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Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

We've been talking about these at least for the past two years, but I haven't seen any of the three major mobile platform vendors implement anything to protect against this sort of attacks. What exactly are they waiting for? This is only going to get worse. They can already break 4G connections as well with these weapons of mass surveillance.

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It's worth noting that the major mobile company's largest single customer is almost certainly the federal government. And, many of them fear being Nacchio-ed if they don't toe the line.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

Oh come on, Nacchio was clearly guilty. HN is just becoming conspiracy central it seems.

A lot of people are guilty of a lot of things and don't ever get investigated or prosecuted. I agree with you that people take things a little far, but I think it's hardly conspiratorial thinking to acknowledge that the DOJ selectively pursues cases based on other factors than the crime committed.

A lot of people are not guilty of insider trading.

Nacchio broke multiple laws every day, just like you and I do. They were always going to be able to find something.

What laws do you break every day that are on the same order of magnitude as insider trading laws?

Our opinion about what laws "matter" isn't important. We're not the ones who get to decide.

Definitely makes it easier for them to find something when that something grosses you almost 40 million dollars.

The idea that DOJ was targeting based on something other than the crimes committed isn't supported unless there are people guilty of the same crimes -- not just the same number of crimes -- that were not pursued.

Does "Nacchio-ed" mean "get caught having improperly sold tens of millions of dollars of stock of the giant telecom company he ran, in the whirlwind of prosecutions following the collapse of Enron and Worldcom"?

Because that's what happened to Nacchio.

What worries me is the number of non-government nodes discovered that are out there, running simple setups.

e.g.: http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/41513/hacking/low-cost-i...

The way things currently are anyone with a cheap setup can start intercepting your calls using a MITM attack.

In all seriousness, I suspect they want it this way.

As long as law enforcement is doing this "without their knowledge" then they may not have to provide a backdoor to their core systems. Then the carriers can make a bold stand, say all the right things whenever they need, and express outrage at the idea that they'd share data.

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