US spies hacked our phones over the air, claim pipeline protesters

For the past year or so, protesters in North Dakota, America, have been trying to prevent an oil pipeline from being built through Native Americans’ sacred land. As a result, they’ve gone through an astonishing level of electronic surveillance while there, it is claimed. For instance, fake cellphone towers were used to listen …

[Anonymous Coward]

This is another reason Apple needs to get away from Qualcomm

I have no idea if these scare stories about iPhones turning on and transcribing conversations are true. But Qualcomm controls the baseband software in the iPhone and every other phone using Qualcomm cellular IP, so they could make it do this and the phone's OS couldn't stop it (though I don't see how the phone's owner would know it is happening since it couldn't display anything on the screen)

Apple's plan with Intel is to eventually license the IP and include the cellular block on their SoC, rather than buying a chip from Intel. And they'd be able to write their own baseband software (or more likely modify Intel's software) and could insure that no built in telco/spook backdoors are present.

[Oengus]

Re: This is another reason Apple needs to get away from Qualcomm

could insure that no built in telco/spook backdoors are present except their own.

FTFY

[whoseyourdaddy]

Re: This is another reason Apple needs to get away from Qualcomm

"This is another reason Apple needs to get away from Qualcomm"

Basically, you're a moron. Here's why:

If the federal government cared who was at the protest, you'll find that these "Stingray" microcells are the size of a suitcase and have absolutely zero physical reason to be any larger.

Here's why the protesters are morons: having a base station closer to your phone actually saves your battery, doesn't make it worse. The simple reason is your phone only transmits with enough power to maintain the call. Increases call capacity.

You sound like a Janitor at Intel if you believe for one second that a Qualcomm modem can make an iPhone do anything like this without Apple's full knowledge and consent. It's not unlike smashing your computer mouse because you can access porn on the internet.

You have to be the blond bimbo at the front desk of Intel if you think the FAA would allow a phone in airplane mode to transmit one damn thing.

Fuckwit.

But, thanks for the laugh.

[notowenwilson]

Re: This is another reason Apple needs to get away from Qualcomm

"Fuckwit.

But, thanks for the laugh."

Calm down, sunshine. Perhaps you had some really insightful things to say, perhaps you know all about this stuff. But all of that is overshadowed by a direct and personal attack on the OP. I come to these forums to learn from people who know interesting stuff. Go somewhere else if you feel the need to sling insults at people.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: This is another reason Apple needs to get away from Qualcomm

Any possible insights are also rather overshadowed by the poster's failure to read and/or understand the article.

"Here's why the protesters are morons: having a base station closer to your phone actually saves your battery, doesn't make it worse."

The protestor who mentioned their battery being drained had her phone on airplane mode, so wasn't making any calls. The claim was clearly that batteries were being drained by the phone being used for eavesdropping on face-to-face conversations. No-one implied that making a call through an IMSI-catcher somehow uses more battery than using a legitimate cell, as whoseyourdaddy seems to have imagined.

[Anonymous Coward]

Backdoors prevail

I doubt changing suppliers will help. Spooks are paid to extract information. Where there's a will, there's a way.

[BillG]

Re: Backdoors prevail

Why would the government want to spy on these people? WHY?

The whole protest was disgusting. The protesters came unprepared. no porta-potties, no garbage bags. They left the land absolutely filthy with human waste and garbage. You should see the photos.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Backdoors prevail

Professional protestors feel a strong need to be spied on.

[Blip]

Re: Backdoors prevail

The whole protest was disgusting. The protesters came unprepared. no porta-potties, no garbage bags. They left the land absolutely filthy with human waste and garbage.

The first significant oil leak will make that pale to insignificance.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Backdoors prevail

True. I looked up pipeline spills and in fact there are very many pipeline spills all over the country every year. So if this particular pipeline must be blocked because of the spill hazard, then all the other fossil fuel lines need to be shut down for the same reason. Of course then we would all have to return to subsistence farming (the survivors anyway), but that is a small price to pay so that no place on this precious globe is ever besmirched by naturally occurring petroleum.

Except when it happens naturally, of course.

[Your alien overlord - fear me]

In other news

They forgot to mention that Marilyn Monroe was there singing to JFK who was shot by Elvis who escaped in a UFO.

The CIA reported that they didn't use mind altering drugs on anyone at any time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In other news

I once tried some American aerosol canned cheese. That proved to be a mind altering drug; I decided I wouldn't be trying it again...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In other news

I suspect they put mind altering drugs in the water across the whole of that continent

[404]

Re: In other news

They call it Fluoride... Supposed to whiten/strengthen teeth as well as make you stupid*.

*makes Americans 'special'...

[WonkoTheSane]

Re: In other news

You failed to mention that the UFO was piloted by a dinosaur.

[Kane]

Re: In other news

"You failed to mention that the UFO was piloted by a dinosaur."

Raptor Jesus, I think you'll find.

[K]

Re: In other news

A little while ago, I was watching this documentary called Iron Sky's.. Highly recommend it if you want a proper history lesson and true understanding of the US Shadow Government.

[Alan Brown]

Re: In other news

"You failed to mention that the UFO was piloted by a dinosaur."

And Jimmy Hoffa was acting as loadmaster?

[Anonymous Coward]

“I had my iPhone turn on remotely and start transcribing my conversations and texting them out,” Dewey said. “This was quite obvious, and didn’t require any interaction on my part.”

I could quite believe that the government agency or another would be interested in spying on these protesters by fair means or foul, however....I would have thought that if someone had the technical smarts to be able to hack into someone's phone, then they would be smart enough to find a way to make sure that any data was stolen silently, without the user being ware.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no way to make data extraction perfectly silent, if only because it has to use extra energy, which is more noticeable on a phone in a remote location with few power outlets.

And it could be, as suggested, a beta-testing operation to check out how their brand new toys behave in real-life, with proper "user" feedback on what needs to be improved (that's what those reports amount to).

It would be more difficult to get those in a foreign country.

[Destroy All Monsters]

There is not even a need to "hack the phones" as everything passes through switches tapped by TLAs.

This "transcribing" business sounds schizophrenic.

Reminds me of the antiwar protests of 2010 or so where "micro-drones" the size of dragonflys were spotted. No use explaining to the "seers" over the 'net that technology for this is about 20 years away or so, They were probably dragonflys if they existed at all.

[Jason Bloomberg]

I would have thought that if someone had the technical smarts to be able to hack into someone's phone, then they would be smart enough to find a way to make sure that any data was stolen silently, without the user being ware.

Perhaps the point was to make people aware, to demonstrate they could do this, to let fear and paranoia do the rest?

They were probably unlikely to get anything useful from what they were doing anyway and, if the protest was being used as a testing ground (and it wouldn't surprise me if it was, an opportunity too good to miss), the results of a variety of techniques are important to observe.

It's not only about surveillance and intelligence gathering; it's about influencing and control, manipulating people into behaving certain ways, oppressing and disadvantaging themselves.

[Frank Bitterlich]

Tinfoil hat alert

“I had my iPhone turn on remotely and start transcribing my conversations and texting them out,” Dewey said. “This was quite obvious, and didn’t require any interaction on my part.”

Sure, it's not totally impossible that this was happening, just very very unlikely. Applying a bit of Occam's Razor here leaves me with a much more likely explanation: That Siri was triggered accidentally (had that many times on anything that sounded roughl like "Hey Siri"). If it then thinks to understand "Send Text" or similar, it will happily start transcribing what you're saying int a text message.

As for another phone draining the battery despite being in airplane mode - there are many possible battery hogs, including dumb apps that don't recognize that they have no network and endlessly try to connect somewhere.

IMSI catcher, yes, I believe that. Airborne ones, even, and that would be a pretty badass example of mass privacy violation (though it might be legal in the U.S., I don't know.) But I have trouble believing that the hardcore spook agencies were field-testing their most powerful tools there for world+dog to observe.

[DropBear]

Re: Tinfoil hat alert

I have my phone randomly falling into "om nom nom battery" mode quite often unfortunately - not that I have any reason to suspect any foul play, the phone is pretty far from stock by now so it's pretty clearly one of the various apps on it getting hung up on something sometimes, no idea which one. Sometimes it's black and dead, sometimes it's alive but with a half minute delay to any action, sometimes it's the display going fully negative (wtf...).

Funnily enough, an old Symbian S60 I only use in airplane mode as an alarm clock these days also has a similar problem in spite of not running practically any extra software: I just see it hanging with the display on sometimes, forgetting to ever turn it off, running the battery into the ground, quite literally: last time it did that, I had to "revive" the battery using an external charger because the phone wouldn't even turn on long enough to start charging it.

So yeah, I guess anything is possible when protests are involved, but modern phones definitely don't need any help from the user in killing their batteries whenever they feel like it...

[Captain DaFt]

I would have thought that if someone had the technical smarts to be able to hack into someone's phone, then they would be smart enough to find a way to make sure that any data was stolen silently, without the user being ware.

FUD: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, tools favored by the Spooks to spread paranoia, and hinder the target's ability to organise because they're unable to trust anyone.

By being as obvious as possible, they send the message that, "We know what you're doing, and you can't do anything about it".

[Mephistro]

Glad to see that...

... the TLAs are using all this electronic surveillance to fight terrorists organized criminals peaceful demonstrators.

USA govt.: Wiping their arse with their own Constitution since 2001 (and before!).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Glad to see that...

I actually had a recent opportunity, a free business / pleasure trip to the Adjacent States of Murica, to Las Vegas DEFCON and LA. I turned it down. I actually value my life.

Murica is a shitty country, with shitty people residing on its land. The vast majority outweigh the few decent intelligent people left there, and before you Muricunts™start getting all patriotic and teary eyed. I do feel this way about most of the World

[quxinot]

Re: Glad to see that...

....The vast majority outweigh the few decent intelligent people....

I suspect that holds true for the overwhelming majority of the population, worldwide. Depending on the company I keep, that's considered racist, sexist, ageist, cynical, or--worryingly--optimistic.

The properly frightening bit is how the ratio grows tighter when looking a government. (Any government.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Glad to see that...

You, sir, are a jackass of the highest caliber. By smugly labeling a whole country and every one in it with your insults you only show the world what an arrogant, IGNORANT bigot you are. So congratulations on the Own Goal there chief! What intolerant country bred you? I for one am glad you'll never darken our shore with your onerous presence. Many thanks for that.

Strange that most visitors here mention how friendly and helpful everyone is. But don't let the facts interfere with your fantasy of being gunned down as you leave the plane. I'm sure you would find Johannesburg more to your liking.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

Re: Glad to see that...

I thought the Constitution was just to show off to other countries?

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

Related:

The media manipulators who poisoned the coverage of the Dakota Access Pipeline also sold us the Iraq war

[Andy The Hat]

Rubbish story

This story is obviously untrue as the US Government does not spy on its own citizens.

Even as I typed, I felt there was a minor factual inaccuracy in that sentence ... if I can just put my finger on what it is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could just get some..

Faraday bags anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Or you could just get some..

Operational Security too, like dumber phone and better secured devices/access.

I can't say I have a lot of sympathy with the 'native' Indian protestors, because some tribes have blocked archeological study of valuable human remains and ruins which are of obviously different culture/race, which they have no honest claim too, and at least some probably pre-date their migration to the (now) American continent!

[Anonymous Coward]

Petty commoners

We sprayed everyone that was on the ground. The best is yet to come.

[armyknife]

Maybe the demonstrators would have been better off with a slew of differently branded feature phones instead?

[FriendInMiami]

If the Cornish people rose up to block a pipeline through Cornwall...

Explaining on your side of the Atlantic what the Standing Rock confrontations meant over here in the colonies is daunting. It was a series of confrontations, some simultaneous (and some, like court battles and trials of arrested people, are still ongoing). The Native Americans presented themselves as "Water Protectors," a stand which resonated with both indigenous nations and the majority of us, I believe. Water Protectors physically at Standing Rock were mostly indigenous persons of different nations. This literally international cooperation and the presence of representatives of indigenous groups from other countries - and continents - took this into the realm of a great awakening of Americans to the problems of pipelines and a great awakening of indigenous nations to global cooperation against multinational corporations. Nationally and in Canada, new similar protests and confrontations over pipelines are on-going. Those at Standing Rock who physically stood in the face of pipeline crews until militarized police dragged them away made a lasting impact on church and social justice organizations, not just in the USA. Public posted disagreements with the major corporations putting in this one pipeline over a river next to a reservation (reserved Indian land) - a pipeline previously routed away from its original path to cross the river upstream from a city (Bismarck, like Cornwall's Truro) in North Dakota - turned into nation-wide divestment actions, as people began pressing banks to stop funding pipelines and coal mines and other carbon-to-atmosphere transmission systems. Some of these have been succeeding. Social media, especially Youtube and Facebook, has been essential to sharing what is going on. Confronting the federal regulatory agency over pipelines, and acting in the courts at the same time, and going into local courts over arrests, mean that the attorneys (many volunteers or on some kind of stipend) were very busy - and many still are. In such a focused site under international scrutiny, the massive federal and private surveillance and the cross-state marshaling of police forces into this little area of North Dakota takes on a new perspective - here, the powers-that-be for a little while met their match. People on horseback stopped bulldozers. The administration of President Obama signaled a desire to appear less committed to pipelines over people. President Trump's election and his agency-head appointments both signal that there will be an ongoing battle with the federal forces who are now clearly on the side of more, more, more carbon extraction - water and air pollution and global warming be damned. Unfortunately, it is our children and their children who will live in the hell that is being created by millions of carbon emissions. We are now in the days of increasingly extreme climate change.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: If the Cornish people rose up to block a pipeline through Cornwall...

"President Trump's election and his agency-head appointments both signal that there will be an ongoing battle with the federal forces who are now clearly on the side of more, more, more carbon extraction - water and air pollution and global warming be damned. Unfortunately, it is our children and their children who will live in the hell that is being created by millions of carbon emissions. We are now in the days of increasingly extreme climate change."

That's democracy for you. Trump was elected on promises of re-opening coal mines, drilling for oil in the Arctic and reversing anti-pollution measures on the grounds that global warming is Chinese propaganda.

Either US democracy is even more broken than anyone suspected or a significantly large proportion of the US people simply don't give a shit about the rest of the world or their children's future.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Protected by Treaties"

Don't they know that there is no such thing as "protected by treaties" when the white man needs to take something. Didn't 400 years of history tell them anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Treaties?

“These lands were supposed to be protected by treaties,” ... “They weren’t, that’s why we call the US government forked tongues.”

Pro tip: History has shown us time and time again, that treaties with the US government are not worth the paper they are printed on.

[Chris G]

Re: Treaties?

"“These lands were supposed to be protected by treaties,” ... “They weren’t"

The reason why? Manifest Destiny

There are a lot of people who still believe in it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Treaties?

There are a lot of people who still believe in it.

They are taught that in school. It is part of the indoctrination USA kids undergo as an integral part of their education. The ones which leave high school understanding that it is a hogwash are a very small minority.

While each country indoctrinates their kids, it is only USA which has "manifest destiny" as an integral part of the brainwash treatment.

[Old one]

False protest

Funny that everyone seems to have missed one major point of this -- the LOCAL tribe did not want this protest and early on asked them to leave. This protest was totally organized from outside the local area. It was very well organized to distract from the real enviro-nazi agenda of crippling the US energy self sufficiency. These people behind this are the same enviro-terrorists that drive nails into large trees so loggers get injured.

This was also done on private property not public lands so they were trespassing. Surveillance of criminal activity by any means has been used for decades. Unfortunately some celebrities get sucked in by the "do-right left" and wrongfully enhanced the legitimacy of these illegal endeavors. Celebrity endorsement only serve to heighten the false narrative that the protest organizer want. Crying wolf is a common tactic for these groups.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the thing, is that pipeline is not even to help the US people. We get nothing for putting up with that pipeline and the disruption to our lands and basic water supply. It's for International interests at our expense and at the expense of future generations to the US citizens and since the water tables have been considered expendable, for the sake of building this pipeline, water polution interacts and effect s things worldwide, as it a dynamic interdependent planetwide system. Countries, laws and ethics, species and religion s all come and go, but the same we stand to do to the water systems of Earth have longer lasting and farther reaching consequences, which is why protection of them transcends and supercedes law and country

[Anonymous Coward]

As a citizen of the USA, I would beg the world to refuse business with the U.S.A. until it's prohibit ively expensive to not protect waterways, olease help us get our country back, most of us don't condone the acts of our government, but are scared of retribution if we don't pretend to like it. Americans are not patriotic. We are scared .We are a country held hostage by it's own government and just trying not to disappear mysterious ly like the others that spoke out with a voice loud enough to be heard

[DishonestQuill]

Even if the various arms of the US govt felt the need to monitor the protesters' device I doubt they'd have bothered to do so at more than arms length given what Tiger Swan is alleged to have done. (I think this is touched on somewhere in the article.)

Check out Alleen Brown, Alice Speri, Will Parrish's articles on the subject, if you feel so inclined

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would the government want to spy on people?

"Why would the government want to spy on these people? WHY?"

The corporate state sees any kind of protest as a threat to their authority. If such protest was allowed to go unchallenged then it may give the rest of the voters the idea that they have a say in how they are ruled. The same strategy applies here with the domestic extremism intelligence unit (NDEDIU) tasked with monitor the activities of political campaigners and spying on journalists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trust us

* All those 5-Eyes server farms set-up to supposedly catch T's and P's. The tech works far better on easy targets.. So they point it instead at Whistleblowers / Protestors / Activists / Investigative-Journalists etc...

* Body-Of-Lies (2008) captured the situation perfectly. ISIS etc know they're fighting 'an enemy from the future', so they shun electronics wherever possible.... Go 'low-tech', blend into the population as background...

[oneeye]

Commentards abound, follow author over cliff!

Good grief, only a handful of insightful people here can read through the Bull Shit Story being spewed by a pack of liars without ONE PIECE of Evidence! What kind of mush for brains idiots let these people speak at the convention. Don't these stories belong in the supermarket tabloid, Hmm? Elreg??? Here I got a story for you, based on nothing, with not one piece of evidence, but my own fevered imagination. Are you interested ? It's about ________ fill in the blank from local tabloid.

[Phukov Andigh]

No need

I could and did get more from their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Everyone showing off how "woke" they are. Making sure everyone knows it too. otherwise there wouldn't be any real point would there?

Most of these people flew in, which means they gave TSA every bit of critical personal information needed just to get their tickets. Credit cards linked to finances to pay for it all. And those that drove in, license plates and drivers license info clears the rest.

This is just more screaming for more attention. Often while burning more of the same oil they pretend to oppose. Which in a few years, when the tribe whose land this was NOT on and NOT getting paid finally does, there will be echoing silence as the Tribal Council rakes in the cash.