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2006-05-23 Home Front: WoT

Pre-9/11 phone records help NSA detect patterns

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Posted by Dan Darling 2006-05-23 00:46|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Call detail records are useful up to a point.
With the CRAB WALK of CDMA they might not tell the complete story and dropped calls don't aways have a reasonable reason for the drop encoded in the message.... One of the problems with a Call Detail Log.. esp in cellular is that their can be too much useless information in it. Only a few people have a real feel for the truely useful info. In that sense mining them can be an art.

Posted by 3dc 2006-05-23 01:00|| 2006-05-23 01:00|| Front Page Top

#2 Bastards. Thanks for giving away one of the most useful tools to find terrorists in our midst.

Posted by ed 2006-05-23 01:04|| 2006-05-23 01:04|| Front Page Top

#3 The orignal aspect of this type of report is for engineering and billing purposes. (Engr being primary)

To quote:

CDLs are generally used to answer questions about a specific call that has completed and about which some question has arisen. They are also used to spot large numbers of call failures or short duration calls that are associated with specific equipment, and are also used to provide an indication as to why specific types of call failures occurred. Note that performance management statistics and call processing exception reports also provide critical information about abnormal call behavior. Performance management statistics provide an overall view of system performance (e.g. number of calls, equipment usage) and aggregate various failures so that problem areas can be spotted. Call processing exception reports provide information about failures associated with a specific call. Information from both the CDL and from exception reports may be necessary to diagnose a call.

The key word is diagnose. They are used to solve problems when you the customer has a complaint or when some equipment fails.

Posted by 3dc 2006-05-23 01:18|| 2006-05-23 01:18|| Front Page Top

#4 you always know it's a very effective terror fighting tool when the Dem party comes out demanding answers and more information on how it works. Remember, some of these folks are on our intelligence committe and defense committies.

In the old days we used to call them traitors.

Posted by 2b 2006-05-23 08:45|| 2006-05-23 08:45|| Front Page Top

#5 I think this is being setup as a cover for the succesful infiltration of i-slamic cells.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2006-05-23 11:11|| 2006-05-23 11:11|| Front Page Top

#6 Same technology's being used by Frito Lay to decide where to stock what products and by credit bureaus to reduce lending risks. You give a whole lot more info to your grocery store, if you pay with a credit card, than NSA could possibly extract from the call records.

Posted by lotp 2006-05-23 12:15|| 2006-05-23 12:15|| Front Page Top

#7 These guys are wedded to their kewl cell phones. They won't be able to give them up for long. The Number 1s and #2s, perhaps, but not the #3s and the cannon fodder... all it needs is the end of the thread to pull to unravel the whole thing. And, the call histories can't be changed by stopping now, not to mention that radically changing a pattern of behaviour is equally revealing.

Or so, based on reading entirely too many novels, I suspect.

Posted by trailing wife 2006-05-23 13:10|| 2006-05-23 13:10|| Front Page Top

#8 I wonder what the tinfoil beanie set would make of the phrase "control sample."

Posted by James">James 2006-05-23 13:51|| http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com]">[http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com] 2006-05-23 13:51|| Front Page Top

#9 Pakistan could call Britain, who calls from a hotel and texts someone in code to enact another calling tree or e-mail notification so clusters of calls don't show up, but most aren't bright enough to figure it out. I think this is a great use of computers, but I think it would also pick out the criminals operating with cell phones. Call girls, drug dealers, and other illegal businesses would show clusters of incoming calls. Then there are the real traitors, who do understand how it all works and thought they had it all covered but are sweating it out as they wait to see if they are snagged in someone's else's web. Pretty tough to cover electronic tracks made years ago :)

Posted by Danielle 2006-05-23 14:59|| 2006-05-23 14:59|| Front Page Top

#10 We were kind of freaked by one guy who was in cell phone calls exactly 40hrs a week.
(You can't listen in so...)

After making a study of him for a month or so my friend couldn't figure it out. Most of his calls were made to him. I commented that maybe he was a bookie or a pimp or drug dealer. See what his numbers map to.

We always simled about that guy and threw him out of or data analysis after one of the guys called him and figured out quickly he was a bookie.

Posted by 3dc 2006-05-23 22:16|| 2006-05-23 22:16|| Front Page Top

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