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Groups > comp.security.firewalls > #774

Re: Bizarre behavior of a non-smart mobile phone

From Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@t-online.de>
Newsgroups comp.security.firewalls, alt.anonymous, alt.anonymous.email, alt.privacy, alt.computer.security
Subject Re: Bizarre behavior of a non-smart mobile phone
Date 2017-05-14 21:19 +0200
Organization albasani.net
Message-ID <ofaake$oev$1@news.albasani.net> (permalink)
References <of99aq$7sf$2@news.albasani.net> <of9vt7$fum$1@dont-email.me>

Cross-posted to 5 groups.

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Am 14.05.2017 um 18:16 schrieb William Unruh:
> You give zero information and you expect a reasoned amswer?
> What make and model of phone? Who is your cell phone service provider? What kind
> of SIM?
>
> I would bet against hacking.

Not necessary for more informations from me. Following remark (2) below
you'll have much more informations than you ever have time to study!

M. K. Shen

>
> On 2017-05-14, Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@t-online.de> wrote:
>>
>> That a modern smartphone with Internet access and a multitude of nice
>> features is liable of being hacked similar to a PC is evident. On the
>> other hand, a non-smart mobile phone, of design of the earlier
>> generation, unintelligent, clumsy, no Internet access, though yet
>> purchasable for telephone and SMS purposes only, could IMHO easily
>> mislead one to think that the device may be sufficiently secure against
>> malicious manipulations. The fact, I presume, is however that, if an
>> adversary is capable enough to enter the cellular network, he could
>> access the SIM card to perform his malicious work. A recent personal
>> experience of mine is the following: I bought such a device and a
>> pre-paid SIM card, entered the telephone numbers of my friends into its
>> contact address list and informed my friends of my new mobile phone
>> number. Soon, though at a rather low frequency averaging roughly one
>> event per day, a number of my friends complained that I had called them
>> but strangely never attempted to say even a single word. It turned out
>> that the device each time seemingly arbitrarily selected an entry in
>> the contact address list and called automatically, which could also be
>> verified by its list of all outgoing calls. As remedy I deleted all
>> telephone numbers of my friends in it, leaving however for experimental
>> purpose my own home telephone number. One following night I had then
>> the uncommon experience of being awoken by a call from my own mobile
>> phone! (Actually two new mobile phones of the same brand were tested.
>> Following my complains of the said phenomenon, the vender gave me a
>> new exemplar in exchange, so that the probability of there being a
>> manufacturing problem is vanishingly small.)
>>
>> Another phenomenon that co-occurs with the above is that the device
>> powers off automatically at a frequency comparable to the first, even
>> though its battery is sufficiently loaded.
>>
>> Being a layman in such issues, I should be very grateful for exact
>> explanations of the phenomena.
>>
>> Remarks:
>>
>> (1) I am mainly interested in technical explanations of the phenomena,
>> i.e. whether it is indeed true, and if yes how, that the SIM card in my
>> mobile phone got manipulated, and personally deem it neither favorable,
>> nor essential, realistic, etc. to conjecture on the motivations behind
>> such manipulations, if these indeed happened.
>>
>> (2) Googling with e.g. "cell phones calling themselves" will turn up
>> a lot of apparently similar cases which, I guess, could stem from
>> diverse different causes in practice. It seems that there have not been
>> much scientifically exact and detailed investigations done on the issue
>> and that the phenomenon can occur both to modern smartphones with
>> Internet access (hence higher liability of being hacked) and to the
>> non-smart mobile phones without Internet access.
>>
>> M. K. Shen
>>
>> ----------------------------------------
>> http://mok-kong-shen.de

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Thread

Bizarre behavior of a non-smart mobile phone Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@t-online.de> - 2017-05-14 11:51 +0200
  Re: Bizarre behavior of a non-smart mobile phone William Unruh <unruh@invalid.ca> - 2017-05-14 16:16 +0000
    Re: Bizarre behavior of a non-smart mobile phone Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@t-online.de> - 2017-05-14 21:19 +0200
      Re: Bizarre behavior of a non-smart mobile phone William Unruh <unruh@invalid.ca> - 2017-05-14 22:17 +0000
        Re: Bizarre behavior of a non-smart mobile phone Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@t-online.de> - 2017-05-15 00:42 +0200
          Re: Bizarre behavior of a non-smart mobile phone William Unruh <unruh@invalid.ca> - 2017-05-15 03:00 +0000
            Re: Bizarre behavior of a non-smart mobile phone Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@t-online.de> - 2017-05-15 06:25 +0200
              Re: Bizarre behavior of a non-smart mobile phone Serg io <invalid@invalid.com> - 2017-05-21 13:26 -0500
                Re: Bizarre behavior of a non-smart mobile phone Shadow <Sh@dow.br> - 2017-05-24 19:43 -0300
                Re: Bizarre behavior of a non-smart mobile phone Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@t-online.de> - 2017-05-25 11:47 +0200

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