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How To Tell If Your Cell Phone Is Bugged
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Dec 04, 2006 06:03 AM
from the your-shoe-is-ringing dept.
from the your-shoe-is-ringing dept.
Lauren Weinstein writes to point us to his essay on the realities of using an idle cell phone as a bug, as a recent story indicated the FBI may have done in a Mafia case. From the essay: "There is no magic in cell phones. From a transmitting standpoint, they are either on or off... It is also true that some phones can be remotely programmed by the carrier to mask or otherwise change their display and other behaviors in ways that could be used to fool the unwary user. However, this level of remote programmability is another feature that is not universal... But remember — no magic! When cell phones are transmitting — even as bugs — certain things are going to happen every time that the alert phone user can often notice."
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FBI Taps Cell Phone Microphones in Mafia Case 274 comments
cnet-declan writes "We already knew the FBI can secretly listen in to car conversations by activating microphones of systems like OnStar. A new Mafia court case suggests that the FBI can do the same thing to cell phones. The judge's opinion and some background information [pdf] are available for reading online. The most disturbing thing? According to the judge, the bug worked even if the phone appeared to be 'powered off.' Anyone up for an open-source handset already?" From the article: "This week, Judge Kaplan in the southern district of New York concluded that the 'roving bugs' were legally permitted to capture hundreds of hours of conversations because the FBI had obtained a court order and alternatives probably wouldn't work. The FBI's 'applications made a sufficient case for electronic surveillance,' Kaplan wrote. 'They indicated that alternative methods of investigation either had failed or were unlikely to produce results, in part because the subjects deliberately avoided government surveillance.'"
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How to tell (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How to tell (Score:5, Funny)
Signed,
Parent
Look at the color of the wires (Score:5, Funny)
Other colors are not defined by the standards, so if your phone has wires which are not green, nor red - you have a counterfeit phone.
Parent
Not a bug (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not a bug (Score:4, Funny)
--Robert Gates [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re:Not a bug (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a bug, it's the future
Parent
great advice (Score:5, Funny)
For example, when using a Palm Treo 650, the phone will crash and reset often, and without notice.
Easy way to detect a bugged phone (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Easy way to detect a bugged phone (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:*boggle* (Score:5, Informative)
The GSM radio wavelength is about 30cm which means that in effect all objects which affect the radio path, including the transmitter and LED receiver, are "blurry" in space to the scale of 30cm (this is an order of magnitude, not an exact value). The phone itself, and the distance from the LEDs, are much smaller than that. So the directionality of the radiation is nearly irrelevant to calculating how much is absorbed and transmitted.
In other words, contrary to the parent post, the LEDs attached to the phone will be effectively on the radio path to the base station, no matter where they are attached on the phone.
It's counterintuitive that you can have a radio signal between two small antennae at A and B, and something that's nearly in between but off by say 10cm affecting the signal between A and B, is though attracting the energy towards it (even bending the beam is possible). But that is exactly what happens. Waves are like that.
It's more complicated than that, however, because the LEDs are also in the "near field" - the region where there may be a non-radiating component to the oscillating EM field around the phone transmitter. In this region, the LEDs could, if they are constructed to do so, absorb energy from the near field, and, depending very much on the phone design, potentially do it without affecting the radiated signal.
Also, it is possible that they absorb some of the radiated energy but if they use very little power, not affect it very much.
So we can't easily say what effect the LEDs will have on the transmitted signal, but the parent's argument about having to be "exactly on the path" to the transmitter, as in a straight line, is not correct.
-- Jamie
Parent
No content (Score:5, Insightful)
er, tin-foil hat (Score:5, Interesting)
Hello,
Just as an experiment, I tried placing my cell phone into an anti-static mylar baggy and the signal went from 100% to 40% (or five bars to two). Repeating this with tin foil with a small opening to see the LCD (about 1cm^2) reduced the signal to 20% (or one bar).
I am wondering that if someone wants to have a private verbal conversation sans listeners on the cell phone, all they have to do is place their cell phone in metal box?
This would seem much more convenient than having to pull the battery out, as well as reduce wear and tear on the contacts or thin plastics of today's cell phones.
Perhaps someone who is a bit more familiar with electronics could explain whether or not a "tin foil hat" (or a metal box or foil bag, ala Enemy of the State) for a cell phone would work?
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Somewhere in a poorly lit dockyard... (Score:5, Funny)
Gangster 2. NO! Shh! Keep your voice down until you dial out — that thing could be bugged.
Phone. "This phone is not being used as a covert surveillance device. Please continue to arrange your morally and/or legally questionable activities as normal."
Gangster 1. Muh?!
Phone. "Please ignore this message."
Zing! (Score:5, Funny)
That doesn't work, here's why (Score:5, Interesting)
When I bought one with cash, just after I bought it, I received wrong number calls, but the people involved didn't seem to want to hang up like normal wrong number calls.
Them: "Is Mark there?"
Me: "I'm sorry, there's no Mark here, you must have a wrong number."
Them: "I'm sorry, are you sure you're not mark"
Me: "you have a wrong number"
Them: "Oh my mistake, thanks again erm Mr erm...." pauses to see if you'll complete the sentence.
This happened again and again and again, different scripts, but always a wrong number guy who just wouldn't go away. Until one day my wife answered and said my name.
Her: "No this is ???????'s phone"
After that I never received another wrong number call.
Now I put that down to random chance, since I'm not worth spying on. But then my wife got a new pre-pay mobile, again she paid cash, and sure enough she got the same pattern of calls. We were talking about it yesterday, when the phone rang, and it was woman this time, who again was a wrong number, but didn't seem to want to hang up.
Many different phone numbers used each time, we're building a list.
Parent
Re:That doesn't work, here's why (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:That doesn't work, here's why (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
The real answer to 'who are they'- Bill Collectors (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:The real answer to 'who are they'- Bill Collect (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm currently stationed overseas, and I got into a car accident while on leave in the States. The other party decided to sue for damages (I love living in America) and my insurance company played the "he's overseas serving the country, are you honestly going to force him to come back to deal with this?" card, the judge agreed, and delayed the trial until my tour's up, which at the time was more than two years.
My wife has been getting calls on her cell phone (she's still in the states) that go like this:
"Is binarytoaster there?" "...No, he's overseas." *click*
It's honestly that fast from the way she puts it - they just ask if I'm there, and upon getting that answer they just hang up. Never say who they are, never leave a number, nothing. Been going on for at least a few months now.
She was completely confused by why anyone would do this, as was I, until I remembered the lawsuit. So they might not be collectors, but they're still just as annoying.
Parent
Re:I'll try to record the conversations (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Start a pre-paid phone company.
2. With each new activation, call the new user 10 to 12 times making each call last at least 5 minutes.
3. User is forced to buy more minutes for the phone.
4. Profit!
Layne
Parent
Re:I'll try to record the conversations (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Disposable phones (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Disposable phones (Score:5, Funny)
It's easier said than done. There aren't as many payphones about as there used to be*, and a lot of those that are left require phone cards.
Then, when you do find a suitable one, how do you know it isn't bugged already?
Lastly, getting a roll of dimes from the just isn't that easy in most of the countries in the world. Of course, most of the world's payphones don't accept dimes either...
-- Steve
* The UK has a unique situation: while the number of payphones in the UK may have decreased, the number of British Telephone Boxes has remained about the same - they've just moved to more exotic locations in other countries. The same goes for British Police Boxes, except that their movements appear not to be limited to the first three dimensions.
Parent
Re:Old, old news (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but I cannot accept that anyone can live in Britain today and not commit any crimes. You've never driven over 70mph on a motorway? You've never put recyclable waste in your dustbin?
There are so many laws in Britain today that you're pretty much a criminal the instant you get out of bed; in fact, you're probably a criminal if you stay in bed all day too. The real problem is _too many laws_, not too many criminals; if the cops stopped chasing people for bullshit crimes with high-tech gadgetry they could get all the real criminals off the streets.
Parent
Re:Old, old news (Score:5, Interesting)
The calls I made from my mobile had the time of the call, my location and the phone number called recorded.
All the websites I visit, have the domain name recorded.
All the emails I sent have the time of sending and the receipient recorded.
When I pay by credit card, the location, time and amount of the transaction are recorded.
When I cycle into town, I go past about six cameras - I'm recorded by each one.
All of this information is available to the State without any form of judicial oversight. A policeman on a whim could keep a very close watch on my life.
So I'm not being paranoid here - this list *IS* the list of the monitoring conducted on all of us.
I've committed no crime. I'm totally innocent.
Why am I being monitored? why does the State have to keep records of who I talk to and when I talk to them and where I am when I talk to them? am I suspected of something? I'm not. So why? because I *might* do something? that's outrageous! and in fact it's proper tantamout to suspecting me of something - it is suspected that I *might* commit a crime, which is just a weaker version of we *do* suspect you comitted a crime.
What people don't realise is that although the State has always recorded plenty of information on us, the game has changed because of computers. Computers plus surveillance isn't just more of the same; it's something utterly new and *different*.
Parent