Protection Money

From the AP, via the Seattle-Post Intelligencer, Electronic spying threatens Vatican secrecy:

The ban on cell phones and personal data organizers makes sense, security experts say, since they can be hacked and used to broadcast the proceedings to a listener.

"An eavesdropper can reach into those devices and turn on the microphone and turn it into an eavesdropping device," said James Atkinson, who heads a Gloucester, Mass., company that specializes in bug detection. "It's extraordinarily easy to do."

That's a rather flat, over-reaching statement, if you ask me.

I find this extremely difficult to believe. Either Atkinson was misquoted or taken out of context, or he's as bad as those people he warns about who will plant a bug to justify their performance, as mentioned here.

First, most data organizers don't have microphones, and those that do often don't have any connection to the Internet or phone system or are disconnected 99% of the time. Second, it's extremely difficult to plant software on a PDA unless you can get your hands on it, or somehow convince the owner to execute the installer for it, or somehow get the installer sync'ed onto the device. It can also be extremely difficult to learn the address of an organizer or its host computer so you can attack it.

Cellphones, on the other hand, are connected to the phone system 99% of the time. But even so, cellphones come in a variety of flavors, with different operating systems and capabilities. I'm not an expert, but I follow the news closely, and other than cellphones with Bluetooth, I've never heard of a cellphone that can be hacked remotely, unless you convince the owner to execute an installer you've sent him. Phones with Bluetooth can be hacked, but you generally need to be within 30 feet of the device, and the phone has to have Bluetooth running and it has to have a vulnerability you have the means to take advantage of.

In other words, 99% of the PDAs and cellphones out there are difficult or nearly impossible to hack without getting your hands on them or duping the owner. In any event, it's not "extraordinarily easy to do" or every script kiddie and his brother would be doing it.

(Thanks, Lisa)


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