[LINK] Hacker Access to Mobile-Device Location

Roger Clarke Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
Fri Feb 17 14:56:58 AEDT 2012


At 14:39 +1100 17/2/12, TKoltai wrote:
>  ... I will not assist in the promulgation of this dastardly meme. ...

John Lions did the world a disservice by bringing back a copy of the 
Unix kernel, annotating it, and giving it to 1,000 Australian Compsci 
students.

Discuss.

(:-)}

________


At 14:39 +1100 17/2/12, TKoltai wrote:
>>  -----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


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law               University of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University



More information about the Link mailing list