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

 

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.

But at least one document also details the day-to-day business of telecoms’ handing over of data to law enforcement, including a breakdown of every major carrier’s fees for every sort of data request from targeted wiretaps to so-called “tower dumps” that provide information on every user of certain cell tower. The guide, as provided by the Tucson, Arizona police department to the ACLU, is dated July 2009, and the fees it lists may be somewhat outdated. But representatives I reached by email at Sprint and AT&T both declined to detail any changes to the numbers.

Here are a few of the highlights from the fee data.

Wiretaps cost hundreds of dollars per target every month, generally paid at daily or monthly rates. To wiretap a customer’s phone, T-Mobile charges law enforcement a flat fee of $500 per target. Sprint’s wireless carrier Sprint Nextel requires police pay a $400 per “market area” and per “technology” as well as a $10 per day fee, capped at $2,000. AT&T charges a $325 activation fee, plus $5 per day for data and $10 for audio. Verizon charges a $50 administrative fee plus $700 per month, per target.

Data requests for voicemail or text messages cost extra. AT&T demands $150 for access to a target’s voicemail, while Verizon charges $50 for access to text messages. Sprint offers the most detailed breakdown of fees for various kinds of data on a phone, asking $120 for pictures or video, $60 for email, $60 for voice mail and $30 for text messages.

All four telecom firms also offer so-called “tower dumps” that allow police to see the numbers of every user accessing a certain cell tower over a certain time at an hourly rate. AT&T charges $75 per tower per hour, with a minimum of two hours. Verizon charges between $30 and $60 per hour for each cell tower. Sprint demands $150 per cell tower per hour, and Sprint charges $50 per tower, seemingly without an hourly rate.

For location data, the carrier firms offer automated tools that let police track suspects in real time. Sprint charges $30 per month per target to use its L-Site program for location tracking. AT&T’s E911 tool costs $100 to activate and then $25 a day. T-Mobile charges a much pricier $100 per day.

In an emailed statement to me, a Verizon spokesperson told me that the company doesn’t charge police in “emergency cases, nor do we charge law enforcement for historical location information in non-emergency cases.” He added that the company doesn’t “make a profit from any of the data requests from law enforcement.” A Sprint spokesperson sent me a statement saying that the company similarly doesn’t charge law enforcement for data requests in “exigent circumstances.”

“Fees are charged to law enforcement in other circumstances such as court ordered requests and it’s important to note that any fee charged is for recovery of cost required to support these law enforcement requests 24/7,” she writes.

T-Mobile declined to comment, and an AT&T spokesperson referred me to the company’s privacy policy, pointing out a specific line that reads, “We do not sell your personal information to anyone for any purpose.  Period.”

That claim is “simply misleading,” says Catherine Crump, an attorney with the ACLU who coordinated the group’s FOIA project. “That’s a curious definition of ‘sell,’ given that they seem to be charging money for people’s information on a regular basis and handing it over to law enforcement agencies around the country.”

I’ve embedded the Tucson police department document below. The ACLU has created a summary of the very large collection of data it’s obtained here, and the full collection can be found here.

Tucson Police Dept Guide to Cell Tracking

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Men think about sex, women nag: jobs agency

 

The Swedish Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen) has been accused of sexism after literature used in its business start up course claimed that the female brain had a "nag, complain and feel sorry for myself" center, according to a Sveriges Radio report.

Students attending the four week courses are taught that women walk with a "teetering gait" and deploy a "pleading gaze" and that the male brain thinks almost exclusively about sex. Other purported typical male traits include "to itch oneself in the arse".

Following the Sveriges Radio report, the Employment Service has called on its sub-contractor Personalstrategerna to account for the lessons dedicated to "typical male and female behavior".

Klas Finck, who runs the courses on behalf of the jobs agency, has however defended the content, arguing that it is designed to tackle prejudices and "lighten things up a bit".

"If you highlight the prejudices about how we act and don’t act then we can also influence them," he said to Sveriges Radio.

However not all of his students attending the course have taken the content so lightly.

"I was shocked because it felt so crazy to be thrown back to the Stone Age on a course to which the Employment Service has sent you," said Mia, one of the 300 students who have completed the course, to Sveriges Radio.

Despite Finck’s protestations that the examples are intended to illustrate and problematic behavior and habits unbecoming of a business leader, Britt Karlsson at the Employment Service is critical.

"I don’t think this is appropriate at all. It is completely unacceptable, both the literature and also the comments. Regardless of the purpose. We will be following this up at the earliest opportunity," Karlsson told Sveriges Radio.

 

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French lefties love 'backdoor sex' - study

 

Rightwing voters have a "more stable" and "less intense" sex life than leftwing voters, with lefties more likely to have indulged in practices such as anal sex. That’s according to a recent poll on politics and sex in France. 

A recent poll by Ifop shows that rightwing voters have less sex and are more faithful than their leftwing counterparts.  

Supporters of rightwing president and candidate Nicolas Sarkozy have sex 6.7 times a month, compared to 7.6 times a month for supporters of Socialist François Hollande. 

The poll also shows that leftwing voters are more experimental when it comes to sex. 81 percent of leftwing women say they have performed oral sex compared to only 69 percent of rightwing women. Similarly, leftwing voters are more likely to perform anal sex. 55 percent of leftwing interviewees say they have experienced with anal sex in the past compared to only 45 percent for rightwing supporters.  

Interestingly, it appears that voters who support anti-system parties are less satisfied with their sex life than more centrist voters. 35 percent of interviewees who support far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon say they are dissatisfied with their sex life, compared to only 22 percent for Hollande supporters. 31 percent of supporters of Marine Le Pen also say they don't get enough action under the sheets.

Pollsters however warn that while patterns emerge regarding sex across the political spectrum, it also appears that the results correspond to different age groups. Supporters of Nicolas Sarkozy are older than the supporters of François Hollande - this might explain why their sex life is less intense and more stable. 

However the poll does make a clear link between sex and politics when it comes to partner swapping. It appears that far left voters are twice as likely as other voters to swap partners. 10 percent of far left voters swap partners compared to 5 percent for the rest of the population. 

Authors of the Ifop study conclude that the far left approach to property might explain this behaviour. "It’s as if their stance on property issues made them more likely to favour swapping partner," Ifop noted. 

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Mindblowing Orgasms Keep The Doctor Away

 

They say that sex is like tennis: when it’s good, it’s awesome. When it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.  Although this say may sound funny, there are many health benefits to sex.  Moreover, if you reach an orgasm, the experience is not only pleasurable, but it can also lead to an enhanced health.
Doctors and scientists agree that a healthy sex life may increase a person’s overall well-being.  Sex can provide relief to symptoms of depression and reduce stress. Specifically, orgasms can have many health benefits. For example, a study conducted by the University of New York in Albany reported that semen acts as a natural antidepressant (for both men and women). The semen acts like an injection of antidepressant that gets absorbed by the vaginal tissue and goes directly into the bloodstream, thus reducing depression. Semen may also lower blood pressure in women. A study conducted in Amsterdam suggests that women who perform oral sex and swallow the sperm during pregnancy have less incidences of preeclampsia.  Therefore, semen can better your cardio health!

Evidently, male orgasms  are not only good for men, they are also good for us. But what about the female orgasm? Are there any health benefits for women when they reach the big “O”? As a matter of fact, there are.

Here are some health benefits of reaching an orgasm:

Tension Reliever: Orgasms relieve tension. Orgasms make the heart beat fast, which increases the blood flow throughout the body. The muscular tautness that is experienced during sex is relieved through an orgasm thus leading to a state of relaxation. Additionally, an orgasm relieves the tensions of the nervous system.
I personally feel more relax after the big ‘O’ . —Leslie M., Hurst, TX

Sleep Aid: Orgasms lead to better sleep. Orgasms act like a tranquilizer. The endorphins released during sex have a calming effect.
I get some good sleep sometimes after a big orgasm, especially if it happened after a great workout at the gym. —Sarah V., Miami, FL

Cravings Reducer: Orgasms act like an appetite regulator. During sexual arousal, the body produces phenetylamine, which is a natural amphetamine that may help to reduce cravings for junk food and sometimes smoking.
When I go through dry spells, I eat more. It’s like I use all my sexual energy to eat. I believe I substitute sex with food. —Adella V., San Juan, PR

Losing Weight: Orgasms burn calories. Scientists estimate that an orgasm burns between 60-100 calories. And that is not even counting all of the calories you burn prior to reaching it! (Hooray to those multi-orgasmic women!!!)

Pain Reliever: Orgasms act like a natural pain management tool. Menstrual cramps and headaches vanish during an orgasm. Endorphins released during sex can increase pain tolerance in almost 70 percent during an orgasm. So next time you want to say, “Not tonight, Honey, I have a headache” to avoid sex, beware: your partner may know this information and offer the solution!
I have had sex when I’ve had a headache. During sex, I don’t feel the pain at all. It’s like sex erases the pain, at least while it is happening . —Tricia C., Dallas, TX

The Pursuit of Happiness: Overall, an orgasm feels phenomenal. Centuries ago, when women suffered from hysteria and other mental illnesses, doctors blamed it on depression and many practitioners theorized that women were depressed due to lack of sexual stimulation. Therefore, they recommended strategies for reaching an orgasm to help women improve their mental health. Although there may not be a measure of how much orgasms lead to happiness, there is no need for a lot of scientific evidence to attest to the fact that reaching an orgasm is a source of instant gratification!
When I reach an orgasm, by myself or with my husband, it is definitely a moment of intense joy . —Laura R., Chicago, IL

Sometimes the O is so good, I cry. I believe in that moment there is a connection of love and peace. It’s a very overwhelming feeling. The feeling of the big O is like being on a roller coaster ride, going up and up and up, then the drop….feeling it right in the heart. —Vivian M., Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Besides all the health benefits of orgasms, if these are produced during sexual intercourse with your partner, you may feel more appreciative of the experience and your partner for facilitating the process by which you reach such a level of pleasure. And orgasms may, just like sex, strengthen the relationship with your sexual partner. If you reach an orgasm (or many) alone, you still benefit, and you reach a higher level of awareness about your body. So next time you are sexually stimulated, think about how the big “O” may give you two big “Hs”: one for health and one for happiness!

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NAKED TRUTH

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Al-Qaeda Web forums suffer sustained outage, baffling experts

 

Several key al-Qaeda Web forums have been offline for 11 days, the longest sustained outage since the sites began operations in 2004. The reasons for the outage have not yet been made clear, though the extent and duration have led to rumors of a cyberattack on the sites.

Shumukh al-Islam, one of the main sources for al-Qaeda communications and videos, went offline on March 22. Since then, four other sites have gone down.

The last major blackout of al-Qaeda forums took place in mid-2010, when the al Fallujah forum was offline for at least a week. That was caused by British intelligence officials who acted after the CIA reportedly blocked a proposed Pentagon plan to move forward. The CIA argued al-Qaeda intelligence would be disrupted by such an attack.

In June last year, the al-Shamukh forum was taken offline in what some experts claimed may have been a cyberattack by Western intelligence agencies.

U.S. government agencies played no part in the most recent outage, according to The Washington Post. Indeed, there remains doubt whether or not the outages were actually caused by cyberattackers, since many other al-Qaeda forums remain active.

Agencies in the U.S. have been using such forums for years to gather intelligence and monitor chatter among extremists. With that in mind, some government officials have argued against shutting down al-Qaeda forums. However, there are other officials who are concerned by the existence of such sites, since they have been used to call for attacks and to recruit extremists.

There’s some evidence pointing towards the outages being a result of a cyberattack, according to Will McCants, a senior fellow at the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. In addition to the duration and scope of the outages, McCants, a former State Department counterterrorism official, said administrators usually indicate technical problems on their sites by discussing them on another forum.

Evan Kohlmann, senior partner at Flashpoint Global Partners, which tracks the sites, said though the interruption of al-Qaeda forums are often fruitless, the most recent outages have disrupted communications within the network.

“At least temporarily, the social networking among jihadists has been disrupted,” Kohlmann told The Washington Post. “The remaining forums are really struggling to attract the participation of users.”

“Speculation continues to grow over whether the arrest in Spain of Mudhar al-Malki, a senior jihadi forum admin, is the cause of the outage,” he added on Twitter. “In the past, admins have abruptly taken jihad forums offline in cases of suspected infiltration by law enforcement or intelligence agencies.”

Some of the comments on the remaining operational forums indicate a smattering of defiance and frustration among their users.

“Life without Shumukh and Fida’ is unbearable ... they are the Titanic supporting the foundation for the triumphant sects fighting in Iraq, Yemen, Somalia,” a user wrote on the Ansar al-Mujahideen Arabic Forum in an Arabic message translated by The Washington Post.

In the past, U.S. officials have used diplomatic channels to take down extremist sites that posed a perceived threat to Americans personnel or interests. That tactic has worked in more than a dozen cases, with countries in Europe, the Persian Gulf, and the Pacific cooperating. The sites that have gone dark in the most recent incident were hosted in countries such as Malaysia, Panama, and the Gaza Strip.

With dedicated forums under threat from cyberatttacks and the authorities, some al-Qaeda forum members have suggested moving to new arenas to discuss their activities.

“I suggest to the brothers having a page for the jihadi forums on Facebook and twitter,” wrote Al-Muktafi bel-Lah.

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Pastebin: Running the site where hackers publicise their attacks

 

Over recent years Pastebin.com has become a must-visit site for anyone wanting to keep track of the exploits of Anonymous and other hackers.

Text files containing emails, passwords and other hijacked information are often made public on the service - drawing attention as they climb its "trending pastes" list.

Twitter messages are frequently used to direct followers to the Pastebin, which has the advantage over the microblogging service of allowing "pastes" to run up to 0.5 megabytes in size rather than limiting them to 140 characters.

The platform was founded a decade ago, but its original owner sold it after thousands of people's Hotmail email passwords were exposed on the site in October 2009, leading him to briefly shut it down.

It was bought by Jeroen Vader - a Dutch internet entrepreneur who upgraded its features and has seen its popularity surge.

When he took it over in early 2010 Pastebin had 500,000 unique visitors a month. That number is now 17 million.

But as its profile has grown so have its problems.

Although many of the articles contain legally-shared information, Mr Vader says the authorities in Turkey and Pakistan have taken action to block the site after confidential data was exposed.

He also says that Pastebin itself has become the target of numerous hack and spam attacks.

Mr Vader agreed to be interviewed over email by the BBC - the following is an edit of the conversation:

Your site appears to have become one of the hacking community's favourite locations to publicise the results of its attacks. Why do you think this is - and does it cause you concern?

I am very happy and quite proud that so many people trust Pastebin as a place to publish their text. With the Trends section being checked by many journalists and the high search engine ranking on pastes, it can be quite beneficial for people to have their content on Pastebin. Often minutes after posting something it can be found in search engines such as Google.

How important do you think it is that hackers have an easily accessible facility like Pastebin to release their material rather than using parts of the net less likely to be visited by the general public?

The term hacker has received a lot of negative press over the years, but often that isn't fair at all. I think it is very important that people have access to sites like Pastebin, because it offers them total freedom of speech. Especially if they post their items behind a proxy of some kind, there is no way to trace who posted what. It is great to see that people use Pastebin as a platform to get their thoughts and ideals out to the rest of the world. A lot of items in the Trends section can be very interesting to read actually.

Your guidelines say users should not to post emails, stolen source code or password lists. Yet people associated with Anonymous often do this - and at times you have flagged up their actions on your own Twitter account - for example the YouPorn attack you tweeted about on 23 Feb. Do you accept that the popularity of such posts help drive traffic to the site and ultimately generates you advertising revenue?

We do indeed not allow people to post email lists and other personal information that does not belong to them. That said, we are very much aware that it happens a lot, but trying to automatically filter out such pastes is a pretty impossible task. Instead we heavily rely on our users to report items that do not comply with our FAQ. On average we get over 1,000 abuse reports a day via our on-site abuse report system, and another 200 or so come in via email. These are all monitored.

We would never link to sensitive information via our Twitter feed. The item you are referring to is rather harmless. It contains no user-names, but only some funny and rather shocking password statistics.

It has been reported that Pastebin has been blocked in Pakistan and Turkey by the authorities following the release of hacked local material posted to your site - can you provide an update on this, and comment on what you make of their actions?

Pakistan blocked us a few months ago, and three weeks ago Turkey also blocked us. We found out about this when users started to email and tweet about it. The authorities of these countries never told us about those blocks though. We have been asked to remove certain pieces of content by the authorities of both countries, and in both cases we have complied. Looking at our Google Analytics reports, it shows that even though the site has been blocked in those countries, the visitors drop is only about 50% in both cases. People still find a way to connect.

Some of our readers have expressed concern that some Pastebin posts reveal personal details of people working for the authorities - such as home addresses - or the identities of people paying for pornography which they might have wanted to keep private. Do you have concerns that your site could put lives in danger, or at the very least disrupt people's personal lives?

I am very much aware of the fact that it can be quite shocking when your personal information gets posted online by someone else. I've had it happen to me in the past, but luckily the information was posted on Pastebin so I was able to remove it quickly. It's important to understand that Pastebin.com monitors all removal requests, so when someone does get its personal information posted, we can often remove it within hours, sometimes minutes.

You say you monitor removal requests, but should you be more proactive? Bearing in mind people's home addresses and other personal details are sometimes posted to the site, do you have a responsibility to at least check what is trending at any time?

I am looking to hire some extra people soon to monitor more of the website's content, not just the items that are reported. Hopefully this will increase the speed in which we can remove sensitive information. This will give us more time to look at trending items in detail if they haven't been reported yet. Often articles contain a lot of information, and part of that can be a person's details. This does not mean straight away that it should be removed. Reading all those items, and determining which ones are hurtful, and which ones aren't, requires a lot of time. That's why we rely on the abuse report system at the moment. But there are plans to improve on this.

Last year you told one reporter that you tracked IP addresses - and had passed on the details to the authorities when asked in some cases. Can you provide more detail?

The main reason why we track IP information when people create a paste, is to be able to block them in case they spam a lot. Something which is a huge issue on Pastebin at the moment.

There have been a few cases when authorities request IP information from Pastebin, and we tend to comply with such requests, but only with a valid court order of course. Sharing IP information without such a court order is illegal in many countries. We do see that when a court order is presented, and we share the IP information, that it is often an IP from a proxy or some kind of anonymous browsing service. People who post sensitive information hardly even use their own home IP.

In February Pastebin came under attack by a botnet attack involving more than 22,000 unique IP addresses. Can you provide more detail about the attack and who you think might have been responsible?

February was a terrible month, so many attacks. It was a real nightmare to run the site. In the last three months not a single day has gone by that we didn't get some kind of DDOS attack, but in February there were some really long attacks going on. The longest one went on for more than 48 hours. Until this day not a single attack has been claimed. I do hear from people in the hackers community that many hackers like to test their DDOS skills on Pastebin.

You recently tweeted that you had upgraded your servers and code. Can you give an outline of what is involved in keeping Pastebin live and how you plan to develop it in the future - eg how soon might there be a move to mobile devices?

I am constantly working on the site, seven days a week, and when all the abuse reports have been dealt with, I try to improve the site's software. Everything is custom coded from scratch, which makes it very easy for me to perform update/upgrades as I know all the code. Once in a while new features are implemented, but most of the work goes into keeping everything running smooth, keeping the site free(ish) of spam, and handling removal request. And of course handling DDOS attack when they happen. Hopefully with our new hoster in place, this will require less and less of my time.

Our tools section contains many user generated apps/tools that give people the option to access Pastebin from various devices. More and more apps are added to that page all the time. Currently we are working on a new iOS application for the iPhone and iPad users





 

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