If anybody feels that News International’s chief executive Rebekah Brooks and those close to her should have their champagne lives a little bit interrupted and annoyed, facebook members can always go to her facebook page. You can scroll down her friends on the left hand side, and send them messages telling them exactly what you think of the company they keep. They include several Murdochs, and the odd MP, so you can get quite abusive. Don’t do threatening, please.
I do think an hour’s harmful diversion breaks up the working day to useful effect. Nobody will be nearly as upset as were the families of muder victims by what Ms Brooks’ organisation did in phone hacking their lost relatives.
The most astonishing fact to emerge so far is that it is now six months since News International emails were given over listing tens of thousands of pounds of corrupt payments they made to police. Yet nobody – bent policeman or Murdoch slime – is in handcuffs for this yet. Is there any possible innocent explanation for this?
We have become ‘Italy’, yet continue to sip tea. Italians know their state is utterly corrupt; we can’t quite seem to believe it of ours.
Lovely. I never thought of that! Tee-hee.
Sign this:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/murdoch_messages_2/?copy
At least we can try.
Of course there is an explanation, they are all in it! their hands in each other pocket all the time, so as Suhyal says it all we have to do now, realize and acknowledge that British Politics is as corrupt as Italy or anywhere else. Suhayl, I have mine black please….
Rather appropriate comment from Suhayl. It really feels as if we are on some metaphorical Titanic ( or maybe down the rabbit hole of Alice in wonderland).
The band is playing, the captain is shouting down from the bridge, the ship is tilting and the 1st class passengers are in the bar being entertained, just before their (expected) ushering to their place in the life boats by the armed police, preventing the hoi-polloi from grabbing the boats.
Meanwhile, Portugal sovereign debt was reduced to junk status. Is Greece fixed? I don’t think so.
The charade seems very very odd, or maybe it is just me and my paranoia.
An innocent answer? I have to say I’m struggling with that. At a guess I’d go with fear – fear on the part of the politicians and civil service directly attached to them, fear on the part of high ranking police for uncovering colleagues wrong doing and possibly their own.
Given the broad level of contempt most of these high ranking officers are held in by the rank and file, I’d imagine they’d be only too happy to thin the upper echelons a bit.
Hmm, spamtrapped!
Surely we don’t do corruption here? It really isn’t cricket old boy!
I thought everything here was so expensive (trains, gas, electricity, phone, petrol) because ‘it really is the best in the world’ and not because some greedy fat slob is raking it in and lining his pockets at our expense!
Sadly I expect this NOTW scandal will blow over and we will be back to where we were ready for the next one. Few if any will lose their jobs and none their liberty as it seems even the Met Police took fat brown envelopes.
As for the tabloid press and the depths they will plunge, well it’s the folks who buy the papers and lap it all up who are partly responsible for the party continuing along with their loyalty to voting in a contrived election every four or five years.
Whoa! Hang on a minute Craig – while I am always up for a bit of mischievous fun, I believe you cannot send a message to anyone in Facebook unless you are a signed up friend. Signing up and being accepted as a friend and then dripping poison into that ‘friends’ inbox is somewhat hypocritical – isn’t it? – Well hey – Not really – a good friend will tell you if your being an ass’ol.
Mark,
I tested a few. It all depends on how they have their Settings. With some you can message them, and with some (I think) you can even write on their walls. With others you can’t.
Thanks, all. Okay, Azra, no milk: got it! Parky, yes, I fear the likelihood of the same outcome. Hmn. How about a Wikileaker from inside the Police…?
When one contemplates such sleazy gatherings upon the axminster of Westminster (or of the Foreign Office, or wherever), one cannot but wonder where the girl in the film, ‘If’ went. I know such adventurism is no solution, and yet… if… if… if…
Latest number Stop Murdoch Campaign 96200,
http://www.avaaz.org/en/murdoch_messages_2/?copy
She knew and so did Coulson, Cameron seems to have been hacked, all the stories about his family and what happened during the time of his sons death, why should this have stopped at the PM?
If Prescott was hacked and Blanket knew about it, then Blair would have been fair game, his visit to Rupe’s abode before getting re- elected could take on a different tinge alltogether.
Far from needing a sat nav to track your speed, you mobile will also do the job quiet well, by sending of a tracked signal for best reference possible, every 10 seconds or so, all you have to do is extrapolate between 2/3/180/ or whatever many transmissions to find out what average and even top speeds you have ben doing on a journey.
Makes you almost wanna chuck the mobile, or take the batterie out…
I think that awefull woman should pack her bags and sling it, ideally I would like these allegations against Newscorp. International proven and that whole rotten empire sued to kingdom come, imprisoned if any harm is proven, could not care less, these heartless people can go rott in hell.
And we are living in a capitalist world, some other jackal will soon take their place, they breed each other, far from me to get soiled on her FB site.
And NO, I wouldn’t, not even out of spite.
Ingo: I generally do switch the mobile off when travelling. Can’t hear it ring while wearing a helmet anyway, and having it constantly searching drains the battery faster. Unfortunate that one’s speed could be determined, if the ‘phone company sells the data to the filth! (“What, me doing an average of 120mph officer? No no no… I’d loaned it to someone who was in a light aircraft at the time, honestly!”)
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Incidentally, the war criminal Cheney always took the battery out of his mobile whenever he went into a meeting. I heard a policeman bragging that they can remotely switch on the mobile’s mic (just to spy on drug dealers, terrorists etc., of course), during an interview on R4’s PM. Quite a surprise. So not only are we all carrying around personal tracking devices, we’re carrying our own bugs on before of the state too!
Thanks Glenn didn’t know that of mobiles, but knew it to be true of land lines, microphones can be turned into listening devices, even if it is on the hook so to speak, but I’m not a techie, others will know better.
Glenn
Yes, that is certainly true – if the battery is in your mobile, they can switch on and listen without anything showing so you can see they are doing it. MI5 use it all the time. It does drain your batteries much quicker than normal though.
So, the message is to remove the battery – right? Does that render it safe? Or are they able even to detect residual signals from the SIM card (do these ‘signals’, or energies, exist?). Is there residual energy in the network within the ‘phone? Can they watch us through our TVs, btw? Or is that an urban myth? So, digital radio: Not safe. Old-style transistor or valve radio, not safe either? What about music amps? You know, one used to hear radio transmissions through cooking pots and iron pillars – that really used to happen occasionally – not any longer, though.
The day John Lennon died, before I knew about it, I swear I heard music emanating from an iron pillar in Glasgow University’s old Anatomy Dissection Hall. Seriously. Man, that was freaky. All those bodies lying around, and music coming from a pillar. Put me off dissection.
So, another answer night be to play loud heavy death-metal music and to place the mobile ‘phone right up against the speaker. An earful. Can they also listen to one’s home landline ‘phone, if the battery’s still in the handset?
Taking the battery out disables a ‘phone’s bugging ability, and its ability to be used as a tracking device.
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I don’t know if any of the more modern ‘phones have a back-up battery that cannot be removed. If your ‘phone’s clock doesn’t forget the time and date when the battery has been out for a minute of two, beware!
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I do notice that on some modern ‘phones, notably the various Apple iPhones, the battery cannot be removed.
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TVs and radios shouldn’t have the ability to bug you. They have neither microphones nor transmitters. Generally, the older the technology, the less likely it has any “clandestine” features. PCs, laptops, very bad, BUT you can use Free software!
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“School Cleared of Spying on Children’s Laptops”, despite spying on children via their laptops:
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http://www.tomsguide.com/us/macbook-laptop-spying-merion-school,news-7804.html
Look, this is crazy. Techs have been banging on about the possible misuse of ‘phones, computers, etc as surveillance devices for years. I’ve been saying that these devices have these capabilities, and I’ve met with nothing but complacency – “it’ll never happen”, “if you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear”, “yes, it can be done, but no one will abuse it”.
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History shows that if the means of totalitarianism are created, pretty soon they get used, and that’s exactly what is happening. It’s just that people tend to mistrust the government, and don’t think about the private companies. Well, as pointed out on another thread, we took our eyes off the ball, and it is altogether likely that the state isn’t acting very strongly against “phone hacking” because their own ‘phones have been thoroughly hacked, and important members are compromised by blackmail.
With the original GSM standard of mobile phone, if such a bugging capability was included as a matter of fact it would have to be written into the bespoke software of the handset manufacturers and this fact would by now have been well known. With the new generation of so-called smart phones which can be reprogrammed after manufacture, then just about anything is possible. Most of these types of phone have satellite tracking capabilities built in as a matter of course. Apple have already been outed as someone found a hidden file residing inside the iphone handset which records everywhere the phone has been since initialisation. For older phones if they were switched off then they were indeed off and did not record any position information or report back to the network. With Android type smartphones the basic operating system has been developed by Google and although notionally residing in the public domain, it is still possible to hide some malevolent code within it. My main concern is that both Apple and Google are American companies and have behind them big corporate America, none to be trusted with our personal data, but it is exactly what these and other organisations want from you as well as your money. Many will be aware that Lockheed Martin are a major contractor for the UK 2011 census. You have to ask yourselves why that should be. Generally though if you remove the battery from the modern phone, it will not communicate with the outside world. It needs energy to do this and without the battery it is effectively dead. If you suspect that your phone may be switched on remotely and used as a listening device, then one simple test you can do is to keep it near a normal domestic radio receiver which is switched on. Occasionally you will hear interference which is normal as the handset reports to the network. However when the phone is transmitting speech in a call the interference will be continuous and the phone should get slightly warm too. In general normal home landline phones (not DECT) can not be set remotely to be listening devices, a bug would have to be planted inside the phone or room. However all types of call whether landline or mobile can be intercepted by the authorities through the network trunk with appropriate authorisations for the detection of crime.
Parky, thanks for mentioning that iPhones recorded location information. When asked about this, I believe Apple replied “it’s a bug”. I wonder if they meant that recording locations was an error in the software (which would seem very unlikely to occur by mistake), or that the iPhone itself is a clandestine surveillance and listening device?
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“What? It makes notes of everywhere I take it?”
“Yes, it’s a bug (you fool).”
Parky, the precautions you suggest are good, but some dangers remain. The microphone uses little power. The ‘phone could record audio from the mic into the memory, to be transmitted later, perhaps when the ‘phone was on charge. This would run the battery down slower, defeat your interference test at the time of recording, and the ‘phone would get less warm.
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These ‘phones are also fitted with cameras…
Good thing I’ve taken the precaution of making sure my mobile is at least 10 years old. On a modern mobile, one could indeed have a voice-activated mic (should it have received instructions to do so) that would record with charge from a small capacitor, so would work for many hours even without a main battery. The upload could piggy-back on a legitimate transmission and would be very hard to detect.
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When you can get software like this loaded onto mobiles: http://www.eyetek.co.uk/mobile-phone-tracking?currency_code=EUR
… it’s not hard to imagine our security services, with unlimited budgets and powers, could rustle up something significantly better.
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About Lockheed Martin – a company as close to the establishment as one could get – it’s rather astounding that they got away with undertaking the UK census. Under the PATRIOT act, all US companies are obliged to hand over any and all data they receive to the US authorities. Companies like LM did not need encouragement or laws to make them do so. We can safely assume all our census data, and all movements, texts and call details made by anyone with a US parent company mobile, is now in the hands of the US government.
Glenn, that is what I feared wrt mobiles. So, in some cases, the only way would be to place the mobile ‘phone on a hard surface, preferably an asphalt path, raise one’s jackbooted boot and maximise the utilisation of the earth’s gravity in order to render the device into many fragments. Then take these fragments and place them in an envelope and post them to MI5 HQ in London (or maybe News International HQ). Let’s say 10 million mobile ‘phone users did exactly that, without warning all on the same day: a kind of ‘red-nose’ day for listening devices.
Anyone had their invite yet?
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/superrich-party-people-say-lets-go-to-montenegro-2308101.html
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I thought not! None of us here are rich enough, powerful enough or corrupt.
‘one cannot but wonder where the girl in the film, ‘If’ went’
Sadly Suhayl, the lovely Christine Noonan( nee Wright) is no longer of this world-
http://www.malcolmtribute.freeiz.com/noonan.html#resume
Her last screen appearance was in ‘Britannia Hospital’; during the riot scene she hands out a flower to one of the SPG/TSG cops- and gets clobbered to the ground for her pains.
To secure your PC or laptop:
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http://www.truecrypt.org/
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To secure a windows mobile phone:
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http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-freeotfe4pda-v3-00.html
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To secure an Android phone use RedPhone:
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http://www.whispersys.com/
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All free!
Fifty years ago, a regular stand-up comedian’s favourite was the joke about the difference between western and Soviet TVs – the difference being of course that in the USSR, it was the that TV watched you…
Somehow doesn’t seem as funny now…