[HACKED] Is Someone Listening to Your Calls?

I treat email and cell phones like postcards. Someone isn't likely to read your postcard, but they can. Same with email and phone calls. Truly secure communication is an illusion unless you go to a lot more trouble than I ever feel the need to.

Activate The Dome of Silence - if you need secure communications.

Here's the problem - "Your cell phone knows more about you than you do". I don't know about link rules here, but here's what CGP Gray has to say about the subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ZpsxnmmbE

It's well worth the 2-3 minutes to give you a clue why that statement is true. Laws written, as he points out, 200 years ago may NOT apply to *all* things in our modern culture.

Why does the NSA need programs like Prism if they have SS7? I am sure the government is still bound by privacy laws and can't just listen in when they like, but SS7 worries me because of hackers. With a bit of social engineering and flaws like SS7 they could own your whole life, whether or not you "have anything to hide". I will be contacting my congresspeople.

If the NSA or any other snoop wants to record my conversations, have at it, but they're just wasting their time. Many people believe that the Constitution endows rights, but I believe that if these so called "rights" were real, no law or government organization could take them away. Felons can not own or possess a weapon. A violation of Due Process at trial is allowed if considered harmless error. There are many other instances that can be sited; however, my point is that since we can lose our "rights" under certain circumstances, they are not rights at all, but simply privileges granted to citizens. Of course, I could be wrong, but that;s how I see it.

Edward Snowden mentioned the capabilities that Mr Nohl demonstrated, so it seems the NSA is fully aware of the flaw and is actively exploiting it with government approval.

Signal for Android encrypts VoIP calls on on phones but not tablets; if you can use WiFi to make a call, this will work. https://goo.gl/0CCSL

Kryptotel is another for Android. https://goo.gl/l6BXF8

Both provide some privacy protection even if only one party to a call or message has the app installed.

Never copy a foreign city's name from a news article found on the Web without verifying spelling. :-)

Even if someone says they have nothing "important to say," they should still be concerned about the privacy aspect of cell phone communications for all cellphone users. Knowing that some hacker can listen in on our private conversations is downright scary.

Granted, most of us have mundane chats more than 95% of the time, but there may be times when the average Joe, or even celebrities, need to discuss something personal and private - giving out credit card, SSNs or other account numbers, for business purposes, or passing along personal information during a personal crisis. With landline telephones, at least there was a real sense of privacy.

I'm sure guys like Buffet, Zuckerberg and Bezos (Amazon), and others, often discuss business on their cell phones, possibly more than 50% of the time. They need privacy from hackers, who may uncover and post on-line, proprietary information or business dealings, such as possible mergers or divestitures which could seriously affect the national economy or the stock market.

I suspect the only way this privacy issue will be changed is when member of Congress or the FCC get hacked, and have their private information exposed for all to see.

If this flaw is only there if traffic is between different networks arrange your 'secret' calls with whomever you really want to be secret using phones with the same network. Job done.

I also, agree with KRS. My cell phone is turned off except when I leave my property. I only use it for infrequent calls home (grocery shopping) or in an emergency. It is a Tracfone and I have accumulated over 1800 roll over minutes. I costs me just under $8.00 a month. Every thing is paid with one of 2 credit cards - checked daily and balances paid off every month. As an aside, my wife and I are debt free with our mortgage on our home on seven acres paid off.

But if emails can be read, the encryption of WhatsApp won't help, will it? Is there any way to secure emails received and sent on, say, an iPhone?

The casual attitude of many readers here about this security hole is disturbing. The information that others can get with hacked phones is precisely what can lead to devastating identity theft. And being able to track where you are allows a thief to know when to strike your home, etc. It takes only a little imagination to see how much harm can be done through this kind of information loss. Readers need to think more and be less apathetic about the risks they face. The day they wake up with nothing left in their electronic accounts will be too late to start thinking about security.

Was not aware of these ramifications of SS7, but did shoot an email to my congressman ... interesting to see what the response will be.

Hi Bob,
Interesting, will using a VPN help?

To Mark Miller: Even if your phone is off, your phone location can be tracked via the internal GPS. You actually have to take out the battery to avoid that.

Bob, sounds like this vulnerability would enable foreign agents to track movements of any key gov't personnel who carry cell phones. Hard to imagine they haven't been using it.

Bob, I always read your emails and at least half the time I read your full article---many times I am afraid to make changes you might suggest. I am chicken to mess with the computer. But your articles are usually well-written, timely, understandable, and most helpful, even to neophytes like me.

I have never in my life done anything like this blog posting, nor do I even know how to spell t-w-i-t-t-e-r, let alone try to do it. No, I do not carry a cell phone, unless in my auto counsel for emergencies. So maybe that is one reason I am not too sympathetic to those who feel soooooo wounded when they learn our government has access to their conversations. One thing you did not point out, is that unlike the general vacuum NSA programs, this kind of spying cannot be done unless they first show probable cause and obtain judicial approval.

WHY do people like 60 minutes have to always expose what is a useful tool for our security? Anyone who has read Dan Brown's DIGITAL FORTRESS -- now already 18 years old -- knows that this stuff is essential to our national security, and that it has forever been going on. And 60 minutes (—and even you, Bob) was irresponsible for failing to point out that any eavesdropping on a specific phone must first be authorized by a judge.

Yet 60 minutes and the snowden traitor crowd insist on breathlessly bringing out into the open and thereby ruining some of our most useful tools. Around the world the bad guys are giving thanks to the snowden/60 minutes crowd.

There is NOTHING whatsoever to "fix" here—so if I were to write to my congressional group, I would tell them to sanction 60 minutes for undermining our ops. Indeed, the ONLY thing to “fix” is their attitude that gaining notoriety by exposing and thereby ruining our country's MOST USEFUL tools trumps what is needed to fight the bad guys.

Someday it would be poetic justice to see the 60 minutes producer/executive crowd--and others like them who think it is their duty to ruin our national security just to put on a TV show--suffer a crime that could not be avoided and cannot be solved because authorities lost their spy hole into a phone, and now the messages of the perps were so encrypted we could not read them. That would be justice delivered!

Doofus, I would not worry about the Govt. half as much as I would about all the slease bags that could hack all your info. and do severe damage to you, and your family.

Doofus Dandy: Did you really read Bob Rankin's article? Nowhere did Bob mention anything about the NSA or CIA hacking into cell phone. The hacking Bob is writing about is from so-called "Black Hat Hackers," the antisocial bad guys who, will try to learn your Social Security number, various credit and bank account numbers, etc., to do you personal financial harm.

These guys have cracked cell phones' GPS systems and, if one is targeted, can tell if and when one is at home, or away from home, leading to the possibility of a burglary or other domestic mayhem. These guys are akin to the scumbags who try to infect a computer with viruses and other malware, or spam one's computer with bogus letters they want you to believe are from businesses and banks, to get personal information that will be used to hurt you.

By not patching these flaws in the leaves everyone open to potential harm. It is the equivalent of leaving one's windows and doors open and unlocked in the house, when one leaves for a two-week vacation.

Would similar vulnerabilities apply to calls made on landlines using VOIP?

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The tracking ability has saved quite a few lives in the last few years. For instance the CAP's cell phone tracking team has "assisted" in the rescue of numerous lost persons and folks involved in survivable aircraft crashes by directing rescue teams to the close location of the victims. They primarily use the triangulation method but if the GPS transponder is working that's an even better "locator" of one who needs help.