Unconscionable Conduct By Telstra

Everyone who has changed their telephone or internet service providor from Telstra to one of the other available chioces - with very few exceptions this means that your services are still hosted on the Telstra-owned networks. The other companies buy telstra services wholesale from telstra and in turn retail those services to their customers. If you think you have saved yourself from any agreement Telstra has made to share information - forget it. And if you are on the NBN the network is not owned by telstra but by the NBN CO which is basically government-controlled. That is probably not spared any scrutiny either.

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Originally Posted by doug3030

Everyone who has changed their telephone or internet service providor from Telstra to one of the other available chioces - with very few exceptions this means that your services are still hosted on the Telstra-owned networks.

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Oh, I completely understand this Doug however my move is more symbolic. If it means I don't see that awful logo again, then so be it. We also need to keep despotic companies like Telstra honest, if we can. The Liberal government, at the time, didn't listen to popular advice in separating Telecom into two distinct entities, wholesale and resale. Now we're paying for it with a monopoly that doesn't listen to the Australian people who so dearly help build this uniquely Australian company.

By moving to Internode (in this instance) I get to speak to an Australian operator when I have a problem and my issues seem to be solved in quarter of the time than Telstra. Go figure. Despite the inferior network reach, my mobile happily resides away from Telstra's fat, grubby, little hands.

The rest of this thread has taken an interesting turn and discussed some interesting points. I've enjoyed reading what's been written. Keep the comments coming.

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Originally Posted by Timless Timber

Ohh - and encrypted communications for business purposes? Forget it!
Little known inside tip - the Israeli's invented the software that encrypts, and the see eye eh inserted an op into the Israeli company that developed that software, & they inserted a sub routine into the software unknown to just about everyone including the Israelis. The software is used by just about every company that sells encryption equipment! That sub routine takes the unique decryption key and shrinks it to a microdot - and transmits it as the top of the letter "i", with the encrypted message, in the first or second letter "i", to occur within the message - and then the UK listening post ECHELON - takes all such encrypted messages - uses the micro dot decryption key to decode the message in real time and scans it for key words of interest to the worlds alphabet soup agencies.

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Ok now I am officially confused. how the hell do they do that? You know they dont actually send the 'I' don't you. the 'I' is compiled from a string of 1s and 0s. The computer just makes it look like an 'I' so you can understand it......

it doesnt mean that the commercially available encryption programs are not compromised, just your explanation of how was complete bat @#$% crazy.

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Originally Posted by Timless Timber

Ohh - and encrypted communications for business purposes? Forget it!
Little known inside tip - the Israeli's invented the software that encrypts, and the see eye eh inserted an op into the Israeli company that developed that software, & they inserted a sub routine into the software unknown to just about everyone including the Israelis. The software is used by just about every company that sells encryption equipment! That sub routine takes the unique decryption key and shrinks it to a microdot - and transmits it as the top of the letter "i", with the encrypted message, in the first or second letter "i", to occur within the message - and then the UK listening post ECHELON - takes all such encrypted messages - uses the micro dot decryption key to decode the message in real time and scans it for key words of interest to the worlds alphabet soup agencies.

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This sounds like complete bollocks and a confusion between digital and physical information.

From Wikipedia

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A microdot is text or an image substantially reduced in size onto a small disc to prevent detection by unintended recipients. Microdots are normally circular around one millimetre in diameter but can be made into different shapes and sizes and made from various materials such as polyester and also metal. The name comes from the fact that the microdots have often been about the size and shape of a typographical dot, such as a period or the title of a lowercase i or j. Microdots are, fundamentally, a steganographic approach to message protection.

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Steganography is form of physical security by obscurity - even though there can be there is usually no encryption involved.

In digital information the dot on any "i" has no unique digital identity like it does in the physical representation of the letter. Neither does any part of any letter or number. All digital characters are represented in their entirety in digital form as just a string of "on" and "offs", its the entire pattern of "ons" and "offs" of a message that is encrypted or scrambled and rarely the individual characters.

Information can of course be transmitted as a digital image (with a decryption key inside the digital representation of the dot on a letter "i"). But this is a silly way to do this as information can be very cleverly hidden inside any image without bothering to make sure the image contains a letter "i". Just sending the information as an unknown image transformation is a much easier way to encrypt information than bothering with the "dot" parts of letters, and none of this has anything to do with microdots which are a physical form of information security.

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Originally Posted by Scott

Oh, I completely understand this Doug however my move is more symbolic. If it means I don't see that awful logo again, then so be it.

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Hi Scott, If making the move and switching has given you what you want, then I am pleased for you. I just want to make it clear that my post was not directed at you, but meant as general information for anyone who might have been planning to switch thinking they would avoid any scrutiny.

Doug

Hi Scott,
If I see you at the club tonight I promise not to mention
"Telstra" ... I want to get home before midnight. :D:D

Allan

Micro dot is old technology but still used in encryption...

The latest is what the Russians used until recently when that was discovered too (Google 12 Russian spy's expelled from US).

The old school spy communications were done by a one time pad decryption key.

You encrypt with a one time pad key and the receiver uses a duplicate of the one time pad key to de crypt upon receiving the encrypted message.

Each destroys the key used after 1 use.

Because the encryption / decryption key is never the same twice and never sent with the message, it requires a lot of effort to decrypt the individual message without a decryption key and even if you do manage it you have to do it all over again for the 2nd message etc.

The latest method involved using altered and unaltered digital images and the internet.

Typically an innocent enough email sent with a picture attached, and the same image posted to say a internet forum.

The first or 2nd image have the pixellation data altered slightly, such that at magnification normally used to render on a computer screen, the photo look identical to the human eye, BUT when the pixellation codes of the two photos are matched to each other, one is the one time pad decryption key and the other is the encrypted message!

Only a handler with both photos could determine the hidden message encrypted within the altered pix-elation data files by looking for the alterations.

Another common way of avoiding transmitting (downloading) clandestine comunications over the internet is the drafts email folder to an online account.

Both spys have the password code to an account.

The sender composes a draft email and saves it but never sends it! The Handler then opens that account using the same login & password and reads the draft email - it's never been "sent" online or downloaded at the other end in order to be captured by echelon, but has been read online by both parties!.

etc...

The degree of trickiness of people never ceases to amaze!.

As said, microdots is old analogue technology - the new digital crap is much trickier... :wink:

But ssshhh - it's all a big secret - don't tell anyone I told you, OK? :D

Your not s'posed to know that you can be traced via your cell phone when its turned off and the sim cards taken out or changed, by an IEMI trace pinged from cell towers by Telstra on behalf of big brother. Long as they know the chassis number of your phone (from your telstra contract when you bought the phone) they (Telstra) can send enough energy to the hard wired circuitry in the phone, to make it ping back to a tower, such that triangulation will give a pretty good idea where your handset is.

They don't usually do imei traces without a warrant, for say homicide cases etc, BUT the fact is they CAN (and do) do it!

Reason they don't tell everyone of the capability is - can you imagine the number of requests from peeps, (kids) who's mobile phone was lost / stolen, every day? (Please Mr Telstra man can you find my phone for me I was so drugged off my face at a party on eccys I didn't remember where I left my phone to be stolen and now someones got it etc etc) They would spend all day every day sending pings from towers all over the country trying to find lost & stolen phones.

BUT - if your trying to evade the authorities - then leave your phone at home - because turning it off or even removing the sim card won't necessarily save you.

Not that I ever hide from Authorities or send encrypted spy messages.... :wink:

Cheers!

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Originally Posted by Timless Timber

BUT - if your trying to evade the authorities - then leave your phone at home - because turning it off or even removing the sim card won't necessarily save you.

Not that I ever hide from Authorities or send encrypted spy messages.!

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Timless Timber, your last couple of posts have been an interesting blend of old technology and its supposed application to new technology. while some of your propositions are interesting they are generally too far from reality to even make it into the next Bond movie.

I am surprised you did not suggest a "foilie" for your phone when you turn it off and remove your sim card so that Telstra cant find it. :?

Cheers

Doug

Some pretty interesting opinions being written here, but I'm afraid to say most of them are tin foil hat stuff.

Modern encryption is as good as uncrackable. A man-in-the-middle attack is feasible, such as for SSL/HTTPS web traffic, but you need to have a plug directly between the two points, need to intercept the certificates and handshakes transparently and then record everything real time. This happens right now in modern large workplaces and government departments. They will say the don't, but that's untrue. This is hardly news though.

BUT, if you encrypt a message, attach it to an email, or start a SSH tunnel to your friend, there is no way "they" can crack this. Rather a 75 watt soldering iron applied to your head while strapped into a chair will reveal the answers in a few minutes, to do it computationally is infeasibile. It can be *done* but the time/effort ratio is astronomical. The soldering iron is faster...or a bug/camera in your home over your computer.

If you are concerned by your phone, wrap it in a metallicised chip packet. Instant Faraday cage.

Not to say governments and big businesses isn't up to some seriously nefarious ####. I've worked in the DSD, Acxiom and Nielsen and have implemented some seriously big brother collection mechanisms. Believe me, however, to collect is one thing - to gain useful, usable and timely information for anything other than to work out "your daughter is pregnant" or you are "a woodworker" is exceedingly hard.

Profiling and building a reliable one is insanely hard even if they had a target.

The easiest thing to do is spike the data with torrents of erroneous data. Mix it up, become both a man/woman, who is 24/38/69, who lives in several cities including two in your own area right now. They won't work it out.

The truth is, the government is so drastically incompetent, so hopelessly outmatched and so utterly bereft of ideas and capacity, that the TRUE horror is how terrifyingly inept they are at anything - let alone being evil.

Remember Hanlon - "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

If in doubt, read this and ask the obvious questions : Autistic taxman jailed for fraud

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The easiest thing to do is spike the data with torrents of erroneous data. Mix it up, become both a man/woman, who is 24/38/69, who lives in several cities including two in your own area right now. They won't work it out.

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They are still busy looking for Ian Moone. :D

I - I
A - A
N - M

M - N
O - O

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:wink: :p

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Originally Posted by Timless Timber

They are still busy looking for Ian Moone. :D

I - I
A - A
N - M

M - N
O - O

O - O
N - N
E - E

:wink: :p

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Oh FFS

O - O
h - h

F - F
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