Malte Spitz: Your phone company is watching

Malte Spitz: Your phone company is watching

For those unfamiliar either with who Malte Spitz is or what your smartphone/service providers are truly capable of doing.. you need to see his TED talk video below.

Synopsis for those who can't watch videos;

German Green politician Malte Spitz went to court to obtain the information that his cell phone operator, Deutsche Telekom, gathered (and kept) about his activity. The results astonished him. Over the course of six months, they had tracked his geographical location and what he was doing with his phone more than 35,000 times. Working with the German newspaper Die Zeit, an infographic was created that shows Spitz's activity across an interactive timeline, combined DT's geolocation data with information relating to his life as a politician, such as Twitter feeds, blog entries and website. By pushing the play button, viewers can set off on a detail-rich trip through six months of his life. And more, because he keeps asking the telecom company for his most recent data.

Spitz, a member of the Executive Committee of the German Green Party, is responsible for media and new-media policies, civil liberties and privacy issues.

TED Talk video;



It is amazing how many people are ready to pay for devices to give up their private information thinking that it is not important and forgetting that THE CONTROL begins with the knowledge.

"THE BIG BROTHER needs you to think that IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH." George Orwell, 1984

“Those who would give up ESSENTIAL LIBERTY to purchase a little TEMPORARY SAFETY, deserve neither and will lose both.” Benjamin Franklin.


Malte Spitz blog;

www.malte-spitz.de...

I'm baffled that this topic didn't generate any kind of dialogue....are people that naive or blase or both about their personal information i.e. individual data/habits being recorded and stored to be data mined for corporate gain ?

Maybe it would help if I added additional information to the topic...

Here's an article from the past year explaining how a developer discovered some unique software that the user has no access to or control of;

An Android developer recently discovered a clandestine application called Carrier IQ built into most smartphones that doesn't just track your location; it secretly records your keystrokes, and there's nothing you can do about it. Is it time to put on a tinfoil hat? That depends on how you feel about privacy.

Source


Here's another piece from the Wall Street Journal;

Your apps are watching you

Damn near every app requires internet access. Whatcha gonna do? You think its just smart phones? And payphones are basically gone now.....

reply to post by phroziac



That's a defeatist attitude...there's lots that can be done, an internet connection shouldn't equate to making your data available to others;

1 - Inform the public of the types of software and it's capabilities.

2 - Petition government and corporations to limit the amount of data that can be obtained and used by them.

3 - Governments and corporations change laws and policies/tactics accordingly.

This is something I've thought a lot about, ever since phones got cameras, and seeing this topic after 5 years of reading ATS without ever joining has finally inspired me to create an account.

Just about everyone, including myself, owns a smartphone, even if you don't your phone still probably has GPS, a microphone and at least 1 camera.

Every app you download can potentially access your microphones and cameras and steal your contacts. It's been proven that an unsafe app can make it past AppStore and Google Play Store approval, which can download new code that hasn't been reviewed, and do basically anything the developer wants it to do.

I wonder how many of the top 25 apps have this ability and can download new code to all or specific peoples phones to access our mics, cameras etc. and if anyone ever started to look into it they'd know and delete the code from the devices for as long as needed and just redownload it. There's no way we can prove it, and no way we can stop it.

this is exactly what he was talking about...

"Everyone Who Attended OWS With a Cell Phone Had Their Identity Logged, Says Security Expert"

While we in the civil liberties community disagree strongly with private investigator Steven Rambam's admonition to "Get Over It," after listening to him describe electronic surveillance powers it's hard to disagree with the first part of the title of his talk: "Privacy Is Dead." (Part two of the talk is below.)

"Where you work, what your salary is, your criminal history, all the lawsuits you've been involved in, real property...everything you've ever purchased, everywhere you've ever been...Your information is worth money. Your privacy today isn't being invaded by big brother -- it's being invaded by big marketer," he told an audience of hackers and privacy activists at HOPE 9 in New York during the summer of 2012.

Lots of the talk is about big corporations and their insatiable hunger for data about all of us, but Ramdam also addresses government spying:

One of the biggest changes is the ability to track your physical location. I'm sorry I came in at the end of the previous talk. I heard them talk about surveying cell phones with a drone, in a wide area -- this is something that is done routinely now. [Note: Is that what these microwave antennas were used for at Occupy Wall Street in mid September?] I can tell you that everybody that attended an Occupy Wall Street protest, and didn't turn their cell phone off, or put it -- and sometimes even if they did -- the identity of that cell phone has been logged, and everybody who was at that demonstration, whether they were arrested, not arrested, whether their photos were ID'd, whether an informant pointed them out, it's known they were there anyway. This is routine.

I can tell you that if you go into any police station right now, the first thing they do is tell you, "Oh I'm sorry you're not allowed to bring a cell phone in there. We'll hold it for you." Not a joke. And by the way it's a legitimate investigatory technique. But cell phones are now the little snitch in your pocket. Cell phones tell me where you are, what you do, who you talk to, everbody you associate with. Cell phone tells me [sic] intimate details of your life and character, including: Were you at a demonstration? Did you attend a mosque? Did you demonstrate in front of an abortion clinic? Did you get an abortion?

Watch to hear more on drones and open source intelligence. Part two of Rambam's talk:

reply to post by 1825114

Great contribution to the thread!

I've started watching the presentation but I can't finish it at the moment... what I have seen, fits perfectly into the context of this thread! I can't wait to watch it in it's entirety!

This is why I don't own a cell phone - any kind of cell phone. I do use a home laptop but everything outgoing is double encrypted so the ISP don't know what I'm up to. I can even use it to make phone calls if I want with free apps. LOL

reply to post by JohnPhoenix


Do you use TOR? Which apps do you use for calls...are you positive the producers of the apps aren't tracking the information? These days more than ever, I use the "nothing in this world is free" mentality and appears to be working for me.

Originally posted by Ericthenewbie
reply to post by JohnPhoenix

 

Do you use TOR? Which apps do you use for calls...are you positive the producers of the apps aren't tracking the information? These days more than ever, I use the "nothing in this world is free" mentality and appears to be working for me.

I have used each of these three to make phone calls. Mind you you don't have a lot of time on these calls, but it works

freebies.about.com...

I do use the Tor Browser Bundle with Hppts Everywhere installed and after Tor is started I use a free VPN called VPNDirect Lite version. You have to pick the server that's not "Premium". There is also Spotflux VPN. Both have unlimited bandwudth, fast speeds but Spotflux doesn't do torrents and VPNDirect does. Both don't keep logs. VPNDirect also has paid service, but the free Lite version works fine for me. At this point, after having https, tor and the Vpn connected, if anyone gets any data it will be encrypted and or so far removed from my IP that they it's not an issue. That said, i do only use apps i feel i can trust.

It really comes down to taking the plunge when trying these services - you don't know a paid VPN is lying to you any more than you know a free VPN is lying to you. You have to read all the privacy policies, talk to users to get opinions You have to trust someone sometimes and hope you did your homework well.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix



Thanks for sharing, I'll definitely be looking into some of the options you mentioned!