DHS Says Cellular Outage Reporting is Terrorist Blueprint 421
Tuxedo Jack writes "U.S. landline telephone companies have to file public reports when their networks have major outages, so you would think the same would hold true for cellular providers and ISPs, right? Not if the Department of Homeland Security gets its way. CNN/AP reports that the DHS wants to make cellphone outage reports secret, claiming that they could be used as 'blueprints for terrorists.' I don't know about you, but I'd kinda like to see public disclosure on what happened if my cellphone/Internet access is down for an extended period."
I work for a wireless carrier (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I'm tired of losing rights.... (Score:2, Informative)
John Kerry voted for that Patriot Act. So it would seem the US of A is fucked no matter who wins the upcoming election.
Re:I'm tired of losing rights.... (Score:4, Informative)
While voting for it was pretty much indefensible, only 1 (Feingold) out of 100 senators voted against it and it was passed only a month and a half after 9/11. Feingold may have been the only one who actually read the thing.
Re:Claiming "terror" to justify other things... (Score:4, Informative)
For a little studying and $12 you can get your technician's license which affords you a lot of bandwidth above 50MHz. Check ww.arrl.org for your nearest radio club and get in touch with someone.
KD5ZEF
Re:Claiming "terror" to justify other things... (Score:5, Informative)
more industry protectionism on the way (Score:5, Informative)
People in Washington and elsewhere have noticed that terrorists use the internet in much the same way they do. They point to web sites and even combat games used as "online training camps".
Words like that are usually followed by bombs and at least one person [talkleft.com] has been to jail over it already [samiomar.com] and speech has not been free everywhere forever [prisonplanet.com]. The EFF has a nice list of sites already shut down [eff.org].
More stupid laws can't be far behind a propaganda ramp up like that. The only way to implement the censorship that would be to continue to centralize telecommunications further. The only way to kill free speech is to kill free enterprise.
The pattern is clear. The government is augmenting it's own power by proping up favorites in industry. It's so unAmerican that I want to throw up.
Re:We've gone way beyond 'ridiculous' now. (Score:2, Informative)
The UK managed to deal with the IRA and didn't strip all manner of their citizen's rights away in doing so.
It's the whole Franklin quote again "those who would trade security for freedom deserve neither"
I genuinely have no view on the rights or wrongs of who rules Northern Ireland, but am glad that fewer big bombs are going off now than in the past over there.
Re:I'm tired of losing rights.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Claiming "terror" to justify other things... (Score:4, Informative)
One thing to take into consideration, is that if there was a struggle in the cockpit, and the aircraft went out of control, it is quite likely that pieces were ripped from the aircraft by the extreme loads placed on the airframe. An airliner is no fighter jet, one can rip the wings, horizontal/vertical stabilizers off quite easily under extreme maneuvers/speed, or in an uncontrolled dive. As far as accounting for the debris field being so far away, the aircraft could have sustained damage, but actually travelled some distance before impact, as we're talking starting at an altitude of around 30,000-35,000 ft, which means that the aircraft could have been in a fairly steep dive, losing more and more pieces, and still cover 8 miles ground distance. Although not an A&P (Airframe and Powerplant) mechanic or crash investigator, I am a retired senior avionics technician, and have helped in crash investigations before, including black-box voice/data extraction from damaged recorders, and have also worked helping to repair crashed aircraft that were salvageable, so have some experience from which to speak.
Strat
Re:I'm tired of losing rights.... (Score:3, Informative)
RTFA! Please just RTFA! (Score:5, Informative)
The brunt of the argument is that
DHS is not concerned about "the network is currently down" notifications being "blueprints for terrorists". DHS is concerned about the ones like this:
That's what the DHS means by "blueprints for terrorists" - they're concerned that the level of detail in the fault analysis would be enough for someone to cause an outage on purpose, thus preventing people calling in or out of that mobile coverage area.
So please just read the damned article before harping on about "how could a network outage possibly benefit a terrorist"?
As it stands, a network outage could be of great benefit to terrorists, if they can cause the outage at will.
TRANSMISSION ENDS
FCC Links (Score:2, Informative)
The Department of Habitual Stupidity's (DHS's) recommendation of Security through Obscurity is absurd. It only serves to protect cellular providers from having their level of incompetence revealed to the customers, potential customers, and shareholders. This secrecy will compromise national security by allowing companies to continue to do sloppy engineering and maintenence of important communications infrastructure. Instead, all of the reports should be made VERY public, including searches on the FCC site listing the total minutes of downtime and number of affected customers by company within an area. This will allow stockholders and customers to favor more robust systems. As for the vulnerable parts of the system that might be of interest to terrorists, they are rather hard to keep secret as they tower 200 feet above the landscape: the main towers that the smaller cells uplink to.
Re:Claiming "terror" to justify other things... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, hooo-kay then, how did she activate it without her credit card, which was presumably back in her purse as well?
This is the problem with many conspiracy theories--they ask such simple, obvious questions, that clearly point to no rational explanation besides conspiracy.
Er, no. First of all, you're begging the question of whether or not the stewardess in question actually had no access to her credit card. How about this--if I were a steward(ess), I'd realize that carrying a purse or backpack while I worked was impractical. I'd also realize that I was travelling all over the country, and that I might end up staying in a strange city on any given night (weather diversion, mechanical trouble, etc.). Lastly, I might realize that my purse/bag/backpack could be stolen while I'm off at the other end of the plane, and I might not know about it until after the passengers were long gone.
What would I do in such a situation? I'd stuff my driver's license, a credit card, and (especially for international flights) my passport into the pocket of my uniform where they would be easy for me to keep track of. I wouldn't carry my phone on me, because a)it's bulkier than the cards, and b)I'm not allowed to use it on the plane anyway.
For that matter, the stewardess could have just borrowed a card from someone seated near the phones. If the plane I was on was hijacked, I wouldn't begrudge someone a few minutes of toll charges.
The question of debris is addressed by a well-written sibling post. Briefly, a struggle for control in the cockpit could easily result in deliberate or accidental rapid maneouvres that result in greater-than-design stresses on the airframe. Consequently, bits shake loose. If you stomp on the rudder pedal of an airliner while flying at anything close to cruising speed, you're going to rip stuff off. (Think about what would happen to your car if you turned the steering wheel abruptly all the way to the right while on the Interstate.)
If those are the best of the 'hundred unanswered questions' and 'strange incongruities', then I'm afraid it's a pretty weak conspiracy. Hint: lack of information does not necessarily mean conspiracy--sometimes it just means that we can't get all of the information.
Re:Claiming "terror" to justify other things... (Score:2, Informative)
Not in any practical sense. The only way would be to use the cannon, and it would be a very difficult shot. Besides, one other thing to take into account, is the likelyhood that targeting a wing would result in an explosion, as the wings are full of fuel. A missile will either target radar-center, or an engine, depending on missile guidance type. Given the type/size of warheads used, (and the unarmored nature of civilian aircraft) a missile strike would most likely result in a fireball. Not to say it's not possible, just not likely, and extremely difficult to pull off even under ideal conditions, IMHO.
Strat