Feds ‘Pinged’ Sprint GPS Data 8 Million Times Over a Year
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By Kim Zetter
- December 1, 2009 |
- 5:42 pm |
- Categories: Surveillance
Sprint Nextel provided law enforcement agencies with customer location data more than 8 million times between September 2008 and October 2009, according to a company manager who disclosed the statistic at a non-public interception and wiretapping conference in October.
The manager also revealed the existence of a previously undisclosed web portal that Sprint provides law enforcement to conduct automated “pings” to track users. Through the website, authorized agents can type in a mobile phone number and obtain global positioning system (GPS) coordinates of the phone.
The revelations, uncovered by blogger and privacy activist Christopher Soghoian, have spawned questions about the number of Sprint customers who have been under surveillance, as well as the legal process agents followed to obtain such data.
But a Sprint Nextel spokesman said that Soghoian, who recorded the Sprint manager’s statements at the closed conference, misunderstood what the figure represents. The number of customers whose GPS data was provided to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies was much less than 8 million, as was the total number of individual requests for data.
The spokesman wouldn’t disclose how many of Sprint’s 48 million customers had their GPS data shared, or indicate the number of unique surveillance requests from law enforcement. But he said that a single surveillance order against a lone target could generate thousands of GPS “pings” to the cell phone, as the police track the subject’s movements over the course of days or weeks. That, Sprint claims, is the source of the 8 million figure: it’s the cumulative number of times Sprint cell phones covertly reported their location to law enforcement over the year.
The spokesman also said that law enforcement agents have to obtain a court order for the data, except in special emergency circumstances.
The information about the data requests and portal comes from Paul Taylor, manager of Sprint’s Electronic Surveillance Team. He made the revelations at the Intelligent Support Systems (ISS) conference, a surveillance industry gathering for law enforcement and intelligence agencies and the companies that provide them with the technologies and capabilities to conduct surveillance.
The conference is closed to press, but Soghoian, who is a graduate student at Indiana University, obtained entry and recorded a couple of panel sessions, which he posted on his blog (see below). In one of the recordings, Taylor is heard saying that the automated web system was rolled out a year ago and that in 13 months it had processed more than 8 million requests for GPS data from law enforcement.
“We turned it on the web interface for law enforcement about one year ago last month, and we just passed 8 million requests,” Taylor is heard saying. “So there is no way on earth my team could have handled 8 million requests from law enforcement, just for GPS alone. So the tool has just really caught on fire with law enforcement. They also love that it is extremely inexpensive to operate and easy.”
Soghoian concluded on his blog that the quote provided proof that “location requests easily outnumber wiretaps, and … likely outnumber all other forms of surveillance request too.”
He cites a telecom attorney named Al Gidari who claimed at a talk last year that each of the major wireless carriers received about 100 requests a week for customer-location data. At 100 requests a week for each of the top four wireless carriers, the total should be around 20,000 requests a year.
“I now have proof that he significantly underestimated the number of requests by several orders of magnitude,” Soghoian writes.
But Sprint spokesman John Taylor (who is not related to Paul Taylor) says Soghoian had “grossly misrepresented” the 8 million figure, which doesn’t refer to unique requests or to individual customers, but to the total number of “pings” made on every number for the duration of a law enforcement request.
“The figure represents the number of individual pings for specific location information, made to the Sprint network as part of a series of law enforcement investigations and public safety assistance requests during the past year,” said spokesman Taylor. “It’s critical to note that a single case or investigation may generate thousands of individual pings to the network as the law enforcement or public safety agency attempts to track or locate an individual.”
There are four circumstances under which law enforcement agents can use the Sprint website and obtain GPS data: 1) under the authority of a court order; 2) to track the location of a customer who has made a 911 call; 3) in an emergency situation, such as tracking someone lost in the wilderness or trying to locate an abducted child or hostage; 4) with a customer’s consent.
In the case of court orders, Taylor said agents are required to provide Sprint with the order, after which the company provisions the law enforcement account to allow an agency to track the targeted phone number. Court orders cover a 60-day period, and agents can do automated pings to obtain real-time GPS data every three minutes throughout that 60-day period. Taylor says this accounts for the 8 million figure.
“If you can access the info every three minutes over 60 days, that adds up pretty quickly,” he told Threat Level.
He added that the GPS data includes only latitude and longitude and the date and time of the ping.
The automated system was set up so that law enforcement agents wouldn’t have to contact Sprint’s electronic surveillance team each time they wanted to ping a phone number throughout the 60 days of a court order. Agents still have to obtain a subpoena to get historic call detail records, such as phone numbers called, the date, time and duration of calls and the cell site and sector from which the calls were made.
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Image: The FBI won a court order to track this Sprint Nextel cell phone’s movements while hunting for a fugitive in Ohio last October. (Source: U.S. District Court Southern Distict of Ohio). Home page image of cell tower: Phil Strahl/Flickr
I’d love to see the file they have on me, f^ck’n jerks.
Hay, BoB O..What did you do to warrant them tracking you? Nut’n? Well, don’t worry then. But if my grand daughter were abducted, I am glad they have this option to find the f^ck’n jerks.
Every 3 minutes for 60 days is (20*24*60) 28,800 requests. If all 8 million were under court order and used fully, that would be almost 278 court orders. About 5-6 per week.
Well the there is supposedly around 500 people on the watch list at any given time. Those that are monitored via FISA orders or those who are monitored under Executive War Powers (that Obama is also using as his expression of Change). And some of those watched people have multiple cell phones. Since it is an automated process that gives feedback based on the phones’ routine tower checkin(aka ping to nearby towers) for signal quality purposes, that number is not at all excessive.
/but the people who wrote about it never took a statistics course and are liberal arts communication majors, so no wonder at their expressions of alarm.
Can’t you just hear “You’ve got a friend” by james taylor playing?
This is nothing special really. So long as the tracking is done by court order or other legal means.
Man am I sick and tired of the Fox News set letting fear run this country. Think of the children! F^ck the children okay? I don’t want my child to grow up in a country where freedom is a something we gave away a long time ago for the illusion of safety. No, they’ll never turn that power on law abiding citizens to incriminate them unjustly. That never happens when government gets too much power. I am sick of you cry babies always afraid the boogey man terrorist or molester or drug dealer is gonna get your precious children. Get out of my country!
We either need to give law enforcement the tools to track and kill the criminals, or surrender our comfortable lives to the criminals.
It seems pretty clear cut to me.
The telecoms spy on us and lie about it blatantly, but people keep paying them for it because they have no other choice. This is what monopolies do to us.
I strongly suggest you go to sugarloves. c o m , where i have met many single sugar beauties and rich men, who love chatting sports. online .. .
I think at some level we are all aware that city/government officials can obtain any data about us that they want and there’s nothing we can do about it. The constitution does not provide a right to privacy, and the Bush Administration forced the Patriot Act on us that really dissolved any hope that we will ever be able to live our lives in private ever again. It saddens me that so many companies are only too happy to provide Big Brother with anything they want. But I understand that when Corporations run the country then fascism has become the norm.
This is why I still use pigeons. They don’t talk when asked for information.
Welcome to stasiland.
Different phones for different days. Some days just have a clean phone emergencies with the battery removed.
Sate task forces, fed and anti protester army intelligence types love this tech.
So give your phone to a friend and have them drive around for a while.
You might get a cool sneak and peek when they think your gone
Long term, meet the people you need to in a swimming pool, ocean ect.
Away from people, nothing stuck on the body. Talk low and never repeat on any phone, computer ect.
Use your tech for games, home budget, movies, email and your brain with people you trust for business.
1116 East 17th Ave.
Columbus, Ohio
I Wonder who lives there???
‘UncleTouchy’, I find it interesting your comments revolve around child molestation. It’s also quite interesting that you somehow blame ‘the fox news set’.
Whats Obama done but continue to expand homeland security and all it’s associated new power? Dems are the leading front of the Big Brother/Nanny State mentality.
At least have your comments reflect something that makes sense.
Perhaps the ‘MSNBC crowd’ can get Al Gore on to fear monger about ‘man made’ global warming.
Hows that one, ‘UncleTouchy’?
Maybe law enforcement uses sprint for GPS ankle bracelets. I do agree that this is a significant number of requests in one year.
He did say 8 million requests, but I buy the ping explanation. Yeah, that pans out. Given that the government is paying for the information, that establishes that they should actually have a need for it. I can accept that.
Except 8 million means 80 million. On Saturday. In Cleveland.
I’ll bet you all $100 that the Sprint Law Enforcement portal (if you will) is susceptible to a XSS or SQL attack…
The 8 million pings number sounds right as does the explanation.The 8 million pings number sounds right as does the explanation.
I also doubt that any really important cases are being cracked this way. Anyone with half a brain knows that a cellphone can be easily tracked. So they don’t use them or they shut them off or they get a disposable one, etc. Anyone who gets busted because of a cellphone is either 1. not really doing much illegal. 2. so dumb they would have been busted in some other way.This is a bit of a non-story.
Something that could be a sprint for a network user could be as weak as just a loss of times to another… lol!
8×10: Dismissing your right to privacy is not right. Remember that legislation is arguably there to protect EVERYBODY, not just the victims of crime but the perpetraitors too, this is to ensure fairness in justice. If we allow real criminals free on the basis that procedure hasn’t been followed then that is considerably more concerning, given that it could mean that f^ck’n jerks who theoretically have abducted your granddaughter are free to abduct again. That doesn’t mean that arguably innocent people shouldn’t be protected by privacy laws too!
It’s spelled cumulative, not “cummulative “.
real criminals use pre-paids! or so i hear.
@badstyle. I was in no way giving away my, or any one else’s privacy rights. I was commenting on BoB_Ol. And you said “That doesn’t mean that arguably innocent people shouldn’t be protected by privacy laws too!” Well, did you read the article? All of these pings were for law enforcement, by court order, or 911 emergency calls. What privacy rights of non-criminals were broken?
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@UncleTouchy. You really do need to get your facts straight. Fox news is the only network that is not just bending over, letting the Obama Admen. stick it where the sun don’t shine, and spewing out Obama “hope & change” propaganda. Have you never noticed that CNN, ABC, CBS, et al have the same stories, and ALWAYS use the same catch phrases? Who is telling them what to say, and how to say it?
And if you want more proof about the news media, how come no one, except Fox News (yeah, this includes Wired also!) is not talking about the man made global warming guys in Europe that have been lying and putting out false data for decades?
Newsflash UncleTouchy,
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock since January, you’d know that it’s the radical Left that’s taking away your freedoms bit by bit. It’s got nothing to do with Fox News, and nothing do to with paranoid parents.
@meelk - the difference between Fox and Gore is that gore’s statements about global warming are backed up by the scientific community of climate experts. Fox’s aint. just a couple crackpots here & here…
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@8×10 - if you honestly believe all of the multi-national corporations (except saintly Foxy News, of course) are taking their editorial orders from the white house… then i got a bridge to sell ya. seriously take off the tinfoil hat, tardbaby.
I think a lot of turds use these articles to post their lame political opinions that their friends and family tell them to shut up about. Kind of sad, really.
“Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
- Benjamin Franklin
Just some food for thought.
@kibbles. Somebody gives them marching orders. It may not be the WH directly. But they get’em from someplace. Why else do they all use the same catch phrases? maybe the execs just get together daily & discuss what will be on that day. And why is the WH giving Fox such a hard time? Will deliberately not take there questions, boycotting there shows…Personally, I don’t care. I just see the hypocrisy in it.
Perfect! As cool as the new Motorola Droid is, this is the sort of motivation I needed to push me over the edge in finalizing the decision to switch from Sprint to Verizon. Of course that assumes other cell carriers are not doing the same thing, which is unlikely.
Ok, so that’s 8 million from ONE cell provider. How many other pings from how many other providers?
@cah0085 “Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock since January, you’d know that it’s the radical Left that’s taking away your freedoms bit by bit. It’s got nothing to do with Fox News, and nothing do to with paranoid parents.”
Um, it wasn’t the radical Left that pulled the Patriot Act off the shelf after 9/11. It wasn’t the radical Left that created the Dept of Homeland Security. It wasn’t the radical Left who violated the FISA regs about domestic wiretaps. It wasn’t the radical Left who muscled the Justice Dept into “legalizing” torture. It wasn’t the radical Left who outed an active CIA agent who was working on loose nukes.
There is a Constitutional right to privacy - the Supreme Court has expressly recognized it as an implicit Federal right under Amendments IV, V, IX, and XIV (I may be leaving one out). In addition, may states have an explicit right to privacy in their Constitutions. Also, last time I checked, defense against and distrust of government was a traditionally conservative value. Both W and Obama have pressed for the expansion of the executive branch’s ability to enter Constitutionally protected areas without court oversight. It’s an activity that unbalances the Judicial-Legislative-Executive balance designed in no small part to hamstring the federal government.
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If you really want to “protect America,” try reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, effectively enforcing food safety laws, fixing education in a way that attracts talented teachers and keeps gym, music and art in schools and makes college REALLY affordable rather than requiring taking on crippling debt before you’re employed, and restructuring our health care system in SOME way that encourages preventative care and allows people access to primary care without declaring bankruptcy. Tracking my movements because I think that governments should be afraid of their people, not the other way around, isn’t going to protect anybody.
This is why I always wrap my cell phone in tinfoil.
The buried lead in this article is that it is inexpensive to use. Is Sprint making any money on this? They have been given sole use of a public resource (a radio frequency) for profit. I don’t disagree with the government leasing public resources for the greater good, but making anything but a loss from requests for surveillance information sets up a conflict of interest and is wrong.
[This is nothing special really. So long as the tracking is done by court order or other legal means.]
of course it’s all completely legal … your government would never lie to you … and life is fair.
any other questions?
@bobnjersey - Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are real, too, right?
guys its the government, theyre going to do what they want when they want because they can. no i dont like it but realistically can i change that? no. so how about we all quit bitching and go back to the pigeon idea
@Gifftor: Of course Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny are real just like the tooth fairy and that cupid guy. Would our government ever lie to us? Of course not, just look at the JFK assassination adn the Roswell incidents.