Tag Archives | Verizon

Ted Rall’s Prescient Take On Verizon And The NSA

By on June 12, 2013 in News 0

verizon and the NSAVia Common Dreams, political cartoonist Ted Rall foresaw exactly where we would be today in a piece written in 2006:

Several months ago employees of Verizon, the company that enjoys a monopoly on local telephone service where I live, confirmed that my telephone has been tapped by the government.

“I don’t mind that Bush is listening to my calls,” I told the security department. “It’s not like I’m calling al Qaeda. And if they called me, I wouldn’t be able to hear them because of the noise on the line.”

Most Americans feel the same as me. We’re not doing anything wrong, so why should we care if the government knows when we’re stuck on hold? If losing our privacy can prevent another 9/11, isn’t it worth it?

No. First and foremost, domestic spying is not an anti-terrorism program. The CIA estimates that there are between 2,000 and 10,000 al Qaeda members worldwide.

… Read the rest

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Don’t Worry About Obama Spying On You—Just Kidding, You Should Worry

By on June 6, 2013 in News 0

article-obama-1207Ah, the sweet smell of Thursday morning outright denial-of-reality.

Yes, in a sweeping scoop from The Guardian‘s Glenn Greenwald, it has been revealed that the Obama administration since at least April has been hoovering up millions of Verizon subscribers’ phone data – customers within the United States, calling other customers within the United States. Monitoring such ‘domestic only’ communications is strictly forbidden by the NSA’s mandate, but don’t worry, some hardcore Obama policy defenders on Twitter and on the cable news networks this morning have a reality distortion field… or wish they had one.

You see, according to such apologists for warrantless spying, this isn’t a big deal because a) Bush was doing it in some form also and b) it’s just ‘metadata.’

To address point A: and their point is? Weird world we live in when the best justification you can come up with is that the Mission Accomplished Guantanamo waterboarding torture war with the wrong country guy with a ranch in Crawford, Texas did it also.… Read the rest

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NSA Secretly Collecting Records Of All Verizon Phone Calls

By on June 6, 2013 in News 0

NSA Secretly Collecting RecordsSince April, under a secret court order, Verizon has been providing the government daily with details of every phone call made by U.S. customers on its network, Glenn Greenwald reports in the Guardian:

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April. The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing. The numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls.

… Read the rest

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Man Outsources Own Job to China

By on January 18, 2013 in News 6

Apparently what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander…

From BBC:

US employee ‘outsourced job to China’

A security check on a US company has reportedly revealed one of its staff was outsourcing his work to China.

The software developer, in his 40s, is thought to have spent his workdays surfing the web, watching cat videos on YouTube and browsing Reddit and eBay.

He reportedly paid just a fifth of his six-figure salary to a company based in Shenyang to do his job.

Operator Verizon says the scam came to light after the US firm asked it for an audit, suspecting a security breach.

According to Andrew Valentine, of Verizon, the infrastructure company requested the operator’s risk team last year to investigate some anomalous activity on its virtual private network (VPN) logs.

 

Continues here.… Read the rest

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These Are The Prices AT&T, Verizon and Sprint Charge For Cellphone Wiretaps

By on April 5, 2012 in News 2

Reports Andy Greenberg on Forbes:

If Americans aren’t disturbed by phone carriers’ practices of handing over cell phone users’ personal data to law enforcement en masse–in many cases without a warrant–we might at least be interested to learn just how much that service is costing us in tax dollars: often hundreds or thousands per individual snooped.

Earlier this week the American Civil Liberties Union revealed a trove of documents it had obtained through Freedom of Information Requests to more than 200 police departments around the country. They show a pattern of police tracking cell phone locations and gathering other data like call logs without warrants, using devices that impersonate cell towers to intercept cellular signals, and encouraging officers to refrain from speaking about cell-tracking technology to the public, all detailed in a New York Times story…

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Verizon To Put Location-Tracking Warning Sticker On Phones

By on May 3, 2011 in News 9

Verizon WarningJulianne Pepitone reports in CNN:

In the wake of a giant brouhaha over the news that Apple’s iPhones record and store users’ locations, Verizon Wireless says it will start slapping ‘we can track you!’ warning stickers on its products.

Verizon’s announcement came in the form of a letter to Representatives Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and Joe Barton, a Texas Republican. In March, they asked the four major wireless carriers to explain how and why they track mobile location data.

All four carriers acknowledged that they store location data for varying periods of time, but Verizon was the only company to suggest a warning label. The company says it will begin including the removable sticker on all new devices it sells.

The sticker warns: “This device is capable of determining its (and your) physical, geographical location and can associate this location data with other customer information. To limit access to location information by others, refer to the User Guide for Location settings and be cautious when downloading, accessing or using applications and services.”

Verizon also disclosed that it stores location data and other customer information for seven years.

… Read the rest

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FCC Commissioner Blasts “Bloated Profits” of Verizon/Google Internet Plan

By on November 26, 2010 in News 2

Verizon/GoogleFCC Commissioner Michael Copps just announced that the public shouldn’t stand for deals “that exchange Internet freedom for bloated profits. And he forcefully mocked the tiered-data plans of the “Verizon-Google gaggle,” accusing them of wanting “gated communities for the affluent.”

Instead of letting Verizon create a ghetto of reduced-quality internet service, the commissioner warns the audience against proposals that would “vastly diminish” the internet’s importance, blasting “special interests and gatekeepers and toll-booth collectors who will short-circuit what this great new technology can do for our country.” He concludes by acknowledging that “you can’t blame companies for seeking to protect their own interests. But you can blame policy-makers if we let them get away with it!””… Read the rest

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Google’s Plans to Take Over The Internet Exposed!

By on August 22, 2010 in News 6

alg_google-flamesFrom Alex Jones/InfoWars:

Google’s agreement with Verizon to speed certain Internet content to users opens the door to the complete sterilization of the world wide web as a force for political change. Under Google’s takeover plan, the Internet will closely resemble cable TV, independent voices will be silenced and the entire Internet will be bought up by transnational media giants.

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4chan Being Blocked Again, This Time It’s Verizon

By on February 7, 2010 in News 8

Ken Eakins writes via Sittingnow.co.uk:

DO WANT … on Verizon!

4chan site owner m00t has posted to the 4chan blog, and Twitter, that Verizon wireless, are blocking both in and outbound web-traffic to 4chan.

Unlike a recent scare involving AT&T last year, m00t believes that this time it’s for realsies, from the 4chan blog:

Over the past 72 hours, we’ve been receiving reports from Verizon Wireless customers having difficulty accessing the image boards. After investigating, we found that Verizon is dropping traffic to/from boards.4chan.org, only on port 80 (HTTP). No other subdomain/IP/port is affected, which leads us to believe this block is intentional. A call was placed to their support staff last night, and we were told that the ticket would not be looked at until Monday at the earliest, and: “You’ll need the customer to call to request it be unblocked…”

If you’ve been affected by this block, please contact Verizon Wireless customer support.

… Read the rest

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Is the Google Phone an Unauthorized Replicant?

By on December 23, 2009 in News 1

Stories about Philip K. Dick’s daughter taking aim at Google’s deep-pockets for naming the “Google Phone” Nexus One have been all over tech blogs during the last week or so. Now that it seems the phone is truly about to come to market, maybe they’ll have to take her seriously. This summary story in the New York Times captures the issues fairly well:

Motorola tugged at the hearts of science-fiction fans everywhere when it announced that its first smartphone using Google’s Android software would be called Droid, the name given to the lovable robots in “Star Wars.”

Google appears to be trying the same tactic with its own soon-to-be-released Android phone. The device is called Nexus One in at least two government filings.

As many bloggers have noted, the name Nexus One seems to be a reference to the cyborgs in the dystopian movie “Blade Runner,” which in turn was based on the novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by the late Philip K.

… Read the rest

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