| Author |
Mobile Phone text evesdropping !!
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| Soapydux 2005-10-27, 5:48 pm |
| Just a thought but can text messages be read by anyone else? i.e could
say someone who worked for a mobile phone company have access to the
content of your text messages?
I'm not thinking around the lines of court orders and terrorist threats
etc but just on a day to day basis.
Or would they just see the number and amount of texts sent. Would be
interested in hearing opinion from someone who works for a network
provider co.
Anybody know?
Cheers
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| Neil Monk 2005-10-27, 5:48 pm |
| Soapydux wrote:
> Just a thought but can text messages be read by anyone else? i.e
> could say someone who worked for a mobile phone company have access
> to the content of your text messages?
Yes they would. I doubt any of the customer service staff would have the
knowledge and tools to do so, but yes, it is possible.
<snip>
>
> Or would they just see the number and amount of texts sent. Would be
> interested in hearing opinion from someone who works for a network
> provider co.
<snip>
This is probably the only type of information that the customer service
staff would have access to.
--
Neil
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| Ivor Jones 2005-10-27, 5:48 pm |
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"Soapydux" <soapydux@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1130441085.858040.206310@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com
> Just a thought but can text messages be read by anyone
> else? i.e could say someone who worked for a mobile
> phone company have access to the content of your text
> messages?
>
> I'm not thinking around the lines of court orders and
> terrorist threats etc but just on a day to day basis.
>
> Or would they just see the number and amount of texts
> sent. Would be interested in hearing opinion from
> someone who works for a network provider co.
>
> Anybody know?
>
> Cheers
Yes, but not the average customer service droid. Tech support and the
higher-ups could probably get at them though, although there would
probably be severe penalties if they did so illegally (and were caught..!)
Ivor
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| Woby Tide 2005-10-27, 11:48 pm |
|
Ivor Jones wrote:
> "Soapydux" <soapydux@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1130441085.858040.206310@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com
>
> Yes, but not the average customer service droid. Tech support and the
> higher-ups could probably get at them though, although there would
> probably be severe penalties if they did so illegally (and were caught..!)
>
> Ivor
All depends though, a lot of tech support staff have permamnent access
to view 'live data' to enable problem solving or answering queries. The
sheer volumes though normally mean that it's irrelevant as chances of
them seeing something 'worthwhile' are so remote. I'd imagine a random
sample of texts would pretty much throw up something that resembled a
script for a Vicky Pollard sketch and little else
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| Soapydux 2005-10-27, 11:48 pm |
| Interesting. How about deleting the text from your inbox/sent items
etc immediately, akin to downloading your email and it clearing from
the ISP mail server.
So say a user just deleted everthing as and when they read it would it
delete from the network supplier system or still be held on record (if
so how long for)? Can't imagine they would keep millions of texts
going back weeks and weeks on the system, especially considering the
volumes they must handle on a day to day basis!
Plus I would have thought that accessing peoples texts would be a huge
invasion of privacy and frowned upon, although working in the banking
industry for many years, access to peoles accounts was very rarely
audited and picked up - if ever !!
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| soapydux@gmail.com declared for all the world to hear...
> Interesting. How about deleting the text from your inbox/sent items
> etc immediately, akin to downloading your email and it clearing from
> the ISP mail server.
>
> So say a user just deleted everthing as and when they read it would it
> delete from the network supplier system or still be held on record (if
> so how long for)? Can't imagine they would keep millions of texts
> going back weeks and weeks on the system, especially considering the
> volumes they must handle on a day to day basis!
Texts are not stored an a server until you delete them form the device,
they are delivered and that's that.
They way well get archived, it shouldn't be too hard as it just a few
bytes of text and could easily be compressed to store billions of
messages.
--
Regards
Jon
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| Allan Gould 2005-10-28, 5:48 pm |
| Soapydux wrote:
>
> Just a thought but can text messages be read by anyone else? i.e could
> say someone who worked for a mobile phone company have access to the
> content of your text messages?
Two thoughts on this
a) Isn't there legislation being talked about that requires ISPs to
retain records of all e-mails for a certain period of time. Presumably,
someone will eventually cotton on to the fact that text messages as well
as e-mails will need to be dealt with
b) In terms of the customer services agents or the tech support people
reading text messages: (apart from the confidentiality/professional
issues of employees doing this, getting caught and being sanctioned for
doing so): when I worked for a software company in tech support, we
regularly had to ask customers for their data to reproduce errors etc.
Some customers insisted that we sign all sorts of non-disclosure stuff.
The reality is that after a while, the data becomes completely
uninteresting and just a means to an end. Yes, there's a novelty value
of seeing someone's data (but it's probably meaningless out of context),
but the novelty value wears off _very_ quickly.
Allan
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| dennis@home 2005-10-28, 5:48 pm |
| [color=darkred]
> Soapydux wrote:
Every text message ever sent has been stored for future reference.
Employees are not normally permitted any access to the messages but certain
government officials are.
Hope that puts you to ease.
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| Ivor Jones 2005-10-28, 5:48 pm |
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"dennis@home" <dennis@killspam.kicks-XXX.net> wrote in
message
news:Jkm8f.139351$G8.115215@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk
>
> Every text message ever sent has been stored for future
> reference.
*Ever* sent..? Are you sure..?
Cite your proof of this, please.
Ivor
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| The Drone 2005-10-28, 5:49 pm |
| In article <4361E668.531A2A39@me.freeserve.com>, Allan Gould
<allang@me.freeserve.com> writes
snip
>The reality is that after a while, the data becomes completely
>uninteresting and just a means to an end. Yes, there's a novelty value
>of seeing someone's data (but it's probably meaningless out of context),
>but the novelty value wears off _very_ quickly.
A bit like my daughter who got a holiday job with an outfit handling
cash. She regularly handled millions in used notes. After a couple of
weeks she was bored rigid.
--
Peter
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| David Hearn 2005-10-28, 5:49 pm |
| Soapydux wrote:
> Just a thought but can text messages be read by anyone else? i.e could
> say someone who worked for a mobile phone company have access to the
> content of your text messages?
>
> I'm not thinking around the lines of court orders and terrorist threats
> etc but just on a day to day basis.
>
> Or would they just see the number and amount of texts sent. Would be
> interested in hearing opinion from someone who works for a network
> provider co.
Someone working for a network operator CAN view text messages being sent.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/1...
ighlighted_by/
"Nourse obtained proof of his girlfriends' infidelity by persuading two
friends, employees at O2, to intercept her text messages and pass them
on to him."
D
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| Joe Harrison 2005-10-28, 11:48 pm |
| I used to run a skunkworks web-to-SMS server at work, it was in about 1996
onwards when both web and SMS were fairly novel. Even then I was pushing
20000 messages a month through it. At first I could not get over the
excitement of people actually using my stuff; novelty soon wore off though
and the only time I bothered to look at the message content was when I had
complaints. Kevin Holley, if you're listening thanks again for the base SMS
software.
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| Soapydux 2005-10-29, 5:48 pm |
| <snip>
>Someone working for a network operator CAN view text messages being sent.
>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/1.../>
ighlighte...
The article does suggest it was 2 network engineers so not your average
call centre rep, unless 02 were trying to play it down. That makes
sense though, I appreciate network staff people cant be bothered to
read txt's all day, but if all staff had easy access to txt's what
would stop them targeting the bloke over the road, who they disliked?
Apart from the threat of dismissal. If it isnt audited and strictly
controlled then who knows who is looking at your txt's
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