Service Meant to Monitor Inmates’ Calls Could Track You, Too

hawki · May 11, 2018

"Thousands of jails and prisons across the United States use a company called Securus Technologies to provide and monitor calls to inmates. But the former sheriff of Mississippi County, Mo., used a lesser-known Securus service to track people’s cellphones,... without court orders, according to charges filed against him in state and federal court...

The service can find the whereabouts of almost any cellphone in the country within seconds...

Securus offers services only to law enforcement and corrections facilities,...

Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, wrote in a letter this week to the Federal Communications Commission that Securus confirmed that it did not 'conduct any review of surveillance requests.' The senator said relying on customers to provide documentation was inadequate. 'Wireless carriers have an obligation to take affirmative steps to verify law enforcement requests,' he wrote, adding that Securus did not follow those procedures.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

mirimir · May 11, 2018

And that's why we don't use cellphones for sensitive stuff

Or at most, burner phones, which have never been active within a few hundred km of our home, work, friends, etc.

longshots · May 11, 2018

mirimir said: ↑

Or at most, burner phones, which have never been active within a few hundred km of our home, work, friends
Click to expand...

You know that, but how many others do?
How often have we seen [in movies - which as we all know depicts real life] carry their burner next to their personal phones.
Or even worse, switch sim cards in a phone and think that they're safe.
I don't think the percentage of people who know how to use a burner correctly is much more than 5%, and many of the people using this website make up a large percentage of that.
Maybe even more now that they've read this.

mirimir · May 11, 2018

Isn't it just basic logic?

A corollary is that you can't even charge a burner phone at home etc. You can only charge remotely.

Back when I was using burner phones, I stored them in an old steel paint can. Cleaned up, of course, on the inside, to avoid leaks around the top. But very cruddy on the outside. Packed with rags, to prevent rattling. In the trunk, with tools and stuff.

Circuit · May 11, 2018

Land lines forever.
Defiantly can live with out a "dumb" (cell) phone.

Palancar · May 14, 2018

Back when I was using burner phones, I stored them in an old steel paint can
Click to expand...

See you invented the "faraday bag" and didn't even know it. LOL!

Look anything like this?: http://faradaybag.com/products/phone-shield-ps1-faraday-bag-rf-shielding/

mirimir · May 14, 2018

No, just a cruddy old paint can. To match other stuff in my trunk.

hawki · May 15, 2018

"US cell carriers are selling access to your real-time phone location data

The company embroiled in a privacy row has "direct connections" to all major US wireless carriers, including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint -- and Canadian cell networks, too.

Four of the largest cell giants in the US are selling your real-time location data to a company that you've probably never heard about before.
In case you missed it, a senator last week sent a letter demanding the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigate why Securus, a prison technology company, can track any phone "within seconds" by using data obtained from the country's largest cell giants, including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint, through an intermediary, LocationSmart..."

https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-cell-carriers-selling-access-to-real-time-location-data/

ronjor · May 16, 2018

Hacker Breaches Securus

Joseph Cox May 16 2018, 12:16pm

A hacker has provided Motherboard with the login details for a company that buys phone location data from major telecom companies and then sells it to law enforcement.
Click to expand...

ronjor · May 17, 2018

Tracking Firm LocationSmart Leaked Location Data for Customers of All Major U.S. Mobile Carriers Without Consent in Real Time Via Its Web Site

LocationSmart, a U.S. based company that acts as an aggregator of real-time data about the precise location of mobile phone devices, has been leaking this information to anyone via a buggy component of its Web site — without the need for any password or other form of authentication or authorization — KrebsOnSecurity has learned. The company took the vulnerable service offline early this afternoon after being contacted by KrebsOnSecurity, which verified that it could be used to reveal the location of any AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile or Verizon phone in the United States to an accuracy of within a few hundred yards.
Click to expand...

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/05...obile-carriers-in-real-time-via-its-web-site/

mirimir · May 18, 2018

On May 16th, I found a vulnerability in the LocationSmart website which allowed anyone, with no prior authentication or consent, to obtain the realtime location of any cellphone in the US to within a few hundred feet. I immediately moved to contact US CERT to coordinate disclosure, and worked with Brian Krebs to publish the story after the vulnerability was fixed this morning (May 17th).

Now that I have verified that the vulnerability is fixed, I am releasing the relevant technical details of the bug and exploit.
Click to expand...

https://www.robertxiao.ca/hacking/locationsmart/

RockLobster · May 19, 2018

This is a very interesting conversation...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17081684

"I work in location / mapping / geo. Some of us have been waiting for this to blow (which it hasn't yet). The public has zero idea how much personal location data is available."
Click to expand...

hawki · May 20, 2018

"...Calls on FCC Chairman to Recuse Himself From Phone-Tracking Investigation...

The Federal Communications Commission referred the phone-tracking matter, which involves Securus, an inmate calling service, to its enforcement bureau on Friday. The FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, represented Securus while employed at law firm Jenner & Block, LLP, just prior to his confirmation as an FCC commissioner in 2012..."

https://gizmodo.com/sen-wyden-calls-on-fcc-chairman-to-recuse-himself-from-1826154763

ronjor · May 22, 2018

The Privacy Scandal That Should Be Bigger Than Cambridge Analytica

By Will Oremus May 21, 2018
Wireless carriers are sharing your real-time location with shady third parties—and a bug lets anyone use that data to track you.
Click to expand...

Minimalist · May 26, 2018

Why Is Your Location Data No Longer Private?

The past month has seen one blockbuster revelation after another about how our mobile phone and broadband providers have been leaking highly sensitive customer information, including real-time location data and customer account details. In the wake of these consumer privacy debacles, many are left wondering who’s responsible for policing these industries? How exactly did we get to this point? What prospects are there for changes to address this national privacy crisis at the legislative and regulatory levels? These are some of the questions we’ll explore in this article.
Click to expand...

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/05/why-is-your-location-data-no-longer-private/

guest · Aug 24, 2018

Another Prison Phone Service Caught Recording Privileged Conversations And Passing Them On To Law Enforcement
August 24, 2018
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...sations-passing-them-to-law-enforcement.shtml

Securus did it en masse, hoovering up 14,000 privileged calls over an unspecified time period. The total could be much higher than that. The data obtained only covered part of Securus' massive network, with 12,000 privileged calls alone in this data dump coming from a single state.

Now, another prison phone company has been caught recording privileged conversations and turning them over to law enforcement.

[...] revealed this week during a court hearing that the department improperly recorded more than 1,000 privileged phone calls between county jail inmates and their attorneys over a three-year period.
[...] that an update in the company’s system in January 2015 caused “a technical error” that led to 1,079 such phone calls being recorded, in violation of state law.”
In violation of state law. It violates a lot of things, not just state law.
[...] Deciding to keep this information to itself, rather than pass it on to affected legal reps and the DA's office, isn't nearly so noble or proactive.
Click to expand...

guest · Jan 8, 2019

I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone
January 8, 2019
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...ollars-located-phone-microbilt-zumigo-tmobile

The bounty hunter did this all without deploying a hacking tool or having any previous knowledge of the phone’s whereabouts. Instead, the tracking tool relies on real-time location data sold to bounty hunters that ultimately originated from the telcos themselves, including T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint, a Motherboard investigation has found.

Motherboard’s investigation shows just how exposed mobile networks and the data they generate are, leaving them open to surveillance by ordinary citizens, stalkers, and criminals, [...]
“People are reselling to the wrong people,” the bail industry source who flagged the company to Motherboard said. Motherboard granted the source and others in this story anonymity to talk more candidly about a controversial surveillance capability.

A second source who has tracked the geolocation industry told Motherboard, while talking about the industry generally, “If there is money to be made they will keep selling the data.”
“Those third-level companies sell their services. That is where you see the issues with going to shady folks [and] for shady reasons,” the source added.
Click to expand...

guest · Jan 8, 2019

mood said: ↑

I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone
January 8, 2019
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...ollars-located-phone-microbilt-zumigo-tmobile
Click to expand...

Senator Wyden goes ballistic after US telcos caught selling people's location data yet again
January 8, 2019
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/08/telcos_customer_tracking_sales/

US Senator Ron Wyden is renewing his calls for legislation banning the sale of people's private cellphone location information after yet another report that phone carriers were doing exactly that.

The Oregon Democratic Senator says that major telcos and their executives, including T-Mobile US CEO John Legere, directly lied to him last year when they vowed not to allow underhand private dicks, shady bounty hunters, and dodgy geezers purchase the location information of their customers for tracking purposes.

"Major carriers pledged to end these practices, but it appears to have been more empty promises to consumers," Wyden said.
"It’s time for Congress to take action by passing my bill to safeguard consumer data and hold companies accountable.
Click to expand...

ronjor · Jan 10, 2019

AT&T will sever ties with location aggregators as well

Mallory Locklear, @mallorylocklear 09 Jan 2019
The move follows a report detailing the unregulated market for location data.
Click to expand...

guest · Jan 16, 2019

mood said: ↑

I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone
January 8, 2019
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...ollars-located-phone-microbilt-zumigo-tmobile
Click to expand...

Sprint To Stop Selling Location Data to Third Parties After Motherboard Investigation
January 16, 2019
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...ng-location-data-tmobile-att-microbilt-zumigo

Last week, Motherboard revealed that AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint had been selling their customers’ real-time location data that ultimately ended up in the hands of bounty hunters and people unauthorized to handle it.

Nearly a week later Sprint has committed to doing the same, in a statement to Motherboard.
“As a result of recent events, we have decided to end our arrangements with data aggregators,” a Sprint spokesperson told Motherboard in an email.
Click to expand...

guest · Jan 23, 2019

mood said: ↑

I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone
January 8, 2019
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...ollars-located-phone-microbilt-zumigo-tmobile
Click to expand...

Data Broker That Sold Phone Locations Used by Bounty Hunters Lobbied FCC to Scrap User Consent
January 23, 2019
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...-phone-location-data-sold-lobbied-fcc-consent

Motherboard has now unearthed a presentation that Zumigo gave to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in late 2017 in which it asked the agency to place even fewer restrictions on how some of the data it sells can be used, and specifically asked for the agency to loosen user consent requirements for data sharing.

The news signals the mentality of some of the companies in this data trading space, explicitly preferring to scrap the idea of consent for the sake of convenience, even if that means that cell phone users may be ultimately unaware of how their data is being used.

A spokesperson for campaign group Privacy International told Motherboard in an email that “It’s a very popular industry strategy to play security against privacy. Their argument is that privacy rules (especially requirements to seek consumer consent) make it harder for them to protect people from identity theft and fraud.”
The Privacy International spokesperson added “People need to have a genuine choice with regards to how their data is used and shared, especially when it comes to services that we all rely on and can hardly avoid.”
Click to expand...

guest · Feb 6, 2019

mood said: ↑

I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone
January 8, 2019
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...ollars-located-phone-microbilt-zumigo-tmobile
Click to expand...

Hundreds of Bounty Hunters Had Access to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint Customer Location Data for Years
February 6, 2019
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...t-tmobile-sprint-customer-location-data-years

In reality, it was far from an isolated incident.

Around 250 bounty hunters and related businesses had access to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint customer location data, with one bail bond firm using the phone location service more than 18,000 times, and others using it thousands or tens of thousands of times, according to internal documents obtained by Motherboard from a company called CerCareOne, a now-defunct location data seller that operated until 2017.

In some cases, the data sold is more sensitive than that offered by the service used by Motherboard last month, which estimated a location based on the cell phone towers that a phone connected to.
CerCareOne sold cell phone tower data, but also sold highly sensitive and accurate GPS data to bounty hunters; an unprecedented move that means users could locate someone so accurately so as to see where they are inside a building.
A BOUNTY HUNTER’S SECRET
The existence of CerCareOne was a tightly held secret among the bounty hunter and bail community.
Click to expand...

ronjor · May 4, 2019

Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over Selling Customers’ Location Data

by Joseph Cox May 4 2019
The lawsuits come after a Motherboard investigation showed AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile sold phone location data that ended up with bounty hunters, and The New York Times covered an instance of Verizon selling data.
Click to expand...

guest · Jul 18, 2019

AT&T accused of selling customers’ location data to bounty hunters and stalkers
July 18, 2019
https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/att-accused-of-sharing-customers-location-data/

AT&T was hit with a lawsuit Tuesday accusing it of selling customers’ real-time location data to third parties like credit agencies and bail guarantors, along with bounty hunters and stalkers, without having customer consent.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht LLP are representing three AT&T customers in the class action suit against AT&T and other data aggregation companies, explicitly singling out LocationSmart and Zumigo.

“The location data AT&T offered up for sale is extremely precise and can locate any of its wireless subscribers in real-time, providing a window into the intimate details of their lives: where they go to the doctor, where they worship, where they live, and much more,” said Abbye Klamann Ognibene, an associate at Pierce Bainbridge, said in an EFF press release.

The press release points to an investigation by Motherboard from earlier this year that alleged major mobile networks like AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint were selling access to customers’ location data to entities such as bounty hunters, car dealerships, or landlords.
Click to expand...

EFF: EFF Sues AT&T, Data Aggregators For Giving Bounty Hunters and Other Third Parties Access to Customers’ Real-Time Locations

guest · Sep 20, 2019

mood said: ↑

EFF: EFF Sues AT&T, Data Aggregators For Giving Bounty Hunters and Other Third Parties Access to Customers’ Real-Time Locations
Click to expand...

AT&T Says Customers Can’t Sue the Company for Selling Location Data to Bounty Hunters
Due to the contract fine print, AT&T says customers must instead deal with the company privately rather than in court
September 19, 2019
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...ation-selling-location-data-to-bounty-hunters

AT&T is arguing that its customers can’t sue the company for selling location data to bounty hunters, according to recently filed court records. AT&T says the customers signed contracts that force them into arbitration, meaning consumers have to settle complaints privately with the company rather than in court. The filing is in response to a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

The news shows the hurdles consumers are faced with when trying to claim compensation from telecos and other tech giants that have arguably abused access to their data, including ultimately selling it to people without authorization to handle such information.

"The plaintiffs have an uphill battle," Deborah Hensler, Director of Law and Policy Lab at Stanford University, said.
"If consumers carefully read [the] fine print they will find out how they can opt-out of the arbitration requirement. Most of course don't notice or pay attention to this, in which case their attempts to overcome the arbitration requirement subsequently are significantly weakened," Hensler said.
Click to expand...

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