Justice Department Defends US Marshals' Airborne Cell Tower Spoofers; Refuses To Acknowledge Program Exists

from the may-or-may-not-have-repeatedly-violated-the-Fourth-Amendment dept

The Justice Department has been summoned to say a few words in defense of the US Marshals' Cessna-mounted cell tower spoofers. And while it tried to leave a lot unsaid, it actually said quite a bit.

The Justice Department, without formally acknowledging the existence of the program, defended the legality of the operation by the U.S. Marshals Service, saying the agency doesn’t maintain a database of everyday Americans’ cellphones.

Because America's criminal element is forever only moments away from permanently escaping the grasp of law enforcement, the DOJ has refused to confirm or deny the existence of technology everyone already knows exists -- IMSI catchers and single-engine aircraft. The DOJ's caginess is commendable. I'm sorry, I mean ridiculous. Here's the same official further protecting and defending The Program That Dare Not Confirm Its Existence, using statements that indicate the program exposed by the Wall Street Journal not only exists, but functions pretty much as described.

A Justice Department official on Friday refused to confirm or deny the existence of such a program, because doing so would allow criminals to better evade law enforcement. But the official said it would be “utterly false’’ to conflate the law-enforcement program with the collection of bulk telephone records by the National Security Agency, a controversial program already being challenged in the courts and by some members of Congress.

No one's conflating the feds' airborne 'Stingray' with the NSA's ongoing bulk phone records collections. All people have done is note that surveillance technology of this sort has the ability to collect (and store) millions of unrelated phone records in a very short period of time.

Furthermore, the unnamed official would like us to remember that this program [WHICH MAY NOT EXIST I DON'T EVEN KNOW] is completely legal [PROBABLY TWICE AS LEGAL AS THE NSA'S PHONE THING IF THIS IS HAPPENING WHICH IT MAY NOT BE].

The official didn’t address the issue of how much data, if any, is held on the dirtboxes by law-enforcement officials but said the agency doesn’t maintain any databases of general public cellphone information and said any activity is legal and “subject to court approval.’’

Other officials -- also unnamed -- have stepped up (sort of... in a spineless, anonymous way) to let critics know that the program that has never been officially acknowledged is pretty good at catching bad guys.

The program’s defenders say it has been an effective way of catching fugitives, including drug suspects and suspected killers…

Like the following notorious criminals:

...but they declined to provide specific examples in which it was used.

Probably because it may or may not exist, etc.

Officials familiar with the program noted that it was "minimally intrusive," while simultaneously having an effective range that covers "most of the US population." It may not be the NSA's bulk records program, but it's not exactly in any danger of being championed by civil liberties advocates.

Here are a few government officials who aren't familiar with the implausibly denied program.

“We were not aware of this activity,’’ said Kim Hart, a spokeswoman for the FCC, which licenses and regulates cell-service providers.

Another IMSI catcher and another FCC denial. It appears that staying ahead of criminals also means withholding information (or directly lying to) regulatory agencies -- which is probably not that big of a deal when you've spent years lying to judges.

And you can add legislators to the long list of those whose first exposure to the US Marshals' "dirtboxes" came via the Wall Street Journal. Senators Edward Markey and Al Franken have both offered statements expressing their concerns about law enforcement's willingness to sacrifice the public's privacy for investigative efficiency.

The DOJ official who claimed this program is "subject to court approval" is being either blithely disingenuous or wholly dishonest. If this investigative technology had ever been approved by our nation's courts, we would have heard of it long before now. This dearth of information indicates that the Marshals' use of airborne IMSI catchers has been withheld the same way the use of its earthbound version has been over the past several years.

Filed Under: dirtboxes, doj, justice department, stingrays, surveillance, us marshals

UK's Home Secretary Says Terrorists Will Be The Real Winners If Country's Cell Coverage Dead Zones Are Fixed

from the 4G-means-four-times-the-terrorism dept

The UK's culture secretary wants to eradicate the nation's patchy cell phone coverage. UK cell phone users aren't able to switch towers on the fly -- something residents of other EU countries (as well as the US) enjoy -- but are forced to connect only with their provider's towers.

But Home Secretary Theresa May would rather UK citizens suffer through a plethora of dead zones (or "not spots" -- the term of choice for these no-service areas) than put her country in harm's way. According to an internal letter written by May, providing near-seamless coverage for UK phone users will open the door for increased terrorist activity.

[M]ay argues in the leaked internal Whitehall letter that Javid’s plans to end “not-spots”, by allowing customers to roam between rival networks, could aid criminals and terrorists. The Times reported that May’s objections centre around concerns that roaming would make it more difficult for the agencies to track suspects.

This is, of course, ridiculous. In the US, cell phone subscribers hop from tower to tower freely, and yet, law enforcement and national security agencies have plenty of options to track suspects and terrorists. It's hard to believe the GCHQ and UK's law enforcement agencies don't have access to the same methods and technology.

For one, IMSI catchers (Stingray devices) are able to spoof any service provider's tower and, if need be, force every phone in its effective range down to a 2G connection for easier surveillance. So, it ultimately doesn't matter whether these "not spots" exist or have been papered over by legislation or cooperative agreements between service providers.

On top of that, these agencies have access to "tower dumps," often without anything more powerful than a subpoena. This gives agencies a record of every connection made to these towers, whether it was a phone call or simply a ping for a viable signal.

Given what we've learned over the past year, UK's intelligence and law enforcement agencies likely have access to plenty of this information already. Even if they don't, they certainly have the power to compel it. In addition, the GCHQ has the invaluable assistance of the NSA -- an agency that isn't weighed down by the nominal privacy protections granted to UK citizens.

It would seem that the nation's security -- at least under the current "Five Eyes" regime -- would be more threatened by dead zones in coverage than vice versa. Going off the grid would seemingly be more conducive to bad behavior than flouncing about from carrier to carrier, spilling your secrets to at least two powerful intelligence agencies.

But even worse than Theresa May's display of ignorance and fear is her suggestion that the public's connectivity be sacrificed on the altar of national security. David Mitchell -- of That Mitchell and Webb Look -- says it best:

Theresa May is the first person, as far as I know, to suggest that people’s activities should be restricted in order actually to facilitate the security services’ surveillance – to claim not only that it’s permissible for the police to snoop on everything we do and say, but also that we should be discouraged or prevented from doing things the police might have trouble keeping track of.

“Come off it!” some of you may be thinking. “She can’t be the first!” And of course you’re right – I’m exaggerating. She’s certainly not the first person ever – throughout history her point has frequently been made. In fact, the states of the former communist bloc were entirely predicated on this principle, as were most fascist regimes. It’s one of the issues over which Lenin and Tsar Nicholas II would probably find common ground if they got stuck with each other at an awkward drinks party in hell.

Mitchell's response is exactly what May's little written panic attack deserves. Politicians who filter everything through the terrorism lens tend to develop outsized blind spots. May would rather have UK citizens deal with lousy coverage (and being one step behind their EU counterparts) than perhaps have a terrorist jump towers and ditch pursuing GCHQ agents. Ridiculous.

Filed Under: cell phone coverage, dead zones, not spots, surveillance, terrorists, theresa may, uk

Verizon May Soon Get to Enjoy a Lawsuit Over Its Sneaky Use of Perma-Cookies

from the privacy-schmivacy dept

Over the last few years, Verizon has been ramping up its behavioral tracking efforts via programs like Verizon Selects and its Relevant Mobile Ad system, which track wireless and wireline subscriber web behavior to deliver tailored ads and sell your information to third parties. Unknown until a few weeks ago however was the fact that as part of this initiative, Verizon has started using what many are calling controversial "stealth," "super" or "perma" cookies that track a user's online behavior covertly, without users being able to disable them via browser settings.

Lawyer and Stanford computer scientist Jonathan Mayer offered up an excellent analysis noting that Verizon was actively modifying its users' traffic to embed a unique identifier traffic header, or X-UIDH. This header is then read by marketing partners (or hey, anybody, since it's stamped on all of your traffic) who can then build a handy profile of you. It's a rather ham-fisted approach, argues Mayer, who notes that while you can opt-out of Verizon selling your data, you can't opt out of having your traffic embedded with the unique identifier. He also offered up a handy graphic detailing precisely how these headers work:

As the story grew the last few weeks, ProPublica noted that Twitter's mobile advertising arm is already one of several clients using Verizon's "header enrichment" system, though Twitter didn't much want to talk about it. Several tools like this one have popped up since, allowing users to test their wireless connections (note it doesn't work if your cellular device is connected to Wi-Fi, and may be masked by the use of Google Mobile Chrome, Opera Mini, or if viewed through apps like Flipboard).

Kashmir Hill at Forbes also has a great article exploring the ramifications of the system and asked Verizon and AT&T (who has started trials of a similar system) what consumer protections are in place. Both companies proclaimed that the characters in their headers are rotated on a weekly and daily basis to protect user information. But as we've noted time and time again, there's really no such thing as an anonymized data set, and security consultant Ken White argues that only part of the data in the headers is modified, if at all:

"White has been tracked for the past 6 days across 550 miles with a persistent code from both Verizon and AT&T. He has a smartphone with Verizon service and a hotspot with AT&T service. In AT&T’s case, the code has four parts; only one part changes, he says. “It’s like if you were identified by a birth month, a birth year, a birth day, and a zip code, and they remove one of those things,” said White. You’d still be able to reasonably track that person with the other three. Verizon’s code meanwhile hasn’t changed for him, and it’s been almost a week."

Amusingly, I remember back in 2008 when concerns about deep packet inspection and behavioral ads were heating up, Verizon declared there really wasn't any need for consumer protections or privacy rules governing such technologies, because, the company claimed, public shame and the oodles of competition in the broadband space would somehow keep them honest:

"A couple of years back during the debate on net neutrality, I made the argument that industry leadership through some form of oversight/self-regulatory model, coupled with competition and the extensive oversight provided by literally hundreds of thousands of sophisticated online users would help ensure effective enforcement of good practices and protect consumers."

Yet here we have an example where the behavior Verizon was engaged in was so surreptitious, even some of the best networking and security experts in the business didn't notice Verizon was doing it until two years after the effort was launched. Apparently, holding Verizon accountable is going to take a little more than a public scolding in the town square. The EFF has stated they're taking a look at possible legal action against Verizon for violating consumer privacy law.

Filed Under: behavioral tracking, perma-cookies, spying, tracking
Companies: at&t, verizon

More Cops Investigate More Teens 'Sexting.' Now What?

from the waste-of-limited-resources dept

For some reason, a Michigan Sheriff's Department has gotten itself involved in a sexting incident.

An investigation into "sexting" of photographs between at least 31 teenagers in Rochester Community Schools is expected to take at least two more weeks, an Oakland County Sheriff's captain said Thursday…

Capt. Michael Johnson of the Rochester Hills substation said cell phones confiscated from suspected students — 24 girls and 7 boys, ages 14 to 16 — have been turned over to the department's computer crimes section for forensic review to determine who sent photos, who was photographed, who received them and if they were shared with others.

Similar concerns are being expressed by others in the community.

Meanwhile, an attorney for a Rochester Hills student and another involved in a similar investigation in Romeo schools, said the activity is much more widespread and she has heard the number is likely double that under investigation.

Attorney Shannon Smith said Michigan State Police are investigating reports of about 10 incidents in the Romeo school system unrelated to the Rochester cases.

"This is happening everywhere, it's over the top," Smith said. "I have been contacted by schools and parents elsewhere in Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties who have found similar photos on their children's cellphones and want to know what to do about it.

The reason for police involvement -- beyond the slim chance that it could net them some cheap child porn busts, thanks to existing laws being applied badly -- is left unstated. Apparently, the discovery of suggestive and/or explicit photos couldn't be left up to the students and their parents to handle. Instead, somebody will need to be punished for something that appears to be incredibly common and often wholly voluntary.

The Oakland County Sheriff's Department has already confiscated 31 phones. "Ten incidents" unrelated to these 31 cases are being investigated by the Michigan State Police. With any luck, these investigations will continue to turn up even more phones, containing more evidence, and so on, until… well, until what, exactly?

Well, possibly until the shock at how common this behavior is passes and is replaced with the logistic realities of the situation, as happened to Chief Deputy Donald Lowe of the Louisa County (VA) Sheriff's Dept.

[L]ouisa County High School was transformed into a crime scene, which it remained for the next month. Police cars sat parked at the school’s entrance, and inside, a few deputies who reported to Lowe began interviewing kids—starting with girls they recognized in the pictures and boys who had followed the accounts. [...] For the most part, the kids were “more than cooperative,” Lowe says. One person would give up 10 names. The next would give up five, and so on.

But pretty soon this got to be a problem. Within an hour, the deputies realized just how common the sharing of nude pictures was at the school. “The boys kept telling us, ‘It’s nothing unusual. It happens all the time,’ ” Lowe recalls. Every time someone they were interviewing mentioned another kid who might have naked pictures on his or her phone, they had to call that kid in for an interview. After just a couple of days, the deputies had filled multiple evidence bins with phones, and they couldn’t see an end to it. Fears of a cabal got replaced by a more mundane concern: what to do with “hundreds of damned phones. I told the deputies, ‘We got to draw the line somewhere or we’re going to end up talking to every teenager in the damned county!’ ”

So, at some point, an arbitrary line will be drawn to end the investigation. Charges may be handed down, if only to justify the use of police resources. High school students on the wrong end of the age of consent may find themselves facing child pornography charges. Students more than an arbitrary number of years removed from the age of subjects of the photos in their possession may end up similarly charged.

The temptation is to handle it as a criminal offense, hence the initial instinct of the Louisa County Sheriff's Dept. to view it as a "cabal" or "ring" before it became apparent that there was no unified, sinister force compelling this prolific creation of explicit photos. But despite realizing that trying to combat this as a criminal venture was fruitless, they still use a ridiculously skewed term when discussing sexting.

“I really don’t like the word sexting,” says Michael Harmony, the commander of the southern-Virginia branch of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which covers Louisa County. The term he makes his investigators use is self-production, which is law-enforcement-speak for when minors produce pictures of themselves that qualify as child porn.

Harmony may not be looking to press criminal charges against "self-producers," but phrasing it in this manner makes it clear he's willing to pursue anyone else in possession of this so-called child pornography. Law enforcement entities in other states view it the same way and have pressed (along with concerned parents groups and educators) for the creation of laws that make sexting a crime. In doing so, they have completely subverted common sense.

[I]n most states it is perfectly legal for two 16-year-olds to have sex. But if they take pictures, it’s a matter for the police.

Even if these law enforcement agencies decide there's nothing in this pile of cell phones for them, there's still a chance an aggressive prosecutor will still look for something he or she can make stick -- punishing the children… for the children.

If Lowe made an arrest, the case would land with Rusty McGuire, the main prosecutor for Louisa County. McGuire wouldn’t talk with me about this situation specifically, but he expressed his concern more generally about nude pictures of minors landing in the wrong hands: “What do you do? Turn a blind eye? You’re letting teenagers incite the prurient interest of predators around the country,” fueling a demand that “can only be met by the actual abuse of real children.”

So, to keep teens from being abused by sexual predators, we need to smack them around with the same laws meant to target sexual predators? McGuire pushes a threat that exists only in his mind -- one that turns a mostly consensual and incredibly common act into something that has to be addressed by the full extent of the law ("turn a blind eye?"). Failure to do so tips the balance in favor of child predators, who will only be able to satisfy themselves with actual abusive acts. McGuire was praised here at Techdirt earlier this year for his emphasis on education over enforcement when it comes to students sexting, but a few months removed from the positive Slate profile and he's conjuring up law enforcement's favorite boogeyman to justify law enforcement's intrusion into students' personal lives.

Two different law enforcement entities in Michigan are wading into this situation now, armed with enough info to make headlines but little more. Soon, they'll be swimming in cell phones and trying to find a punishment that fits the supposed crime -- or more accurately, trying to find a crime that meets their desire to see someone punished for a bunch of (mostly) consensual behavior.

Filed Under: child porn, law enforcement, police, sexting, teenagers

Stupid WiFi Hotspot Name Gets American Airlines Flight Grounded

from the because-terrorists-would-name-their-terrorist-network-something-terroristic dept

America: land of the ass coverage policy and home of "better safe than sorry." Free and brave? Not so much. If anyone wants to know if the terrorists have won, here's another one to file under "Exhibit A: Yes, At Least A Sizable Partial Victory."

When some dumbass can keep planes from flying simply by renaming a WiFi hotspot, we as a nation cannot claim to have won the War on Terror, much less to be picking up some easy points during "trash time."

An American Airlines flight from Los Angeles International Airport to London was delayed Sunday after concerns over the name of a WiFi hotspot.

A passenger saw the WiFi connection, named "Al-Quida Free Terror Nettwork," and expressed concern to a flight attendant.

Flight 136 was taken back to the gate and delayed until 1 p.m. Monday, American Airlines officials said.

This delayed the flight for three hours. Those grounded by the quite-obviously-not-a-wireless-Al-Qaeda-hotspot were initially told it was a "maintenance problem." How fucking comforting is that? Instead of admitting to being pranked into submission by a single person, the airline instead chose to frame it as something with a much larger potential of killing its flying customers.

"Nothing to do with terrorists here, folks! Just the small chance that the plane you'll eventually be boarding may not be airworthy!"

According to ABC7's report, the airline is "assessing" the situation. And, of course, "law enforcement has been notified," because that's what we do when we have no idea what to do. Someone "said" something terrorist-related, therefore law enforcement, assessments, flight delays and NOT A SINGLE COOL HEAD PREVAILING ANYWHERE. May your paranoia always be unfettered.


The WiFi hotspot naming option has been routinely abused in the past, all without serious harm coming to anyone involved. The Consumerist reminds us that another dumbass delayed a Southwestern flight by naming a hotspot "Bomb on Board" -- a name more credibly threatening than the misspelled joke listed above.

And let's not forget how many citizens have pranked/startled wardrivers and leeches by naming their wireless connections things like "FBI_SURVEILLANCE_VAN." Give anyone the power to name something and it will quickly gravitate towards 4th-grade-level Mad Libs. Hence why any video game in which you can name your protagonist becomes a playground for swear words and dick jokes [timesink]. It also explains why my sons' loadout presets for Call of Duty: Black Ops are named "pokemon," "pewd" and "POOP" respectively.

Does anyone actually think this hotspot name indicated terrorist activity? I mean, other than the person reporting the WiFi hotspot name, the person acquiescing to the complainant's paranoia, the entire chain of command responsible for delaying the flight, the law enforcement officials who actually decided to investigate… never mind. I don't even want to know the answer. It's too depressing.

Filed Under: airplanes, networks, terrorism, wifi
Companies: american airlines