Anti-Spying Phone Pouches Offered To EU Lawmakers For Trip To Hungary

An anonymous reader shares a report: Members of the European Parliament were offered special pouches to protect digital devices from espionage and tampering for a visit to Hungary this week, a sign of rising spying fears within Europe.

Five lawmakers from the Parliament's civil liberties committee traveled to Hungary on Monday for a three-day visit to inspect the EU member country's progress on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights.

One lawmaker on the trip confirmed to POLITICO that the Parliament officials joining the delegation were offered Faraday bags -- special metal-lined pouches that block electromagnetic signals -- by the Parliament's services and were also advised to be cautious about using public Wi-Fi networks or charging facilities.

But won't that interfere

[taustin]

with the mandatory back doors? I mean, really, socialist paradise Europe would never implement one rule for the sheeple, and another for themselves, would they? Would they?

Re:

[taustin]

Fucking idiots, who never would have had this problem if they had any morals in the first place.

Or brains. the most amoral person in the world can be smart enough to see the self interest.

Re:But won't that interfere

[test321]

News is about the EU Parliament. The Parliament has not yet approved backdoors for anyone. It was the Commission that had a proposal about backdoors two weeks ago. I will still take a lot of time to reach Parliament for discussion.

Re:

[taustin]

But they will be told by their "experts" that it's the most important thing in the entire universe that they be able to break into anyone's phone to look at their naked selfies, and "WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!!"

And, being politicians, they will be inclined to listen.

You know I'm right.

Re:

[test321]

Under the usual procedure, members of the civil society will also present their opinions. This should include the free software activists.

being politicians

22% of MEP had a PhD. 17% previously had a scientific occupation, 12% were previously senior executive in the private sector, 7% were teachers, 5% CEOs. Those who had been professional politicians were 10%. https://www.researchgate.net/p... [researchgate.net]

Re:

[taustin]

Under the usual procedure, members of the civil society will also present their opinions. This should include the free software activists.

And perhaps they'll be listened to. And perhaps they'll be listened to before being ignored.

being politicians

22% of MEP had a PhD.

Having a PhD shows you have persistence and can play the politics of academia. But an idiot with a PhD is just a well educated idiot.

17% previously had a scientific occupation,

And then became politicians. Probably because science has become so politicized to begin with (and pays better).

12% were previously senior executive in the private sector,

Which means they are probably disconnected from reality and have been all their lives, but even if they're not, one in eight isn't enough to defeat a bad idea.

7% were teachers,

Given the state

Re:

[thegarbz]

But they will be told by their "experts" that it's the most important thing in the entire universe

"Experts" in the EU are usually derived from people with ties to industry and educational institutions. They will likely come to precisely the opposite conclusion.

You know I'm right.

We know something about you that's for sure.

Re:

[VaccinesCauseAdults]

NSA, CIA, FBI and DIA entered the chat.

Re:

[taustin]

Like they were ever not in it.

And when they have to use the phone what happens?

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

Great, you have a Faraday pouch. The phone is not usable in it, so what happens when you take the phone out to use it? That's the moment of compromise. Leave the phone at home, and take a burner.

Re:

[kwelch007]

Exactly.

Re:And when they have to use the phone what happen

[Sique]

You only think about a single attack vector here, and so you don't see the usefulness of the Faraday bag. The recommendations are about protecting the phone against installing remote espionage software like PEGASUS, of which Hungary is a known user, and siphoning off information by adversary actors, which could happen to a burner phone too.

A burner phone would protect you only when you are not tracked yet. But the parliamentary group has a known schedule within Hungary, and looking which mobile phones register at which mobile phone tower in sync with the schedule is easy, and even having a portable device scanning the environment for unknown IMEIs can easily reveal the burner phones and then allow for targeted cracking attempts, when Hungarian officials are meeting the parliamentary group and you can narrow down the position of possible mobile phones to a few meters.

A Faraday bag with your phone would protect against tracking, because your phone will only be visible to the network when you are taking it out and making a phone call, which is much harder to track by monitoring the cell phone towers, and also shortens the time window for trying to sneakingly get into the phone.

Re:

[david.emery]

With respect, I think you have a bit of a circular argument here. Yeah, Faraday bags will limit the time the phone is exposed. BUT as you point out, the itinerary is known, so it's much easier to monitor the small number of cell towers at those locations (meetings, hotels, etc) and immediately trigger the penetration when the "foreign" IMEI is detected. So each call represents a significant window of vulnerability. Furthermore, people often pull out their phones for reasons other than phone calls, inclu

Re:

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

Based on our thread of conversation, I have realized that we have not discussed another reason to put a phone in a Faraday bag, regardless of whether it is a burner or the user's normal phone.

We have made the case that either phone will be compromised while out of the bag. The next problem is what the phone does AFTER it has been compromised. The phone is likely to become a tracking and evesdropping device. The phone may also lie to the user about being "off". A solution is to put the phone in the Far

Re:

[david.emery]

Well, the "obvious solution" is a device without vulnerabilities. We'll see if AI has anything to contribute to software security/software verification. I know that some DoD employees are issued government iPhones have have been severely locked down with only a few functions available, but that's no guarantee the locked phone couldn't still be exploited.

But the next best thing is a burner phone, with minimum information loaded onto it, and physical destruction at the end.

Re:

[Weirsbaski]

A Faraday bag with your phone would protect against tracking, because your phone will only be visible to the network when you are taking it out and making a phone call, which is much harder to track by monitoring the cell phone towers, and also shortens the time window for trying to sneakingly get into the phone.

Wouldn't this have the same effectiveness as putting our phone in airplane mode whenever you're not using it?

Security theatre

[NotEmmanuelGoldstein]

... Phone Pouches ...

This is the same as turning the phone off, but no-one calls that a security measure: It's security only in the hope that switching it on, loads the anti-virus engine before loading an installed virus. People aren't taking a phone so it can sit in a bag, so the phone faces all the security risks: This is a solution looking for a dumb customer.

The point of a burner phone is, it doesn't provide any new information to the attacker. If the user starts putting sensitive information into texts/calls, that's