Tag: security

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Coming soon: A new way to hack into your smartphone

[From Computerworld.com and Kasama.]

By Robert McMillan

IDG News Service – More than three years after the iPhone was first hacked, computer security experts think they’ve found a whole new way to break into mobile phones — one that could become a big headache for Apple, or for smartphone makers using Google’s Android software.

In a presentation set for next week’s Black Hat conference in Washington D.C., University of Luxembourg research associate Ralf-Philipp Weinmann says he plans to demonstrate his new technique on an iPhone and an Android device, showing how they could be converted into clandestine spying systems. “I will demo how to use the auto-answer feature present in most phones to turn the telephone into a remote listening device,” he said in an e-mail interview.

Weinmann says he can do this by breaking the phone’s “baseband” processor, used to send and receive radio signals as the device communicates on its cellular network. He has found bugs in the way the firmware used in chips sold by Qualcomm and Infineon Technologies processes radio signals on the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks used by the majority of the world’s wireless carriers.

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Lawful Access Bills Would Reshape Internet in Canada

More information disclosure, more surveilance, new police powers

By Michael Geist.

The push for new Internet surveillance capabilities goes back to 1999, when government officials began crafting proposals to institute new surveillance technologies within Canadian networks along with additional legal powers to access surveillance and subscriber information.  The so-called lawful access initiatives stalled in recent years, but my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that earlier this month the government tabled its latest proposal with three bills (C-50, C-51, C-52) that received only limited attention despite their potential to fundamentally reshape the Internet in Canada.

The bills contain a three-pronged approach focused on information disclosure, mandated surveillance technologies, and new police powers.
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Ten reasons not to talk – or listen – to CSIS

By People’s Commission Network.  Posted on rabble.ca

Over past months, reports have multiplied of Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) visits to the homes and even workplaces of people working for social justice. In addition to its longstanding and ongoing harassment and intimidation of indigenous peoples, immigrant communities, and others, the spy agency has become much more visible in its surveillance of movements for social justice.

The People’s Commission is aware of dozens of such visits in the Montreal area alone. People visited range from writers and artists to staff at advocacy organizations and anarchists living in collective houses. Unannounced, in the morning, the middle of the day or the evening, CSIS agents knock at the door of private homes. Their interest is far ranging: from the tar sands, to the G8, to indigenous organizing, Palestine solidarity, Afghanistan; who you know and what you think. Their very presence is disruptive, their tone can be intimidating, and their questions intrusive, manipulative and inappropriate. They guarantee confidentiality — “just like in security certificate cases” — and invariably ask people to keep quiet about the visit.

The People’s Commission Network advocates total non-collaboration with CSIS. That means refusing to answer questions from CSIS agents, refusing to listen to whatever CSIS may want to tell you, and breaking the silence by speaking out whenever CSIS comes knocking.

If you are in immigration proceedings, or in a vulnerable situation, we strongly advise you to insist that any interview with CSIS be conducted in the presence of a lawyer of your own choosing.

Here are 10 good reasons not to talk — or listen — to CSIS: Continue reading “Ten reasons not to talk – or listen – to CSIS”