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Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil

193 points by zdw

by denysvitali

2 subcomments

by WarOnPrivacy

12 subcomments

Disabling alerts is the second thing I do to a new handset (after rooting) - including Presidential alerts.
The Amber alerts I got were often hundreds of miles away. But even if they were closer - say only 25 mi away, I'm still not going to be any help.
Weather alerts weren't much better. Having my device sound the klaxons over Red Flag warnings conditioned me to ignore all alerts.

by p0w3n3d

5 subcomments

TBH phones in Poland allow to call you "from" an arbitrary number (i.e. display it on your phone). Also send SMS with arbitrary source.
This is being used by scammers who call you and tell they are from police bank etc

by mseepgood

3 subcomments

by throwaway81523

2 subcomments

There was a Larry Niven story where if you tried to call a certain guy, every phone in South America would ring instead. Anyone remember which story it was? The phone thing was just a throwaway line, not a significant plot point.

by Scoundreller

0 subcomment

Not “unauthorized”, but previous cellular alert false alarms:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/article/mistaken-pickering-on...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Hawaii_false_missile_aler...
Ok, hackers got blamed for this one: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/09/dallas-hacke...

by knuppar

2 subcomments

by ck2

1 subcomments

USA has that new "Presidential Alert" right?
wonder how that will be abused by 2029, at least once
https://www.aau.edu/research-scholarship/featured-research-t...

by thecaio

0 subcomment

by jpablo

5 subcomments

The power to send mass messages to a whole country is the worst thing google/apple have given to governments across the world.

by initramfs

10 subcomments

"The message sent was of the ‘Extreme Alert’ type and contained the word ‘misanthropy’ – which means hatred towards humanity. It is probably a hacker attack,” the agency’s statement said."
As this happens whenever there is an intrusion reported in the press, the word "hacker" is often misused:
"There is another group of people who loudly call themselves hackers, but aren't. These are people (mainly adolescent males) who get a kick out of breaking into computers and phreaking the phone system. Real hackers call these people ‘crackers’ and want nothing to do with them. Real hackers mostly think crackers are lazy, irresponsible, and not very bright, and object that being able to break security doesn't make you a hacker any more than being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer. Unfortunately, many journalists and writers have been fooled into using the word ‘hacker’ to describe crackers; this irritates real hackers no end.
The basic difference is this: hackers build things, crackers break them."
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html