[LINK] Hacker Access to Mobile-Device Location

[TKoltai]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au 
> [mailto:link-bounces at mailman.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Roger Clarke
> Sent: Friday, 17 February 2012 11:37 AM
> To: link at anu.edu.au
> Subject: [LINK] Hacker Access to Mobile-Device Location
> 
> 
> Cell Phone Hackers Can Track Your Location Without Your 
> Knowledge ScienceDaily Feb. 16, 2012
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120216165701.htm?
> utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+scien
> cedaily+(ScienceDaily:+Latest+Science+News)
> 
> [Picked up from Lauren Weinstein's list]
> 
> Cellular networks leak the locations of cell phone users, allowing a 
> third party to easily track the location of the cell phone user 
> without the user's knowledge, according to new research by computer 
> scientists in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and 
> Engineering.

This is not research. It's a bunch of kids that went to a burning man
conference, saw the neato UMTS wireless messaging system running in the
desert, grabbed the source and decided to raise awareness for their own
project (grant application, doubtless) by attempting to turn Fourth
Estate.

All this does is make other persons aware of the potential. By other
persons, I refer to the bored 14 years olds looking for their next big
"Tag" game.

Cellular hand-off data (except for CDMA) has been widely used for a
number of years.
To grab it you merely need to run a UMTS compliant transceiver device
(about $1500) on some ISM frequency close to that used by the carriers
and offer a service... Most phones will respond with a unique
identifier, some with additional information.

This is not news, it's a glorified Facebook Wall post from a Kid worded
to look like a peer reviewed paper.

I'm disgusted that his doctoral advisory panel would even consider
letting this item escape under the auspices of a learned institution.

I believe that Universities have an obligation of "Duty of Care" in what
they teach their students.

Just as "Satan" relapsed a Genie out of the bottle in 1994 and it's
source gave 10,000 Asian Compsci students the ability to hijack almost
every aspect of TCP, I believe this *COUGH* research is a similar
mistake.

I'm angry at this. This Genie has the ability to destroy the entire
Phone Wallet potential. Which I thought was a kinda neato way for
consumers to take back banking.

Sorry Folks, no References. I will not assist in the promulgation of
this dastardly meme.

TomK











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