Feds Have a Backdoor Into Wireless Carrier

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Feds Have a Backdoor Into Wireless Carrier

 

Kevin PoulsenWiredMarch 6, 2008

A U.S. government office in Quantico, Virginia, has direct, high-speed access to a major wireless carrier’s systems, exposing customers’ voice calls, data packets and physical movements to uncontrolled surveillance, according to a computer security consultant who says he worked for the carrier in late 2003.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“What I thought was alarming is how this carrier ended up essentially allowing a third party outside their organization to have unfettered access to their environment,” Babak Pasdar, now CEO of New York-based Bat Blue told Threat Level. “I wanted to put some access controls around it; they vehemently denied it. And when I wanted to put some logging around it, they denied that.”

Pasdar won’t name the wireless carrier in question, but his claims are nearly identical to unsourced allegations made in a federal lawsuit filed in 2006 against four phone companies and the U.S. government for alleged privacy violations. That suit names Verizon Wireless as the culprit.

"You are a member of government. And one of that majority which has doomed my country to destruction. You've begun to burn our towns and murder our people. Look upon you hands. They are stained with the blood of your relations. You and I were long friends.You are now my enemy and I am yours."..........................Benjamin Franklin 7-5-1775