India Mobile Handset Backdoor Memo Probably a Fake 151
daveschroeder writes "In the wake of previous coverage alleging that Apple, Nokia, RIM, and others have provided Indian government with backdoors into their mobile handsets — which itself spawned a US investigation and questions about handset security — it turns out the memo which ignited the controversy is probably a fake designed to draw attention to the "Lords of Dharmaraja." According to Reuters, "Military and cyber-security experts in India say the hackers may have created the purported military intelligence memo simply to draw attention to their work, or to taint relations between close allies India and the United States." Apple has already denied providing access to the Indian government."
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:5, Informative)
Sec. 103. Assistance Capability Requirements. (a) CAPABILITY REQUIREMENTS.â" Except as provided in subsections (b), (c), and (d) of this section and sections 108(a) and 109(b) and (d), a telecommunications carrier shall ensure that its equipment, facilities, or services that provide a customer or subscriber with the ability to originate, terminate, or direct communications are capable ofâ" (1) expeditiously isolating and enabling the government, pursuant to a court order or other lawful authorization, to intercept, to the exclusion of any other communications, all wire and electronic communications carried by the carrier within a service area to or from equipment, facilities, or services of a subscriber of such carrier concurrently with their transmission to or from the subscriber's equipment, facility, or service, or at such later time as may be acceptable to the government; (2) expeditiously isolating and enabling the government, pursuant to a court order or other lawful authorization, to access call-identifying information that is reasonably available to the carrierâ" A before, during, or immediately after the transmission of a wire or electronic communication (or at such later time as may be acceptable to the government); and B in a manner that allows it to be associated with the communication to which it pertains, except that, with regard to information acquired solely pursuant to the authority for pen registers and trap and trace devices (as defined in section 3127 of title 18, United States Code), such call-identifying information shall not include any information that may disclose the physical location of the subscriber (except to the extent that the location may be determined from the telephone number); (3) delivering intercepted communications and call-identifying information to the government, pursuant to a court order or other lawful authorization, in a format such that they may be transmitted by means of equipment, facilities, or services procured by the government to a location other than the premises of the carrier; and
Combine that with the PATRIOT act which basically allows the government to screw with US citizens at its leisure, means that the government can basically tap your phone for any reason that it sees fit.
And the (as you would put it since you obviously don't have a clue what is going on in the world) conspiracy theory website The New York Times reported in 2010 about a bill that the US government was considering that takes CALEA further by mandating that all encryption be able to be decrypted by the government (in CALEA encryption was left up to the government to decrypt on its own) https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/us/27wiretap.html [nytimes.com]
Also, according to Slashdot, quoting US laws are "lame".
Re:I'll just be right here... (Score:4, Informative)
There really is a sort of sublime irony in a poster blatantly ripping off a blog post which defends the idea that certain companies are ripping off Apple.
http://macjournals.com/blog/2012/01/10/dan-lyons-showing-self-awareness-what-self-awareness/ [macjournals.com]
Unless, of course, bonch really is Matt Deatherage of MacJournals, in which case, congratulations on quoting yourself.
Re:I'll just be right here... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I'll just be right here... (Score:-1, Informative)
Looks like I'm outed.
Re:I'll just be right here... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I'll just be right here... (Score:4, Informative)
N800 [wikipedia.org], bitchez!
(Seriously, why does everyone think Android is/was the only competitor to Apple?)
Re:I'll just be right here... (Score:4, Informative)
Probably because we already know Apple spies on iOS users?
If you remember, CarrierIQ is baked into iOS. It can't be uninstalled by users, because it's part of the OS. Even with jailbreaking it involves removing kernel modules.
Not to mention that if you actually bothered to read your iCloud TOS, you'll discover that Apple reserves the right to continuously monitor and record your current location. They even get access to your email through iCloud.
Basically, everything that the memo says Apple allowed India to do Apple claims the right to do in their TOS!
So even if the memo is fake, the ability for Apple to spy on iOS users most certainly is NOT.
Re:I'll just be right here... (Score:4, Informative)
You might want to point out that that was released *after* the iPhone, but you go kid! On your truth crusade!
Re:I'll just be right here... (Score:3, Informative)
So, turn off those features.
Switch off location services, don't use iCloud (a claim that can be put to any cloud service, not just Apple's).
It also doesn't say "continuously monitor" - you're just trying to use weasel words to make it sound worse. What it talks about is occasionally collecting anonymous location data to improve it's location-aware apps.