Why Snowden Asked Visitors in Hong Kong to Refrigerate Their Phones

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/20...visitors-put-their-phones-in-the-fridge/?_r=0

 

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/why-snowdens-visitors-put-their-phones-in-the-fridge/

Please link properly before newer news bury it. Anyways, I sure learned something new.

 

This is retarded, you can't use your phone while its in a Faraday cage so congratulations on making your phone useless your yourself as well, also potentially destroying it with the temperature or water damage. If they are speaking about the Chinese using it to listen to live conversations in that room it is moot also, why go through the trouble when you can wrap it in tin foil or simply put it in the other room or wrap it with a towel or take out the batteries. "Yes they say its no always true off" but for most phones it stops it from being used as a transmitter. Maybe I'm missing something here or are people retarded enough to do this?

 

Law enforcement agencies and intelligence services can remotely activate cell phone microphones and listen in through them, sometimes even if the phones are turned off as long as the battery hasn't been removed.

There's a famous case where the FBI used this 'roving bug' technique to catch some mobsters. It came out during the prosecution; conversations recorded using this technique were ruled permissible.

link: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029-6140191.html

 

Try calling a phone that you put under a towel with you in the same room and see if you can hear yourself. 99% of the time you cannot. Its not like mobile phones use hyper sensitive government level directional microphones.

 

Sure, but a fridge may be more convenient and secure. I doubt normal fridge temperatures would damage mobile phones. After all, they are supposed to work outside in countries that experience subzero temperatures.

 

Still, there are far more simple ways.

 

You're all wrong - I'd turn them off, remove the battery (if possible), place it in a hard drive or motherboard anti-static bag, wrap it in a towel, and *then* put it in the fridge

PD

 

Frig storage most likely would prevent cellphone transception IMO -- BUT (and this is a really big 'but') storing cellphones upon parties' arrival only tip of iceberg;

Tracking complete as soon as each party arrived at location. Frig storage no help here.
​

Room itself could be bugged.​

Why assume parties have only one cellphone per person?​

Parties could carry alternative bugging devices.​

Etcetera​

This is security?

__

 

You can only do, what you can do. He hardly had access to a "bug sweep team", you know?

PD

 

The answer is simple

 

clever advice in my opinion. i don't understand why people are mocking this guy.

 

It's how they want to handle this kind of problem. Focus on the guy (Snowden), ridicule when ever possible, and avoid discussing what should be the real issue, the extent of their spying and surveillance under the guise of national security.

 

Its dumb, its like me building a nuclear bomb shelter just because nuclear weapons exist. Why put it in the fridge when you can just power it down/ turn off the network from inside the phone options.

 

Ha. For someone who was supposedly so learned enough in computer administration and schemery to gain entry to highly secured data, he must have failed basic chemistry.

Try penetrating the atomic material element #82 known as simple lead. Blocks completely waves of all sorts.

 

The cone of silence, I am sure that would work

 

That's the real problem, and we don't know. If they can retrieve the information they've collected, even sending encryption keys to someone isn't secure anymore. Plus, besides collecting intelligence on Americans, who else have they been spying on? It's always been done, but not to this extent.

Imagine, he went from being called a whistleblower and hero one day to traitor the very next.

 

Unless you exchange encryption keys in person, there's probably no way to hide the fact that you've given someone an encryption key. That said, if you're using strong encryption with asymetric keys (public/private), they have no way of using the public key for decryption.

They'll continue to do so through conventional mass media. The rest of us don't have the kind of access needed to reach the majority of people. The rest of this story needs to be heard, mainly about how government and their big money overlords are the real traitors, to both the constitution and to humanity in general.

 

+1,000,000 my friend. This is a standard tactic. I just laugh when I see it, and feel sorry for those that fall for it. Look at what Nixon tried with Ellsberg.

The fridge thing was cool...I'd never trust that my visitors had truly turned their devices off, or hit record on an app.

PD

 

Can you totally trust that powering it down does shut everything off, including GPS? I'm glad that I have no need for them.

 

Faraday cages work with anything that conducts electricity well. The key issue is hole size. Radiation with wavelenth longer than hole diameter is blocked. For example, holes in perforated metal shields in doors of microwave ovens block microwaves, but let visible light through.

You'd need lead to block x-rays or gamma radiation. I wonder if it's possible to modulate gamma from small cesium-137 sources. That'd be very hard to block! But it'd also kill everyone nearby