Silent Circle. Best Video Chat Services. Infoweek/green/022012gov/InformationWeek_Government_2012_02.pdf#error. Defcon’s NinjaTel cell network could solve real-world problems. At the Defcon hacker convention going on now in Las Vegas, roughly 650 attendees received a custom phone that allows them onto a secret local cell network called NinjaTel.
Both Ars Technica and The Verge have stories offering screen shots and details, but I’m curious about the real world implications of this experiement. Ars Technica says the network uses both a GSM network (not sure what frequency it’s operating in, or if it is indeed a real “pirate” network as The Verge asserts) and secured portions of the conference Wi-Fi : For redundancy and reliability, Ninja Networks engineers took advantage of a feature added to the Ice Cream Sandwich release of Android that makes it easy to route calls over GSM or, using the SIP, or Session Initialization Protocol, over a private portion of the Defcon WiFi. As each subscriber was added to the network, a syncing app added the user to the list of contacts contain on all other phones, giving each person a way to text or call the other. A Crowdfunding Campaign to Set Smartphones Free From Cellular Networks. The prototype shown at left can enable nearby Android phones to link up for calls, texts, and file transfers without a cellular network.
(Credit: Serval Project) The Serval project, whose free software can enable smartphones to make calls and send messages without a cellular network, is appealing for help developing a home router-like device that could make its novel approach more practical. A crowdfunding campaign aims to raise $300,000 to support development of the Mesh Extender, as it is called, which helps the ad-hoc, localized networks Serval creates to extend over larger distances. Potentially just as important, the device also makes it possible for nearby phones to join a mesh network without being modified to sidestep default restrictions on Wi-Fi networking in Google’s mobile operating system. The current prototype is pictured at left in the image above, while the Serval project’s founder, Paul Gardner-Stephen, holds a mockup of a more refined version.
Any cellphone can be traced by its digital fingerprint - tech - 01 August 2013. Tech-savvy criminals try to evade being tracked by changing their cellphone's built-in ID code and by regularly dumping SIM cards.
But engineers in Germany have discovered that the radio signal from every cellphone handset hides within it an unalterable digital fingerprint – potentially giving law enforcers a simple way of tracking the handset itself. Developed by Jakob Hasse and colleagues at the Technical University of Dresden the tracking method exploits the tiny variations in the quality of the various electronic components inside a phone.
"The radio hardware in a cellphone consists of a collection of components like power amplifiers, oscillators and signal mixers that can all introduce radio signal inaccuracies," Hasse says. A phone's resistance, for instance, can vary between 0.1 and 20 per cent of its stated value depending on the quality of the component. "Our method does not send anything to the mobile phones. More From New Scientist Is full-fat milk best? Ex-FBI official claims organization can remotely activate the mic on Android phones to record user's conversations.
The FBI has developed the technology to spy on people via their Android phones and laptopsUnlike the NSA, the FBI claims to only use the technology in specific casesThe bureau is now investing in a dedicated hacking group - the Remote Operations Unit By David Mccormack Published: 23:08 GMT, 2 August 2013 | Updated: 23:08 GMT, 2 August 2013 The FBI has developed the capability to remotely switch on the microphones in Android handsets and record user’s conversations, claims an anonymous former U.S. official.
The same technology also enables investigators to do the same to microphones in laptops without the user knowing, the person said. The claims, made in a Wall Street Journal report on the FBI’s use of hacking tools, come hot on the heels of revelations that the National Security Agency gathers data on millions of American citizens. Unlike the NSA, the FBI claims it only uses surveillance and hacking in specific cases.