T-Mobile officially reveals Sprint’s CDMA 3G network shut down date

/in /by

Monday, May 24, 2021 | By Christine Torralba – TmoNews |

It’s official! T-Mobile will be shutting down Sprint’s CDMA 3G network on January 1, 2022.

The information was revealed in an internal memo that was obtained by this report. The memo details the company’s plans to continue building the best 5G network in the country and in doing so, the older technologies will be retired.

The memo also reveals some important things to know on how this information can be relayed to affected customers. And in addition to that, T-Mobile has plans to introduce different offers to encourage customers to get a new phone that will support its evolving network.

T-Mobile has already started to notify affected customers, especially those who are still 12+ months into their current lease or own their device. The Un-Carrier will also be sending out additional emails to remind customers of this upcoming change later in the year.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile Business customers were informed of the CDMA 3G network shutdown date back in December 2020 to ensure that they have a full year to make necessary changes.

Read the original article HERE.

Surveillance Self-Defense Playlist: Getting to Know Your Phone

/in /by

Thursday, May 6, 2021 | By Alexis Hancock – Electronic Frontier Foundation |

We are launching a new Privacy Breakdown of Mobile Phones “playlist” on Surveillance Self-Defense, EFF’s online guide to defending yourself and your friends from surveillance by using secure technology and developing careful practices. This guided tour walks through the ways your phone communicates with the world, how your phone is tracked, and how that tracking data can be analyzed. We hope to reach everyone from those who may have a smartphone for the first time, to those who have had one for years and want to know more, to savvy users who are ready to level up.

The operating systems (OS) on our phones weren’t originally built with user privacy in mind or optimized fully to keep threatening services at bay. Along with the phone’s software, different hardware components have been added over time to make the average smartphone a Swiss army knife of capabilities, many of which can be exploited to invade your privacy and threaten your digital security. This new resource attempts to map out the hardware and software components, the relationships between the two, and what threats they can create. These threats can come from individual malicious hackers or organized groups all the way up to government level professionals. This guide will help users understand a wide range of topics relevant to mobile privacy, including:

  • Location Tracking: Encompassing more than just GPS, your phone can be tracked through cellular data and WiFi as well. Find out the various ways your phone identifies your location.
  • Spying on Mobile Communications: The systems our phone calls were built on were based on a model that didn’t prioritize hiding information. That means targeted surveillance is a risk.
  • Phone Components and Sensors: Today’s modern phone can contain over four kinds of radio transmitters/receivers, including WiFi, Bluetooth, Cellular, and GPS.
  • Malware: Malicious software, or malware, can alter your phone in ways that make spying on you much easier.
  • Pros and Cons of Turning Your Phone Off: Turning your phone off can provide a simple solution to surveillance in certain cases, but can also be correlated with where it was turned off.
  • Burner Phones: Sometimes portrayed as a tool of criminals, burner phones are also often used by activists and journalists. Know the do’s and don’ts of having a “burner.”
  • Phone Analysis and Seized Phones: When your phone is seized and analyzed by law enforcement, certain patterns and analysis techniques are commonly used to draw conclusions about you and your phone use.

This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive breakdown of CPU architecture in phones, but rather of the capabilities that affect your privacy more frequently, whether that is making a phone call, texting, or using navigation to get to a destination you have never been to before. We hope to give the reader a bird’s-eye view of how that rectangle in your hand works, take away the mystery behind specific privacy and security threats, and empower you with information you can use to protect yourself.

 

Read the original article HERE.

This Android App Promises To Wipe Your Phone If Cops Try To Hack It

/in /by

Fri. May 7, 2021 | By Thomas Brewster – Forbes |

If the police get hold of a smartphone and they have a warrant to search it, they’ll often turn to a tool from Israeli company Cellebrite that can hack into it and download the data within. But on Friday a security researcher is releasing an app that he says can detect when a Cellebrite is about to raid the device, turn the phone off and wipe it.

It could prove to be a controversial release, given that criminals could use it to erase evidence. But Matt Bergin, the researcher at security company KoreLogic who created the tool, says Cellebrite could easily update its phone-hacking tech to stop his app—dubbed LockUp—from working. And he hopes his work, which also included finding now-patched security weaknesses in the Cellebrite, will bring to light the need for more tests on police forensics tools to ensure they’re secure and able to detect evidence tampering.

“My goal is not to arm criminals. It’s more to educate the general public and make it aware that we need policy changes to address these issues,” Bergin added. “I hope we see changes in policy that require the types of testing that I do.”

Bergin was able to carry out his research on a two-year-old Cellebrite Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED) acquired from eBay, a place where the tech, supposedly only to be used by police, has been spotted on sale before. He found a handful of security issues. First, he found a problem with the way in which Cellebrite handled its encryption keys. One of those keys—an authentication key—was supposed to guarantee that the Cellebrite device was the only one to carry out a forensic search on a phone, but they were the same for every unique Cellebrite system. “The problem with that is now, when evidence collected by the UFED is being introduced in the courts, you can’t really say that it was the Cellebrite itself that did the collecting of the content,” Bergin explained. He also found keys that let him pull all the code used to exploit vulnerabilities in Android, all of which appeared to have been fixed on Google’s operating system…

Read more here

Amazon and Apple Built Vast Wireless Networks Using Your Devices. Here’s How They Work.

/in /by

Fri. May 7, 2021 | By Christopher Mims – WSJ – www.wsj.org |

Apple’s iPhone-powered Find My network and Amazon’s Sidewalk network—coming soon to all newer Echo devices—are platforms in their own right, capable of supporting billions of connected devices

What to do if you’re a globe-spanning tech titan that wants to connect millions or even billions of devices, but you don’t want the hassle or cost of dealing with telcos, satellite operators or cable companies for connectivity? You use the devices your customers have already purchased—and brought into homes, businesses and public spaces—to make an end-run around traditional wireless networks.

Apple and Amazon are transforming the devices we own into the equivalent of little cell towers or portable Wi-Fi hot spots that can connect other gadgets and sensors to the internet. They have already switched on hundreds of millions—with many more on the way. Instead of serving as wireless hubs solely for your own smartwatches, lights and sensors, your iPhones and Echo speakers can help other people’s gadgets stay connected as well—whether you know it or not.

On Friday, Amazon announced it’s expanding its Sidewalk network, which already includes certain Ring Floodlight Cam and Spotlight models, to include Echo devices released in 2018 and after. This includes Echo speakers and Echo Dots, as well as all Echo Show, Echo Plus and Echo Spot devices. It will also use recent Ring Video Doorbell Pro models to communicate on the Sidewalk network via Bluetooth. Sidewalk was designed to allow smart devices to send very small bits of data securely from any available wireless connection, to supplement Wi-Fi networks and reduce wireless communication breakdowns…

Read more here

2 Wisconsin Men Charged With Entering US Capitol During Jan. 6 Insurrection

/in /by

Mon. May 3, 2021 | By Shawn Johnson – WPR – www.wpr.org |

The FBI Used Google Data To Help Confirm Their Location

Two Wisconsin men have been arrested and charged with entering the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Brandon Nelson of Dane County and Abram Markofski of La Crosse County have been charged with four counts, including entering and remaining in a restricted building and disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds.

During an initial court appearance Monday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen L. Crocker ordered Nelson and Markofski not to leave Wisconsin’s Western District while their case is pending without first clearing it with the court. They’re scheduled to hold a remote hearing with a Washington D.C. judge on May 10.

According to a sworn statement from the FBI, an anonymous tipster told the agency the day after the insurrection that Nelson had been inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan 6.

The FBI said Nelson later told agents that he and Markofski drove from Madison to Washington D.C. on Jan 5, arriving there the morning of Jan. 6. Nelson told the FBI that they attended former President Donald Trump’s speech outside the White House that day before they walked to the Capitol.

The FBI said it was able to confirm Markofski was inside the Capitol by tracking his cell phone location data, which it obtained from Google through a search warrant. The Google data showed that Markofski’s phone was at least partially within the U.S. Capitol between 2:15 p.m. and 3:41 p.m. on Jan. 6…

Read more here