Verizon catches flak for bragging about value of spying on customers by Kevin Fogarty October 18, 2012 8:10 PM
Compared to free public wireless networks at coffee shops, airports, and other public places, the encrypted, proprietary, heavily secured cellular networks carriers offer to companies look like Fort Knox.
In a coffee shop, all it takes for a hacker to eavesdrop on "private" network connections is a WiFi device and a piece of freeware that takes the work out of snatching, storing and analyzing packets of data from other latte sippers.
Logging in to a cell network requires hardware- and software-based authentication, a device that can speak politely to a specific carrier's network and powers of hackery great enough to overcome security that prevents end-user devices from talking to each other or anything else that isn't a carrier-owned switch or router, military grade encryption and password-cracking apps and the time to make it all work.
[...]Verizon Wireless combs and cleans that data, combines it with information on customer shopping habits, age, gender and other demographic data purchased from third-party data brokers, and packages the results for sale to customers with a source of high-volume, real-time data on how customers behave.
The result is a massive invasion of customers' privacy and possibly a new violation of federal wiretap laws for every customer whose Internet activity is monitored, according to Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Hanni Fakhoury.
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***** Moderator's Note *****AFAIK, cellphones aren't encrypted.
Bill Horne Moderator