Re:Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London
by gherkin0 on Friday January 15, 2016 @01:49PM
(#10911243)
> The fact that BlackBerry designed around this early on leads me to suspect (as an outside observer with an imagination) that mass metadata collection was known by folks in industry back in the 90s.
Wouldn't a simpler explanation be that it was just over-designed for 90s-era threats in a way that hardened it to some more recent threats?
Re:Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London
by Spooky23 on Friday January 15, 2016 @11:00PM
(#10914181)
It is definitely a simpler explanation.
Consider however that none of their US based competitors managed to do address those threats in a meaningful way.
Re:Signs of Secret Phone Surveillance Across London
by Perixoog on Friday January 15, 2016 @02:25PM
(#10911482)
Maybe referring to a "short message type 0"
https://github.com/SecUpwN/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector/iss...
>"The FBI can access cell phones and modify them remotely without ever having to physically handle them," James Atkinson, a counterintelligence security consultant, told ABC News. "Any recently manufactured cell phone has a built-in tracking device, which can allow eavesdroppers to pinpoint someone's location to within just a few feet," he added.
Source: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/12/can_you_hear_me....
I believe (but cannot cite) that this capability became mainstream when E911 & GPS was mandated.
This stuff is a big reason why BlackBerry was so critical to regulated industries and public company execs. PIN messaging on legacy BlackBerry was secure between devices on the same BES, and there wasn't a direct linkage to the user's identity, which made it easy to lower the value of metadata collection.
The fact that BlackBerry designed around this early on leads me to suspect (as an outside observer with an imagination) that mass metadata collection was known by folks in industry back in the 90s.