“Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”

http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/blog/maybe-the-most-orwellian-text-message-ever-sent

by f_salmon • 13 years ago

297 101 13 years ago

motherboard.vice.com

f_salmon2• 13 years ago

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...

malka• 13 years ago

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

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

VLM• 13 years ago

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.

TeMPOraL2• 13 years ago

"first published in 1984" - such a nice coincidence...

midas0072• 13 years ago

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?"

Ygg2• 13 years ago

That reminded of a quote:

"Anyone in the United States today, who isn't paranoid, must be crazy"

leoc• 13 years ago

What is your level of clearance, citizen?

ck23• 13 years ago

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".

jasonlingx• 13 years ago

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

Combined with the "meta-data" collected by the NSA, they can easily probalistically identify the core members of any dissident group to focus their national security efforts on.

route66• 13 years ago

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_salmon2• 13 years ago

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.

slashdotaccount• 13 years ago

My friend (I don't know him in person, we work together remotely) told me that he has 3 cell phones: one at home, one at the work-place and one always turned-off in his car (for emergency). He doesn't wear a cell phone with him. When someone wants to contact him he/she calls him on one of his home/work phones judging from the day time, if he doesn't answer the call he calls back when he reaches home/work place and sees unanswered calls.

Two years ago when he told me this I thought he is a tinfoil-hat paranoid person but now I know he is right.

free652• 13 years ago

Get a burner phone, even from a different country. I have a Russian and French sim cards and keep your phone off unless you really need to make a call.

higherpurpose3• 13 years ago

It can be technical in nature, but the society needs to request it from the carriers and also the government to allow them to have such high security in place, and not allow them to wiretap and have access to everything. When the government says "but we need access to everything to catch a criminal". The society must respond "Oh yeah? Well screw you - I think my privacy is more important, and I want better end-to-end security for my conversations and metadata".

The solution can be political, too, and it would certainly help, but I think it's a lot less sustainable from government to government.

streetnigga3• 13 years ago

It was a post-notification that used historical geo-information like who was in a particular cell tower's coverage area. It only came out before the law enacted to counter what is going on kicked in. A man was shot and killed a few hours ago by Kiev police[1]. Now an APC is deployed[2] while both police[3] and protestors[4] trade Molotovs.

Here is a live feed of the scene, which is essentially an on-going street battle now[5].

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BelRC9RCUAAbRNZ.png [2] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BelT6nzCcAAWytp.jpg [3] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BeljSy1CMAANJFo.jpg [4] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BelVNWSCQAAr1l-.jpg [5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrZcAsPKK74

edit: Video of the police scuffling with citizens in the street during the man's shooting then dragging his body away, along with an interview with the man that filmed it was submitted and published by the BBC[1].

[1] http://youtu.be/MvC6-OzVM_I

deletes• 13 years ago

Wow, currently there are fires made by protesters. Not sure if the police is on the other side receiving the smoke from the fire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrZcAsPKK74

adobriyan• 13 years ago

Well at least they notify first.

This comes from Soviet Union's militia mentality that people aren't enemies. It already changes as Ukraine (and other former republics) fully converges to democracy.

Xylakant• 13 years ago

Two people were shot by the police yesterday, warned or not.

Shivetya• 13 years ago

I do not seem to recall reading stories about mass incarcerations at OWS or similar pseudo-protest spots.

I do agree that the conventions should not be afforded public protection, however those two conventions are an extension of the ruling party. The one percent are more than willing to have us foot their bills.

dictum2• 13 years ago

For those who (like me, until recently) don't know about this amazing feature of democracy in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone

Trufa• 13 years ago

I'm sorry, but it's cute when Americans think they have it worse.

bananacurve• 13 years ago

It is not that they really think it is worse, it is just easy to get up votes by claiming they are.

ck23• 13 years ago

I think it's "cute" when people in other countries can actually fight the police.

If there was even the smallest "attack" on police in the US, every person at the riot would be dead, beaten and imprisoned, or hunted down, which is why this never happens fortunately.

ihsw• 13 years ago

The fear is that the rate at which escalation occurs is tightening significantly, especially with regards to the mobilization of a civilian populace.

It stands to reason that the rate at which escalation occurs directly correlates with the usage of violence by a government, and that the correlation is with the rate of escalation rather than the maximum level of tension.

Or, more to the point, the level of violence applied by a government depends on how quickly shit hits the fan rather than how badly of a mess there is.

If shit hits the fan in America, it will hit it very quickly.

jedbrown• 13 years ago

Arresting everyone is expensive and requires lots of people on the ground. This is worse because it instantly marks every participant (that brought a cell phone), and there's no telling how those people will be discriminated against in the future. It allows consolidation of power in a smaller minority than physical responses and provides less visceral imagery for the populace to be outraged over.

McCoy_Pauley• 13 years ago

I know! In the US you have "free speech" zones. You can get fenced in and say whatever you like. How is that any better? We have governments that are entrenched and don't want to change. They use their powers and then the majority of people are shocked when they find out.

I don't think the world has changed much since WWII, just that the crimes are more nuanced and better hidden.

apostlion4• 13 years ago

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.

sdfjkl2• 13 years ago

Do you have any sources for that claim?

gtaylor2• 13 years ago

A healthy sense of skepticism is helpful in cases like this (both ways). Do you have a source to share to show how this specific instance was a prank? I wouldn't put anything past the Ukranian government now, and they could have just as easily sent the message themselves.

apostlion4• 13 years ago

This specific instance might or might not have been. I'm just telling you that the pirate base stations have been operating in the Maidan area and have been used for nefarious purposes since November at least. Knowing some of the petty phreaking criminals that do stuff like this, I assumed that it's much more likely to be a prank.

streetnigga3• 13 years ago

The fatal flaw is that you have to believe they would stop trying to make money in order to partake in a profitless operation that has military attention.

Aside from that, sure why not? Prank.

apostlion4• 13 years ago

What do you mean by “military attention”?

ctdonath4• 13 years ago

The only valid angle to your theory is that the government may very well not bother sending such a text - they'd just register the participants and arrest them later.

It's not the message that's the concern, it's knowing who to send the message to.

eli• 13 years ago

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.

nitrogen• 13 years ago

http://openbts.org/

apostlion4• 13 years ago

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.

dzhiurgis• 13 years ago

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.

kybernetyk2• 13 years ago

German police have been doing this for some time already with anti-nazi protesters: 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...

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

ItendToDisagree2• 13 years ago

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?

kybernetyk2• 13 years ago

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.

sdfjkl2• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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.

gtaylor2• 13 years ago

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.

spindritf2• 13 years ago

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.

higherpurpose3• 13 years ago

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.

spindritf2• 13 years ago

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.

ctdonath4• 13 years ago

It's not an issue of where the protesters are, it's who the protesters are.

I'm getting increasingly concerned that (USA in particular) police focus on staying out of the way and, so long as things don't escalate much, letting the situation run its course ... while documenting the participants by any means, so they can be individually & quietly apprehended & prosecuted later. Cell phone metadata, face recognition from video recordings, license plates, etc - all can be applied to identify who was involved, accusing them of all sorts of crimes just for being present if not for particular documented transgressions.

Much easier to apply the baton later when the mob can be handled as lone individuals. Gotta know who though, and that's not hard now.

evan_• 13 years ago

while documenting the participants by any means, so they can be individually & quietly apprehended & prosecuted later.

Has this happened?

hawkharris• 13 years ago

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...

calgoo• 13 years ago

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.

genericuser• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

"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."

vitalique• 13 years ago

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

beaker52• 13 years ago

This makes me want to get my Mass Disturbance on.

optimiz3• 13 years ago

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.

nodata2• 13 years ago

"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...

mrev192• 13 years ago

that idea comes from art of war

micheljansen• 13 years ago

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

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

sveme• 13 years ago

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.

film42• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

Changing SIMs might be useless, since the carrier can track phones by their unique 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.

ilbe2• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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

ilbe2• 13 years ago

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.

overhope• 13 years ago

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

hidden-markov• 13 years ago

Hey guys. For those concerned, please support ukrainians, Euromaidan is in strong need for financial donations http://www.helpeuromaidan.info/donate

swombat• 13 years ago

... 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...

“Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.”

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