Reply #13 jdman's post
This is about the telecommunication network. In the US, all the telecommunication companies are privately owned with low level of regulations. The Telecommunication Act of 1994 highly deregulated the telecommunication industry, including technology that was very early on for commercial development such as cell phones. The telecommunications industry controls the entire network and communications and what goes through them. Since they are privately owned, the US government will need a court order to access information that is not publicly available. Cell phone numbers are owned by cell phone companies and they buy those in bulk from the FCC. The burner phones numbers are owned by the cell phone company and are intentionally or unintentionally designed to be difficult to be traced.
Not to make you paranoid, but the you can have phone apps that have spyware, and the firmware and operating in the phone could be collecting information. You just have to trust that the product you have are not being used in this way, and to have good knowledge about the apps you download onto your phone. This can include information like who you call, what networks your phone is hooked into and GPS. There is real concern about using cell phone Bluetooth for COVUD-19 contract tracing is a major debate among civil liberties organizations. Should cell phones be telling each other by Bluetooth who and where they are for contact tracing purposes? This is already being piloted in other countries. There are plenty of technology news articles, bloggers and reviews that you can find to read about different products.
In other countries where the government owns or part owns, or there is a telecommunications monopoly, it is possible that the company and/or the government can monitor who has phone number and the communications going through there. The challenge is volume. You need an AI and sufficient processing power that can sort out all that information flowing through the system to find what you are looking for. The is one of the questions about future of quantum computing and how it will advance AI and how it impacts the effectiveness of encryption software.
Here is an interesting summary about a drug cartel actually building and owning their telecommunication network. It is a bit of interesting trivia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e8MHfVxtyU | |
