Cellphone surveillance, also known as cellphone spying, may involve the tracking, bugging, monitoring, interception and recording of conversations and text messages on mobile phones. It also encompasses the monitoring of people's movements, which can be tracked using mobile phone signals when phones are turned on. In the United States, law enforcement agencies can legally monitor the movements of people from their mobile phone signals upon obtaining a court order to do so. Cellphone spying software is software that is surreptitiously installed on mobile phones that can enable these actions.
Video Cellphone surveillance
Mobile phone tracking
StingRay devices are used by law enforcement agencies to track people's movements, and intercept and record conversations, names, phone numbers and text messages from mobile phones. Their use entails the monitoring and collection of data from all mobile phones within a target area. Law enforcement agencies in Northern California that have purchased StingRay devices include the Oakland Police Department, San Francisco Police Department, Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, San Jose Police Department and the Fremont Police Department. The Fremont Police Department's use of a StingRay device is in a partnership with the Oakland Police Department and the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.
In 2007, StingRay devices assisted the Oakland Police Department in Oakland, California in making 21 arrests, and in 2008, 19 arrests were made in unison with the use of StingRay devices.
StingRay devices are often used in combination with Hailstorm towers that jam the mobile phone signals forcing phones to drop down from 4G and 3G network bands to older, more insecure 2G bands.
In most states, police can get many kinds of cellphone data without obtaining a warrant. Law-enforcement records show, police can use initial data from a tower dump to ask for another court order for more information, including addresses, billing records and logs of calls, texts and locations.
Maps Cellphone surveillance
Hidden cellphones
Bugging
Cellphone bugs can be created by disabling the ringing feature on a mobile phone, allowing a caller to call a phone to access its microphone and listen in. Intentionally hiding a cell phone in a location is a bugging technique. Some hidden cellphone bugs rely on Wifi hotspots, rather than celluar data, where the tracker rootkit software periodically "wakes up" and signs into a public wifi hotspot to upload tracker data onto a public internet server. In the United States, the FBI has used "roving bugs", which entails the activation of microphones on mobile phones to enable the monitoring of conversations.
Cellphone spying software
Cellphone spying software is a type of cellphone bugging, tracking, and monitoring software that is surreptitiously installed on mobile phones. This software can enable conversations to be heard and recorded from phones upon which it is installed. Cellphone spying software can be downloaded onto cellphones. Cellphone spying software enables the monitoring or stalking of a target cellphone from a remote location with some of the following techniques:
- Allowing remote observation of the target cellphone position in real-time on a map
- Remotely enabling microphones to capture and forward conversations. Microphones can be activated during a call or when the phone is on standby for capturing conversations near the cellphone.
- Receiving remote alerts and/or text messages each time somebody dials a number on the cellphone
- Remotely reading text messages and call logs
Cellphone spying software can enable microphones on mobile phones when phones are not being used, and can be installed by mobile providers.
Occurrences
In 2005, the prime minister of Greece was advised that his, over 100 dignitaries' and the mayor of Athens' mobile phones were bugged. Kostas Tsalikidis, a Vodafone-Panafon employee, was implicated in the matter as using his position as head of the company's network planning to assist in the bugging. Tsalikidis was found hanged in his apartment the day before the leaders were notified regarding the bugging, which was reported as "an apparent suicide."
Security holes within Signalling System No. 7 (SS7), called Common Channel Signalling System 7 (CCSS7) in the US and Common Channel Interoffice Signaling 7 (CCIS7) in the UK, were demonstrated at Chaos Communication Congress, Hamburg in 2014.
Detection
Some indications of possible cellphone surveillance occurring may include a mobile phone waking up unexpectedly, using a lot of the CPU when on idle or when not in use, hearing clicking or beeping sounds when conversations are occurring and the circuit board of the phone being warm despite the phone not being used.
Prevention
Preventative measures against cellphone surveillance include not losing or allowing strangers to use a mobile phone and the utilization of an access password. Turning off and then also removing the battery from a phone when not in use is another technique. Jamming or a Faraday cage may also work, the latter obviating removal of the battery.
Disconnecting the microphone from the circuit board (or smashing the mic with a needle and hammer), and then using an external plug-in or bluetooth mic when you want to make calls, is a solution.
Another solution is turning the MIC input to the DAC off. However, this requires operating system and in some cases, kernel modification in order to prevent MIC input.
See also
- Bluesnarfing
- Carrier IQ
- Cellphone jammer
- Cyber stalking
- Mobile security
- Telephone tapping
- Vault 7
- Voice activated recorders
References
Further reading
- Sabalow, Ryan; Cook, Tony (December 18, 2013). "Gov. Mike Pence supports limited use of cellphone surveillance device". The Indianapolis Star. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
- Fletcher, Lisa; Kazdin, Cole (March 8, 2010). "Cell Phone Spying Nightmare: 'You're Never the Same'". ABC News. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
- Wheeler, Brian (March 2, 2004). "'This goes no further...'". BBC News. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
- Alba, Davey (April 5, 2012). "Look Who's Stalking: The 10 Creepiest Apps For Phones, Facebook, and More". Gizmodo. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
- "News report". KGW News, NBC. (Youtube video). Retrieved 26 March 2014.
- Bott, Michael; Jensen, Thom (March 7, 2014). "Cellphone spying technology being used throughout Northern California". ABC News, News10. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
- Stafford, Rob (June 16, 2007). "Tracing a stalker". Dateline NBC. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
- "Is your cell phone spying on you?". Fox News. January 14, 2014. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
- Law Enforcement Disclosure Report 2014 Vodafone
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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