---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <anon201604170000@telecom-digest.org> Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000 (UTC) From: Anonymous <anonymous@telecom-digest.org> Subject: Re: First came the Breathalyzer, now meet the roadside police "textalyzer" On Sat, 16 Apr 2016 01:39:02 -0400, Monty Solomon wrote: > First came the Breathalyzer, now meet the roadside police "textalyzer" > > Drivers in accidents could risk losing license for refusing to submit > phone to testing. > > Under the first-of-its-kind legislation proposed in New York, drivers > involved in accidents would have to submit their phone to roadside > testing from a textalyzer to determine whether the driver was using a > mobile phone ahead of a crash. [Moderator snip] > > http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/first-came-the-breathalyzer-now-meet-the-roadside-police-textalyzer/ To be followed quickly by an app that detects the g-forces in typical car crashes and wipes the data[1][2]. [1] or writes false data [2] including itself, if necessary ------------------------------ Message-ID: <C6EC42D3-BDD8-4209-9C15-DCB28033CE38@roscom.com> Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2016 14:07:49 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: OK, Panic - Newly evolved ransomware is bad news for everyone OK, panic - newly evolved ransomware is bad news for everyone Crypto-ransomware has turned every network intrusion into a potential payday. by Sean Gallagher Ars Technica Apr 8, 2016 http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/04/ok-panic-newly-evolved-ransomware-is-bad-news-for-everyone/ ------------------------------ Message-ID: <8EE4F380-6E16-4200-A1A1-2873DC68AE56@roscom.com> Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2016 10:58:12 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: 5 Things To Know About Ransomware By Emily Sweeney One evening in July 2015, I was sitting at my desk in the Globe newsroom, working on a story, when suddenly a pop-up ad appeared on my computer. The box contained an ominous message. It said all of my files - videos, photos, documents, everything - had been encrypted. In order to get my stuff back, I'd have to pay hundreds of dollars to some anonymous hacker who weaseled this malware onto my computer. I tried to close the pop-up, and opened up one of the folders on my desktop. I watched in horror as my files in that folder were encrypted, one by one. Within seconds, I could no longer open any of them. My laptop had been hijacked . . . by a "KEYHolder" ransomware virus. https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2016/04/14/things-know-about-ransomware/zOCkuVP3GzdiRbyCq7JSeP/story.html ***** Moderator's Note ***** I don't like ransomware any more than the next guy, and I don't often publish articles not directly related to telecom. But, it's only a matter of time before these sorts of scams attack "smart" phones. The article author makes some good points: first among them, to back up your data on both a local backup drive and in the cloud. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ Message-ID: <mdudnfOI_K5jio7KnZ2dnUU7-bnNnZ2d@posted.internetamerica> Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2016 23:58:38 -0500 From: gordonb.ajny5@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) Subject: Re: First came the Breathalyzer, now meet the roadside police "textalyzer" > First came the Breathalyzer, now meet the roadside police "textalyzer" > > Drivers in accidents could risk losing license for refusing to submit > phone to testing. > > Under the first-of-its-kind legislation proposed in New York, drivers > involved in accidents would have to submit their phone to roadside > testing from a textalyzer to determine whether the driver was using a > mobile phone ahead of a crash. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is too vague. Almost everyone who has a crash used a cell phone weeks to years before the crash, and not necessarily in a car. Of course that's not what they meant, but lawmakers are often just as sloppy writing laws. And if the phone was in use 1 minute before the crash, that might have been in the driver's home, not a car. > In a bid to get around the Fourth Amendment right to privacy, the > textalyzer allegedly would keep conversations, contacts, numbers, > photos, and application data private. It will solely say whether the > phone was in use prior to a motor-vehicle mishap. Further analysis, > which might require a warrant, could be necessary to determine > whether such usage was via hands-free dashboard technology and to > confirm the original finding. Use of hands-free technology and then getting into an accident should double the penalty (which in the uh, wrong circumstances might be 30 counts negligent homicide of a bus full of children), unless you were using brain-free technology (this is usually called a cellular answering machine, which almost nobody carries around, or "voice mail", which pretty much every cellular phone has. For true brain-free operation, most cellular phones have a DO NOT DISTURB mode where you are not notified of an incoming text, or call. >http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/first-came-the-breathalyzer-now-meet-the-roadside-police-textalyzer/ Good luck getting that to work reliably enough to base a conviction on the results. Assume the fact in question is whether the driver *SENT* a text immediately before the accident. If you are examining only the phone (not phone company records, which would seem to be a much better source of "did phone X send a text, and if so, when" answers. You still need to examine the phone to get the IEMI and phone number and carrier and whatever.), you have to assume that the cell phone clock was pretty accurate, or the driver can claim he sent the text before getting into his car at his home, 3 miles away. It's not that uncommon to have the clock off by more than 5 minutes (assuming the clock is coming from the carrier) - and then there's time zones. I'm not the only one who complains about the time on their phone being off. I think the worst clock error I've seen that did not involve being near a time zone boundary was 41 minutes off except for one glitch where it was several years off. I suspect the carrier call records are timed much more accurately than the sloppy time setting they supply to cell phones. Or at least the carrier will claim they are. You also need to know when the accident happened fairly accurately. If the police happened to see the accident and show up in 30 seconds, no problem. If the police showed up 30 minutes after one driver reported the accident to them with his cell phone (this is clearly *AFTER* the accident), then sent a text to his boss/wife/parents that he was going to be late, it's going to be difficult to determine what happened first (although if they examine the message in the text, which the textalyzer doesn't do, it's pretty clear that "I just had an accident, will be in late" or "please send a tow truck to ..." wasn't sent before the crash (unless the crash was pre-planned). If there was a passenger, how do you know the passenger wasn't the one using the phone? Can you really get good fingerprints off of a touch screen? Even if someone makes a quick attempt at wiping it off with a tissue? If the fact in question is whether the driver was *COMPOSING* a text, it seems to be much harder to determine when that happened. (There's a heart-breaking TV commercial about a woman being told that the last text her daughter composed was "Mom, I love y" before she died in a crash.) How do you tell when the message was composed and saved (without being sent)? I could also compose the message at my home, realize I don't have time to finish it without being late for work, save it, get in the car, have an accident, and *THEN* send the text while waiting for a tow truck which is expected to take hours. Editing a composed text after the accident may wipe out any modification time on that composed text that puts it as being edited just before the accident. If the fact in question is whether the driver *RECEIVED* (without reading it yet) a text while driving, well, so what? I receive texts occasionally while driving, and the phone stays in my pocket, and when I get to my destination, I take out the phone and read it. If DO NOT DISTURB was on (and it often is), I don't even know the text arrived until I've stopped driving. If the fact in question is whether the driver *RECEIVED* and *READ* a text while driving, that seems to be tricky. There's nothing wrong with receiving a text before the accident, then actually reading it afterwards while waiting for an ambulance or the police to show up. Oh, yes, software that takes incoming text messages and reads them out loud to you is also distracting. There's also a certain amount of shenanigans you need to watch out for: someone attempting to erase the evidence after the accident without either the other driver or the police seeing it. A factory-reset would be suspicious, but it might still erase evidence of composing a text. Or, they could send as many texts as possible hoping to argue they were all sent after the accident rather than one being sent just before the accident. Or, they plant the phone in the other guy's car. Or just ditch the phone, and claim not to have been carrying one. Or reset the time to be way off. If I get into an accident, are the police going to spend hours disassembling my car looking for a phone which I didn't bother bringing on a short trip to a nearby store? (No, I don't *ALWAYS* have my phone with me. I probably should while driving at least to call 911 or a tow truck if/when I have an accident. If I don't have my phone with me, I'd gladly tell the police the truth that I didn't have it with me, but they might not believe that.) What is "using" a phone? I picked up my phone one morning and discovered it was halfway through downloading a large OS upgrade over my Wi-Fi. Was I "using" the phone for the last couple of hours while I was asleep? How about app upgrades? Although these are often restricted to Wi-Fi to avoid chewing up your data quota, not everyone uses that setting, and sometimes apps are set to automatically install. Is that evidence you were using the phone to install yet another upgrade to the Facebook app (haven't I installed at least a dozen of these this year?) while driving, even if the download and install was automatic? Is pressing a button on the phone to make the screen light up "using" the phone? Mine sometimes does that when it's in my shirt pocket. It's not as bad as "butt dialing" because it won't unlock the phone unless my chest grows a "fingerprint" similar to the one on my thumb. ***** Moderator's Note ***** As usual, American jurisprudence is on a mission to blame the powerless for the actions of the powerful. The fact is that talking on a cell phone while driving is four times more dangerous than driving while drunk, and our elected representatives know that. If the rest of our lawmakers were interested in earning votes instead of pocketing them, they might follow the lead of the few states which have outlawed cellular use by drivers. Trust me: the call can wait. Bill Horne Moderator ------------------------------ Message-ID: <barmar-25B293.19183417042016@88-209-239-213.giganet.hu> Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2016 19:18:34 -0400 From: Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu> Subject: Re: First came the Breathalyzer, now meet the roadside police "textalyzer" In article <mdudnfOI_K5jio7KnZ2dnUU7-bnNnZ2d@posted.internetamerica>, gordonb.ajny5@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) wrote: > Use of hands-free technology and then getting into an accident > should double the penalty (which in the uh, wrong circumstances > might be 30 counts negligent homicide of a bus full of children), > unless you were using brain-free technology (this is usually called > a cellular answering machine, which almost nobody carries around, > or "voice mail", which pretty much every cellular phone has. For > true brain-free operation, most cellular phones have a DO NOT DISTURB > mode where you are not notified of an incoming text, or call. Since most states seem to be passing laws that prohibit use of hand-held phones while driving, but allow hands-free phones, why would the penalty double for the explicitly legal use? If you want to argue that they shouldn't allow hands-fee use, that's a separate issue. But as long as they do, then if the equipment can distinguish it then that should be a proper defense. -- Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** ------------------------------ Message-ID: <57n2pzvtc1xm.m314t12fighn.dlg@40tude.net> Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2016 22:13:50 -0400 From: tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> Subject: Re: We must protect workers' right to walk out On Fri, 15 Apr 2016 11:30:06 -0400, Bill Horne wrote, quoting Alex Gourevitch: > ... > The 40,000-person, Verizon strike on Wednesday and the Fight for $15 > strikes on Thursday are just the latest examples of worker walkouts. And is this the latest illustration of strike-breaking in action? -- <http://www.salon.com/2016/04/15/striking_verizon_workers_hit_by_company_attorney_driving_a_porsche/ > Cheers, -- tlvp -- Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP. ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Mon, 18 Apr 2016