we hope to compete with cash purchases in that regard.

- You can recycle these phones like you would normal phones.

- We piggyback off a ton of different US carriers -- so as you move around you'll be swapping between various carriers in your region.

cdumler• 13 years ago

The entreprenuer in my heart really appreciates, and gives full kudos for, helping creating a product for the market. But, the ecological side of me just freaked out enough respond. Technological waste is a real issue.

Please consider a prominent and easy way to recycle these phones, whether re-use, recycle or repurpose. For instance, pre-paid, pre-printed, anonymous mailing to a recycle center.

Sincerely.

rdegges6• 13 years ago

We'll definitely be adding something like this in the near future -- we actually rushed to finish up our website yesterday due to all the press discussion about the NSA stuff -- we were planning to launch in a week with a much nicer website / support stuff in place.

Thank you for the comment, we completely agree.

youngerdryas4• 13 years ago

This could never happen on Android.

Terretta2• 13 years ago

Annoying link-bait title.

Given the iPhone's lack of fully integrated "Google Now" Apple seems notably less likely to be able to provide watchers with structured data that 'knows what you're doing before you do' than, say, an Android phone syncing with Google, or Blackberry phone with RIMM's cloud (in fact, we know RIMM made govt data pipe agreements).

The only mention of "iPhone" in the article is in the headline. Nothing in the article itself singles out Apple.

For today's TLDR crowd, the headline scanning takeaway is "damn, guess I better get any phone that's not an iPhone" when that's not the author's intent at all.

I'd consider this headline actually harmful because it's not the device that's doing anything to you or with your data. It's not Apple, it's not Android, and it's not even Google Now software, no matter how potentially scary that big data insight might be.

It's the corporations, the "all American alliance" he describes, that you sign ToS with, and the senators and representatives we elect to oversee the agencies that oversee them. Put the spotlight where it belongs. Put that in the headline.

hype72• 13 years ago

OK, I'm the article author, and I think that's great feedback. I didn't pick the title; originally it was "Rebuilding the Berlin Wall"… but editors will be editors :)

I was a little annoyed at the arbitrary change, but on the basis of your feedback, went back and asked the editor to change it. It's still not exactly what I wanted, but it does address some elements of what you've written above. The iPhone clickbait is out.

As a writer, honestly, it does get mighty exasperating when this happens. And, fwiw, you guys have all got insight into the messiness of the editorial/content process :)

-- james

Terretta2• 13 years ago

Thanks for remaking the sausage.

Your iPhone works for the secret police

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