more weird cellphone questions

[Tallpine]

A friend of my daughters' is being "stalked" - that is, she is receiving calls from an unknown man who states he knows where she is going to be on a certain day and time and that she better be careful, etc. 

What makes this really weird is:
1) he has accurate information about her plans which were only discussed in a private converstation with the people (all women) involved

2) the threatening calls to her cellphone are appearing to be from known numbers of friends.  At least one of the calls was indicated to be from my daughter's cellphone. 


So I'm thinking about all the recent online discussion about the govt listening in to your conversations via a cellphone (even when turned off) and thinking this creep is a cell company employee and/or has somehow hacked into the cell phone system.  In that case, maybe he could have overheard her private non-phone conversations via her cellphone ??

I'm a s/w engineer but this stuff is way out of my knowledge.  Any of you technical folks have any thoughts about this situation?

[Manedwolf]

It's very possible to listen to analog cellphone conversations with a scanner, however, digital cellphones are just that, digital, a stream of data, not an audio signal.

It also sounds like perhaps her cellphone could have been hacked by a bluetooth sniffer, if it's got bluetooth enabled. Someone can sit across the room and use an exploit to grab data from some models of phones (some Nokias in particular were affected) or even dial out from it.

It's also a good idea to disable the location tracking on any phone.

And finally, be careful that the guy isn't a skilled "human hacker", that is, someone who knows how to get information from someone by using deliberately vague statements and actually letting THEM fill in the blanks with their replies...(such as telling her he knows where she's going to be in a leading, vague enough way that she might accidentally give missing details in her reply if confused or scared.) it's a pretty common con artist skill.

Other than that, yeah, freaky sociopaths can work for cellphone companies, too, so take it to the local police, and/or to the FBI with your concerns if the local police haven't any experience with electronic stalking investigations.

Also, if this keeps up, get a pocket digital recorder at any store and record the guy, either by holding the mic up to the earpiece or using the appropriate cables.

[mtnbkr]

Other than that, yeah, freaky sociopaths can work for cellphone companies, too, so take it to the local police, and/or to the FBI with your concerns if the local police haven't any experience with electronic stalking investigations.

Absolutely.  At least talk to the Telco so they can start an investigation.  If this is being done by an employee, he'll be fired quickly.  They don't tolerate employees using privilegedcustomer data being used to contact customers for any reason other than legitimate business reasons.

Chris

[Brad Johnson]

+1 on the Bluetooth hack.  Is your daughter's phone a model where the bluetooth function can be totally disabled?

Also, this goes beyond local police.  When dealing with phone stalking the presumption is that the caller can be anywhere (i.e. across state lines), leaving the door open for FBI involvement.

Brad

[Strings]

um, just a somewhat silly adendum: when contacting the Telco, do it via a land-line. If he's got her phone hacked, you'ld just be alerting him... leaving him possibly free to target another poor soul...

[mtnbkr]

Alert him all you want.  All that stuff is logged.  Unless he has access to the logging systems, he can't cover his tracks at this point (assuming the guy who's logged as doing it is the one that did it). 

Chris

[Strings]

that's kinda my point Chris: personally, I'd assume he has access to the logs, and hope like hell that he hadn't covered his tracks...

 Of course, there's the other option: try and set him up, hoping he'll make contact. Then pull a "three s" solution...

[Vodka7]

Eh, $20 says it's an older brother, step-dad, cousin, etc of one of the girls involved.  Have her backtrack and see which girls knew where she would be to narrow down the list of possible suspects.  (i.e., if he knew about three events, and only two of her friends knew about all three of those as well, one of them is the problem.)  From there, feed bad information to each of the two girls individually and see what pops up.

Caller-ID spoofing is cheap and easy.

That said, the phone may not even be connected to the stalking--say she posted her plans on myspace, or she talked about them over IM but was being keylogged.  People give out way too much information online.

If you want to have her narrow it down, have her stop making plans on the cell phone, but do everything else normally. If the stalking continues, he's getting his information from another source, not some shadow digital wiretap.

[Vodka7]

Also, ask her if she has a facebook--you wouldn't *believe* what some people put on facebook.  Mine has my name, email, and city of residence, but some of my friends have multiple phone numbers, their school or home address, their IM screennames, and a lot more.  If you looked me up on facebook and browsed through my friends, you could easily come up with a dozen phone numbers to spoof.  And facebook also has a system where you can show what parties and events you're going to.  And friends leave comments--"haha, that movie was great" or "see you at TKE tomorrow."

[mtnbkr]

that's kinda my point Chris: personally, I'd assume he has access to the logs, and hope like hell that he hadn't covered his tracks...
 Of course, there's the other option: try and set him up, hoping he'll make contact. Then pull a "three s" solution...

In the telco world, most of the folks that have access to the customer data don't have access to the back office logging systems.  Otherwise, the quarterly security reports I've seen would be very boring indeed.

Chris

[BrokenPaw]

Set up a classic canary trap; have her tell each of her friends something subtly different, and see which version comes back through the stalker.

-BP

[Manedwolf]

Also, ask her if she has a facebook--you wouldn't *believe* what some people put on facebook.  Mine has my name, email, and city of residence, but some of my friends have multiple phone numbers, their school or home address, their IM screennames, and a lot more.  If you looked me up on facebook and browsed through my friends, you could easily come up with a dozen phone numbers to spoof.  And facebook also has a system where you can show what parties and events you're going to.  And friends leave comments--"haha, that movie was great" or "see you at TKE tomorrow."

Or Myspace. People tend to forget those things are a stalker's dream come true.

[RadioFreeSeaLab]

Yeah, ask her about Facebook and Myspace.  It's crazy what people will put on their.  One could very easily stalk a person based on the information put up if one were so inclined.

[Tallpine]

+1 on the Bluetooth hack.  Is your daughter's phone a model where the bluetooth function can be totally disabled?

Thanks, everyone

Okay - to clarify the situation: the friend of my daughters is quite a bit older; they work with her.  It is not my daughters' plans which are getting intercepted, but rather the other lady. And the conversations are face-to-face rather than over the phone, but of course the lady always has her phone with her.

I dunno about Bluetooth and my daugher's phone, but what I think is happening is that the hacker/stalker is getting a list of numbers that have called the lady's cellphone, and then masquerading his calls as one of those numbers.  Though if he then has my daughter's cellphone number, then who knows what he can do with that ...?

There is one somewhat odd guy at the place of work, but she is sure that he was out of normal earshot when conversations were taking place.  (all of this is taking place in another state, and I am only just today hearing about when she came home to visit for a bit)

You'all do give me an idea for a suggestion though ... if the gals go somewhere that they know can't be overheard, and talk about doing "such and such" making sure the cellphone is nearby, they could make certain that the conversation was being picked up via the phone.

The hard part is going to be getting all these gals to take this thing seriously.  I've already been around and around with this sort of thing with my daughter before, and of course she thinks her old man is pretty paranoid  

And up to this point even I have been a little skeptical about the cellphone paranoia.

[AJ Dual]

It could also just be getting exaggerated in the re-telling.

My phone "screws up" and ID's a call in my phone list when it's someone completely different on occasion.

It'll say "MOM" and give her Ph#, when it was work calling me etc. So perhaps this happened once, and now your daughter's friend thinks the stalker is doing this all the time, or the fact that all the other calls were "Private" (caller ID blocked) is getting conveniently dropped when the story gets re-told. Or the friend just screwed up looking at her call logs, and in her rattled state, thinks it was our daughter's or other friends ph# was the one listed etc.

That's just human nature.

[Antibubba]

Which service is she using?  Different technologies require different methods to hack.

[Waitone]

It's also a good idea to disable the location tracking on any phone.

Full stop.  Put'er in reverse.  I knew digital cellphones use tracking systems as the preferred way to coordinate amongst various cell towers.  I also knew congress wrote legislation specifically mandating the use of tracking technology to <insert tinfoil hat theory of choice>.

What I did not know is the technology can be user disabled.

I am now officially all ears.

[Manedwolf]

It's also a good idea to disable the location tracking on any phone.

Full stop.  Put'er in reverse.  I knew digital cellphones use tracking systems as the preferred way to coordinate amongst various cell towers.  I also knew congress wrote legislation specifically mandating the use of tracking technology to <insert tinfoil hat theory of choice>.

What I did not know is the technology can be user disabled.

I am now officially all ears.

The triangulation between towers can still be done as long as a phone is on, but takes a tech and a concerted effort.

Most new phones include actual GPS technology that is ostensibly "for your convenience", in that it can help deliver "local content" to you. And yes, it reports your position back to the company, continually.

Marketing companies have long been salivating at this, as they can now buy data on the movements of a cell provider's users to establish consumer data profiles of where they shop, based on their position vs. client businesses. They're even talking of sending "location targeted" text messages, such as coupons for a restaurant you happen to be near or a store you happen to be in.

And yes, it can generally be disabled from one of the phone's submenus. On my Samsung Blade, it's Settings/Others/Location/Off. I wouldn't buy a phone that didn't let you disable it...and I also found a firmware patch, installed via USB cable, that entirely disabled that bit of the phone's operating system.

[Antibubba]

It can also be remotely reactivated without your knowledge, although doing so supposedly takes a court order.  I wish I could find the source, but this was part of what was used to help prosecute a mobster.

[Manedwolf]

It can also be remotely reactivated without your knowledge, although doing so supposedly takes a court order.  I wish I could find the source, but this was part of what was used to help prosecute a mobster.

There's an icon of a globe that changes from as-is to slash-through-it on many phones.

Plus, they can't do anything if you patch the phone's physical firmware.

[Tallpine]

It could also just be getting exaggerated in the re-telling.

My phone "screws up" and ID's a call in my phone list when it's someone completely different on occasion.

It'll say "MOM" and give her Ph#, when it was work calling me etc. So perhaps this happened once, and now your daughter's friend thinks the stalker is doing this all the time, or the fact that all the other calls were "Private" (caller ID blocked) is getting conveniently dropped when the story gets re-told. Or the friend just screwed up looking at her call logs, and in her rattled state, thinks it was our daughter's or other friends ph# was the one listed etc.

That's just human nature.

I need to verify this, but I think my daughter said that she also received a call from this person - so he apparently has gotten the lady's caller Id or called numbers list and is calling those numbers too.

Or else he is a lot closer to them all than they imagine .... 

[Vodka7]

Uh, turning the GPS off altogether is not a good idea.  Most phones should have an E911 only setting (well, mine does anyway.)  You generally want 911 to be able to find where you are--more than one kidnapping victim has been saved from a foreign location thanks to having the GPS on their phone enabled.

Also, they can still triangulate you with the phone off, as long as the battery is still in.

[Manedwolf]

Uh, turning the GPS off altogether is not a good idea.  Most phones should have an E911 only setting (well, mine does anyway.)  You generally want 911 to be able to find where you are--more than one kidnapping victim has been saved from a foreign location thanks to having the GPS on their phone enabled.

Also, they can still triangulate you with the phone off, as long as the battery is still in.

Then suggest that by law, they can't track you all day and sell the data to marketers. Because right now, they do.

I'll take my chances with it being OFF.

I didn't need a tracking device on me before that was part of phones, and I don't now, either.

[Vodka7]

I'll take my chances with it being OFF.

I didn't need a tracking device on me before that was part of phones, and I don't now, either.

Just a hunch, but I'm going to hazzard a guess that you might be an adult male, probably armed.  I doubt you're the typical rape/kidnapping victim.

Tallpine's daughter and her friend (who is already currently being stalked) may be more willing to give up a little privacy to ensure rapid emergency response.

[AJ Dual]

I need to verify this, but I think my daughter said that she also received a call from this person - so he apparently has gotten the lady's caller Id or called numbers list and is calling those numbers too.

Or else he is a lot closer to them all than they imagine .... 

Occam's Razor suggests this is most likely true.

If the victim were to think of the men around her, and who would have had unfettered access to her phone for a period of time, such as in an unattended purse at work, and then make a snap gut decision of who the stalker is, I'd wager better than 50/50 odds she'd be right.