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Comment by e455b328 | Hacker News Reader

It was not a coincidence. I created an account just to respond because I've been waiting years to have my experience... "validated".

The same exact thing has happened during phone conversations I've had except with a different word. And I first noticed it years ago but it was post-9/11. When it happened I thought the phone call dropped by accident. I called back and picked up where I left off telling the same story. At the same word the call dropped again. I called back again and said "uhh, that was weird. Did you notice it cut off again when I said _______?" And the call dropped once more. At that point there was no plausible way it was a coincidence. The next time I called, I decided not to test it again.

I've been looking out ever since for some mention of this somewhere. Never saw one until now.

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It would be very interesting to be able to reproduce that happening and be able to test what it does and does not "detect".

I would imagine that foreign terrorists would speak in their native language. Any sophisticated terrorist would use code-words (Get on the train and trigger the Goat). Does the system pick up if you spell out a word?

It's certainly possible but there's not much reason why the phone calls would consistently drop unless that was their method of preventing terrorist activity.

It's known that all calls around the president are monitored for X miles, so the technology is certainly in place and in use.

Oh and also both I and the other end of the call were US.

It was absolutely a coincidence. What on earth would the rationale be for an intelligence agency to cut off a call as soon as they heard a term of interest? I think your tinfoil hat is leaking.

He might be dellusional, but you didn't even think for 2 minutes before answering.

For example, what he describes could be a bug on the "engage phone tracking when keyword is heard".

Your scenario is very possible and was my initial thought as well. The call dropping could be carrier/phone/region specific due to invalid or error causing commands breaking something when the call logging or recording is activated. (tower connection, phone software, phone radio firmware, or anything else along the connection)

It's probably been fixed by now if it was a bug such as that. I'm sure bugs like this go unnoticed every day by people interacting with computer systems and just brush it off as a "glitch" or "service issue".

It just isn't likely. There's no plausible mechanism or reason for an intelligence collection system with keyword analysis to have real-time control of the signalling pathway for the phone system.

Which incidentally works very differently to the way most people seem to imagine phone tapping works -- some agents in trenchcoats in a dark room full of reel-to-reel tape recorders, wearing headphones and carefully putting crocodile clips onto a particular wire, and listening in, hoping the suspect isn't tipped off by crackles or beeps on the wire, or suspicious dropped calls. Maybe in 1950s Hollywood that was how it worked, but now the NSA is just grabbing the content and metadata wholesale from a backbone connection, and analysing at their leisure.

If a system can parse for keywords, any tracking or recording is already enabled.

It's also not how the phone system works.

I've heard similar stories from people making international calls to China.

What was the word?

Obviously, it was _______

And if this one is blanked out, too, then you know I'm the newest addition to the Watchlist.

It's not blanked out for me. Clearly the NSA is interfering with your web experience.

I didn't mention it cuz I figured if they're monitoring calls for it then they're damn sure monitoring posts for it and I didn't want to end up on a list. But what the hell, I'd rather learn more about what this is really all about. And that's the thing: the word wasn't even that crazy, unless you're on line at an airport (apparently) which I wasn't.

The word was "bomb".

(...Now that I think about it, I was at a train station. Not a major one though, doubt if that's related.)

People use the word 'bomb' in conversations on the phone all the time. Nobody is getting their calls disconnected for saying that, I assure you. It was a strange coincidence - a fault on the line or similar phenomenon.

Agreed, it's an incredibly popular word, and even if calls were just being dropped in train stations, it would still be widely known. Plus, what would be the advantage of dropping the call, and allowing the person to redial? If the call is being monitored, wouldn't it make more sense to send the audio to security for review? If they're calling from a public phone, you could activate a silent alarm so they're randomly selected by security, or simply redirect security cameras to their location.

Jesus Christ people, learn about the birthday paradox someday, please.

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