What kind of data is your cell phone company collecting? Malte Spitz wasn’t too worried when he asked his operator in Germany to share information stored about him. Multiple unanswered requests and a lawsuit later, Spitz received 35,830 lines of code — a detailed, nearly minute-by-minute account of half a year of his life.

If it can happen in Europe, it can happen anywhere. If it can happen anywhere, it can happen right here. With mobile phone penetration hitting over 100% in Malaysia, it’s scary to think the kind of information our mobile service providers are keeping about us. It’s downright frightening to realise that we have absolutely no idea. It’s even more frightening to think what those in power can do with such information.

Think about it.

	Industry in General, MCMC/SKMM, Players on the Field
	Big Brother, cell phone, mobile companies, mobile phone, Privacy, self-determination, TED, TEDTalk

Think the sensitive information in your mobile device is secure from prying eyes? Nope, it isn’t.

At the launch of his new “source protection platform”, WikilLeaks founder Julian Assange says that iOS, Android and even BlackBerry users are “all screwed”.

Intelligence contractors are now and have been selling mass surveillance devices for platforms. Meaning, with the right tools, no one is safe from prying eyes.

[source]

	Android, Blackberry OS, iPhone OS, Mobile Devices, Mobile OS, Video
	Android, apple, blackberry, Gmail, google, iOS, Julian Assange, Privacy, rim, security, Video, Wikileaks

Privacy has been a sensitive issue lately especially when people getting spam or have their conversations and SMS history leaked to the wrong people.

Just today, somebody has spotted a bug on Maxis Online Selfcare service. According to the blog post by Arsyan, he was logged into a different account when he tried to view his bills.

So what’s the big deal? Well, with access to someone elses online selfcare account, you can view their call history, personal details and even backed up personal contacts.

With immediate response as a form of damage control, Maxis initially tweeted back saying that this is merely a bug and he was viewing a test account. However at the same time, they also insisted that he pull down his screenshot of the page showing the victim’s details. When pressured further that their test account claim is bluff, Maxis replied the number may be real but the “so-called” profile and number are not related.

Of course being unsatisfied with the answer, he went ahead to confirm his suspicion by contacting the number to confirm if the person is real. As expected, it was the real person as shown on his Maxis login.

Arsyan isn’t the only one as another user also faced the same problem. From what we’ve understand, this has been fixed and we can’t seem to replicate the bug.

So what’s the story Maxis?

Read the full story here.

[ SOURCE ]

	Maxis, MCMC/SKMM, Players on the Field
	FAIL, Maxis, mobile operator security, Privacy, privacy breach, security

Yesterday a CEO of a college in Terengganu had filed a RM20 mil (approx US$6.3 mil) suit against a “telco” for allegedly releasing contents of her SMS and audio recordings of phone calls. Looks like the alleged telco is none other than Celcom which issued a statement to the press yesterday.

According to Celcom Axiata, they treat privacy very seriously and they uphold strict policies to ensure the privacy of its subscribers are always protected. Its Chief Operating Officer Adlan Ahmad Tajudin said that such allegation by Noor Haslina is very serious but they have not been given much details of the suit therefore there was no basis to the allegation made at the moment.

He stressed that Celcom values and respect the rights of its subscribers and privacy & confidentiality of information is their top most priority. He also added if Celcom finds that the allegation was made without basis after its investigations, they will not hesitate to take necessary action including libel and abuse of court process.

According to the report by The Sun, Noor Haslina said she had made a police report on March 14. However her attempt to seek for solution from the telco was apparently ignored, which prompted her to take further action.

As mentioned earlier, the college CEO received a package at her office containing 9 pages of SMS exchanges and a USB flash drive containing audio recording of her conversation. To have such communication details obtained by unknown individuals is simply outrageous. If it can happen to her, it is possiblt that it could happen to anyone of us.

[ SOURCE 1, 2 ]

	Celcom, Industry in General, MCMC/SKMM, Players on the Field
	Celcom, Celcom Axiata, CEO sues mobile operator, Malaysian mobile operator being sued, mobile operator security, mobile operators in Malaysia, Privacy