14727860
submission
WrongSizeGlass writes:
Bloomberg is reporting RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger, e-mail and Web browsing services will be suspended in the United Arab Emirates, the Middle East’s business hub, starting October 11th due to security concerns. RIM faces similar restrictions in India. The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said in a statement on state-run Emirates News Agency. “In their current form, certain BlackBerry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns for the U.A.E.,” it said. A senior Indian government official said, "Though RIM has been fully cooperating ever since the matter was taken up with it in 2008, reports of the company's move to set up a server in China forced us to look at it in a different way."
14725912
submission
suraj.sun writes:
A security researcher created a $1,500 cell phone base station kit (including a laptop and two RF antennas) that tricks cell phones into routing their outbound calls through his device, allowing someone to intercept even encrypted calls in the clear. Most of the price is for the laptop he used to operate the system.
The device tricks the phones into disabling encryption and records call details and content before they are routed on their proper way through voice-over-IP.
The low-cost, home-brewed device, developed by researcher Chris Paget, mimics more expensive devices already used by intelligence and law enforcement agencies — called IMSI catchers — that can capture phone ID data and content. The devices essentially spoof a legitimate GSM tower and entice cell phones to send them data by emitting a signal that's stronger than legitimate towers in the area.
Encrypted calls are not protected from interception because the rogue tower can simply turn it off. Although the GSM specifications say that a phone should pop up a warning when it connects to a station that does not have encryption, SIM cards disable that setting so that alerts are not displayed. Even though the GSM spec requires it, this is a deliberate choice on the cell phone makers, Paget said.
Wired: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/intercepting-cell-phone-calls/
14531970
submission
MotiB writes:
Last week, Tel Aviv District Court ruled in favor of a jobs aggregation website that copied classifieds from a newspaper. The aggregator ( http://www.alljobs.co.il/ ) was accused in collecting "wanted" ads from Maariv newspaper and its online site ( http://www.nrg.co.il/ ), displaying them to its users, and charging them only when they wanted to contact the job provider. The ruling was unique, since "Judge Michal Agmon-Gonen said the issue at hand was whether pre-Internet business models, involving the publication of paid-for ads in the press, should be protected, or whether market forces created by new technologies should be allowed to prevail. She found for the market forces." ( http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/business/alljobs-website-beats-maariv-in-court-1.301807 ). Also quoted "The parties agreed that Alljobs wasn't copying the ads verbatim, but was using the content. Alljobs argued that any rights to the information belonged to the advertisers themselves, who benefited." The judge said that the ad content and verbatim is the ad publisher copyright, and it is within his best intreset to get a widespread publication for its ad.
---------
Dear Slashot,
In case you choose to publish this story, I would appreciate if you can link my name MotiB to my blog ( http://moti-tech-blog.blogspot.com/ ).
Cheers,
Moti.
