J
ust in case you needed a new reason to be paranoid, a security company has invented a device that can slurp all the data - photos, contacts and SMS - straight off your phone
The Paraben Cellular Seizure Investigation Stick (I’m sure the acronym is pure coincidence) is marketed as a ‘law enforcement’ tool, but is available to the public. By plugging it into a phone, you can grab all the data in just a few minutes - leaving no trace that anything has been tampered with.
The stick supports around 300 Motorola and Samsung phones at the moment, but support for more models - including those from Nokia and RIM - is promised soon.
To be at risk, you would have to hand over your phone or leave it unattended so there are certainly ways of minimizing your exposure. Perhaps investing in some encryption would be a good idea too?
I can see these being snapped up by tabloid hacks - particularly those attending events (e.g. film premieres) that require you to turn in your cameraphone at the door..
Sniff is a mobile social networking application that is intended to show you the location of any of your friends and family that have signed up to the service.
For 50p a time, users can query the service about a particular friend and receive a text containing the name of their location and a link to an online map.
The service works across all UK networks, which might raise some privacy concerns about how Sniff is using the location data it has acquired access to.
Sniff maintain that the data is used only on the strict understanding that it is not stored or shared with other companies. The service is ‘opt-in’ and it is a simple matter to become ‘invisible’ to other users if you want to drop off the grid for a while.
It’s still a worrying prospect, though. When you signed up for a mobile contract where you aware that your location data was going to be made available to private companies? Shouldn’t the real opt-out here be at the network level - a simple tick box on the website to say that you don’t mind your location being funneled into someone else’s data mine?
If you were to witness a crime, but didn’t want to ‘get involved’, a new SMS service could make it easy for you to help the police without revealing your identity.
Already in use by Canadian CrimesStoppers, TipSoft SMS allows users to send information to an central number that strips it of identifying data and forwards it to law enforcement.
The anonymity is two way, so if the police want to ask for further details they can ony do so by using the service in reverse.
Unlike so-called ‘Zero Knowledge’ authentication systems, presumably there is some record connecting your phone number to a particular tip so that the reverse contact can take place. Even if the facilitating company promises to keep this information secure, it may be possible that a court order could force it to be revealed.
TipSoft SMS is to be rolled out in the USA later this year and may reach the UK soon after.
ust in case you needed a new reason to be paranoid, a security company has invented a device that can slurp all the data - photos, contacts and SMS - straight off your phone
